Title: The Whites of Their Eyes
Pairing(s): Prussia/Austria (main), historical Spain/Austria, historical Hungary/Austria, blink-and-you-miss-it historical France/Austria, Prussia/Frederick the Great, one-sided Switzerland/Austria, and blink-and-you-miss-it (and probably one-sided) Switzerland/Liechtenstein.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Image credit to its original artist, who is unknown to me but brilliant.
Companion piece to Admittance. Reading that is not necessary to understanding this ;3
This turned out to be waaaaaay longer than it was supposed to be, oh my lord. I don't even know what happened.
-x-
Prussia had waltzed into the house with a particularly smug expression that day. The upturn of his mouth, smug and sure, as if he knew some great secret Austria did not, was impossible to ignore; the way he filled the entrance to Austria's home, hands braced on both sides of the frame as if he had run a great distance and had only just managed to stop himself, was all too familiar. It was a look Austria had seen countless times, and a look he had scorned Prussia for in previous years.
"For God's sake, Prussia, you are not actually a child! If you have something you want me to know, then name tell me! You normally do anyway."
So instead of asking, as Prussia so clearly wanted him to, the Austrian merely inclined his head in a chilly greeting before sweeping past the ex-nation, his footsteps even and his back straight, as befitting a nation of his former ranking.
As Austria knew he would, Prussia eventually caved.
"So, Specs, you wouldn't believe what happened at the meeting today," Prussia said, still oozing smugness as he moved to catch up, his grin firmly in place. Austria glanced at him once before his mouth thinned into an expression of displeasure.
"You can't even close the door behind you?" he demanded, ignoring Prussia's comment, his tone sharp as he turned around to do just that. Prussia whinged at the lack of attention his declaration was given, glaring at Austria as his body shifted into a posture that Austria recognized easily once again: the one he used when he did not want to be overlooked. The one Austria would ignore now as he had some two-hundred years ago, uncaring of the consequences as he had been in his arrogance so long ago. But now Prussia had no army, no country, and Austria knew that all the former nation could do now was annoy him.
But even as Austria recognized Prussia's habits from days long past, he failed to realize Prussia might recognize his as well.
"You had servants for that, once," Prussia said darkly as Austria walked back from closing the door, and the Austrian felt a small stab of unease at the tone he used. "You must be lost without them to close your doors for you, little master; without them to fluff your silken pillows and shine your marble floors. Without your powerful alliances and your marriages. Heh, you turned your back on me then, too, because I was just a little thorn in your side. Thought you could just turn your back on me, ignore me, and I'd go away. But I didn't go away, Specs, now did I?" The grin he flashed Austria was edged, his tone betraying his stung pride at how easily Austria could return to pretending his existence was nothing more than an inconvenience. "Nope, I got strong too, and once-powerful Austria trembled before even more powerful Prussia!"
Instantly Austria narrowed his eyes, his back stiffening.
"Prussia, that is enough," he said, recognizing his earlier folly but unwilling to say so, to apologize, his own pride mercilessly destroying the considering thoughts as soon as they sprouted within his mind. "You act as a child would: with petty words and empty threats."
"They weren't empty then," Prussia threw back without hesitation. "And you… I had you, I defeated you, and you, little master… I had you begging for your life. Me and Old Fritz."
"I never begged anything from you then," Austria said, his voice like ice, "and I will not beg you now." He ignored the part about the vile man, Frederick.
They watched each other for a couple of moments then, Austria's right hand resting tightly on the edge of one of his tables, Prussia's eyes fixed unflinchingly on him from where he leaned against one of the walls.
"Where's your finery now, little master? Your servants? They left you, didn't they?" He straightened up, his smile taunting, the smugness creeping in where wounded pride had once played. "Everyone leaves you. You have no one left but West and I, not really. You don't even have your servants," he repeated, as if it were a comfort to him. Austria resisted the urge to suck in a sharp breath.
"No, Prussia, I do not," Austria said, and though the movements he used to collect his book from the nearby table were graceful and elegant, not betraying the stab of anger he felt at the ex-nation's insolence, his voice was clipped and harsh. "Has your brain become so addled with boredom that you have somehow forgotten, your actions so without purpose that you bother me here as if to find it?"
"I saw you pampered and spoiled in your palace, a servant to your every beck and whim, and a fancy wedding band on your finger far longer than I've seen you like this! You can hardly blame my awesome self for forgetting that when you get that prissy look on your face. Still a little master, through and through."
