Notes: (Onesided France/Italy? What?)

I don't know where this fic came from - there's a 100% chance it originated with PANIC! at the Disco (their CD Vices and Virtues has quite the grip on me, holy crap), but the cause of its evolution into such a serious piece is up for debate.

It's in an AU. Yes, but not really. They're nations, and history in real life has played out the same way; the canon characters, however...

I can't decide if I want to add a short epilogue in a second chapter. Review your opinions, please?

Rated T for alcohol, language, and extremely mild romance.

The Proper Words to Say

Dès le premier jour
Ton parfum enivra mon amour
Et dans ces instants
J'aimerais être comme toi par moment
Mais depuis ce jour
Je n'ai qu'un seul et unique regret

"Italy." France opens the back door out onto the grey morning. "Italy, come inside. You'll catch cold if you stay wet."

There is no response, nor any sort of gesture to show the blond that he has been heard. The Italian continues to sit on the rocky beach and stare into the sea, letting the waves roar around him as he rests his chin on his knees, and he does not make a sound.

"Wine? Or perhaps something stronger for you—triple sec?"

"Ach, no. I brought plenty of gin for myself. I don't trust you getting me drinks."

"I pray your unholy concoction," France voices bitterly, "does not backfire this time."

England gives a harrumph and leans his elbows onto his knees. "I thought you believed in forgiving transgressions."

"As I believed you were not stupid enough to make them in the first place!"

"Quiet, you!"

"In my own house you have the nerve to order me?—"

"Just drink your liquor for godssakes!"

England's face is shadowed in the lamplight, but his tone expresses the remorse that he can never place into words. France, having no intention of letting conversation take place without alcohol releasing his inhibitions, drinks straight from the bottle and leans against the back of the sofa.

The Briton notices and lets out a laugh with only half his heart in it. "Can he hear us?"

"No," France replies, wiping the drink from his lips with his sleeve. "I highly doubt it—he sleeps well most nights."

"How is he?"

Another long swig of alcohol.

"That awful?" England's eyes are wide. "That fantastically awful—truly?"

The Frenchman scrunches his nose and ignores his throbbing heartbeat. "Worse. Much worse, I promise you. There are some days where I feel that he has lost all ability to feel happiness—he's a blank slate that I cannot read." A pause. "No double meaning intended, I assure you."

"And the other days?"

"...He almost killed himself last week, on Thursday I believe. Does that express how awful things are for us?"

"Hell." England cracks his knuckles. France imagines that those squinting eyes are trying to hold back tears. "I can only tell how sorry I am so many times—"

"Right." More liquor in the kerosene lamplight. "You've said it far too often already. The meaning is lost on all of us now."

"You hate me."

It's not a question. "I always have."

"No, this is different. In the past, you always hated me because I would try to hurt you, as a person and as a nation who could rival me. Now your bitterness extends to a completely different level because he's become involved."

The bottle is France's grasp is emptied.

"Is... is forgiveness too much to ask?"

He looks at England with hazy eyes. "Would you have me try to lie to you now?"

England? Italy asks.

"He was simply visiting, Cygnet," France replies between bites at the dinner table. "He appears at my house on occasion, without an advance warning or invitation."

The troubled look on Italy's face is erased; the slate is clean and unreadable again. There is not another word spoken for the duration of the evening.

"Italy!" he chides in a gentle shout. "You will become ill if you stay in the water!"

Italy glances over his shoulder at France; as the soft waves swell nearly to his ankles, the Frenchman has trouble distinguishing between his salty tears and the salty water.

Spain and Prussia sometimes appear, but whenever they come to France's house they always drag him off into town to get drunk. He always tries to have a good time and forget, for just a few minutes, but it's absolutely impossible when the quiet noise of it all reaches his ears.

"You, my friend," Spain says, "need to stop worrying so much."

France knocks back a large mouthful of some spirit, the specific name of which escapes him. "As if I ever could," he points out with some resentment.

He swirls the drink in its glass and tries not to wince when Prussia's voice booms, "Whoa, don't knock yourself out—Italy will be fine for just a couple hours on his own! What's the rush?"

