fanfic; to never forget, greece, turkey

[tredecaphobia.livejournal.com]

Hahaha, and just as I thought I'd never write Greece/Turkey again....

Title: To Never Forget
Author: me
Pairing: GreeceTurkey
Rating: PG-13 for mentions of sex, but nothing actually
Warning: blood, mentions of rape, srs historical stuff
Summary: The Treaty of Lausanne, and somehow, Greece can't be as happy as he wants to be.

                “You know what? Fine. You can have it. Take Thrace, and Crete, and Smyrna, and get the fukk outta my site. Afore I change my mind.” As he said this, his olive eyes smoldered, and though they hadn’t been fighting for almost a week, the evidences of Greece’s fighting were apparent on Turkey; his marvelous lips had been split, his mask changed. Greece simply could not think this had been the same “sick man of Europe” from years earlier.
           
             He tried to tell himself that it did not kill him to see Britain and France and America circling around Turkey like vultures, scenting his imminent death. They had already snatched Syria, Lebannon, and Greece felt physically sick, when they had started already divvying up who would get Germany’s oil embargos, wanted to spit in their faces, demand respect for the man whose name they had trembled to hear.

                No. He couldn’t. Even though looking at the man (who Greece had never before seen so haggard, whose splendid clothes hung on him in bloodstained tatters from battling with the Europeans, whose face, unmasked, was more drawn and grief-stricken than any time Greece remembered seeing him. ) seemed to violate some core belief in Greece (He’s not an unstoppable force- he’s just a man. And tales his mother told him of such heroes as Sadik always meeting their earned fate in the end, but not like this, surely not like this. And he could not bring himself to be pleased.) he could not allow himself to be distracted from his task.

                Greece tried to tell himself he would have had it no other way, but the victory had been a grim one. He had by no means expected Turkey to be happy about the arrangements, but it had been Greece that had been broken and bleeding in the end, despite his apparent victory. It still hurt when he sat, and his shorelines were sore from the abuse they had weathered at Turkey’s hands.

                “And you know what else?” Turkey continued, and Greece looked up, hadn’t expected this, there wasn’t supposed to be more, and took small solace in the way Turkey sat, lording as if on a throne instead of a desk chair. “Take your fukking religion with you and get it the fuck outta here. Since you were so fukking determined to have it in the first place.” Of course, he couldn’t have been decent about it. But Greece wondered if he could have been decent had he been in Turkey’s place, but this was second in thought to the memory of Turkey thrusting into him, nails biting, while Greece pleaded him to stop.

Greece lifted a hand to his brow, trying to dispel the whirling thoughts that shook him, rooted him to the seat, and was mortified when Turkey’s face made the subtle transformation from bitter rage to old, imbued concern. He shouldn’t be concerned, Greece told himself sternly, not when Greece had effectively trounced him, partook in the partitioning, allowed France and Britain to do what they would to the man, listened to his cries, as they did, and he had just let them, oh God-

                His hand flew from his brow to his lips as he stifled a sound of mutable despair before it could be even born from his lips, and cursed that his eyes watered with the emotion instead. Turkey looked definitely alarmed now, as if his injuries and exhaustion meant nothing to Greece’s strange emotional upheaval.

                “Ben asla unutmayacağım.” He spoke through the net of his fingers, as if trying to capture them before they escaped, and watched as Turkey’s face changed again, more to mirror Greece’s own. The sunlight turned from a brittle three-o-clock and bathed them in a bloody four, catching and glinting the blood gathering in the corner of Turkey’s mouth.

                “Fukk.” Was the only thing Turkey seemed to be able to summon, thickly, while his own eyes watered, and his teeth clenched, and Greece, suddenly, could take no more of it. He stood and turned, and hesitated before finally stepping forward, one step farther away from the man he’d fought and loved for five centuries, and counted each step even after he quit the room.

                As he continued to walk, blinded by the encroaching darkness, he did not, could not, allow himself to admit the strangled howl from the closed door he walked steadily from. And could not allow himself the tears that would remain on his own face, unfettered, until he reached the jeep outside. Eventually, as the vehicle trundled from the cobbled square, he had managed to convince himself it was just easier to fight.

 

Notes

The Treaty of Lausanne must have been hellsh for both Turkey and Greece. Greece got some lands back form WWI, and they performed a sort of population exchange based on religion.

“Ben asla unutmayacağım.” I will never forget.

However, some Greeks remained in parts of Turkey. So, in a sense, some of Turkey still remains in Greece, and vice versa.

France, Britain, and to some extent the US were divvying up who would get what even before they waged war on the Ottoman Empire. It was pretty sick. I was so mad at them.

But don’t worry- though Turkey is at his lowest state here, he shortly repels most of the European advances and measures set against him (treaties and the like) with his own revolution, and creating a new state out of himself.  I was so proud of him- even in the face of adversity, Turkey will not relent!

“The sick man of Europe” is what Europe started calling the Ottoman Empire during this time, and held none of the awe and respect they normally would have for Turkey.