Austria felt his blood boil further at the insult, and his left hand clenched tighter on the spine of his book, blue in colour. "Then your memory must be failing something spectacular, Prussia," he said hotly as he drifted past. "Like your lands did almost sixty-five years ago." As soon as it was out of his mouth he saw that he struck a nerve, and it gave him a savage sort of satisfaction to watch Prussia's face as it clouded over, dark with a soldier's anger.
"You arrogant, prissy, spoiled little—"
Austria cut him off with a curt and cruel, "Go play in the dirt with your little wooden swords, Prussia."
When he left the room, it was to Prussia's enraged spluttering, and Austria did his best to quash the niggling sense of guilt in the pit of his stomach.
-x-
They never apologized after a fight. Please, they hadn't apologized after wars, and many of those had ended with the deaths of close friends – people whose lives were but blinks of an eye, but with whom they were still capable of forming powerful connections. Maybe, for some, even inklings of love – a fleeting thing that never lasted, no matter how much one wished it did. Sooner or later someone either died, or one day it was decided that an alliance was no longer needed, and treaties fell apart as new partnerships were struck; new marriages made. And Prussia, loath though Austria was to admit it, was right. Eventually, everyone left him. Such was the lonely life of an empire. It was something he and Britain had discussed once, their minds wandering to times long past: of marriages and partnerships that started as just alliances, and maybe… maybe became something a little more.
For Austria, his separation with Spain, and then with Hungary, had been harder than he had… than he had expected. Sometimes, when he slept at night, he dreamt of Spain's bloodstained hands, always so gentle on him, always so teasing as he whispered things like mi Tesoro in Austria's ear. Sometimes he dreamt of Spain's passion, both in body and in mind, and the way his mood could switch suddenly from caring to angry as he threw things around Austria's study while Austria watched impassively from his chair, waiting for the storm to die down before he would rise and place a gentle hand somewhere on Spain's body – shoulder, hip, face; a grounding touch that Spain would always lean into, his anger spent and his breathing ragged, and they would just stand there, sometimes for over an hour, before they moved on to their next task. They never spoke of those moments, never spoke of what meaning they could possibly have, but the understanding was there all the same. When the Habsburg alliance between them had fallen apart, it had been hard. But he had borne that burden with a straight face, with a straight spine, and with impeccable posture and flawless, graceful mannerisms, as he was expected.
As Spain had been expected.
But he still kept the ring, nestled against the skin of his collarbone, hidden underneath layers of clothing.
Other times he dreamt of Hungary, with her sweet words and her constant companionship, which she was never hesitant to provide. She had always seemed to know when to speak and when to simply stand there and observe, letting him know with her presence that he was not truly alone as he had once said in a moment of weakness, so soon after Holy Rome had left; so soon after he had lost Spain. She was a breath of fresh air, fierce and protective and blazing with a passion so different from Spain's, but no less encompassing. He had believed, in a moment of childish naivety, that perhaps their empire would last forever, and that he would be able to keep her for himself: his fierce Amazon, as he had once called her in a rare moment of light-hearted teasing, so soon before the murder of his archduke locked him in a conflict with Serbia and her allies, and soon the rest of the world. And in the end they had lost, and with it he lost Hungary too, their empire dissolved as they bowed to those they had once been so far above.
He kept her ring close as well.
So yes, Austria loved, as he knew Prussia had as well – something that was all too obvious to him when he had been called back to his home during a time of restlessness and unsure alliances, leaving behind with France a woman whom he knew would be torn apart by the people she had adopted and loved as her own. Disgraced, his marriage to France – loveless on the side of both the king and queen (at least at first) and the two countries involved – crumbling as France's citizens rose up against their monarchy, he and Maria Theresa's sons had formed hasty new alliances. And when Napoleon had risen, a tyrant in Austria's sights with cold black eyes and a calculating smile, with no love in his heart for anyone but his country and his self-styled Empress, they had fought the Coalition wars; the Napoleonic wars.
And, to his very surprise, Prussia had been one of the first and most steadfast allies Austria had found.
"Heya, little master," he had greeted in his soldier's uniform, a stark and more practical contrast to Austria's, of pure white and blue; something he wore out of sentimentality. "No need to quake in your boots: the awesome me is here to assist!" But the strange lustre that Austria had seen in Prussia's eyes during the Third Silesian War, the Seven Years War, was gone. Prussia's own passion was significantly lessened. And Austria didn't need to ask to know that it was because of that vile man, Frederick, whom Prussia had loved above all others; adored to a level beyond the standard loyalty one must display towards their boss. Without Frederick, Prussia had lost some of his spark. And for a moment the violet-eyed nation felt a spark of compassion for this most bitter enemy.
