Family Ties [Part 61]

[hellzabeth]

Title: Family Ties

Characters (in this chapter): Northern Ireland, Estonia, China, India.

Rating: 15

Warnings: Back from holiday, so rather tired. Contains sadfaces.

Summary: Uh, I need to be banned from the kink meme or monsters like this happen? Essentially, Scotland leaves the UK, which gives Northern Ireland an excuse to up and out as well, which leaves England and Wales all alone. Oh yeah, and this somehow leads to World War Three.

Northern Ireland stared up at the ceiling. There were exactly 128 and a half tiles up there, including the florescent lighting squares. Without them, there were only 74 and a half. He wasn't usually the type to count ceiling tiles, but all recent attempts at escape had ended up with him whiting out and waking up cold and in this room again. At least he had a window. A window that looked out onto the brick wall of another building.

From his window, he could count 143 bricks.

He'd been in here way too long.

Wherever here was anyway. He was so sick of waking up in places like this. All he knew was it wasn't his land. And it probably wasn't Russia's either; the hold was stronger then.

'Wonder where I am...' the red headed teen thought to himself, playing keepy uppy with the pillow of his bed while still lying on his back.

'You're in Riga.' uttered a voice in response.

'Ah. Alright then.' thought Éibhear, pausing in tossing his pillow. '... wait a second.'

He nearly fell off the bed with surprise when the voice in his head that was decidedly not Russia spoke again. 'Hello? Can you hear me? Testing, üks, kaks, kolm.'

"What the flying fuck?!" North shouted, standing up and looking around the room. Nothing there. He looked outside the window. Nothing. "Where--"

'Shh! Shh, they've got cameras on you and you moved before I could set up a video loop.' the voice said, and for the life of him North couldn't place where he'd heard it before. 'Think, don't talk. I think I've finally got a fix on your wavelength. Something's disrupted the signal a little.'

The teen sat back on his bed. 'Alright, who the feck are you?'

'Oh, I'm Estonia. I invented the technology that helped Russia control you.' granted, he sounded guilty and sheepish, but also distracted. This didn't help the surge of anger the young Nation felt.

'You're the one that did this to me?! And fucked up Jim as well?!' he raged in his head, gripping the edges of the mattress. Something like a ringing in his left ear started, very high pitched, and he flinched away. 'Ow!'

The ringing stopped. 'Sorry, I have to keep tuning the instruments and it's pretty hard to do with one hand in a sling and another eye... not working right.' Estonia apologised. 'Yes, I did it. Russia was holding my brother Latvia captive in the same way you are, threatened to kill him. I know that's no excuse, but I drew the line once I saw what my technology did to Scotland.'

A few lights burst behind Northern Ireland's eyes, and he rubbed at them. 'So now what are you doing?'

'I'm doing my best to fix this.' The lights vanished, replaced by the taste of something spicy on his tongue. What the hell? 'If I can just boost the disrupting signal that the WDF placed inside your brother's borders and basically broke the control-'

'Jim's sane again?' North felt a wave of relief. Thank god for that, there was nothing more creepy than that dead look in his brother's eyes.

'Sane but not quite safe.' The tense tone of voice made North envision Estonia in the dark, with only one hand to operate whatever machinery he'd managed to hijack. 'Lithuania's been forced into helping Russia too; he's bringing France and Scotland back to NWO HQ as we speak.'

"Cac." North swore aloud. Just when things were almost going right...

'But,' Estonia added, and Éibhear could practically hear the smirk. 'They're going to find that there's nobody there to greet them. Russia's plane was shot down over Québec.'

The young Nation actually lept off the bed, punching the air in victory and grinning. 'Fuck yeah!!'

'Exactly.' said Estonia's voice. 'I've been trying to get a message to them, but either Lithuania's turned off his phone or they're distracted. But I have managed to get a message to another person. I think. The response was static-y at best.'

The celebration dance paused. 'Uh... who'd you call?'

'Well it seems that Latvia's been hanging out with your sister lately, since she stole him from Russia--'

"What?!" Northern Ireland yelped, the sound bouncing off the walls. Estonia continued undeterred.

'--and now she's mounting a special break through force with Austria and Hungary and striking while the iron is hot, as they say. Since Russia's missing, there's a power vacuum. Not that anyone knows, besides the higher ups and myself. And now everyone I've told. So a lot of people.'

North paced back and forth, staring at the door intently. 'So what, now I have to wait like some damsel in distress?'

'Er, basically, yes. Sorry.'

A long silence passed, and for a moment Northern Ireland wondered if Estonia had left or gotten disconnected (which was a weird enough term to use when connecting to people's brains), before he said 'um, we could play tic tac toe?'

'... sure, whatever.'

----

It was very quiet in Hong Kong's house when there was nobody in it.

Of course, there was the sound of the city outside, and the clunk of pipes when the other residents of the tower block turned on and off the taps. Life went on all around the city, a bustling hub of people seemingly unaffected by the war aside from the wary cloud that hung over the general mood. Speaking of clouds, a torrent of rain landed afresh across the windows. China, eyes closed, listened to the steady patter of water on glass.

Somewhere in Hong Kong, important men gathered around a document with pens ready to sign. On an overhead projector near them, China's boss shook his head gravely, the men in dark suits behind him keeping their faces blank and professional. Russia's boss, declared the whole thing to be a farce, and cut the connection. It stopped no-one from putting pen to paper.

At 2:30pm, 2nd November 2021, China stopped listening to the rain.

----

India dropped her plate of rice with a slight gasp.

"Oh, Yao..."

Notes:
- Back from Paris~!
- See, this is where North was hiding all along.
- "Üks, kaks, kolm", if I've looked it up correctly, is one, two, three in Estonian.
- ... I'm going to make this clear now, since questions always come up when I pull this stunt; China's people have not vanished. They are going to have another representative. Keep your knickers straight and be patient children <3

Part 62

Comments

[hellzabeth.livejournal.com]

Appropriate icon is appropriate. "LATVIAAAAAAA"!

Indeed. /epic battle music

Pffff I burst out laughing.