A/N: Why hello there.
So, a wonderfully cute little (the longest to date, in fact) fic. Set the day before Prussia's dissolution.
Enjoy.
-Minor editing has taken place-
Kiss Me Hardy
By LawlietLennoxLove
"..Prussia."
Yet another one. Come to visit him again, he supposes, as with all the others. And like all the others, 'visit' would be synonymous with either seeing him off on his deathbed, mostly to assuage their own consciences, or out of an almost indecent curiosity, to ogle and gawp at the soon-to-be gone nation.
Hungary had been in the former category, and Austria too, thought they'd been…oh, kind, thoughtful enough not to appear together. They might have tried their best to be nice to him, but that was the one burden he didn't have to carry, and he wasn't going to take it on, either. The result had been that Hungary had been all but thrown out, in tears, no less (and it'd felt good, for a while, in a savage, twisted way; she'd deserved it).
And anyway, Austria was always going to be there for her. Lucky Hungary.
Speaking of that ridiculously delicate-looking aristocrat: no, he hadn't been crying when he'd left, as shame, but he hadn't seemed all that close to happy, either: Prussia almost feels guilty; he'd rejected the offer to have the piano played to him, which was more than Austria had been obliged to give, but 'almost' was an important word here.
As for the latter, who didn't feel the fascination, to cover the footsteps of the condemned as they toured the death row, and even see the felon for themselves, hear that voice, will it be in denial, or accepting, or despairing? Countries he hardly even knew, with those intentions barely hidden under the thinly-stretched guise of giving support, and condolences.
A faint line appears between his brows: he really doesn't want to think of such things. Somewhere inside him there's a desperate panic, that no, stop, wind back the clock, this was all wrong, his last day should be perfect, even if war, being a nation, this whole absurdity was just that, nonsense, and he of all people should know that, being born slap bang in the middle of the cycle of death-and-vultures, even if, there should still be some sort of a poetical justice, there has to be.
It wasn't right. He couldn't die, not without having found some kind of meaning, not without having said something memorable. Kiss me, Hardy, but he'd cold-shouldered him, silently blaming, and now Hardy was nowhere near.
He tries to keep calm, because he'd afraid, oh yes he is, of what might happen if he doesn't. This is no battlefield, and there's no honour, despite the pristine sheets, the porcelain teacups, the fact that the window he's staring out of, clinging onto the silvery glow of the sunset with increasing anguish despite his efforts to keep that in check, isn't barred. There's no honour in being shown a façade of mercy.
He wants to scream, to rage and accuse, even cry and fall to his knees and plead with whatever god that he didn't want to go, not like this, not alone. Anything but this empty blank, it was the waiting he couldn't stand, waiting upon his 'dissolution', which really was just a primped-up gloss for the raw blood-and-gallows of 'execution'. How ironical, that for all his…desolation that he was going to die now, his last hours were spent wishing them away. Quickly.
But, true to a descendant of Germania, he kept all that to the small dip on his forehead, an almost stern face and a stiff (too stiff) back.
(Small ripples are juddering across the bitter amber surface of his already-cold tea, the only indication that his hands are shaking.)
"Prussia." Slightly more insistent. Still he keeps his back to the door.
Who was it this time?
He can instantly cross almost all the countries he'd heard of off the list, with the exception of France (a good thing, too, since his signature was on the death warrant, no wonder he didn't have the guts to show his face to his good friend), and his charge, Canada.
He doesn't think for a moment that it's either, though: he knows that voice.
Another country with his blood splashed onto their fingers, from a leaking fountain pen jolting across official documents. Not that it was from any qualms on the writer's behalf.
The writer: who other than England.
"Prussia."
"That's me," he finally greets, bitter as the liquid in his hand. "Though you'll soon be taking care of that."
He sets his teacup down, careful not to let it clatter against the windowsill, and at long last turns round.
It's England, all right.
"Austria says to call him if you want anything." Small talk: he's hedging, and could it be, that the Great British Empire was at a loss for what to say to his own prisoner? Prussia's not going to help him. But small talk or not, how unlike Austria.
"We're going to hand you to the Soviet Union tomorrow, you know."
Well, apparently not. Prussia merely continues to watch him, a fragment of the pale, greying light coming through the window falling across fractionally narrowed eyes. A coil of antipathy and scorn passes through them, a drop of black poison that twists and curls like smoke as it dissolves in wine-red depths. Of course he knew.
"You're afraid." He says it as a statement, of course he does, the last vestiges of arrogance are firmly set into those emerald (the jewels and finery he was so very greedy for) eyes, eyes that probe, searching.
