This is a story I wrote for the HetaChristmas Advent Lightning Challenge over at Livejournal. The fic was requested by kilalas_place, and the prompt was fireplace.

LARGE LOG FIRE

"West, you know what would be awesome?"

Germany didn't look up from the eggs and sugar that he was beating into a creamy dough. He was already fifteen minutes behind his carefully planned Christmas schedule, all because his brother insisted upon dropping by the kitchen and striking up a conversation about the most unnecessary subjects.

"No, but I'm sure you're going to tell me," he said.

In hindsight, he realised that he should have calculated some Prussia-induced delays into his schedule, just to save himself from some stress. There were so many things that he had to get done, and baking this cake was just the beginning. The house needed to be cleaned from top to bottom, the festive curtains had to be hung, he still had some last minute grocery shopping to do, and the bedrooms didn't have clean sheets yet. So many chores, so little time and even less help from Prussia.

"A fireplace!"

Germany turned around at this. "A fireplace?"

"Yeah, imagine all the cool things you could do with a fireplace!" Prussia pulled a rolled-up magazine from the back pocket of his jeans and opened it from the middle to show him an idyllic image of a young couple sitting before a beautifully decorated fireplace, gazing into each others' eyes and sipping mulled wine. It was a nice picture, Germany supposed, but it mostly reminded him of the fact that he still had to dig through the storage room to find the rest of their Christmas decorations.

"Such as?" he asked and returned his attention back to the eggs and sugar.

"Well, I'd really like to try roasting marshmallows like they always do in America's movies! And then I want to go out to build something from snow and come back inside freezing so that I could warm up in front of the fire and drink hot chocolate. I bet even you would think that's fun!"

"This house isn't designed to have a fireplace. The changes we'd have to make to the structure would cost entirely too much, and we would have to move out while they're being made. Besides, I already have to spend enough time cleaning up after you and the dogs. I don't even want to imagine what it would be like trying to get soot out of my carpet," Germany said.

"Damn, you sure are a spoilsport, West," Prussia grumbled and rolled up the magazine so that he could put it back into his pocket.

"I'm just being practical." Having a fireplace would only lead to trouble. There'd always be a mess in his living room, smoke inside when something got stuck in the chimney and fighting over how Prussia never took the ashes out even though the whole thing had been his idea.

"Being practical isn't fun!"

Germany felt like shaking his head at the pout that had now taken over his brother's face. He just couldn't understand what had got to Prussia this holiday season. A fireplace wasn't the first of the strange ideas he had proposed in the past few days. First he had suggested that they should build a dozen snow lanterns in their garden. Then he had asked him to help him cut flags out of colourful paper so that they could decorate the Christmas tree with the flags of all of their friends. After that he had offered his help at baking cookies.

Since Germany's Christmas schedule had been finalized back in October, he hadn't had the time to do any of what Prussia had wanted. His brother had then proceeded to try everything alone, but he had grown bored of every idea almost right after getting started. As far as Germany was concerned, that just proved that Prussia wasn't being serious about any of his suggestions and was only trying to distract him from everything that had to be done.

The eggs and sugar were finally done, so he added the other ingredients and finished the dough. He poured it into the cake pan and put it into the oven. This left him with around twenty minutes to take care of something else. It would have been ideal if he could have run to the store to get a few more things for dinner, but he knew from experience that if he left Prussia in charge of the cake, he would come home to find every window open and charred remains on the table.

"I'm going to start looking for the curtains for the living room. I don't know how they always disappear every year even though I sort everything by colour," he said as he finished washing his hands and took off his apron.

"That's because you think it's part of Christmas to stress over the stupidest details. Your subconsciousness probably tells you to misplace those damn things," Prussia said.

"Don't be silly. If you have time to come up with ideas like that, you could give me a hand and hang out the laundry."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Prussia grumbled. He sauntered into the utility room where the laundry machine was, but then he popped his head out once more. "You sure you don't need help with those curtains? I'm really good at finding lost things!"

"Thank you, but I'll manage."

And with that, Germany put his mind to cleaning, cooking and worrying over everything that could still go wrong before Christmas.

