Hetalia One Shots

I Am Free - Sweden x Finland

Sweden - Berwald
Finland - Timo

Berwald just stared. He couldn't help himself. The bandages around Timo's torso, preventing him from seeing the full extent of his lover's injuries. It'd been months maybe years since he last saw Timo. He can't remember the last he saw the man.

He knew that Timo being skin and bones was not healthy. Neither was the grimace he wore daily. His eyes were almost dead in colour and the way he addressed everyone was with high uncertainty. It was as though someone came back in the Finn's place.

Berwald watched as the muscles, stretched thin over bones, convulsed with every movement. The Finnish lad was either aware the staring from his housemate or simply ignoring everything that was going on around him.

Sitting down with the ghost of a man at dinner, he stabbed at his food with a sour expression. "What's got into you?" asked Berwald. Immediately he flinched at the silence suddenly filling the tension filled air. Those brown eyes that used to show so much love were froze over with hatred.

"What's got into me? What's got into me?" repeated Timo almost mockingly but his anger still rose until his hand was twitching against his leg under the table. "1939 happened Berwald." hissed out Timo holding his knife towards the Swede. Berwald swallowed and shrunk back into his chair.

Timo was tetchy since he came back from the war. Hastily he got up, leaving Berwald sitting in confusion. He didn't understand. What possessed this change in attitude so much so that it seemed Timo was the polar opposite of himself.

He flinched as he heard the front door slam shut. In the early hours of the next morning, the Finnish lad still did not return. The only thing that showed that the Finnish male had even came back was the empty spaces of where his stuff was and the note that was left on the coffee table. The piece of paper was stained with a few rings of coffee.

Not made by the Finnish male but Berwald himself. He'd kept himself away since 3 in the morning and stressed out about the Finn's health. The cursive handwriting seemed to of melted inside his brain and stuck to the insides of his eyes.

Sweden.

I can't be around you.

Was all that was left to excuse the absence of the man he loved dearly. It wasn't until a month later did he see the Finn again. Flabbergasted by the appearance of a sullen looking Finn at his doorstep and a small nod hello.

He listened as the other talked. All about the things he saw and thought. The time he was taken into an abusive man's home. The anger he felt towards no one but the Russian only a border away from him. He listened still as he poured his feelings out of his chest and into the words that marked Berwald's mind with a heavy guilt.

A guilt that he should not bear for not knowing what was wrong in the first place. "Let me see your back." was the only thing Berwald dared to ask after the silence took hold of them again. Still his mind bore the burden of anxiety filled thoughts and negative emotions.

Turning around, Timo lifted off his shirt, revealing the thick, raised scars along his skin. The imprints on his skin will mark him for a lifetime. And for a million lifetimes after that. Reaching out with a shaking hand, he traced his fingertips across the wounds that had been inflicted upon pale skin. He felt along many of the ridges caused by starvation.

He turned the Finn around and assessed the wounds that covered the front of the man's body. Carefully he traced every single one of them, wanting to burst out into tears. He lifted his hands up to Timo's face. Feeling the hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes of months of malnutrition.

Finally he let the tears fall. Gracing his pale face with rivulets of tear drops full of emotions. He sat back down and felt the Finn place his bony hands either side of his cheek. The scars along his body weren't healed fully. No matter the case, they spoke the fears that Berwald had gathered in his mind.

"Berwald." uttered Timo looking down upon the Swede. His eyes were full of secrets but his voice held perfect clarity of the emotions he trapped behind a mask of lies. Berwald would've danced around in joy had it been any other occasion where the Finn was reunited with him. Pressing thousands of kisses upon supple skin and worshipping the body given to his fellow country. Timo softly murmured a phrase that brought great relief to him and a feather light kiss upon his lips.

"My scars have yet not healed but I am free."