"Why must you be so damned loud?"

"This is my normal fucking volume, thank you very much!"

The Frenchman sighs and allows his forehead to fall against the smooth wooden countertop of the bar. "My... apologies," he softly allows. "I'm not used to maintaining normal human conversation at this point in time."

It takes a moment, but the connotations of his admittance make themselves clear easily enough. "France!" Spain's hand comes down onto his friend's shoulder. "You mean England was... telling the truth?"

"Don't act as though you are surprised," he indirectly confirms.

"Italy is—what?" Prussia gapes, still obnoxious in his clamoring voice.

"I'm admitting it to be true; would you like for me to spell it out?" the blond growls.

"Oh Holy Mary," Spain whispers to himself. "And you are to take care of him?"

France nods.

"Until when?"

"I don't know." He shrugs and empties his glass. Not without a bit of bitterness, he guesses, "Until my sins are paid for."

The noise has hardly disappeared when France wakes up on his couch, perhaps hours or days or weeks later, with a pounding headache. The morning is grey again, and the nearby bottle is empty. No birds sing.

He heads to the back door, supporting himself on the frame, as he softly calls out to the figure he knows is there without looking. "Italy...? Cygnet, come inside."

As the water rises to his knees and wets his trousers, Italy turns but does not listen.

"Fuck you!" A glass clinking. "Fuck you for even trying to do the fucking impossible and ruining our fucking lives for it!"

"Finally!" an exasperated England allows with hardly any satisfaction. "Finally you allow yourself to express your anger at me!—The language you use doesn't become you in the least, but finally!"

France drops the empty bottle and doesn't even notice it cracking on the floor; instead, he turns his gaze to sneer at the Briton ten feet across the room. "You're even more naïve than I thought—you tried the most damnedest, irrational fucking solution to my stupidity, and now he has to pay the price!"

There's a pause; silent pity overwhelms the atmosphere to the point of suffocation.

"You bleeding sod," England admits softly as he crosses the room, "of course I did. None of us can say 'No' to the poor thing, and you'd be a fool to try."

"I can," France slurs. He's so drunk that he's lying haphazardly over the edge of the couch and can't even sit up straight. "I have to, every damn day of my hellish life, because of the mistake that you made."

England grabs his wrists and uses inhuman grace and strength to lift his old foe's upper half off the seat. "Yes; I know it's my transgression." With a gentleness that France never knew existed, England holds France's head in his lap and softly runs his nails through the long blond locks. "I'll take responsibility for you. Blame me. Let your anger go already."

"Can't." He hiccups. "It was my fault first—God damn it—it was my fault first."

England brings his frustration to his shoulders and holds it up before slowly releasing the tension with a long sigh. "Has Italy tried—well—tried killing himself again, since my last visit?"

France shakes his head; he feels a headache coming on and already senses his temple is clearing. "No... He has not wandered so far into the sea since I caught him that day."

"Good."

"I—I miss him," France blurts out. "He's just a... a damned shell! He eats, and he sleeps, but he might as well be dead—"

"You wish I had accidentally killed him instead?" England asks bitterly.

"Some days—yes!"

"You don't really mean that."

"No, I... of course not. But—England—" France closes his eyes and thinks before finding the words to express it, "—Without the promise of the Holy Roman Empire coming back, I don't see how he's better off alive."

Evening has come, at the close of another colorless day, with clouds as soft and thick as swans hiding the sunset for their own viewing pleasure.

"Italy," France says while softly opening the door to the small guest bedroom. "Italy, are you asleep?"

He isn't; the brunet is calmly reading a book. He gazes up with tired eyes and shakes his head in response to the question.

"May I see the title?" France asks out of curiosity.

The Italian pauses before lifting up the cover and letting the blond look—it's an ancient instruction book for magic, so archaic that France is surprised the pages haven't disintegrated into dust. "Ah! I recognize it," he admits, gently sitting on Italy's bed. "I haven't had the pleasure of reading that one in several hundred years." He frowns. "If I recall, the translators did poorly on a few of the spells."

They pause for a moment, but then Italy seems struck in a moment of brilliance and fumbles on the floor for his slate and chalk. Book with magic like England's? he scrawls in boyish letters.