"Aren't you?" he presses. This one could set a category all for himself, Prussia muses. Come to gloat?
"It's a nice sunset," he offers blandly, after a long pause of watching that almost hungry gaze. Meaning: why are you here. How anticlimactic. If England (many apologies: The Great British Empire) wanted to play, well, Prussia was never one to turn down a fight. He stares, expressionless, at the captivating (and capturing) jewels riveted to his own, as England stalks towards him; surefooted as any feline, even in this situation, in this setting (especially in this setting, he had a right to be sure of himself and he knew it, after all, he wasn't the one sitting in a pretty little cage waiting to be thrown to the lions).
Graceful, sinuous, smug.
But then again, Prussia was never one to play the poor, defenceless canary either, was he?
Contrary to what Prussia braces himself for, all England does is to approach the windowsill, walking right past him to do so. He's too close: when Prussia twists his head to look over his right shoulder, all he can see is the wings of straw (gold) - coloured hair, and the tip of his ear. Now he's the one being ignored.
Their elbows are touching; he jerks it away. England doesn't comment.
He has no idea what to do, what to say; all he is doing is whiling away the time. Should he be doing something, should he turn to watch the sunset side-by-side with someone who could be offering a last gesture of friendship, or should he be kicking this 'friend' of his out?
In the end he's left standing there, inanely, facing the partially-open door, stealing glances to his side. No good: he can't see England's expression, he could be laughing for all he knew, though he doubts that. He hopes no-one comes in: such an inadequate thought for the moment (and the whole damned mess), but it's all he can manage.
"It is," England says, softly. A rustle, as England lifts his eyes away from the window and whatever he's been thinking, whatever stretch of reminiscence he's been lost in, and towards where Prussia is. Supposedly.
Prussia winces internally (so he should have moved), still not doing anything, until England reaches out, latches onto his arm and actually steers him round.
"What's going to happen?" he asks, voice earnest. It takes Prussia a few moments to process the question, since it's so unlike his usual imperious-tinted assuredness.
"Surely you didn't come all this way just to taunt me?" Prussia tosses out. Not because he believes it, not because he has any sort of plan or even aim, but simply it's the first thing that rises to mind; he needs to drag this back onto familiar ground, and England was acting far too familiar for comfort.
England brushes it aside, his grip on Prussia tightening urgently (and dare he believe it, with a streak of his own desperation, the fissure that cracks apart and renders useless even the most exquisite of jewels?). "Do you know? Do you have a choice?" The dying light gives snakeskin-green eyes a feverish glitter.
And quite suddenly the moment splinters and Prussia's had enough, he doesn't know what England's after and he's not interested, and he doesn't know what he wants, either, but whatever it is it's not to stand here with a cup of forgotten tea between them that neither of them sees, discussing the what-ifs on whether or not he was going to vanish in a flare of celluloid.
"I guess we'll all find out tomorrow," he says sourly, the blood-jewels of his own eyes stony. He shakes England off, disregarding the other's obvious surprise, and strides to his bed before throwing himself down, more forcefully than necessary, onto it.
England says something, or perhaps several things: maybe threats, maybe promises, maybe more infernal questions. Or maybe nothing at all; quaint little acts of convention, faithfully followed gestures of nothingness.
It doesn't matter to him. He lies there, hair scattered across the pillow, waiting for the door to close and the footsteps to fade.
(The next day, when he's led to the courtroom and made to stand before the pulpit, each of them, himself included, knowing his sentence before it's read out with such absurd pomp and ceremony, his eyes flit restlessly about in the fast-slipping hope of finding something perfect for his last moments. They find England, or should it be His Honour Sir Kirkland here, and when he seems entirely unaffected by Prussia's wordless entreatment of a response, even a twitch of his finger or a tilt of his head, that's when it hits him: though everyone here was fixated on Prussia, England wasn't actually looking at him, but rather scrutinizing. Calculating. Watching the experiment, with Prussia as the object.
So that's what it'd all been about, yesterday. Of course, with India so inconveniently playing up and all, and it was obvious to anyone that he'd seen better days: he was afraid, for his own precious Empire, for himself. Afraid he'll vanish, with a snap of official fingers. That's why he'd been so interested.
He's leaning back in his seat now, eyes glinting with relief and satisfaction. So it must be done, then, and he's still here; that's the only reason England could be looking so happy.
Prussia feels like laughing: England really hadn't cared one shred about him at all.
He wonders how he'd ever even considered otherwise.
Too late, he searches frantically round for his genuine Hardy, one that wouldn't leave him to bleed to death on the battlefield.
He doesn't find him, and is escorted away before he can.)
A/N: ….No, nothing to say for myself.