In the end, however, everything went relatively smoothly. There had been enough to eat, he had found suitable presents for everyone, and it had looked like all of their guests had had a great time.

It was now the middle of the night, and Germany was sitting on the couch in the living room, enjoying his first real moment of peace in what felt like a lifetime. All the lights save for the electrical candles in the tree were off, leaving the room coated in dimness that was pleasant to the eyes and cast comfortable shadows in the corners.

The dogs were snoozing at his feet, and Italy had fallen asleep by his side. Germany kept telling himself that any moment now, he'd get up and carry his friend into the bedroom so that he could get some decent sleep before his flight back home the following day.

The two of them usually spent the holidays together with Japan, but this year it seemed that everyone had had somewhat unusual plans. Japan had decided to stay with China and the others and prepare for New Year's since it was much more important to him than Christmas. Italy had promised Romano that they could eat dinner together with Spain, which was why he was returning home so soon.

Italy had invited him and Prussia along. Prussia had declined right away, saying that he'd rather stay home and play his new video games than be stuck with two couples and watch them make kissy faces at each other. Germany hadn't decided yet, but he was quite sure he was going. Spain would keep Romano busy, so it would be a welcome and rare chance to have a moment alone with Italy and enjoy his beautiful country.

His eyes were beginning to feel heavy, so he stood up and decided to have one last drink before going to bed. He made sure Italy was sleeping in a comfortable position on the couch and then made his way to the kitchen, careful not to make a sound.

Germany poured himself a glass of milk and leaned on the counter to take a look outside. Snow was falling in slow motion and covering the pavement. He would have to get up early to clean up their share of it before they drove to the airport.

He put the now empty glass away and was about to return to the living room, but that was when he noticed something on the floor that shouldn't have been there. It was a magazine, he noted with some irritation. Earlier that day, he had asked Prussia to take out all their old paper. He must have been careless and dropped this one.

He picked up the magazine and was about to put it away, but that was when he noticed something familiar about it. It was the latest issue of AIT, a magazine about interior design. He leafed through it until he spotted an article on fireplaces and found himself looking at the picture that Prussia had shown him earlier.

Maybe it was the cosy atmosphere in the kitchen or the fact that he wasn't following a schedule anymore, but Germany had a hard time tearing his eyes from the image. It wasn't so much the fireplace but the two people sitting in front of it, enjoying each other's company, that drew his attention. He noticed a caption underneath it.

Basking in the blaze of your own fireplace is the ideal way to spend an evening with your family and friends.

Hmm. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember when was the last time he had done anything together with Prussia. They led such different lives that it was difficult to find shared time, especially now that there was so much work to do with the problems in the European Union. When Germany did have some spare time, it was usually claimed by Italy.

He thought back to the past few weeks and all of Prussia's strange ideas that had done nothing but irritated him at the time. Playing in snow, crafting something useless, going shopping and even accepting his help at baking had each seemed like an unproductive waste of time, but those thoughts now made him feel guilty.

Germany looked at the magazine and the happy people in the picture. He was beginning to have the feeling that he had been a little too wrapped up in his responsibilities as of late and had forgotten something very important.

But maybe he could still do something to make up for it, he thought and went to turn on his laptop.

Germany was the first person to wake up the following morning. He made sure Italy didn't sleep in and prepared him a nice breakfast because the food on the flight would no doubt be below his standards.

"By the way," he said as he was sipping his coffee. "I've decided that I'm not coming to Rome with you. I'm sorry."

"What? Why? Did I do something wrong? Do you not want to spend the holidays with me?" Italy asked, frowning in worry.

"No, no, it's not that," Germany said at once, knowing that if he didn't reassure him soon, Italy would break into tears. "I just realised that I haven't been spending enough time with Prussia lately. I can't leave him home alone, and I don't think he'd enjoy himself in Rome either."

Italy's face brightened at once. "Oh, okay! That's nice. I hope you'll have a really fun time with him, and maybe we can all do something for New Year's. My place has some real great fireworks."

