From Nothing (Hetalia fanfic, FrUK)

Chapter 3

 “Angleterre...” He looked like he was in great pain. But how? He wasn't hurt.

“W-wait, it's not w-what you think, I-I-I can explain...” I said. “I, uh, recently was in a sword fight. With someone. He was better than me.” He still looked hurt. “Hey, Francis, are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” he asked a little forcefully, and I could hear the sobs he was trying to hold back.

“W-well, no, that's why I asked,” I mumbled, knowing it wasn't the right thing to say but I had no clue what was right. “What's wrong..?”

He had sunk to his hands and knees on the floor, and the sight made that sinking feeling get deeper and darker and sharper, even if it was just his French dramaticism.

“Why didn't you tell me?” he asked. “For how long has this been going on?”

Oh God... “I...can't remember,” I admitted. “B-but please, you have to understand, I have to do this.”

“What's wrong, Angleterre? What happened? Whatever it is, I-I can help!” he begged, letting out a rare stutter. The strong, confident Francis, stuttering.

“I-it's nothing!” I said, pulling on my shirt and quickly buttoning it up. It was too late, he had already seen, it couldn't do any harm now.

Moving quicker than I thought he could, he ripped my hands away and pulled the edges that weren't already buttoned together away, gently moving a hand across the length of the worst cut. Involuntarily, I winced at the stinging. “See, it's not nothing,” he whispered. “It hurts you. So it hurts me.”

“How does that work? We're not conjoined twins, we don't have a telepathic link--”

“Are you heartless?!” Francis yelled quietly. “Are you blind?!”

I blinked. It was safe to assume that Francis didn't mean this in a literal sense, but I didn't know how else to take it. I'm sure I knew once...but it just doesn't compute anymore. Emotion was often associated with the heart, I knew, so perhaps his first inquiry was related to that. “No, Francis,” I said quietly, hoping it would encourage him to talk quietly too, “I can't feel anything, emotionally.”

His hands gripped the edges of my shirt and he tilted his head down. “Why didn't you tell me?”

I stared down at his hands, they looked so soft, though I remembered a time when they were rough and scarred, and I felt myself sinking lower down. It would have been better if I was falling. Falling is quick, two blinks of an eye and you're down. Sinking is slow, drawing out everything, agonizing till you hit bottom. Then you drown.

“Why?” Francis repeated, tightening his hold on my shirt and then relaxing, though he still held on.

“Because...” This was the moment I've been dreading for as long as my ailment started. The moment where someone found out and I'd have to explain. But why, of all the others, why did it have to be Francis..? I didn't want him to see me like this. It was irrational, but I still didn't want it. “When I first realized it, you weren't there. And when you came back, it was too late.”

“Was that when I didn't talk to you for two years?” he asked, tears lining his eyelashes.

I nodded.

Suddenly, I felt myself being engulfed by Francis' arms in a tight hug as he sobbed on my shoulder. “Je suis tellement désolé! Je ne quitterai jamais encore!*” I asked him to translate in English, but he just cried harder and spoke more French, so I just patted his head. I've seen that done in films. Oddly enough, although the sinking feeling remained, the warm one that occurred sometimes around Francis bloomed at his actions, and made the sinking one much more bearable to the point of almost forgetting it was there. Almost.

He cried like that for half an hour, but it didn't feel that long. I actually...almost enjoyed it, in a weird way. Although I sort of wondered what the other nations thought was going on, I decided I didn't really care.

Francis' warmth left me, and the warmth inside wavered a tiny bit. “I'm...I'm really sorry, Angleterre...it's all my fault...I shouldn't have left...I-I'll never leave again...” he said, but he wouldn't meet my eyes.

“It's not your fault.”

He lifted his head, and I saw why he wouldn't meet my eyes before. His were grey from crying and held so much pain... “No, it's all my fault...But I'm going to fix this, fix you. I promise.”

*I used Google translate for the French, he's saying "I'm so sorry! I'll never leave again!" although the accuracy of Google translate is questionable, so apologies if it's wrong.