Hello, this is my first ever Hetalia fanfiction (a bit late to jump on the bandwagon...) but I've been a part of this fandom for a long while. This is a spamano fanfic (one of my OTPs) and is inspired by a play that I saw years ago. Although I cannot remember the name of the play, it is only right to mention it here, as without it, I would not have been able to write this. If you take the time to read this, please take a minute to leave a review (however brief) to let me know how well (or not) I've done.

Thank you.

A fleeting glance. A ghostly caress. The warmest smile to ever be thrown in my direction.

What do I offer you? Nothing.

What can I offer you? Nothing. Absolutely. Nothing.

Do not let me forget.

When depression visits, I shall hang myself to the sound of my brother's breathing.

I do not want to die.

I have become so despondent by the fact of my utter and complete failure at life that I have decided to commit suicide.

I do not want to live.

I am jealous of my sleeping fratello and covet his induced unconsciousness and when he wakes he will envy my sleepless night of thoughts unslurred by medication.

I have resigned myself to death this year.

Symptoms: Not eating, not sleeping, not speaking, suicide thoughts.

Diagnosis: Complete and utter self-loathing.

I believe that since my younger brother took it into his own delicate hands to commit me he has found a new sense of freedom.

Traitor! Fucking traitor just like everyone else!

Without an older brother - who causes him pain so much pain so much pain – looming overhead, I have come to the sudden realisation that Feliciano is dating someone.

You'd always ask my permission first!

This fresh information revives my decaying emotions.

Don't leave me! Don't leave me!

For how long, I am not sure, but while they're in motion I have yet to decide which one to settle on. Instead, I flick his drumming fingers that rest on the other side of the aluminium table and tell him the visiting hour is over.

His reluctance to leave soothes a deep insecurity within my soul but I respond the way I was taught to: with a downturn of the lips and a narrowing of the eyes.

I have been told by the many psychiatric nurses that I am to attend daily group therapy to increase my ability to "open up" and "socialise". For the little life that's left in me I cannot comprehend how this will have any positive effects on any of the committed.

Why gather a room full of people with all the same intents and goals – to die – and expect them to save each other from said desired goal?

Bullshit. Fucking bullshit.

And there they all were, a room of expressionless faces staring blankly, so devoid of meaning there must be conspiracy between them. Every last one of them...they knew my name as I scuttled like a beetle along the backs of their chairs, the last one to join, they all knew my pain, why I was here; deliberate self annihilation.

We are asked to fill the blank pages of a journal with our current thoughts and feelings. Broken crayons are distributed around the circle of bodies. True writing instruments are prohibited in case some lucky bastard manages to create a weapon of self destruction and does the deed we all want to do.

I begin to file a point on the crayon with my nails. I am crouched on the floor, using my chair as a make shift table to write on. I start with the simplest of sentences.

I am sad

Before I can continue, I sense a shift around me, a body is above me, peering down at me. I tense but refuse to acknowledge them.

I feel that the future is hopeless and that things cannot improve

A shadow casting over my journal is my warning that the body is closing in.

I am bored and dissatisfied with everything

Knees crack to my right. The body has descended to eye level.

I would like to kill myself

I pause.

I am a complete failure as a person

"Why?" The shit-brown crayon snaps between my thumb and forefinger, crumbs smear into the crystal page and blemish the white. I frown in annoyance and look up to finally see the body that was watching me.

There is a terrible clenching in my chest and stomach as I scowl into avocado eyes. Caramel skin and chocolate curls. Young and optimistic. A fucking doctor. I wish he'd leave me alone.

"I said, why do you think you're a failure of a person?" The stark bluntness of the question catches me off guard. Usually doctors take their time in asking the most basic of queries, building up their files with meaningless facts that they force to fit into their predetermined explanations of why we are 'ill'.

"N-None of your business, bastard!" my words blurt out like the tooth paste that follows an air pocket in the tube. Messy and irritating.

He leaves me alone.