He had known then as he knew now what it was like to lose those that were loved. And for Prussia, who had been his adversary for so long, he now felt a strange flare of gratitude burning with the fire of old resentment.
Prussia had loved the man, Frederick, Maria Theresa's most hated enemy. And now that Frederick was gone, the wound still fresh in Prussia's eyes even after these past decades, the militaristic nation was finding it hard to adjust. Austria's head inclined in empathy – never sympathy. Frederick had brought Prussia up from nothingness, moulded him into a nation of purpose, and now he was gone.
Quietly, and without word, Austria reached out, placing a hand on Prussia's shoulder.
"Don't fire," Austria began, watching as Prussia's eyes widened as his once-enemy struggled to swallow, "'til you see the whites of their eyes." He let his hand slide from Prussia's shoulder then, but he could feel some of the earlier tension vanish from the balcony as the Prussian seemed to grapple with himself, with his grief, and with something strange and new in his young face as he snuck another glance at Austria. They stood there, once bitter enemies united against a common foe, watching as their leaders strolled through the gardens, discussing strategy. Somewhere, Britain was on his way to join them, along with others who had pledged their assistance.
Finally, when Saxony cleared his throat and announced Britain's arrival, Austria turned from the balcony to walk back inside. He was surprised when he felt a hand on his wrist, stopping him, and he turned to look at Prussia with a small frown on his face.
"I… Specs…" Prussia tried, but he sounded choked, and Austria took pity.
"The pain passes, as all pains do," he said, turning to face Prussia once more. "The ache in your heart will fade like an old injury."
"I don't want it to go away," Prussia said, and his voice was quiet enough that Austria thought it prudent to stay a few moments longer. Britain could surely wait.
"You misunderstand me, Prussia. I said it will fade, not that it will go away."
Prussia's head snapped up, his eyes finding Austria's face, searching his expression before his eyes narrowed.
"He was your enemy."
"Yes," Austria replied without hesitation. "And I hate him now as I did then. But he wasn't yours, and we are not enemies any longer. If you are to fight France efficiently, then I need you to fight as you did under Frederick." It pained him to say the name, the usual derogative of that vile man on the tip of his tongue, but he stopped himself. "Fight for him, if you must."
"I'm not a weak-minded girl, little master, pining away," Prussia spat. Austria's answering smile was thin.
"You don't have to be a girl to miss someone, Prussia. And do not let Hungary hear you say that."
Prussia paled at the mention of the formidable nation, and Saxony cleared his throat again just beyond the large glass doors. Austria, with an answering incline of his head that Saxony couldn't see, turned to leave once again.
"Don't think that we're friends or anything like that, little master," Prussia said, careful to shout in that obnoxious voice of his as Austria departed, and the Austrian couldn't help the careful smile that flickered, unseen, across his face.
"I wouldn't think such a silly thought, Prussia."
-x-
He was more than three-quarters the way through his book when he heard the door creak open, accompanied by the thunking sound of Prussia's boots as he walked across the marble floor he had mocked only hours ago, uncaring for stealth. It was a soldier's walk, heavy and filled with purpose, and one that Austria knew well, even after all this time. He would recognize it anywhere, this particular walk, as uniquely Prussia's.
So he wasn't surprised, not in the slightest, when he felt a hand on the outside of his thigh, which he shifted without comment to allow Prussia access to the Victorian ottoman Austria currently occupied. He commented only to tell Prussia to remove his boots before he felt his book being nudged aside as Prussia lay flat against him, his head resting on Austria's chest and over where his heart beat beneath his skin. Carefully lowering the book, Austria continued his reading, the only sound in the room being the occasional sound of paper as he turned the page and their joint breathing,
"Hey, Specs?" Prussia said, his voice muffled by the pale lavender fabric of Austria's shirt. "'M sorry."
Austria almost dropped the book on him, his face registering shock as he glanced down at Prussia. The urge to repeat Prussia's words, to echo them, was strong, but instead he just nodded his head.
An hour later, when he'd finished the book, he carefully grabbed Prussia's wrist where the former nation had gripped his own so many years ago, and Prussia stifled a small chuckle against Austria's person.
"Should've known you'd never say it. S'okay, little master: I'm so awesome I get what you mean anyway."
