"Now listen, Roderich- we did your version of Advent last time we did this." A harsh voice was arguing, and she walked into the room only to see her boyfriends arguing with each other. "Since you and Liz are Catholic, I am fine with not being able to go to Mass with you at midnight, but it's my turn to do the Advent wreath. And we're putting up 24 presents."
Gilbert was holding the wreath that they used every winter tightly in his hands, just as Roderich was.
Austria rolled his eyes, and tugged back a bit. "I know that your people also use the wreath with four candles-"
"Five." Gilbert interjected, and Roderich brushed it off with another dismissive eyeroll.
"Five candles then, if it truly bothers you that much- so I don't understand why you're so upset about doing it the way both of our peoples do it. This wreath simply looks more elegant if you do not stuff a bunch of tiny presents into it." Roderich huffed, and Elizabeta snorted at the deadlock that the two had come to.
"God, you two." She murmured with a light laugh, setting out her box of Christmas decorations for the house. "It's a wreath." Elizabeta started taking out some of their older things, eyeing the very few decorations she and Gilbert had smuggled through the years of the Cold War together. She turned over the porcelain angel in her hands as Gilbert spluttered.
"It's the main one in the house!" Gilbert reminded sharply, gripping the wreath tighter, tugging it slowly from Roderich without much thought for it, and dragging him a bit. "Since you guys are Catholic I almost always have to defer to Roderich's Christmas traditions. That's so not awesome." He rolled his eyes.
"You and I do share a lot of them, mind you." Roderich muttered darkly, not much liking the fact that his boyfriend was able to drag him as though Austria was a small dog playing tug-of-war with a massive one, and Gilbert gave him a glare at his words.
"Anyway." He said, trying to get back to the point. "24 is divisible by three." Gilbert said, losing his vigor. "Unlike 4. Which is something that a couple could divide evenly." Elizabeta picked up the subtle hint- that Gilbert wasn't feeling included in their holiday celebrations.
"But 4 is my preferred norm, and it's prettier." Roderich said rather callously, and Elizabeta didn't miss Gilbert's slight flinch, setting down the stockings, and walking over.
"Well." Gilbert grumbled, anger picking up. "If that's really how you feel." He said, waving his hand as he stood, face turning slightly red in irritation and upset. "I'll go set up this at my place."
The declaration caused Roderich to look up in surprise. "Gilbert- that's absolutely…"
The other communist nation cut off the confused words angrily. "Reasonable?" He pointed out, biting, looking just about ready to strangle Roderich as he went to pick up his scarf.
Elizabeta stepped in, putting her arm around Gilbert's shoulder to keep him in place. "Boys, knock it off." She hugged Gilbert a bit, to remind him that she had his back. "Roderich, stop being a prick and let Gilbert help. I thought you'd prefer if he did it, honestly, with how much you have Ludwig do your housework…"
"Prussia is no Germany." Austria snapped back, rolling his eyes as he gripped the wreath tighter, and Hungary honestly felt for Gilbert as the albino struggled to not completely go apeshit on Roderich, the smug bastard.
"You're right. Prussia is not Germany. He's the best of both worlds." Elizabeta leaned up and kissed the albino's cheek, squeezing his hand to reassure him that he wouldn't be left behind. "Able to be open with his emotions, but also a hard worker. Physically speaking- he's stronger than you, I might add." She scoffed. "So, get off his back. I like the idea of using the 24 present idea, seeing as my humans typically give presents on the 6th rather than the 24th."
Roderich was surprised that she had taken Gilbert's side, looking altogether like he'd bitten into a lemon, and opened his mouth to launch another tirade, and Elizabeta narrowed her eyes as she prepared to bring out the big guns.
After all, she knew how to end the argument easily enough.
"If you two don't shape up, I'll tell America that his stupid belief about the Christmas Pickle was right all along, and you've both lied to him every year." Elizabeta put her hands on her hips as she stared the two down.
Gilbert just about choked, and Roderich averted his gaze.
America was sometimes the worst person to deal with, and since it had not even been a month since the fall of the Berlin Wall, he would be more than happy to get on Gilbert's case for "lying" to him while he was a communist, and accuse Austria of not ever being neutral, and then, of course, they would have to hear the conspiracy theories that the two Germanic countries hid the Christmas Pickle from him because of communism, or something to that sort of extent.
"You wouldn't." Roderich stared at her after a moment, but he sounded unsure of himself.
"Try. Me." Hungary folded her arms over her chest, raising an eyebrow in defiance.