I used to be able to cry but now I am beyond tears

I have lost interest in other people

I cannot overcome my loneliness, my fear, my disgust

I am terrified of medication

I can't make decisions

I can't eat

I can't sleep

I can't think

I cannot love

I cannot fuck

I cannot be alone

I cannot be with others

I am charging towards my death

Sertraline, 50mg. Insomnia worsened, severe anxiety, increase in suicidal thoughts, plans and intention. Discontinued.

Zolpiclone, 7.5mg. Slept. Discontinued following rash. Patient attempted to leave hospital against medical advice. Restrained by three male nurses twice his size. Patient threatening and uncooperative. Paranoid thoughts – believes hospital staff are conspiring against him.

Melleril, 50mg. Co-operative.

Dr Albino-Bastard and Dr Pervert-Bastard, who're just passing, thought they'd pop in my room to take the piss. Burning in a hot tunnel of horror, my humiliation is complete as I shake without reason and stumble over words and have nothing to say about my 'illness'.

There's no point in saying anything because I'm going to die.

I am deadlocked by that grating Germanic voice which tells me there is an objective reality in which my body and mind can become happy.

But I am not and never have been.

Dr Albino writes something down and Dr Pervert-Bastard attempts a sympathetic murmur with sly eyes. Watching me, judging me, smelling the crippling failure oozing from my skin, my desperation clawing and all-consuming panic drenching me as I gape in dismay at the world and wonder why everyone is smiling.

What is there to smile about when the only certainty in life is death?

This is becoming my normality.

Days blur in a never ending string until I am informed by a nurse wearing a gown so impeccably white that my psychologist is ready for my first personal appointment. I pray that it is neither Dr Albino or Dr Pervert-who-I-am-convinced-is-a-rapist as I am led like cattle to one of the many identical doors in the hospital.

The nurse knocks for me and I cringe as a disgustingly sunny voice calls for me to enter. Nurse opens the door, as I am unfit to do so myself obviously, and something touches me in that still place I call my soul; for my sights are set upon Dr Caramel Skin And Chocolate Eyes sitting amicably at the desk on the far side of the room.

A firm grimace moulds to my features, a fiery anger berates the foreign emotions that course through my skin at the sight of this...unearthly bastard.

I refuse to be a slave to my emotions.

I refuse to allow a stranger to have control me.

His open lipped smile remains unchangeable as I scuttle to my seat. My shoulders hunch like the weight of a thousand corpses piled on top of me. I dig my shortened fingernails into my tender palms to decrease the chances of scratching that god damn happy smile from Dr I-bet-you're-a-bastard-too's face.

"Good day, Lovino," the smile increases. I remain indifferent. "I am Dr Antonio Fernández Carriedo. It's a pleasure to finally meet you!" Is it really? "Welcome to your first session with me, as I hope to help you along your way to recovery."

He pauses, waiting for a response, but when he is hit with a wall of silence he merely continues. Bastard, that was not the reaction I wanted. "Do you have any plans for your stay here, Lovino?" Do I have any plans? The audacity! What can he possibly expect me to say?

"Take an overdose, slash my wrists, then hang myself." I begin to feel my temper slipping from its shackles as amusement of all the fucking things pours into his eyes. He speaks as if addressing the mentally impaired or a child.

"All those things together?" I decide to mirror his tone, my posture hostile and repellent.

"Duh. It couldn't possibly be misconstrued as a cry for help." Blessed silence breaks our conversation and Dr Spanish-Bastard (for indeed, he is a bastard, just like the rest of them) chuckles as if he has the fucking upper hand over me.

"It wouldn't work." My spine snaps in recoil at this contradiction and I comb my fringe from my eyes to glare at the bastard properly.

"Of course it would." That fucking smile widens further and my face flushes in shame at this patronising bastard. What does he know that I do not? Why does he grin as if he possesses the knowledge of the world?

"It wouldn't work. You'd start to feel sleepy from the overdose and wouldn't have the energy to cut your wrists." I blink. Well, fuck, Mr Know-it-all. Curling my lip in disgust, I attempt to appear unimpressed by his deduction and fold my arms over my chest.

"I'd already be standing on a chair with a noose around my neck."

The door opens. Stark light floods the room. I raise my head, heavy from medicated sleep and dreams which I do not wish to have. Dr Spanish-Bastard strolls like the fucking sunshine into my dark abyss and kneels where I lie.