Austria's hand tightened momentarily.
"Not everyone has left you."
"I know."
"I'm sorry."
He was sorry too.
-x-
"Hey, Specs, y'know, I never got to tell you that thing about the meeting," Prussia said later, his elbows on the table and his head resting against his palms as he digested some of the food Austria had made.
"Is it really that important, Prussia?" Austria asked wearily, unwilling to bring this up again. Prussia opened his mouth before he suddenly closed it, surprising the violet-eyed nation.
"It might be," Austria heard him say grudgingly, "to you."
Austria surveyed him for a moment before moving to sit across from the former nation at the round mahogany table. "Very well, Prussia, what is it? And what were you doing at the meeting, anyway? It did not require us being there."
Prussia, so eager to tell him the day before last, suddenly looked very reluctant. "Switzerland—"
Instantly Austria stiffened. "Has something happened?" he demanded, worry for his old friend – even if that old friend wanted nothing more than to pretend Austria didn't exist, which hurt some – surfacing immediately.
"No, Specs, geez—unknot your panties," Prussia grumbled. Austria just looked at him.
"Is Switzerland all right?" he pressed.
"He's fine, Specs," Prussia said, and though his tone was close to a growl Austria got the feeling it wasn't addressed towards himself. "Just his usual unstable self, is all. Everyone at the meeting was bugging him again about stuff."
"What kind of stuff?"
"Stupid stuff. It doesn't matter," Prussia said harshly. "He was just mooning."
"Over Liechtenstein?" Austria said as he rose, relaxing slightly. "That's hardly news, Prussia."
But Prussia's smile was wry, a rare occurrence, when Austria looked back over.
"Yeah, Specs," he said, as if laughing at some private joke. "Over Liechtenstein. That's it."
For the rest of the day Austria couldn't shake the feeling that he had missed something important.
-x-
The meeting was nothing more than another contribution to the fraying of his nerves. The fact that he had stopped expecting competency when Britain's boy, America, had started joining in, lessened the irritation somewhat, but not by much. It was as if they followed strict patterns these days: everyone would have their go, Germany (and sometimes Austria) would write notes as everyone spoke, before America would have his go and the room would dissolve into another war, with Britain and France fighting each other while Germany tried to compromise without actually compromising at all, as was his wont.
All in all, Austria found himself rather bored with the repeat pattern, and regretting that boredom a mere ten minutes later when Prussia had charged in, loudly demanding more food.
"It's all gone, you priss! What am I supposed to do while you and West are here if there's no food?"
Austria gave into the urge to roll his eyes, though he stayed in his seat. "Heaven forbid you find other ways to amuse yourself, Prussia," he said crisply, shaking his head, but he frowned when Prussia continued to draw near him, inserting jabs at his person as Germany tried to get him to leave.
"I wouldn't have to if you could keep your refrigerator stocked!"
"Maybe if you didn't eat enough to feed an army," Austria snapped, riled despite his intent to remain calm, and he found himself out of his chair and snapping further at Prussia as Germany yelled for them both to calm down.
"You are interrupting a meeting, you insufferable child," Austria hissed as Prussia crowded him against a wall, something he barely registered, just as he barely registered the way Prussia's hand curled around his upper wrist.
Just as he failed to notice the strangely calculating gleam in Prussia's eyes, and the small look he shot at Switzerland, whose eyes, like the rest of the room, were upon them.
"It's not like you guys do shit anyway," Prussia replied, and if Austria were more aware than maybe he would have noticed, as well, how… almost rehearsed the whole thing sounded from Prussia.
"You vulgar, immature—" but he didn't get to say anything more, for Prussia's hands had found his chin, just as his mouth had found Austria's, swallowing any other words he might have hurled at the former nation. It was a rough kiss, certainly not one of the better ones Austria had received, and there was an almost possessive edge to it – a purpose that Austria found confusing, even as he slowly found himself kissing Prussia back, aware of the sudden silence of the room.
A silence that lasted until there was a loud bang, followed by a sudden splintering of wood as Prussia wrenched Austria away from the wall and behind him, where a bullet had embedded itself in the wall. Austria adjusted his glasses as Prussia shouted, "What the fuck?" and slowly the entire room turned to look at Switzerland and his still-smouldering gun. Switzerland's face was stunned, as if he couldn't believe the blast had come from him, and with a mounting horror in his green eyes he looked up and met Austria's gaze.