"They're... similar," France cautiously says, careful to skirt around the subject. "England's copy is more advanced."

Spell? Potion? Help?

"No," he tries convincing. "No, there's nothing that can be done; I'm so very sorry, Cygnet, but—"

The book is abruptly slammed shut and forgotten as Italy wipes his eyes on his starched sleeves. France doesn't know who he is crying for, but he recognizes that the only thing to do is hold the broken boy until his control comes back.

I miss having a voice, the chalk writes at dinner.

France rubs the back of Italy's hand, praying the brunet doesn't start crying again.

"No," England says with finality. "No, I won't even try it!"

"Have you ever seen me beg anything of you in our entire lifetimes?" France reasons, sloshing the liquor around in its container. "Please, England, I'm begging now! None of us can go on like this!"

"Put down your God damned alcohol for once and listen!" the Briton explodes. "You admit your fault for the whole incident, but now you have the sudden expectation that I wish to multiply the impact of this disaster even worse than I already have!"

"He's dying!" France cries. "I'm dying!"

"But not quickly enough that it matters!" England retorts fiercely. "If you would just open your bleeding eyes for a moment and put down your forsaken spirits long enough, you could see the chance that I do!"

"There is no chance!—"

"There is too! And as long as there's a chance, I'm not going to risk making things worse than they already are!"

The Frenchman slumps over in his seat. "Explain."

"Do you know why his voice is gone?—why it was suddenly stolen from him when it was?"

"Because you are an idiot."

"No." His eyes are glistening. "No, that's what I'd always thought until I realized just days ago: his voice was taken because it worked."

"He... what?"

"Stop drinking so damn much. Think about it for a few hours with cleared judgement—you'll come to the same conclusion."

Maybe someday he'll take England's advice, but not now. Now, he's too far gone and too upset with his own inability to stay sane and unable to forget the haunting in those eyes—

"He isn't dead, a-and I'll come back with him t-to prove it! You're lying!"

He'd called France a liar, and it was the last sentence his brother would ever hear from him—oh, God—

And France had been so stupid! He'd sat and waited for him to come back, having no idea (none at all!) that England would show up on his doorstep a few days later with eyes nearly as red as Prussia's.

"Pray tell," he remembered he'd asked, "what could have brought you here so quickly after the war?"

"Italy," England whispered.

His brain scattered—most of the details of the explanation are lost. Italy came asking, and England had complied. Black magic. Dark powers, harnessed by the earth and controlled in ways that not even nations understood.

"I thought he was innocent enough!" the Briton shrieked while they hurried back to his place. "I thought it might work, but It came and It went—"

It. A certain spirit, whose name would always slip France's mind; the old magicians wrote of it with such reverence that It was said to be one of the most dangerous beings in existence, giving the ocean its deadly undercurrent and the heart its irrepressible longings. It knew its way through the core of the world and could change the course of their lives in the blink of an eye—

Like It did then.

"You dastardly idiot!" France spat in England's direction in their rush. "What sort of stupid, stupid fool are you to have thought that dark magic could have possibly been the solution—"

"And what sort of stupid fool are you," England screamed back, "to have thought that killing the Holy Roman Empire was a respectable idea?"

"I'm not the one who acted out of rash emotion!"

"But you are still the one to have caused this mess!"

The door slammed shut; the two nations rushed up the stairs, France hoping that England had overreacted and that the situation was only a nightmare caused from drinking too much saltwater on accident—

Italy's dull eyes followed him from the bed as he entered the room; unblinking, like a possessed Mona Lisa.

"Oh, thank the Good Lord," England mumbled. "The paralysis is wearing off."

If the Briton offered any more explanation to France, it fell on deaf ears; all he could force himself to do was take the boy in his arms, like a limp rag doll, and cry enough tears to last a lifetime.

If France had been given a warning, one hundred years in advance, that the embodiment of Italy would be placed under his care, he would have been thrilled with the prospect and prepared himself by learning new pasta recipes. If he had been given a warning that Italy would be placed in his home as a broken boy with bloodshot eyes and no smiles to be seen, he doubtlessly would have still taken the chance out of optimism.

