This is the end of the line, Peter thinks.
They have made it so far. Right through Germany and into Poland, right through the thick of it all, and this is it. They've been chased, they've been starving, they've been held hostage, and this is how they are going to die. So much hard work and they're going to get their heads blown apart on a dirty bathroom floor in a country he's never even been to before. Blown straight to pieces by an overly clean shotgun gripped by too-clean hands. Hands with fingers with chipped, pink nail polish and fingerless, leather gloves. They seem like nice gloves. Expensive, maybe. They're dirty but for some reason, through his terrified paralysis, he can see every little stippled dot in the grain and he wonders why that is. He doesn't want to look at the hands but he can't move, he's so terrified. Hands, pink, gloves. A shotgun. There is a shotgun pointed at his face.
A flurry of movement and Denmark is between him and the gun, shouting something while their attacker laughs. He can't hear a thing, though. He feels like his ears are full of cotton and their words are just muffled garbles of ups and downs and high pitched giggling. Giggling. They are going to die to the sound of someone laughing. That doesn't seem fair at all. Not when they are angled in just such a way that Denmark is going to take the first hit and splatter Peter with pieces of himself before the next shot comes right at him. Maybe through him. Maybe not.
There is another sound, one that he doesn't recognize. A breathy, stilted sort of noise, almost like a great sigh. It sounds like crying. Who here is crying? It doesn't sound like Denmark- he was quieter. And it would be silly for this pink, gloved stranger to be crying, so it must be coming from him.
Ah.
He's crying.
There is a slow shift of gravity and a moment later, everything is dark and tilting and he only cries harder. He can't see and he can't move and everything is dark and oh God, he's dead. He has to be. He's dead, Denmark is dead, they're dead and this is all that's left. This pitch black, warm, rocking nothingness.
"Peter..."
Dead, dead, dead. Everyone is dead.
"Peter."
He has to be dead. He has to be dead because he certainly isn't breathing.
"Peter!"
Something clamps around his face and he jolts backwards, right back into the dim light of the bathroom and it's hands, he realizes, that have his head locked in place, forcing his eyes up to focus on a dirty mop of blonde hair and two extremely serious eyes. Denmark. He's in Denmark's lap and clinging to his coat with no recollection of getting there.
"Peter, breathe."
Denmark's fingers run through his hair and he does. The air burns.
"There you go. It's okay, you're okay."
No, no, he isn't, but his chest is still heaving too hard to tell him that.
He feels Denmark's legs shift beneath him and he guides him down to rest against his shoulder, his head tucked into the large lapels of his jacket and back into the same darkness as before as arms wrap around him and a cheek is pressed to the top of his head, incomprehensible whispering working through the static in his ears and slow, gentle motions rocking him back and forth.
"I've got you. Shh, it's okay, I've got you."
Peter's eyes are burning and he wonders if they are open or not.
He can feel Denmark's arms tense around him and that inappropriate laughter from before returns, echoing off of the grime soaked bathroom walls and bouncing around in his head, looped like a song that the radio won't stop playing. He wants desperately to pull away. Every instinct he has is telling him to run but Denmark is holding him too tight to squirm away and he just has to wait and sit in this room full of hoarse giggles.