Silence reigned supreme, and Elizabeta knew that they had stopped fighting. Gilbert sat back down, and Elizabeta ruffled the white hair.
"Do your thing with the wreath, Gil, and Rod-, you can set out candles on another table, like you usually have Gilbert do." She settled the fight easily enough, and picked up the box of decorations to dig through, and find the stocking hangers they'd put above the fireplace.
Gilbert took the wreath, and only briefly stuck his tongue out at Roderich, before going back to hanging the presents up into the wreath.
Roderich sighed, before walking out to go get his mail.
"It's not even December 1st, and we're already having Christmas fights." Hungary pointed out. "Hopefully that means that they're already out of the way."
"Lizzy, you've known Roderich and myself for a thousand years almost." Gilbert chortled. "You should know better. Anyway. I'm going to make some sweets before I start dinner. Roderich, you fucking touch my wreath, and I'll wrap your ass in it."
"Kinky." Roderich muttered, voice flat as walked back in carrying a few letters, holding one up. "Speaking of America- he mailed me an invitation to his party."
"I've not gotten anything in my mail." Gilbert muttered as he searched through his stack. "Bastard. I despise Bush."
"Well, technically, you're still East Germany." Austria pointed out unhelpfully. "Still communist."
Gilbert stared at his hands, tensing up a bit at the reminder.
Hungary shrugged. "You can stay here with me, we'll have some of the other Satellites come over, hang out, drink like we used to on Christmas. Warsaw Pact Party." She winked. "We wouldn't want one of the non-aligned to come anyway." Elizabeta drawled, sitting beside Prussia and making him grin.
There was a small moment where Roderich looked ready to argue with her, but a look from Elizabeta told him enough.
"Right, right. The party is in a few days. I'll make the arrangements to fly over tonight. I expect a cake tonight at dinner." He grabbed his scarf, gloves, and car keys, going out to get tickets from his boss, a cool burst of air hitting them before the door shut behind him.
Hungary and Prussia sighed as he left, before laughing a bit. "I love you." Hungary kissed him. "It's hard for him, since he's still getting into the swing of…us being together as well. He's open to it, it's just…new still." Elizabeta hugged Gilbert, and the other nation nodded begrudgingly.
"I get it. Roderich and I had never been a stranger to having sex before- but I imagine that it's hard to understand that you and I got closer while he was…"
"Absent?" Hungary grinned, her joke rather dry. "Off with the good end of the stick?"
Prussia nodded, leaning against her. "It's hard to think that the wall is just…gone." He murmured, closing his eyes. "Heh… We both have a ton of things still going on. It's most ironic that we're here, after almost 50 years of having nothing, and Roderich's getting bitchy over the decorations."
Hungary laughed at that. "Man, that's gotta be the weirdest thing- he used to be such a whiner about having to do it on his own, when he and I lived together- he would have maids do it."
The silence grew over them after that, and Gilbert wrapped a loving arm around her.
"It's weird. We missed out on 45 years…with him." He kissed her forehead. "With Lutz, with Feli and the others…" He shook his head, squeezing her tighter. "I think it'd be awesome if we had a Warsaw Pact Party- for old time's sake. Invite the USSR countries- but not Russia." He coughed a bit. "Maybe not Vlad either. Poor bastard."
"As much as I dislike Romania…Ceausescu is a fuckwad." Elizabeta agreed. "And he's still tied up with that. So it might be nice to at least invite the man."
"Bulgaria is also working on the issue of Communists- but at least his bastard was ousted." Gilbert murmured belatedly, "Czech and Slovakia are free too."
"It'd be nice." Hungary murmured, kissing Prussia's cheek. "For old time's sake."
Gilbert snorted suddenly. "You know? I think you were right. Under the USSR's control, we never argued much. Never felt like Christmas. Now that we're actually…free from that… We have the ability to argue now. We can be loud and obnoxious and…whatever we want to fucking be- And it feels like Christmas now. So, maybe we were…missing the life of Christmas all along. It's not Christmas without arguments because the people we love drive us crazier more than anyone else."
Elizabeta nodded, and sunk into his embrace, remembering sitting in Russia's Kremlin for Christmas, the very first one after they had been "acquired."
It had been cold, Gilbert was emaciated and paler than he was naturally, and Hungary was still bandaged and battered. Every once in a while, a Russian guard would trip Gilbert. Hungary hated that more than anything, since she was more guilty of the events of World War II than Gilbert was. Gilbert, with his haunted eyes and stitched up body, took it since he was afraid of what would happen if he actually rose to their words.
The memories were fresh, and she had to squeeze him tighter. "You know- I think you're right."