That was the old France, who had thought that fairy tale loves still existed and that hearts could be patched up with his kisses—that was the younger France, who had thought of love as a tangible verb with bright eyes and physical touches, not as a silent thing that pierced his soul in the moonlight when he could still sometimes hear the seagulls crying and the hiccuping sobs coming from the other bedroom.

"When did you know exactly what you felt for the lad?" England asks him in the present.

He grips the neck of the tinted glass, but he can't seem to force it to his mouth. "When it was far, far too late."

"Really—you mean to say that you had never once looked at him with lust in your eyes."

"Oh no; I won't deny I did that for many centuries." An inch closer, but then it becomes too heavy and the bottle falls back again. "Do not even pretend, England, that you did not have similar feelings for America long before realizing he had slipped from your grasp."

"That's not true!"

"The point being," he continues quietly, "it's still far, far too late."

France spends an evening with Italy under a soft blanket and upon a mattress freshly stuffed with feathers, reading him an assortment of old children's stories. The brunet falls asleep on his shoulder—gently the Frenchman gets up to leave the room when his foot accidentally clanks against something made of glass, sticking out ever-so-slightly from behind the armoire.

It's the first empty gin bottle he finds hidden in a place where he never stashes liquor, and it certainly won't be the last.

"You're unnaturally sober tonight," England observes.

"Tell me," France commands without hesitation, ignoring the Briton's previous statement, "tell me exactly what you and Italy did to try and..."

He trails off, but England certainly understands. "I prepared the standard seven-pointed star, told him what to do and say, and ultimately stood to the side and—"

"You didn't help him?"

"We were dealing with extremely finicky magic!" he points out. "The standard text says that the stronger the tie between the deceased and the spellcaster, the higher the chances of success! And literally—if I had helped any more, we both could have lost our souls because of too much energy in the circle!"

"In theory! Name the last person to try performing Victus Mortuus with success and actually live!"

The green in England's eyes melt a shade darker. "You think I didn't point that out to him? France—you truly do not understand. He didn't care if he was to die in the process. All he wanted was the Holy Roman Empire back."

"And it still failed miserably," he mumbles into his hands.

"No, no it didn't fail—that's the thing! Do you not remember what I told you before?"

"And yet," France points out dryly, "we are still stuck here."

"So why don't you get up and go to find him yourself, if you feel that would be best?"

"I can't! Could you imagine the disappointment Italy would feel, if you were wrong and he was really still dead?"

England blinks slowly. "...By God... you really do love him."

He ignores that statement. "Bring him here—alive!—and I will believe you," he challenges.

"...Alright then," England accepts solemnly, as he rises to his feet. "Don't expect me back here without the proof—"

"I must ask a favor—please," he interjects. "Take all the liquor with you for other peoples' consumption, before I change my mind."

He's stopped, in all truth; the spirits have been put away. His mind is completely cleared for the first time in recent history, and now that it is, he can see everything he missed.

Italy can't speak, but he can hiccup; his eyes aren't always reddened and dulled by tears alone; once in a while, he stumbles and loses his balance, or he vomits without warning. France had been so blind!—the truth is so painfully obvious that he can't believe he'd ignored the signs!

Once, he finds a partially opened bottle and drugs it with sleeping medicine. That night, Italy retires especially early; in the following twelve hours, he does not stir and France rips the house to pieces until he is certain there are no more hidden stashes. He has a bonfire for himself on the beach. The thirteen full bottles of alcohol and spirits, as it turns out, create rather beautiful explosions over the dark waters.

The next day, a groggy Italy cuts his heel on a piece of glass in the sand. France silently curses himself for unintentionally hurting him again but is unable to own up to this particular mistake. "Let me bandage it and put some medicine over the cut, Cygnet," he gently convinces. "It doesn't look as though it is too deep."

Italy nods, sitting himself down in the kitchen with the chalk and slate at his arm. France takes his time, carefully picking out all of the glass he can find with a pair of tweezers. A part of him is glad that Italy has no voice, then—it means that he cannot make noises of pain. But then again, it makes for lonely conversation.