"Switzerland—" Austria tried as his former friend began to shake, the shock on his face turning to anger even as he shoved past them, the door slamming shut behind him.
"Well," Britain said, folding his newspaper and throwing it onto the table as he stood up. Austria didn't know how he and France hadn't taken the time to slit each other's throats while Germany was distracted. "I don't know about you lot, but I'm rather done for the day, don't you agree?"
America rubbed his temples and shuddered. "Dude, that was… that was so not cool."
The others chimed in with their own comments, but it was France's that puzzled him the most.
"Ah, per'aps not so strange," France said, his voice oddly lilting as he raised his head to catch Austria's eye, his hair falling in luxurious waves around his face. He had a knowing look on his face, almost calculating, and Austria's eyes narrowed as he recognized France's secretive expression, like the one he had used when Austria had first greeted him in Paris, the young archduchess of Austria standing like a pillar of petrified stone at his side. "After all, amour can do strange things to even the most neutral of us, can it not?"
Slowly, everyone in the room nodded, but all Austria could focus on was his irritation at the feeling of being left out of some great secret, and on the way Prussia's hand tightened on his wrist: possessive, protective, and altogether confusing.
-x-
Austria awoke in the night to a cool breeze whispering across his skin, his hair still slightly damp from the shower he had taken before bed.
"Prussia, you great fool, close the window," he grumbled, but when he reached out to feel beside him he felt nothing. Frowning, Austria opened his eyes. "Prussia?"
"Calm down, Specs. I'm out here." The Prussian's voice came from the balcony, a grumble like his own, and Austria suppressed a sigh of familiar irritation as he slipped out of bed, his overly long sleeping shirt just above his knees as he clutched at the open collar, forgoing his glasses – useless for sight – as his feet touched the cold marble floor and he walked out onto the balcony.
"Prussia—"
"Why did you and that trigger-happy neutral prick stop being friends?"
The question was surprising, but Austria answered without thinking, his mind still groggy from sleep. "A great many reasons. Most of them my fault."
"Why were you friends with him in the first place?" Prussia demanded tactlessly. Austria sighed.
"It was a great many years ago, Prussia. Why on earth do you care now?"
Prussia shrugged. "Just, do, Specs. Now are you going to be a stiff little prince or are you going to answer?"
Moving forward, further into the moonlight, Austria joined Prussia, leaning against the railing.
"He was my first friend," Austria said. "He taught me to defend myself – or tried to, I suspect – and when I would end up beaten by you or Hungary he would always be there to help me, to assist me, and to protect me. He would pluck me off the battlefield, bruised and beaten, a small child, and carry me on his back for hours until we found a place to relax. He would wash the cuts from my face, and anything else, and he would tell me to stop being so stupid. He'd ask why I got myself into those messes every time." The smile that touched Austria's face was uncharacteristically genuine. "I always told him it was because I knew he'd be there to pick me up. And in return I would make sure he watched out for himself, in many different ways, as he always did for me." He sighed again, pushing himself from the stone of the balcony, aware of Prussia's eyed on him, calculating and filled with something Austria could not identify. "But I drove a wedge between us, and he left. That's all there is to it." That wasn't, but it was a clear indication that he wished to end this branch of the conversation, and Prussia complied, which surprised him.
"If he wanted to suddenly be friends with you again, would you let him?" he asked instead.
Austria spared the former nation a withering look. "I like to think I would."
"If he suddenly revealed, for whatever stupidass reason, that he loved you, would you go to him?"
Austria almost laughed at the thought. "Prussia, your words are those of fools."
"So you wouldn't?" Prussia asked fiercely, one hand snapping out to snag Austria's hip and tug him forward. Austria let him, rolling his eyes to let Prussia know how ridiculous he thought he was being.
"What is this really about?"
Prussia sneezed, averting his face. "Nothing." But his hand didn't leave Austria's hip, and his eyes returned to Austria's face, glued there.
"Prussia, you were a militaristic nation, not a diplomatic one, and you are just as awful at secrets as you were some two-hundred years ago," Austria said flatly, unimpressed. "Now you will tell me what is going on or I will go back to bed and you can freeze out here—"
"When we met to fight against France, you told me, 'Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes,'" Prussia said abruptly. "Why did you say that to me, Specs?" When Austria remained silently, his voice became passionate in a way Austria hadn't heard in a long time, almost breaking with it. "Tell me!"
