commission for @rukkilill! it’s michael distortion from the magnus archives, which i haven’t listened to myself, but i had a LOT of fun drawing this design. i felt very catered to
eey @rukkilill this is your @hwdevents Secret Spectres gift! as soon as the letters ‘SSSS’ caught my eye, I knew what prompt I’d be using, because... I love SSSS. I hope you like it! :D
of silence
characters/pairings: Estonia/Finland (could be read as platonic or romantic; not the focus)
word count: 1242
summary:
This can’t be how it ends, Estonia thinks. After everything his people have been through, a stupid illness can’t be the end of them. And yet, he’s helpless against it.
warning: mentions of death and illness,, and badly described body horror
It’s the sixth day of what will later be called year 0 when Estonia sees Finland off on one of the last flights to leave Tallinn, hugging him hard in the hall of the nearly abandoned airport. Every tourist has been sent home, wherever possible, with several countries having closed their borders. Both Finland’s and Estonia’s governments have plans in that direction, although they’re waiting to see what Sweden and Russia will do.
It has been chaos, these past days. Not just in their corner of Europe, but all over the world, people are getting ill.
They’ve both been through pandemics, but it seems worse now that the lines of communication are so short. Spain sends updates on the original eleven patients, who are in his country, daily. They’re not bettering.
“Take care of your people, Est,” Finland tells him, fitting his hands around his jaw in that way he does. “Take care of yourself.”
“You too,” he replies. And, putting his own cold hands over Finland’s, “I love you.”
“Never doubted it.” He smiles. “I love you too.”
There’s no see you soon, Estonia realizes later, as if they both knew that they wouldn’t see each other for years to come, that the small stretch of sea between them would become an insurmountable barrier.
It’s late autumn, and when Estonia gets home after eating in Tallinn’s Old City—his people are resilient and refuse to close their shops and restaurants yet, even with the tourists gone—his phone vibrates with a message from Finland, telling him he got home safely and that he lost his dog in his snowy backyard. Estonia grins. He always manages to lose the fluffy white thing the second any snow hits the ground. She always turns up fine.
He sends a message back, and then one to his boss, asking for information on how many people are sick in his country now. It’s not enough that he can feel it, not yet. If this gets bad enough, he knows that he’ll start experiencing some symptoms of what they’re calling the Rash. Luckily, they don’t seem too bad. Nausea, vomiting. That rash, of course.
No one has died, and he prays it stays that way.
A wave of shock rolls across the world the next day, so palpable Estonia can feel it before he hears the news.
The Rash is deadly.
His government snaps into crisis mode. There’s talk about closing the borders immediately, about quarantining patients. Estonia still can’t feel them, but he guesses it won’t be long.
Latvia calls, sounding remarkably calm. His situation is much the same.
The second he hangs up, there’s a call from Finland.
“Hey, Fin—”
“Spain says they’re hiding something,” Finland bursts out. He’s never been patient. It makes Estonia smile, although the message worries him. The original patients, six now, are in Spain. If anyone would know, it’s him.
“Something like…”
Finland sighs, quiet for a moment. There’s chattering in the background. He must be dealing with his government too.
“Not sure. He seems distressed. Only used one exclamation point.”
That is severe, for Spain. For something to faze him at his age, it must be bad. Estonia takes his glasses off, rubs a hand over his eyes.
They’re both silent for a while, listening to the other’s background noises, his breathing. Neither of them is good with words, but they’ve learned to read each other in different ways.
Someone calls for Estonia.
“I have to go, Fin.”
“Yes, me too. I’ll let you know if I hear from Spain.”
“Thank you. Take care.”
“You too.”
The days pass silently. Literally, in many ways, as the citizens of Tallinn, of the rest of Estonia, finally cave and close up shop, relocate to family in the countryside, to one of the many islands. They’ve started quarantining newcomers there. Estonia hates it, but understands it’s for the best.
Updates from the rest of the world are becoming increasingly scarce. Journalists are staying home, by choice or necessity. The government members have scattered across the country. Only a handful remain in Tallinn.
Finland hasn’t found his dog.
They still speak every day, but the conversations are short.
“How many?” Estonia will ask, and Finland will tell him how many of his people are sick, that no one has died.
The day of the first confirmed Finnish death is the day Estonia discovers what Spain said the doctors were hiding. He thinks he knew, in hindsight. The harmony of his people, always at the back of his mind, has become discordant, and he wakes up short of breath on the seventeenth day.
He didn’t dream, certainly not the terrifying dreams Norway and Iceland report having.
It’s worse than that, because the Nordic brothers see things in their sleep, animals and people ripped apart by the Rash, the illness infecting their minds and tearing their sanity to shreds along with their bodies, until nothing remains of them but empty, monstrous shells.
It’s worse, because Estonia knows then, they’re not dreams.
He’s faced many horrors in his life, too many to count, and always emerged stronger. But he’s never looked at a thing carrying only the suggestion that it is—was?—human, with hollow eye sockets and torn flesh, and heard it plead for help with a voice piercing through his skull, like a shout rising above the harmony.
He can feel it’s one of his people. She’s one of his people. Or was. He stares at her. She stares back.
One of her arms is bent backwards unnaturally. She’s still using it. There are protrusions under her rash-torn skin that he fears could grow into something horrible.
“Hᴇʟᴘ ᴍᴇ,” the once-human horror rasps. Her torn vocal chords shouldn’t be working. Nothing about her should.
“How?” Estonia asks. “How can I help you?”
“Iᴛ ʜᴜʀᴛs.”
He clenches his eyes shut.
This can’t be it. After everything his people have been through, this can’t be how it ends. They don’t deserve that.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “I’m so sorry.”
Villages go quiet as winter sets in, while spring arrives. Estonia doesn’t feel sick, but almost wishes he did, as he knows he doesn’t because everyone who gets the Rash is lost to him, whether to death or something worse.
Finland radioes now, because Helsinki’s been evacuated, and he’s out on the lakes, where reception is bad.
The world is in disarray.
Estonia has eaten practically nothing for days to leave more for his people, when his boss finally decides to leave the mainland, effectively condemning it. Estonia knows there are people left out there, but also knows he can’t protect them alone, and can’t ask the weakened ones left here to risk their lives.
They all know who he is, what he is, now. He needs them together, because even if they’re all that remains, they are Estonia, more than he is.
He radioes Finland a last time before he leaves for the islands.
“It’s the end,” he says. Finland crackles an exhausted laugh. It’s been a long few months, and the ones ahead look longer yet.
“We’ll meet again, Est. In a year, or a century. I promise. Our people will get through this too.”
“I hope so. I really do.”
He prays, on the cold coast, in the old, pagan way he remembers, for the first time in centuries. It seems fitting.
