So bro, it's your birthday again. 'Course you don't know this. You never do celebrate your actual birthday on time. How unawesome is that, West?

When you were just a little sucker we would celebrate every year. Hell, even the priss would join in! You had an awesome cake (made by the awesome me!) and I'll be damned if your chubby little face didn't turn as red as a beet when we gave you presents. Hungary would always give you the cutest little outfits (GAG! You better love me for that little bro, I had to stay silent and let you get them to avoid the wrath of the pan. Gott, I faced that pan every day for you!). Even little Italy would pitch in somehow; making sure you had an awesome painting or something like that. 'Course you don't know this either.

Because you don't remember.

Come on West, how much more unawesome can you get?!

Just forgetting your childhood like that, ha! Gramps Germania sure would be in a flippin tizzy if he knew about this!

Mein Gott, how could you forget about your first love even?! Come on dude! I swear, when you kissed her…er, him?...goodbye Hungary's squeal could be heard all around the damn globe! Gott you saved me from the pan that day. She was too happy in her little fangirl bliss to even bother with massacring me *fist bump to past little West!*. You loved that little girl (boy?) and the whole flippin world knew it! Seriously if you didn't kiss when you did I would have personally dragged you back from the war and made you do it, because that's just what the awesome me does!

I suppose that doesn't really matter, now that you're back together anyway. I think Italy knows; he can't be that oblivious can the little sucker? Eh, either he knows, or he feels a connection to the past through you. Maybe that connection is just pasta. Eh, either way that little sucker loves you as much as he did all those flippin' centuries ago! 'Course you don't remember that either.

Leaving like that tore me all up inside, West. It hurt that you were leaving me to try to become your own independent nation. I understand, but you were just a tiny sucker! You shouldn't have attempted it just yet, but you're just that damn stubborn aren't ya? If there's one thing that didn't change about you, that was it. You're just too damn stubborn!

But your armies fell and your nation crumbled. Every day I was worried. Dammit I'll admit it, you worried me! You were my little bro. My little Holy Roman Empire. I understand that we're nations and we do what's best for them, but you were also my brother of all things, and it was damn near terrifying to know that you could fall at any day.

When I found you all bloodied and barely breathing…I got scared. I was afraid for you, West. You're my little bro, and you were there, in my arms, dying before my eyes. Your nation had fallen and you were about to be taken with it. I didn't know what I could do little West.

But you're damn lucky if you ask me. I almost lost you bro, and out of all the unawesome in the world, that would have been the most unawesome! Even more unawesome than one of the priss's piano concert!

You pulled through West. Don't know how you pulled that one off you little shit! Gott how could you scare me like that? You damn near died every day and I had no choice but to watch you! Do you know how unawesome it made me feel to stand there and see you wither away on that bed? Everyone did everything to get you back to your normal state, but ya just wouldn't do it.

Then one day you opened your damn eyes! They were a little lighter and a little brighter, but they were yours. And I'll be damned if I didn't start to cry. Yeah West, I cried. You were alive and you were fucking looking at me with your dopey little eyes! Then I knew you were gonna be okay. You were my bro! How could you not be okay?

Then you went and asked who I was. ME! You asked who I was like you'd flippin' forgotten me (which you had). So you know what I said? "I'm the awesome Prussia! Big bro extroadinaire!" and you nodded like every word in that sentence was true. (Cuz it was!)

Then you asked who you were, and I felt my heart stop. You had lost all memory of who you were, of the Holy Roman Empire. And all I remember thinking is: Schiesse! I could have told you that you were the Holy Roman Empire, but had I done that then bloodthirsty nations would have been at your ass for the rest of your life. You see, the world thinks you're dead. They think France killed you off, and despite him being a total pussy I know he wouldn't think twice before coming after you again. So I had to lie. I had to make up a new identity for you, and so the awesome me gave you the awesome name of Germany!

But you know what's unawesome? I hate that you can't remember, West. I resent it every god damn day, because you shouldn't have forgotten your childhood. You shouldn't have forgotten you loved Italy, even back then. You shouldn't have forgotten your triumph and fall as a nation and you should have learned from those mistakes. Not to mention little Italy. You made a promise to her (him?). You would see…gender nonspecific….again, and you did see them again, but they don't know it. Now how unawesome is that? Little Feli loves you with all his damn heart, but his first love was the Holy Roman Empire, and dammit that was you! Feli deserves to know…but hell if I'm telling him! That'd just be unawesome of me to ruin that for you two.

So I'm just gonna let you gain your memories back on their own. Maybe it's better you don't know, because once you do then there's no looking back. There's no ignorant bliss.

So you just stay there and train all you damn want, chug all your beer, and make sure little Feli gets plenty of kisses! Because that's what makes you awesome, West.

Someday you're gonna remember all the awesomeness of this story, and maybe that someday will be soon. Maybe it'll be in four months when we actually celebrate your birthday – your birthday as Germany.

And because my little Holy Rome is gone, I guess this day will just go by unnoticed again.

So my little Awesome Holy Roman Empire, happy birthday bro.

Sincerely yours in awesomeness,

Big bro extraordinaire!

Prussia smiled wryly down at the paper before him. He had written that letter every year since as long as he could remember (adding in slight revisions when little Feli joined them).

Every year he vowed he would send it. Maybe he would slip it onto West's pillow, or maybe he'd nonchalantly place it on his desk so that he'd accidentally see it while doing paperwork.

Every year he had chickened out.

Wadding the paper into a tight ball, he aimed for the waste bin and smiled as he got a perfect shot. "Ten points to the awesome me!" He first pounded the air, smiling triumphantly.

The victorious smirk slowly fell.

He sighed with remorse and left the room. He needed a beer.

He never thought to actually take the letter to the can outside.

Later that afternoon, when Germany went around his daily household chores, he might've just stolen a peak at the wadded up paper in the bin, purely out of curiosity.