Germany drove Italy to the airport. After that he made a quick detour to visit the person he had contacted online the previous night. No stores were open that day, but there was something he had to buy. He had been lucky enough to find someone selling those items on eBay and had convinced him to sell one to him personally for a somewhat higher price.

Once he had what he wanted, Germany returned home. The house was quiet as he entered, but it didn't surprise him. Prussia had no doubt spent the whole night on his computer and wouldn't get up until well after noon. That was no problem. It gave Germany enough time to wrap the item he had bought in bright paper and take the dogs out.

It was around three hours later when the door to the basement was finally opened and a sluggish figure staggered out, wearing only boxers and a T-shirt. Germany watched in some amusement how he walked to the fridge and opened it without acknowledging his presence in the kitchen in any way.

"I'd say good morning, but it's already two in the afternoon," he said.

"What?" Prussia forgot all about the fridge and turned to stare at him. "West? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in Rome?"

"I changed my mind."

"Why? Did you and Ita-cakes get into a fight or something? Damn, you should know better than to argue at Christmas."

"No, we aren't fighting. I just decided to stay home this year."

"Oh. Uh, any particular reason?"

"I just think it might be a good idea to rest a little for a change. There's going to be a lot of work to do when the holidays end."

"Yeah, right. True." Prussia kept staring inside the fridge, but he finally decided that there was nothing in there that he wanted. He closed the door and grabbed handful of the chocolates on the table instead.

"What about you? Are you planning anything?" Germany asked. He had counted on the fact that Prussia wasn't going anywhere, but he realised that he could have made quick last minute plans with someone.

"You know me. Everyone's always inviting me everywhere. I'm already booked for the next five Christmases," Prussia said and popped a praline into his mouth. "But today is free. And tomorrow. And I could cancel all my awesome plans on the day after tomorrow, too."

"Sounds good. Then we can try out your last gift."

"What gift?"

Germany pointed at the small package that was on the table by the poinsettia. "It's not exactly what you wanted, but maybe it'll work as a substitute."

Prussia took the package into his hands and examined it with a wary look in his eyes. "What is this? You already gave me everything that I wanted."

Everything that was reasonable anyway. There were always items on Prussia's wish list that were either too expensive, illegal or impossible to get.

"Open it and see for yourself," Germany said.

Prussia tore open the package and spent a good moment staring at the cover of the DVD that he had discovered. His face was blank for a long time, but then he turned to look at Germany with confused eyes.

"What the hell, West?"

"You said you wanted a fireplace."

"Yeah, but this isn't one! This is a DVD of a fireplace!"

"I know. We can't have a real one in this house, but I'm sure that's good enough if we climb under a blanket with a hot water bottle, put some sausages in the oven and pretend that we roasted them by the fire."

Prussia was still staring at him. "You're kidding, right?"

"No. In fact, I decided to be time efficient and already cut us some sausages and put cheese inside them. You should go and start that DVD while I finish here," Germany said.

His brother did as he was told, but Germany could tell that he was still baffled and probably thinking that he was still asleep. It wasn't often that Germany managed to surprise Prussia like that, and he was in a good mood as he left the sausages in the oven, poured them both mugs of mulled wine and walked into the living room.

Prussia was sitting on the couch and watching the fireplace on the TV. There was a massive log burning with flames licking its sides and fire crackling pleasantly. Germany hadn't expected it to sound or look that genuine.

"This shit has something like a dozen different fireplaces and scenarios for all of them," Prussia said.

"And which one is this?" Germany asked and handed Prussia his mug.

"Large Log Fire at an Alpine Mountain Lodge."

"Well, it looks nice."

"This is the most useless piece of crap you've ever given me. I bet we're going to watch it this one time, and then it's just going to collect dust somewhere for the rest of eternity," Prussia said.

Germany chose to take a sip of his wine rather than answer. He had been hoping that Prussia might appreciate his effort a little more, even if this was a far cry from a real fireplace. Maybe he should have tried something else.

"But that's okay," Prussia said."I didn't really want a fireplace at all."

"You didn't? Then why did you tell me you did?"