"You waded into the water again?... But only up to your waistline. Good; remember what I told you about the current. It might—and very well could—drag you out into the sea too far... There," he finishes, rising once his handiwork is finished. "It should be all fixed."

Suddenly standing and rushing forward, Italy hugs him around the neck. France's arms automatically intertwine, and with an ache he can't help but notice how his hands fit perfectly in the small on the brunet's back. That minuscule detail, for reasons unbeknownst to him, is the thought that hurts the most.

He avoids Italy for the rest of the morning. By God, he knows that the poor boy is probably confused and hurt by it, but he can't confront the problem so easily. It's been repressed by spirits for so long, and now that he's sober and with a clear conscience, it's impossible to ignore his inappropriate and improbable attraction any longer. Yes, a small part of it is sexual, but it's not so much a desire for gratification as it is a burning longing for something he can never have—

He hadn't realized, of course, that Italy will do drastic things to get his attention back; he accidentally walks in on the brunet in his bedroom, playing with a broken piece of glass and holding that final empty bottle while looking seriously contemplative.

"Italy!" He snatches both away, anger and horror mixing together in his voice. "No—you had better not!"

The Italian hiccups, his dull brown eyes finding the chalk on the bedside table. With childish precision, he asks, Why not?

"Because that's not what he would have wanted—and don't you dare point out the obvious—and..." France forces himself to pause and sigh, bitterly. "That's not what I want."

Italy inhales sharply, his lips pressed and his eyes squinting in a furious attempt to not cry. He uses his sleeve to wipe the question mark away so he can add to the sentence. Why not us?

"...I wish, once in a while," he admits softly, setting the glass and bottle a safe distance away before gently placing his weight next to Italy on the bed. "I wish that we were human and that it were easier to die, but that isn't the reality of it—"

The brunet is scribbling feverishly. No. Us together.

"...Cygnet? We're here, aren't we?—"

He shakes his head desperately and suddenly surprises France by placing his ear to the blond's chest and tapping a rhythm with his slender finger. Babump. Babump. Babump.

"...I don't understand." Why has his voice become higher in pitch? Why did his mouth become dry? He really doesn't understand what Italy could be saying. "You don't love me—you still love him."

A hiccup. The hand reaches for the chalk. You won. Have it now.

"Won? Won what?"

Italy desperately, pleadingly, is shaking his head, trying to make himself understood. He wipes his eyes with his hands before forming a fist and pounding it against his own chest—babump babump babump—then extending it to the side and releasing it into thin air. Pointing at that spot, he chokes on his own tears and snot as he uses his other hand to make a slitting motion at his own throat.

Now, to his own horror, France understands completely. "Oh... Cygnet, I—you—"

He swallows. It's so damned quiet—he can't hear birds, or the waves, or even his own heart, which he knows is pounding through his chest. "A... a heart is not like a piece of property," he finally whispers.

The Italian cocks his head to the side, and France can't help but reach out and wipe a stray tear on the other's face as he explains further, "It is not something won through contest or passed down as a keepsake—once it is given to a specific person, never can another truly love it for its full worth. If he's gone because of my doing, that doesn't mean your heart is mine to posses." He gives another bitter sigh. "I used to think love was possessive that way, and I couldn't have proved myself more wrong."

The brunet's lip quivers; his eyes close, and gently his forehead falls against France's shoulder. The blond has no idea what to say anymore, so he holds his charge closer and waits for his sobbing to stop.

Could we try?

"Try what, Cygnet?"

Us.

"...Us."

I could be happy. Us.

Is the boy making a legitimate offer? Still sitting together, he wonders. Part of that might be true: Italy could be happy with anyone if he put his mind to it, but France—Italy was all he wanted, now, but the burden of his desire was his guilt. Nobody should have to settle for their second choice, especially not the Italian.

"I'll consider it," France says quietly, planting a kiss on the other's forehead.