"Good morning, Lovino," a pause which I still refuse to fill. "I didn't see you at breakfast this morning."

"What are you going to do about it, bastard?" I growl, determined to keep this dangerous man away from me. But my eyes twitch in betrayal when a disapproving frown levels my glare. Frowning doesn't suit you...

"I expect you to eat three meals a day, Lovino; for your health." He shifts in his crouching position. "If I find that you are skipping meals, then I shall inform the nurses to force feed you."

I sit up, tasting a rebuke on my tongue.

"Y-You can't do that, bastard! It's human abuse! Against my rights!" I still when that smile crawls upon the bastard's face, rendering me speechless.

"Ah, Lovino," my eyes trail after the Spanish man as he stands and makes his way in retreat to my door. Spinning on his heels he leans against the door frame, jutting out his hip like a fool. "you're in a psychiatric hospital. You have no rights any more."

"F-Fuck you!" I wince when my voice cracks pubescently and resort to giving the doctor the finger. His laughter is more than I can bare.

"By the way," the pair of exotic eyes wink in a lewd manner. "you should cut the swearing; it doesn't suit such a cute guy like you."

What?

A wound from years ago splits like a pressured seam and a long buried shame roars its foul decaying grief.

Cutecutecutecutecutecutecute cutecutecutecutecutecutecute cutecutecutecutecutecutecute cutecute -

No one has ever referred to me as such. I believed that phrase had been reserved for my younger brother while I was served with deleterious lexis.

unpleasant

unacceptable

uninspiring

irrelevant

unrepentant

repellent

disliked

irrational

irredeemable

unrecognisable

derailed

deranged

deformed

I am left to myself and my thoughts, where an alarming and frightening seed has been planted.

But...I don't imagine that a single soul could...would...should...or will...and if they did...I don't think that another soul, even a soul like mine, could...would...should...or will...or am I wrong? - a dangerous, dangerous thought -...maybe a soul of any brand couldwouldshouldandwill...l-like me?

Does Antonio like me?

NO! Nonononononono – what thoughts are seeping through the back passages of my mind?! I don't want to be liked, I don't need to be liked, it's useless and fake, fake, fake – it'll only increase the pain, it'll only maximise the hurt once it is discovered that there is nothing about me to like.

I have no redeeming features. I am an empty vessel in which a foul stench resides.

I am unpleasant.

Irrelevant.

Irredeemable.

Deformed.

"Oh dear, what's happened to your arm?" I am once again sitting in the generic office with my Dr Bastard opposite me. His eyes lack their usual warmth. I can tell he's angry and that satisfies me.

"I cut it."

"That's a very immature, attention seeking thing to do." It caught your attention when no one else looked twice. "Did it give you relief?"

"No."

"Did it relieve the tension?"

"No."

"Did it give you relief?"I deny an answer for the repeated question. Just like the rest. Wants to force 'relief' into his own fucking version of the meaning behind my actions. "Did it give you relief?"

"No."

"I don't understand why you did that." I grit my teeth.

"Then ask."

"Did it relieve the tension?" I startle myself and Dr Bastard by crying out in frustration. The dumb fuck isn't listening to me.

"Can I look?"

"No." He leans forward in his seat, his anger at bay but it leaks into his words.

"I'd like to look, to see if it's infected."

"No." There is a sharp intake of breath as the doctor seethes silently. My lips quiver, forcing a smile down at his annoyance. Show me your emotions. Don't be like the others. After a minutes of silence, his accent rings once more.

"I thought you might do this. Lots of people do. It relieves the tension." Oh, for the love of -

"Have you ever done it?" I snarl, my fingers clutch the edge of his desk hard. "No. Far too fucking sane and sensible. I don't know where you read that, but it does not relieve the tension." Antonio refuses to answer me. "Why don't you ask me why? Why did I cut my arm?" The man relents but his voice holds trepidation.

"Why did you cut your arm?" I allow a small smirk in victory.

"Because it feels fucking great. Because it feels fucking amazing." Antonio holds out his hand, palm upwards. His face is a blank canvas.