"That was just a random idea I had. You know..." Prussia traced the edges of his mug with his fingers and kept staring at the flames in the TV. "It was actually something else that I wanted."

"What is it? If it's reasonable, we can go and get it once the stores open."

Prussia shot him an irritated glare. "I don't need you to buy me anything, West!"

"Then what?"

"Well... It's stupid, but I kind of just wanted to do something with you before you fly to spend Christmas with Ita-cakes."

"Ah," was all that Germany could say from his surprise.

"It's not like I have a problem with it that you're with him so much. That's what couples do. It's totally okay. It's just that I sort of miss those days when it was just you and me. You know, when you were little and we went riding and ate walnuts when we came back."

Germany hadn't thought of those days in a long time. Back then, everything had been so much simpler. Prussia had been the centre of his world, and he hadn't been able to imagine that one day he'd be running a country on his own and be separated from his brother for decades. He couldn't say he didn't feel a little wistful, but he knew those days were never coming back.

"I'm not a child anymore," he said.

Prussia shrugged and looked away. "Yeah, I know. It's just that –"

"You should have told me if you were feeling lonely."

"I'm not lonely!" Prussia snapped.

Germany decided not to argue that point. Prussia could be very touchy when he felt like it, and Germany didn't want things to develop into an argument. This was supposed to be a nice moment between them.

"What I meant to say is that you should have told me you wanted to spend Christmas with me. I wouldn't have said no," he said.

"Yeah, but if you're spending Christmas with me, you can't spend it with Ita-cakes. Like right now when you should be having dinner with him in Rome and then making out under the tree or something."

"I don't have to spend every Christmas with him. It's just as important to me to do something with you," Germany said.

Prussia chuckled. "Like watch this piece of shit for people who are too cheap to get a real fireplace? Well, I guess it's better than nothing."

"We don't have to watch it if you don't like it," Germany pointed out.

"Pfft, like I'm turning it off before we've had those sausages that you promised me!"

They spent the following hour eating on the couch – for once, Germany didn't have a problem with it – and watching the fire on TV slowly grow smaller until only embers were left. The dogs had come to sit at their feet, and Prussia kept throwing them little pieces of sausage despite Germany's insistence that he didn't want them to learn to beg.

"This wasn't so bad after all," Prussia said as he turned off the TV. "I mean, yeah, it's still the shittiest flick I've seen in a while, but I guess the company made it better. Thanks."

Germany cleared his throat. The living room was almost dark now, so maybe it would be easier to say what had been on his mind the entire time they had been watching the fire.

"Prussia," he said when his brother made the move to get off the couch and take the DVD out of the player.

"Yeah, what?"

"When I said I'm not a child anymore, I didn't meant that I no longer look up to you or that I don't want to spend any time with you."

"Huh?"

"I mean it. You shouldn't have to come up with excuses to do something with me, and I'm sorry if I've made you feel that way."

Prussia sat down on the couch, the DVD forgotten. He crossed his legs under him and took one of the dogs into his arms. Germany didn't complain, knowing that Prussia needed something to do with his hands.

"You haven't done anything wrong. Not really," Prussia said, scratching the dog behind the ears. "It's just that you were still kind of a kid back when we were separated, and then you grew up and became all strong and independent when I was stuck behind the Wall. I missed all of it, and it took a lot of time to get used to the idea that I'm no longer the big brother you rely on for everything. I guess I just don't feel like I'm needed anymore."

"Of course you're needed!"

"Not really if you think about it. I mean, what use does someone who's not even on the map anymore have?"

"I need you! You're my brother. Don't ever think that you aren't important."

Prussia lifted his eyes from the dog and flashed him a grin. "Damn, West. Go look at yourself in the mirror. You look like you're about to start bawling or something. It's not that serious, really. Just a little Christmas downtime for my awesomeness."

Germany wasn't quite convinced, but he knew he'd never get anything else out of Prussia. He was surprised he had admitted as much as he had. But that didn't mean he'd just forget about the issue. It wasn't quite yet time for New Year's resolutions, but he decided then and there to spend more time with his brother and let him know how much he meant to him, not just at Christmas.