The days float by; France imagines he hears birds singing every so often, but the closer he listens the harder they are to listen to. Italy finds a seagull with a broken wing on the beach one day, but since neither of them know how to treat it, all they can do is let it wander freely and hope for the best. The brunet is also still enraptured by the spellbook he'd found, and he spends time examining the worn pages almost every evening while lying in bed. Unbeknownst to the Italian, his elder has begun a frenzy of activity in the attic during those hours and through the early morning under the kerosene lamplight. He hasn't gotten much sleep for several days, but the fruits of his labor are worth it—for the first time in years, he's managing to soothe his soul and keep himself sane without using the spirits he'd drunk for so long.

Italy keeps reminding France that he'd never given a specific answer to his proposal; France keeps putting off his decision since he hopes that maybe, just maybe, England had been telling the truth.

One Monday, the worst nearly happens.

France is gasping for oxygen as he's trying to keep his heart from bursting of fright. "You!" he sputters down as his hair drips. "You very nearly scared me to death!"

Italy chokes up some saltwater as he takes shuddering breaths on the sand. His hand grips France's arm tightly, but instead his eyes focus on the seagulls above.

Want to fly, he writes later, wrapped in a blanket on the sofa.

"Wouldn't anyone?" France gently asks, rubbing circles into the other's back.

Italy thinks that over for a minute before shaking his head and erasing. Changed mind. Nobody likes mute birds.

The Frenchman's eyes swell. "Please, Italy... don't go into the ocean again."

The brunet says nothing; he spends a moment in his own thoughts before he suddenly drops the chalk, cups France's jaw, and surprises him with a chaste kiss on the lips. Pulling away, he mouths out four words that France will never forget for the rest of his life.

Thank you for caring.

As France's own hands gently grasp Italy's wrists, he wonders; then, he decides, the hell with wondering. And with that, he gives Italy a soft kiss back.

They could be happy.

They both know it. The love would be one-sided, but the partnership could work. They could be there for one another. They could praise one another and ignore the faults. They could show affection, even—and there was the possibility that it could turn into something real instead of just an agreement.

But France doesn't want to. Well, he does, but not like this. He'd thought, long ago, that killing the Holy Roman Empire would be to his advantage as Napoleon had said—that, somehow, it would win him Italy, the forbidden fruit he'd been longing to taste. He should have known better than to trust a human; what fools they were! All that decision had brought any of them was pain that swelled deeply in their hearts, like the tide in the ocean waves. Now he's in too deep, and Italy is forcing himself to settle for someone so very, very guilty of the worst crime one could commit.

Things can't go on like this.

By a miracle and a curse, there is a knock on the door one day.

"Bleeding sod," the visitor harrumphs, "I told you!"

England, after more than a month of absence, has shown himself on France's doorstep—along with a matured version of a painfully familiar face. France blinks, unsure if the grey lighting outside has somehow confused his eyes. "You... you really did," he whispers to himself.

The blond figure, still formally unidentified, shifts his weight and tries to look into the entryway. "Is... is Italy here?" He's gotten so tall, and his young tenor has started to turn into a baritone even within the past few years alone—

"This," England introduces, "used to be the Holy Roman Empire. Now his nation is known as Germany. Germany, this is France."

His mouth is so dry. What should he say? "Italy's out back," he hears himself answer. "Come inside, both of you."

"Germany," England instructs, "go sit on the couch a moment; I need to give France a short explanation."

The Holy Roman Empire—no, Germany—hurries in and does as he is told, out of France's sight.

"He's a nice lad," the Briton says casually. "I mention Italy, and he's in the palm of my hand."

But he doesn't want to listen, then. Instead he turns and walks through the parlor, then the hall, then the kitchen, past the young nation on the couch, past the paintings on the walls, ignoring all the conflicting emotions swirling through his head and instead opening the door out onto the damp morning with an unfamiliar sense of duty.

"Italy!" he shouts. "You have a visitor!"

And as he stands back to let Germany go rushing through, he doesn't even notice when England puts a hand on his shoulder and commends him for letting the Italian go. He doesn't notice the seagulls crying overhead, or how calm the sea is, or that there is a little patch of sunlight breaking through the fog. All he can really notice is the way Italy's eyes light up, and the way their arms intertwine the way he wishes his own could, and that Italy is crying over this boy the way he never will for France.

The noise of their happiness is deafening.