Austria, startled by Prussia's out of character behaviour and the wild look in his eyes, thought for a moment. "Because you knew war," he said at last. "That was all you knew. And I was your enemy; that was something you had built upon and been built for. And now we were allies, and it was too soon after. It must have felt like you were betraying him."
"Soon after what?" Prussia demanded, ignoring the last part, though Austria knew that he already knew the answer. Austria's hand rose to rest on Prussia's shoulder, firmly, as it had back in the early 1800s.
"After Frederick's death," he said without pause. "You were still young. He was your beloved leader. And you did love him, didn't you, Prussia?" His voice was low as he said that, but not out of envy or something as petty as that.
"Pssh, 'course I did, little master," Prussia said, trying to regain his usual demeanour. "I mean, he was a pretty awesome boss – almost as awesome as me! I mean, aren't we supposed to love our bosses?"
Austria's stare was unyielding as he said, "but you loved him. You loved him as I once love Hungary, and as I once loved Spain. You loved him as a man is taught to love a woman, and you served him as a wife is taught to serve her husband."
"I'm no woman," Prussia began, frantically, but Austria cut in again.
"You loved him with all your heart, Prussia, not just with your mind. He was your passion, the reason for your triumph, and your inspiration. You loved him as a son loves a father, a daughter loves a mother, but you also loved him as a man loves a woman, or another man, or as a woman loves a man or another woman. You love, in your own little way, and when he died, as all simple humans do, you felt the pain of a broken heart as many have before you."
Prussia was staring at him, and Austria could feel his chest rising and falling rapidly at this distance. His hand slid from Prussia's shoulder to rest over the former nation's heart. "There is no shame in love, Prussia. You are not being weak for feeling it. You loved that man in every way you could. There is no shame."
A strangled sound left Prussia's throat, and his head was suddenly buried against Austria's shoulder, his arms wrapping tightly around Austria's waist, pulling him close as if he were afraid Austria would simply vanish.
"I told you that because you were grieving, Prussia, but you were still a great nation – a strong nation whose strength we… whose strength I needed. You were bred for battle, as I was at first, but you became so much more than a simple solider under that man." He could not keep the faint bitterness out of his voice at the mention of Frederick this time, suddenly faced with all that he had lost to Prussia's beloved boss, but he doubted Prussia noticed. "And it was that more that we needed."
"I provoked Switzerland today. On purpose." Austria almost missed the sudden murmur, and it was only because he felt the vibration against his shoulder than he thought to hear.
"I know," he said, and was startled by the fact that he did know. He did not pretend to know why, but it didn't matter.
"He was my enemy. I had to defeat him."
Austria frowned in confusion, not that Prussia could see. That got his attention. Why?"
"Doesn't matter. I did." He was silent for a couple of moments. Still. Belatedly, Austria realized that Prussia was wearing his blue uniform; that he must have rolled out of the bed and pulled everything on, down to the Iron Cross that rested proudly against the Prussian blue of the fabric.
He ran a hand through Prussia's hair until Prussia looked up, his eyes full of purpose, with a hint of smug triumph. For what Austria did not know.
"Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes," Prussia said, and there was an ironic twist to the words this time around, something Austria answered with a wry smile of his own. "Isn't that right, Specs?"
"Mmm?" Austria responded as Prussia lowered his head again, and he felt a pair of lips ghost lightly across the skin of his neck.
"I saw the whites this time around. And I won."
"Yes, Prussia," Austria said, looking up at the sky for a moment, Prussia following his example moments later: a soldier and an aristocrat, one in uniform and the other in silk, bathed equally in the silver light above them – older and more all-seeing than even they were or could ever be. He knew, in that moment, that Prussia was thinking about Fritz watching him from above, the man's cold eyes warm on the nation he had raised from the dirt of obscurity.
"You always win."
-x-
A weird little ending, don't you think? ;3
Title significance and other facts: "Don't fire 'til you see the whites of their eyes," a popular phrase Americans love to claim as their own and a slogan for the Revolution, didn't actually come from the American Revolution at all. Instead it was a direct order given by Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1757, during the Seven Years War/Third Silesian War.
Anyway, again, this is a little sidepiece to Admittance that got way out of control, and reading Admittance is not necessary. If you want to, though, it tells you what Prussia was going to tell Austria at the beginning of the fic, and the "secret" that the other nations knew. Blahblah, I am a huge history nerd and feel the need to insert things everywhere, I ship Austria with everyone because of that history, and the Prussia/Fritz scenes are inadvertently all Arya May's fault. Not go look at her deviantArt drawings of them.