"Can I look?" I hesitate before gently bearing my arm to him.

"You can look. But don't touch." Antonio lowers his face and goosebumps rise from my flesh as his breath caresses my skin. It feels exhilarating. After a moment, his eyes level themselves with my own. There is a touch of sadness to his countenance.

"And you don't think you're ill?" the soft question stirs memories of a few previous meetings where this debate was discussed. I shall not change my answer.

"No."

"I do. It's not your fault. But you have to take responsibility for your own actions." His delectable hand traces the corner of my jaw yet his eyes are stone. "Please don't do it again."

I've never in my life had a problem giving another person what they want. But no one's ever been able to do that for me. No one touches me, no one goes near me. But now you've touched me somewhere so fucking deep...I can't believe such a depth existed. I thought I'd always mourn for the touch I was never given.

But when you – you of all the fucking people in this world voluntarily touch me – my heart and soul are aflame. My chest hurts so painfully that I am short of breath, my eyes widen and water when I am incapable of blinking in case my mind is deceiving me, my legs instantly tremble and I know that this...whatever you have triggered in me will not fade, will not diminish but last painfully throughout the span of my stunted life.

There is no use denying the seed of the forbidden fruit. I feel like Pandora and you are Epimetheus, releasing hope into my world after many years of pain and grief and sickness.

Find me.

Free me from this corrosive doubt, futile despair, horror in repose, erase the dotted line on my throat CUT HERE.

DON'T LET THIS KILL ME! THIS WILL KILL ME AND CRUSH ME AND SEND ME TO HELL -

I beg you to save me from this madness that devours my sanity until there is only death. I thought I should never live again but now I know there is something blacker than death: desire... perhaps it will save me...perhaps it will kill me.

I no longer despise our check-ups in your private office despite the null emotions upon my face. Every compliment you throw my way without a care takes a piece of my soul and yet you laugh so freely at my evident blush, even venturing to call me a tomato. Bastard. Am I fucking joke to you?

But my objections to your nickname for me go unheard and you continue your charades and jokes and (flirtatious?) teasing until my will collapses like a dam and I drown in the life that is you.

Sometimes, I turn around and catch the smell of you and I cannot go on. I cannot fucking go on without expressing this terrible - so fucking awful - physical aching, fucking longing I have for you. And I cannot believe that I can feel this for you and you feel nothing. Do you feel nothing? I stare deep within those unbearable pools of acid, begging for you to see me.

But you just fucking smile and fucking run your fucking fingers across my cheeks and tell me how fucking cute you think I look. Are you truly oblivious? Do you feel nothing? You know, I really feel like I'm being manipulated and this gives way to unexorcised demons residing hidden in the crevasses of my mind. He is misleading you, using you, bending your weak will to his pleasure. No one likes you. Wants you. Loves you. My thought walks away with a killing smile leaving discordant anxiety which roars in my soul.

No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope No hope -

And now I am so afraid. I'm seeing things, I'm hearing things and I don't know who I am any more. Where do I start? Where do I stop? How do I start? How do I stop?

How do I stop?

How do I stop?

How do I stop?

How do I stop?

A touch of pain stabs my lungs and the kiss of death squeezes my heart. I am surely to die. Not yet, but it's here.

I've never understood why this hospital is adamant to make me take pills...what is it I'm not supposed to feel? I have heard that people diagnosed with depression have made full restoration just by conversation.

Is Antonio suggesting these pills to keep me away? Is he sick of having to talk to me?

How does he see me, sitting across from him in his generic room? What am I like? A child of sin, out of one torture chamber and into another - a vile succession of errors without remission. Every step of the way in my life I've fallen and failed.

I am a complete failure as a person.

Despair propels me to suicide. An anguish for which doctors can find no cure nor care to understand. I hope you never understand...because I like you. I like you. I like you – oh, fuck it - of course I love you, you saved my life. I wish you hadn't. I wish you'd left me alone in the black and white film of yes or no yes or no that was the dregs of my existence.

Suicide? Yes or no? Antonio? Yes or no?

I've always loved you even when I hated you. You will always have a piece of me because you held my life in your hands...those beautiful brutal hands...

