So...this is a request from my friend Chibifox. Actually, it was a pretty vague request ("Can you do a PruHun? Or a RussAme. Whichever works"), and she was somewhat horrified when she found out what I was doing to our beloved Prussia. Oh well, that's what you get for being vague, and it turned out nicely I think. :P

Rated for Gil's potty mouth.

Bon appetit~

"Hello, Gil."

I somehow knew it was her. Honestly, who else would be knocking on the door on a Monday morning? I guess that meant she was still working that part-time thing at the university. Of course that had been about the last I'd heard of her, and that was three or four years ago…when she got…married… Where the hell'd she get this address? Probably Ludwig or Feli. Did that mean she knew…? I guess it depended on who sent her here. Feli would've gone off on a tangent and completely forgotten to mention it. Bruder…well, that's another story entirely.

She seemed less…bright than usual. Maybe she did know. Oh well. She shouldn't be worrying about me, I'm awesome enough to look out for my own awesome self. I don't need any help and I especially don't need any damn pity.

…Please God, listen for once, if either of them told her, just…erase it from her memory. That's the last fucking thing I need, fucking sympathy.

I felt my usual awesome grin slip into place. I hoped my eyes were focused right. "Hey Lizzie. Long time no see. Took a while, but of course you finally started to miss the awesome, didn't you?"

I heard the light scoff. She was rolling her eyes, fighting back a smile. "Of course. Life without your constant heckling was just so unbearable."

My grin widened. "Of course it was! My heckling is awesome, you should feel privileged that you got to experience it for so long."

A momentary pause.

"Well, are you going to let me in like a gentleman, or are you going to leave a lady standing out in the cold?"

Was that a kidding sort of tone? I really prayed that she was kidding. About the whole gentleman thing I mean. If she wasn't…fuck, that prissy aristocrat had really ruined her. What a waste. A fucking waste. The Elizaveta I know would've just pushed me out of the way and- stop thinking, fucktard, let her in.

I moved and she brushed past me; she was wearing perfume. Heavy, fancy perfume. One of those that has a celebrity's name and then some stupid frilly single word thing. Pulse, by Brittany. I felt my nose wrinkle. Not awesome, Liz. "Living room's down on the right."

I followed her footsteps; they sounded like boots, and not her old, worn-in combat boots. These were new. Probably expensive. Probably from Roderich.

Yeah, so I was still a little pissed about all that. Never liked the guy. He was an unawesome pussy, I never quite figured out what she saw in him. But you know, if she's happy…no, no, I still hate him.

I heard the by-now familiar creak as she settled on the ottoman. I brushed around her narrowly, choosing the arm of the sofa as my preferred perch. "So what brings you here on this awesome morning?"

Silence for a second or two. A quiet creak as her weight shifted. "Well, Feli told me you'd finally moved out of Ludwig's house-"

"What? That's old shit, it's been like a year and a half since then!"

"Let me finish, please." Damn, I hated that…control. I sorta wished she'd lash out or something. Anything. "As I was saying, Feli told me you'd moved out, and he gave me your address…I would've come sooner, I really would've, but things haven't been…great recently."

"Kesese, you know why? Cuz you weren't hanging out with me as much as you should've. My awesome would've made it all better."

"Believe it or not, your 'awesome' can't fix everything." Ah, that got a little bit of a bite. Must've hit a nerve. Awesome.

"Oh, I beg to differ. Never doubt the power of pure awesome."

"He divorced me."

…

Well.

At least he hadn't managed to screw up that part of her personality. Still as blunt as ever. My awesome grin faltered for a moment.

Best way to react: probably some sympathetic shit, offer my condolences. Be a good sport, whatever the fuck that meant.

...

Yeah right.

Scoff. "I knew he was no good for you. I told you that, what…four years ago now?"

"Ff…Yes, Gil, I know. Silly me, expecting anything other than an 'I told you so' from you." Ha, she was getting mad now, she almost cursed. Maybe she wasn't too far gone.

"Ja, silly you. Don't worry, if you spend enough time basking in my awesomeness, you'll learn."

I didn't see it coming. Well, that's obvious, I don't see much of anything coming anymore, but you know what I mean. It's not like a fist makes much noise when it's flying through the air.

She knocked my awesome self clean off the sofa, but that's only because I wasn't expecting it. The punch itself was pretty pathetic. A sick puppy could've hurt me more. She'd definitely lost some muscle tone along the way.

I sat up, grinning. "That wasn't much of a punch."

"Enough to knock you down." Her voice was tight. Was she trying not to cry? How sweet. How disgustingly sweet. "That was a softball, Gil. What's wrong with you? Losing your 'awesome' touch?"

"Ha. You wish."

There was silence for a few long seconds. I thought I heard her footsteps on the carpet but the high ceiling made it hard to tell where she was.

"Gil?"

There she was. "What?"

"…What's really going on?"

"Kesese, what do you mean? I-"

"It's like you didn't even see that punch coming." Vibrations through the carpeted floor, she was coming closer. Dull echoes whispered up into the vaulted ceiling.

"Nah, I just figured-"

"You didn't even look at me."

"…" Shit. I was stuck now. And she could see it.

She was silent a little longer.

"Gil, are you…are your eyes…"

Fuck.

"They aren't…Gil…"

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

"…Are you…blind?"

