Disclaimer: Axis Powers Hetalia belongs to Himaruya Hidekaz

Author's note: The italicized text is quoted from the translation of the since-deleted strip where France tells Italy that Holy Roman Empire is no more. This fic follows directly from that scene.

Suffering

You should forget about him.

You've already suffered enough, haven't you?

"Ah." The sound slipped from Italy's lips without a thought, or so France assumed. He toyed with his glass of wine, the liquid sloshing in a miniature whirlpool. In that boy, silence would be counted as a symptom, so France ignored the reactionary, place-holder noise. "Is that so."

The white shirt collar rode up to brush against uneven ends of auburn hair, a whisper in the silence. A tremor in his shoulders, a suppressed shiver, the first spasm of a sob? France angled his glass so that, pretending to look into it, he could observe Italy's bland face. Italy's previous smile hadn't quite vanished, falling away as his facial muscles slackened; nor had it frozen on his face in a mask pasted over incomprehension.

Although he had known Italy since the boy was a mere infant, France couldn't yet explain the expression on Italy's expressionless face. Disappointment? Confusion? Horror? A desperate bid to shore up defenses? Biding his time in silence as too many questions clamored at once to be heard and uttered coherently, until sufficient time had passed to return to his own thoughts before France had interrupted and derailed with his tangent?

On the days France gave him credit, France would claim Italy wielded his blank, simplistic face with the dexterity of a master. Every naïve, clueless thought passed over his face in the same lap that it ran through his brain; Italy let his cards dangle from his fingers so that the whole table could glance at his hand, but the cards all belonged to a different deck. Other times, France despaired that the boy was too stupid to ever understand things seriously, and that he had hardly enough spare thoughts to rattle about in his empty head.

France took a rather large mouthful of wine. It did nothing for his nerves, nor would it make Italy lucid, but it gave purpose to the burning in his stomach.

Italy's shoulders straightened and he leaned closer to the table. "M-more importantly, big brother France—" he began, stuttering like an excited child whose thoughts ran faster than his mouth, to whom every trivial thing was of equal, urgent importance. Already the smile had returned to his mouth, raised his eyebrows, tinted his voice, as if France hadn't even spoken.

Sorry, the Holy Roman Empire is no more.

"More importantly?" His fingers tightened on the stem of his wine glass, and it occurred to France that the glass might shatter under the pressure. But somehow he couldn't convince his hand to let go. "More importantly—!" The awkward, casual atmosphere—the pretext of it all, the artifice of a mood as deliberately constructed as any of his romantic encounters—had evaporated, had fluttered away from France like an insect on ephemeral wings. He exhaled like the snorting of the cavalry's horses, a rush of air like a curse.

How many decades had France scanned the horizon, kept his ears open for any rumors of news, always nurturing that sick, acidic seed of guilt nestled at the bottom of his stomach? He had heard that Rome disappeared, that Germania disappeared, but France had seen the nations who had pushed their heads up through the resulting wake and surfaced in the aftermath. So one way or another—there had to be a body, news of a body, a living remnant. And France had been only one of a handful of factors that led to this—this dearth of news—but he had shared a house with that child of a nation when they had both been the same size, and he had grown up beside him and watched the Holy Roman Empire never change.

How many decades had France dreaded taking responsibility, owning up to a deed he could not quite name, admitting to a hazily-defined accident, if not a crime? The topic had become taboo among neighbors, a questionable stain of unknown origin that polite company did not admit to noticing or speculate about. No one blamed France, but he had resigned himself to the task of telling Italy, to accepting Italy's denial and tears and soft words—for the boy could never be blunt or sharp enough to wound on purpose, and that knowledge alone weighted his pain until it cut crisper lines than shards of glass—and hate and broken heart.

France had spent many sleepless nights in the interim, spurred by a variety of causes. But as he tossed beneath his sheets, unable to control the course of his racing thoughts, his mind sometimes drifted in insomnia to imagine Italy's own sleepless face, lying in the darkness and imagining France as the demon who took away his most beloved person. Holy Roman Empire had been a casualty, France would protest, the sad, cruel, unintentional collateral of a terrible war. And Italy would despise him all the more for washing his hands the minute he pronounced his guilt.

He must have set his wine safely on the table, because France's fists clenched atop his thighs. He had planned this moment for how many decades—and Italy sat across from him and dismissed France's confession so flippantly? How dare he—he had no right, to turn France's casual admittance back in his face. He had crafted blunt, gruff words to shock Italy into realizing that accepting Holy Roman Empire's end would be the most reasonable course of action; he had avoided sympathy and coddling that would prolong Italy's pain. But France had intended for him to mourn at least a little first!

The silverware on the table jumped with a clatter and startled France from his thoughts. His knife drifted in a circle with a ghost of leftover momentum, chiming as it tapped the lip of his spoon. France noticed his fists on the table and the ache radiating up into his hand from his knuckles.

Italy's mouth had shut with a click of teeth, and not even a soft, breathy, sigh of ve escaped his lips.

"He's dead, alright? Don't pretend like you don't know." Blood pounded in France's ears, the throb of his heartbeat competing to drown out his words. Italy's face had reverted to that bland look that France couldn't read. He raised his voice as he continued, as if Italy were slow or hard of hearing, so as to perceive every nuance of his words above the buzzing in his own ears. "You understood me perfectly well. So go ahead and scream, or cry, or blame me for his death and tell me you hate me for this, or something!"

Italy had been picking at his dinner before the conversation began, and his neglected fork still dangled from his loose fingers. It slipped and he fumbled to rebalance it; although he didn't drop the utensil, he winced as the tines clacked against the rim of the plate in the silence between them. With an unsteady hand he righted the fork and let it hover in the air between his plate and his mouth once more.

He met France's eyes directly for the first time.

And Italy smiled—a smile like concentrated alcohol, bitter and vile, a grimace soothing only in the mind of he who brought it to his lips. He took the cup of suffering and turned it inward and swallowed it whole. He held it away from France with a miser's fingers, because somehow France couldn't put that self-loathing twist back on his lips.

One of them was crying, and France wondered if it might be himself.

"Big brother France… feels he hasn't suffered enough yet either, has he?" Italy stretched his arm across the table to lay his hand over France's tightly-clenched fist, the metal of the fork unexpectedly cold against his skin and between Italy's warm fingers. "Sorry." Tears had gathered in his wistful, faraway eyes, unfocusing his gaze until he no longer seemed to be looking at France anymore. "Sorry."

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Windswift