This will end me. I thought it was silent until it went silent. How have you inspired this pain? I came to you hoping to be healed. You are my doctor, my saviour, my omnipotent judge, my priest, my god, the surgeon of my soul.

What am I to you?

"Lovino – Lovino! What are you doing?! "

"D-Dr Carriedo! The patient is refusing to take his medication – he's in a fit!"

"Lovi...Lovi look at me...can you hear me?"

"...everyone left the party because of me, I'll fucking tear your flesh off and suck out the blood and make them all pay – every last fucking bastard will pay for it! They think I'm as mad as fuck? - I'm going to make your life a living fucking hell, why am I hated, why am I like this, why aren't I like Feli, I'm a fucking failure - I REFUSE I REFUSE I REFUSE-"

My sight is black around the edges but I am able to see the pitiful expression of the bastard angel holding me. My stomach churns and my knees buckle. I can't stand it.

"LOOK AWAY FROM ME!" Antonio kneels before me, his arms outstretched and his hands latch onto my shoulders sliding my spasmodic torso until it is pressed firmly against his own. I can barely register this display of intimacy before the doctor clamps one hand to the rear of my head, his fingers knotting in my hair and pulling my face back to witness his disconcerted expression.

He swallows and I faintly hear the tremor stirring in his voice.

"It's alright." My fingers contort and sink into the crystal lab coat of my psychologist as I fight his hold with desperation. Anyone but you! Please leave me, don't see me like this – I cannot bear it...

"LOOK AWAY FROM ME!" Those eyes, those eyes, those FUCKING PITYING EYES! - My throat is burning as if it were coated in bleach and my line of vision begins to fail. Vaguely am I aware that Antonio has dismissed the nurse but the salty wetness trickling the crevasses of my nose leaves me blind.

The disgust I harbour at my lifeless, rag-doll body, laying limp in that bastard's arms sinks into my bones to be added to the other memories that feature this emotion. I close my eyes and lose myself in the warmth of Antonio's body (a guilty pleasure), the force of the breath escaping his parted lips tingles my own flesh in a sensation that would stir arousal if I focused upon my desire for this...this...

"It's alright. I'm here." Oh, God. His voice is velvet upon my ears and his thumb caressing my lower lip is the catalyst for a whimper to part from my vocal chords. But he doesn't stop. "Lovi," he whispers and I daren't open my eyes. "you must take your medication now. Do you not want to get better?"

"They don't help me!" I hiss, displeased at his moronic question. It is not a question of want, it is a question of CAN'T. He doesn't respond. The repetitive motion of his thumb pressing into my mouth in a circular sweep continues, irregularly brushing the inside of my top lip.

"Okay...fine," he concedes. "then take them for me. Por favor, mi tomate." This is not the first time I have been addressed this way but the familiarity of the pet name is almost endearing. My jaw widens, the tendons feel stiff from the reluctant movement. How easily I concede these days...

One, two, three plastic pills drop onto my tongue and my lips would have instantly sealed them in the cavern of my mouth, if it were not for the fact that Antonio's finger tips had lingered by my lips. The two appendages were accidentally sucked into my mouth, caressed by my tongue and grazed by my teeth. I flushed despite myself, the implications of my actions seeping through the darkness of my mind.

Wrong, so wrong! He must despise me...

"Look away from me..." I lower my face to hide my shame, coiling into myself. Although I could not see his face, Antonio's racing breath left me unsure of his reaction. His fingertips abandon their hold upon my chin and glide to cheek, smearing my tears into the waxy flesh.

The hand working beautifully into my scalp massages harder and harder.

"It's all right." his voice is tight, constricted. "You will get better. I promise you...I will make you better, mi querido." My eyes, against better judgement, roll up to his face and I cannot decipher the passionate glaze he radiates. Anger? Hate? Loathing? Lo-

No. Never love.

I feel as if I was built to be lonely, to love only those absent.

I can fill my space, fill my time but nothing can fill this void in my heart.

Yet you..the most beautiful creature in this world - my world - are restoring the crumbling chamber to the best of your ability without even realising it.

