This story was written as a gift-fic for magnadame for the APH Secret Santa 2016 gift exchange on Tumblr.
As no prompts were given, I decided to write the pairings in the setting of a winter ball hosted by Austria, featuring three of the requested pairings - Denmark/Prussia, Spain/Austria and France/America. Somehow it ended up being longer than expected, so the one-shots for each of these pairings will be posted as separate chapters.
Hope you like it!
First Dance – Waves of the Danube Waltz (Denmark/Prussia)
"What? A ball at that priss Austria's place? Sounds like a dead bore. Not going."
"Bruder." Germany's voice was heavy with frustration.
Silence fell for a good five minutes, the younger blond not budging an inch from where he stood next to where Prussia was sprawled out over the couch. No doubt he had his arms crossed and his eyebrows furrowed, with a deeply disappointed frown etched across his face…
Unable to resist, Prussia peeked open one eye to look. Yup, that's the one.
He dropped back into his slumped position, forehead thudding against the cushioned arm of the couch. "No…" he moaned, already knowing that it'd be a futile struggle.
Dammit, he'd always been weak against his brother's frown.
"Stupid West," Prussia grumbled as he tugged his tie loose and freed the top two buttons of his dress shirt. He unbuttoned the waistcoat he wore under his suit jacket as well, leaving both dark blue waistcoat and jacket open as he leaned against the balcony railing.
Damn it all, he was bored. Germany had ruined his fun earlier by not letting him get into a quarrel with the young master, intervening and dragging him away just when Austria had started turning red.
There was, of course, the alternative option of bothering Hungary. The madwoman had neither her frying pan nor a sword that night, being dressed very appropriately for the occasion in an elegant forest green evening gown. But Prussia had no doubt that she had chosen the gown with the slit all the way up to the thigh for ease of movement, and those stilettos looked sharp enough to kill a nation. He'd have kept a wide berth from her even if Germany hadn't already been hovering around him all night like a disapproving mother, thank you very much.
He'd finally managed to slip away from his brother when the blond got accosted by Italy, slipping between the set of partially-open French doors that he knew led out to a wide balcony. The chilly night air out in the balcony was a little too cool for comfort when compared to the warmth inside the ballroom, which suited Prussia just fine as it meant he had the space to himself, no one else being inclined towards braving the Austrian winter. Prussia… well, he'd had worse.
The bright light of the chandeliers didn't quite reach the far end of the balcony where he stood, leaving him in half-darkness. Streams of orchestra music echoed out from the ballroom behind him, a slow waltz blending together smooth violin and lilting tones of the flute. To be honest, it wasn't so much that disliked this kind of event, but it often reminded him too much of bygone days. Old Fritz had enjoyed these social events, often insisting on Prussia's appearance whenever he hosted a ball at the palace in Königsberg. Back then, Prussia had attended in his dress uniform, medals of valour gleaming on his chest and drawing the attention of the ladies left and right. With a quiet sigh Prussia leaned against the railing, staring out into the shadowy darkness of the garden.
"What, so it's just you, Prussia. I'd almost thought that I'd stumbled upon some scandalous tryst on the balcony like in a trashy romance novel."
Prussia turned to fix the newcomer with an unimpressed stare. "Sounds like you know an awful lot about trashy romance novels."
"Sweden reads them," was the easy reply as the other man strolled over to his side.
He raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You could have tried something more believable, you know."
Denmark just grinned, a wide smile showing all his teeth. "What is it that they say, the truth sometimes stranger than fiction? I swear I'm not making it up. He insists that the books lying around the house are all Finland's but we know better. So what's got you hiding out here?"
Prussia scoffed, turning back out towards the gardens. "I'm not hiding. The awesome me is just taking a breath of fresh air."
"Well then, mind if I join you?"
He waved his arm in a casual gesture. "It's a free world."
Denmark leaned back against the railing beside him, breaths faintly misting in the cold. They stood in companionable silence for a while, just listening to the muffled music from inside the ballroom.
A faint rustling drew Prussia's attention, glancing over to see Denmark extract a box of cigarettes from the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
"Want a smoke?" Denmark offered, opening the box and holding it out to him.
Prussia accepted the offered cigarette, letting the other nation light it up. "Thanks." He slid the other nation a side-long look. "Say, how did you end up here? I'd never pegged you as being one for this kind of fancy-hat event."
Denmark laughed, lighting his own cigarette. "Too true. Finland wanted to come and Sweden of course agreed to accompany him. The rest of us somehow ended up tagging along. God knows what I'm supposed to do here, though. It's not like I bothered learning any of the dances, back in the day. I've eaten more canapés than I cared to count, and there are only that many flutes of champagne one can drink before getting bored." The taller blond glanced over at him, lips curling around his cigarette. "And what's your story? You can't tell me you're seriously enjoying the freezing air out here. Even I'm on the verge of calling it quits."
Prussia sighed, slumping against the banister grumpily. "My idiot brother dragged me out here. Said it'd be rude to reject the invitation after the little master had taken the time to personally send it. Bah. As if I care about offending that stupid Austria. West guilt-tripped me until I agreed anyway." He let out a slow breath of smoke. "Then I'd thought I could come here and hang out with my mates, you know; stir up some mischief to rile up the young master. Spike the punch, that kind of stuff. But Spain is out there making a cake of himself dancing with the host and France is off hell-knows-where seducing someone, no doubt. So much for the bro code," he griped.
Denmark chuckled. "Well, the two of us can commiserate together, then. I just got ditched by Ice five minutes ago for that kid Hong Kong. Sve and Fin have been glued to each other all night, but that's just to be expected. Last I saw Norge was leading Liechtenstein out for a waltz."
"Little Lili? Norway has guts, I'll give him that, pulling moves with Schweiz watching."
"Former Viking, you know. Nerves of steel, it's in the blood."
Prussia snorted, unable to resist teasing as he blew out a smoke ring. "The gene must have passed you by, then. I still remember how high you screamed when Sealand jumped you at America's Halloween party last year."
"The kid's hands were freezing, okay!"
"Right," Prussia grinned, his voice oozing scepticism. "It had nothing to do with the ghost story Turkey was telling us right before that."
Denmark elbowed him in the side as retaliation for the teasing, but the matching grin on his face gave away his amusement. "I'd like to see you do any better."
"Pur-lease, the awesome me is better than you any day." Prussia threw his spent cigarette to the ground, crushing it under his shoe to snuff it out. "Hey, wanna ditch this place? I know some good bars in town. I've done enough showing my face today."
The Nordic nation looked amused. "Germany really going to just let you walk out the entrance?"
"Hey, my brother isn't the keeper of me!" Prussia retorted, no matter how untrue that was. "Anyway, he isn't going to know, because we're going this way." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the darkness beyond the balcony. It was a one storey jump to the garden below, hardly a feat for the battle-hardened nations they were. "Or are you chicken?"
Denmark's smile was wide and full of sharp teeth. "Nerves of steel, remember? Lead the way."
There will be two more parts to this story coming within the next few days (Spain/Austria and France/America), so stay tuned!
Please leave a review if you liked it, I always appreciate hearing your feedback!