How am I to carry on without you? I will die without you. Cut out my tongue, tear out my hair, cut off my limbs but leave me my love.

Leave me Antonio Fernández Carriedo if I am to survive this life.

Antonio no longer sits behind the shield of his desk but lounges casually next to me in the privacy of my bedroom, spread out upon the mohair sheets. Our legs are pressed together. His arm sits around my shoulders. We both know that this is illegal conduct between a doctor and his patient. I cannot bring myself to berate the bastard at the moment but...maybe later...I shouldn't let the bastard think that he's in control or anything.

I do not know why...but since my "episode", Antonio has become immensely preoccupied with contact between us. The first few attempts I lashed out and punched him away, afraid of ulterior deleterious motives. However, it has become second nature now. And I can't complain when I feel...the way I feel.

But why do I let this continue when the future is inevitable?...

"So, Lovi," Antonio smiles warmly and hands me a crayon – red, our favourite colour – and a piece of lined paper. "for today, I thought we could work on targets that you would like to achieve. You know, goals and ambitions for the future. I know you have trouble expressing yourself so I thought you could write them down instead."

He turns his gaze away, a habit he has gained since my refusal to co-operate if he watches me. Taking the utensil, I sprawl the paper against the cold blank walls and formulate goals that are out of reach but are cravings of mine.

to belong / to be accepted

to make my fratello happy

to beat up his boyfriend

to be seen and heard

to avoid pain

to avoid shame

to repress fear

to overcome weakness

I pause, the next line I forge is written steadily, yet unsure of the reception it shall receive.

to win affection of desired Other

I flush, heat mercilessly scorching my whole being. Antonio notices my juvenile yet common blush and requests to see my list; I hand it over with dread before I can change my mind and scribble the last sentence away to be hidden as it should be.

I scan every expression and soak in the slight chuckles Antonio makes as his tender eyes roam the sheet. Except he pauses, blinks, and then breaks out into the most extraordinary beam I have ever encountered. Oh God, oh God, oh God – could he possibly...?

"Lovi," he breathes, eyes glued to the damn sheet. "what...who...you have a...crush?" Oh, fucking damn shit!

"N-No!" I swallow and fidget with the fraying fabric on the arm of the sofa. "J-Just forget that one! I-It's stupid!"

"No..." Antonio raised his eyes to mine and I have never wanted to kill myself more. "no, it's not..." My internal organs throb with anxiety and I dread the course of the future if...this is brought into the limelight.

What if Antonio is merely humouring his screwed up little patient? What if, behind those unnaturally kind eyes, he is laughing beyond belief at the pathetic half-life of Lovino Vargas? Although I despise to admit that I have willingly unlocked the door of my mind for Antonio, it is not and never will be completely open. Not for him. Not for anyone.

"It is stupid." I huff, hiding my face from the sinful deceit I am about to commit – to save myself, to save myself...won't my lie save me? - and my voice cracks against the falsehood. "Because...because she will not return my feelings."

Black bile rises and churn in my stomach as Antonio freezes, his expression one of confusion and horrified disbelief. We stare at one another for what could be misinterpreted as a lifetime. If only we did have a lifetime...Finally, the young doctor sheepishly lowers his gaze.

"Oh. I...I see. I thought that..." his voice withers away, bewilderment clouding his features. "I was obviously mistaken." His arm slung around me feels like a dead weight and I crave to throw the damn thing off me. Instead, I contemplate more goals that will never be satisfied.

to be forgiven

to be loved

to be free

At night I cannot sleep. In the morning I cannot wake up. The sickness that breeds in the folds of my mind is cancerous. Everything passes. Everything perishes. Everything palls. The only thing that's permanent is destruction. I've not killed myself before, so I do not know what to expect. What happened before was just the prologue.

Dear God, dear God, what shall I do?

All I know is snow and black despair. Nowhere left to turn, an ineffectual mortal spasm, the only alternative, the only escape. When I die, please don't cut me up to find out how. I'll tell you: One hundred Lofepramine, forty five Zopiclone, twenty five Temazepam, and twenty Melleril. Everything I have. Swallowed. Slit. Hung.

"It wouldn't work."

"Of course it would."

"It wouldn't work. You'd start to feel sleepy from the overdose and wouldn't have the energy to cut your wrists."

"I'd already be standing on a chair with a noose around my neck."

This is the first meeting with Antonio since my deception. I am heading to his office, not my bedroom.

"Hey, Lovi," He is less enthused to see me. I cannot help but wonder if I have done the right thing.

"Bastard," I shuffle to my usual seat, arms crossed and eyes down. An infuriating silence looms overhead yet there is a painful pounding in my head and heart. Don't hate me, please don't hate me, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry -

"What is it that you want, Lovino?" exasperation exhales from smooth lips and it is undeniable that Antonio looks drained. I refuse to dwell on whether I am the cause.

"What do you mean, what do I want?"

"There's a story behind every person. There's a reason why they're the way they are. They aren't just like that because they want to. Something in the past created them, and sometimes it's impossible to fix them." The doctor pauses, his emerald eyes trained upon me.

"I feel as if we are close, Lovino – we have a good relationship but you refuse and rebuke me at every given opportunity. How am I supposed to fully offer my services to you if you constantly deny me? What is it that you want to achieve?" My throat is dry and constricted; Antonio is seriously pissed.

"I-I don't want to achieve anything. I don't even want to be here. It's like you said, I am impossible to fix so you're just wasting your time."

"Don't belittle yourself," He snaps and I flinch. "You are capable of being fixed, Lovino, but it is you who is holding yourself back. Why?"

"Sh-shut up, bastard, don't speak to me like that!" Suddenly he stands, his eyes aflame and his jaw rigid.

"I think it's because you're afraid, Lovino. It has been made evident to me that you have serious trust issues – of which I know not the cause – but I honestly thought that you put your faith in me, at least."

"W-why are you so angry, bastard? It's not like you actually care-"

"Well, that it where you're wrong, Lovino, because I do care. Too damn much." Antonio circles his desk, his steps echo in the stillness as he holds himself in front of me, tilting my jaw to meet his livid expression.

"You think that to be strong is to never feel pain, Lovino. Yet, truthfully, the strongest of people are the ones who feel it, understand it and accept it. You are scared of feeling pain whilst dwelling in your own self-inflicted misery. You say you push the ones who care far away from you because it'll just hurt when they leave of their own accord – but for some reason you cannot comprehend that these are the people who won't leave you."

His glare softened into a loathsome piteous survey. "You feel...you love with so much of your being that it must hurt so, so much." Antonio cupped my hollow cheek, his thumb pressing into the flesh. "You have such a passion, Lovi, such heightened emotions that they overlap and fuse and confuse one another...it must be such a turmoil to decipher the correct response."

My lungs constrict and ache with a sharp throbbing at this man's soliloquy. How can he know such much in then span of a few fleeting months? Traitorous tears, my old enemy, rise in full bloom and slide slow and fat down my face.

"Do not lie to me, Antonio." I stare unabashed at his magnificent features. How do you see me? How am I in your eyes? "You do not care...No-one cares and that's fine. I don't want anyone to care."

"Lovino." he growls, leaning towards me. "I fucking care about you. I like you. Oh, so much. I could even go as far as to say that I love-"

"I am too tiring, too demanding, and too fucking nasty for anyone to be able to love me, Antonio. No one knows me or can love me completely. I have only myself." I speak before being fully sure on what I am saying and it isn't until Antonio places his lips upon my forehead that I realise I have breeched the forbidden subject of love.

That foreign yet most coveted sensation. To feel love for another and feel loved by another. It's incomprehensible to me. Almost. Yet, the notion of Antonio of all the humans upon this Earth feeling love for my person is...is...

"You have me." he whispers into my hair, dipping his nose into the cowslip. "You have me to love you, my lovely lovely Lovino. My poor bambino, who would rather lie to me than admit to reciprocating in fear of rejection and ridicule. That's right, I know there is no girl that you fancy. But...God dammit, Lovino, you didn't half make me angry."

I want to smirk up at him, triumphant in eliciting more than his cheery demeanour but I am frozen by his words. Green eyes darken and Antonio's hand caresses down to wrap like ivy around my throat. "I'm not usually the jealous type, Lovi, but what's mine is mine. End of story."

Oh God! I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you – Please save me save me save me – I love you I love you I love -

"You've seen the worst of me." I barely find my voice as I croak. Antonio allows his thumb to explore my waxen face, running over the bridge of my nose, across the plane of my mouth...

"Yes." he replies. His assertion is a spirit of a whisper, his thumb lingers in the dip between my two lips.

"I know nothing of you."

"No." His lips quirk, as if pulled by strings at the edges into an amused smile. The soft pad presses firmly, parting and entering. My tongue greets it.

"But...I like you." The admission soars like a kite, up my throat and out to kiss Antonio firmly all over. How I wish I could.

"I like you." He mirrors, his thumb presses down on my tongue lightly and I seal it in greedily; and suck. I hear a gasp and without warning, I am standing and smothered in Antonio's chest, his arms possessively claiming me to himself while his lips are demanding and dominant and conquering.

You're my last hope.

I love you.

Those three disgusting words taste of mold upon my tongue. I. Love. You. Ti amo. Te amo. How fucking awful that our native culture is so similar. I wish I could say that I loved you. But I cannot. For I love you still, to this day and for some fucking reason I know that I always will. Even though you betrayed me.

If I were able to part some resemblance of wisdom to you, Feli, it would be to not fear the enemy that attacks you, but the fake friend that holds you. The liars, the liars the fucking liars. They prance around with fucking warm smiles on their beautiful faces and tell you that everything is gonna be alright. Well it's not.

I trusted you, I loved you, and it's not losing you that hurts me, but your bare-faced fucking falsehoods.

"Lovi, I feel your pain but I cannot hold your life in my hands." Today was the day that my time was up. Antonio sent me away for good. "Besides, once you leave, we can have a real relationship, one without breaking the rules." A real relationship. A real relationship?!

"Was the one we had not good enough, you bastard? It seemed pretty fucking real to me!"

"That-That wasn't the right word, I'm sorry querido." He placed both palms to my cheeks and kissed me chastely. "You'll be all right. You're strong. I know you'll be okay because I love you and you can't love someone who doesn't love themself. The people I fear for are the ones I don't like because they hate themselves so much they won't let anyone else like them either. But I do like you. I'll miss you. And I know you'll be OK."

Oh, you bastard...it was like he never knew me at all. And while I was believing that you were different and that you maybe even felt the adoration that often flickered across your face and threatened to erupt, you were a lying ass too. Just like every other stupid bastard.

Nothing can extinguish my anger.

And nothing can restore my faith.

This is not a world in which I wish to live.

I am back where all this began. In the room where I tried to hang myself once upon a time. To the sweet sound of my fratellino's soft sleepy breathing.

I am afraid that if you do come to visit me you'll cave and turn your eye to my better half. No one has ever resisted Feli once they met him. I have no confidence that you'll be any different. Not anymore.

Loneliness, my old time partner, is back with a full blow and sometimes I want to scream for you, the only doctor, man, person who ever touched me voluntarily, who looked me in the eye, who laughed at my black humour, who took the piss when I blushed and called me your tomato, who lied and said you loved me. I don't know where to look anymore.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you for rejecting me by lying and never being there, for bleeding the fucking love and life out of me, fuck Feli and Nonno for making me feel shit about myself but most of all, fuck you Antonio for making me love you when all I wanted was peace, to die to die to die.

FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU-

Darkness soaks my eyes. Depression visits hand in hand with death. I'm dying for the one who doesn't care. I'm dying for the one who doesn't know they're breaking me.

I love you I love you I love you.

I would die to be loved. I am dying to be loved.

I do not want to die.

I have become so despondent by the fact of my utter and complete failure at life that I have decided to commit suicide.

I do not want to live.

Look away from me and my failure. Let it die with this living corpse with a rope around its neck, standing on a chair with a belly full of pills. I can barely register my thoughts before the bell tolls and blood runs down my fingertips.

I told you this would work.

I step off the chair.

Fin.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed please leave a review and hopefully I'll upload more for the Hetalia fandom. Bye.