...Might as well make the best of it. I grinned; I hoped it didn't end up looking as sheepish as I felt. "Heh. I was getting there. Pretty awesome, huh? I've got that whole…blind-oracle-guy-sexy-mystique going for me now."

Silence. It pulled down on me; the longer it lasted, the harder it was to keep grinning.

"C'mon, Liz, I can't see you, the least you could do is answer-"

"Why didn't you tell me this was happening?"

How to put this delicately…ugh. Sometimes I wished tact came a little more naturally to me. Not a lot more, that would really suck, but there were times when it would've made my life a hell of a lot easier.

"We…haven't exactly been talking a lot recently."

"And whose fault was that?"

"You're seriously going to try and put all this on me? You're just as much to blame."

"I sent you an invitation, Gil!"

She was really mad now. I just prayed she wouldn't pull the frying pan on a blind guy…nope, I was screwed, there was no way I was getting out of this in one piece.

"And it wasn't just one invitation either! I sent you two, three, letters, emails! I gave you every chance to just…accept it and move on, and there is no fucking way I'm going to let you keep acting like you're the only one who's been hurt by all of this!"

I just sat there, stunned, probably looking as idiotic and unawesome as I felt. What could I really do? Apologies are stupid, and besides, they're for the weak. And no matter what that pussy aristocratic douchebag did to her, I knew that on the inside she was not weak. And so she wouldn't want an apology, not at this point. It wasn't enough. But then what the fuck did she want me to do…?

"Listen, Gil," She was close now, too close, somewhere on the floor beside me; that fancy perfume of hers was thick and suffocating. She was quieter now, and there was pain and a hint of venom in her tone. I knew I wouldn't be able to see her, but for some reason I still couldn't bring myself to face her. "I don't expect you to understand, since now I'm not sure if you've ever cared about anything in your life besides that bird and your own over-inflated ego, but you know what? It wasn't easy for me to marry Roderich when you were standing by saying you'd never speak to me again if I did, and...sometimes I think that's the only reason I did it. Before that, I thought you at least held a shred of esteem for me, but to cut ties completely over something so…so stupid. What that showed me was that you'd only ever cared about yourself, and God forbid that you be inconvenienced in any way for another person." She sighed, heavily, shakily. Was she crying? I couldn't tell. "If that was the case, there was obviously no point in keeping in touch with you. And the fact that you still somehow think that that didn't hurt me at all just shows that I was right about you all along."

Alright, so maybe I had overreacted a little to the "good news". But seriously, what I saw was that pale scrap of landed nobility turning my fierce, beautiful Magyar into a tame housewife. And she really thought I was just going to stand by and let him do that to her! It's like she didn't even notice what was happening to her…she was as blind as I was if she couldn't see how much he had warped her from what she used to be.

Well, maybe she was as blind as me…what then? Would she listen to me? Believe me if I told her why I'd been so angry? Why I was still angry? The question hung above me, unspoken and unanswered.

I took a deep breath. Only one way to find out…

"Liz…" My voice felt tight, a little rough. No, I absolutely was not holding back tears. I'm way too awesome for that, it was probably just a cold coming on. "I was…well, I was worried about you. The way he treated you, and the way you acted around him and talked to him…it's like he turned you into a different person. And…I mean, I wasn't scared or anything," I laughed shakily. "The awesome me is never scared. But…I wasn't going to just stand by and let you become someone else. And when I told you all that about never talking to you again…I was trying to bring you back. Because my Elizaveta never would've chosen that soft prissy asshole over me, and when you did…I figured…well, I thought I was too late." Fuck, was I blushing? Christ, I was! No, no, no no no, this had officially gotten too soft for me. "A-and don't get me wrong, it's not like I cared about you more than anyone else! It's just…childhood friends and all that, shit's gotta count for something…" I trailed off into an awkward and defensive silence. Yeah, so that didn't go as nearly as smoothly as I'd wanted…

She didn't say anything for a while, letting that information soak in. I couldn't help but wonder what was running through her head. Finally she spoke again, and she sounded like she'd made some sort of decision. About what, I had no clue. "...When did this start happening?"

I rubbed my neck awkwardly, a little thrown off by the subject shift. "Um...well, honestly it had already started the year before we graduated. They kept increasing the strength of my contacts and darkening the tint on them, and that got me through college, but...they finally told me there was nothing they could really do about it..." I forced a grin onto my face. "Bruder and Vati were always nagging me to wear sunglasses when I went outside, but that was boring and unawesome, it's not like I was going to listen."

"…So…you can't see anything at all?"

The grin slipped away. "Um…not really…I mean, I can see light and dark and some objects, but they're all way too fuzzy to recognize. And too much light hurts my awesome eyes and gives me killer migraines, so I try to keep it sorta dark in here."

"Hm…"

Fuck, I really wished I knew what she was thinking…she wasn't letting on that she'd even heard what I said earlier. Dammit, all that work for nothing…it'd be fucking embarrassing and unawesome if I just spilled my guts like that only for her to ignore me. I mean, come on, after all that, the least she could do would be to acknowledge that talking like that was very difficult for me and such lapses in my usual awesomeness should be appreciated or at least commented upon-

Warm fingers around mine cut me off mid-mind-rant. I felt her pulling me forward slowly, resolvedly, bringing my hand up to her face, resting it above her cheekbone; the skin was soft and almost feverishly warm under my cold, calloused fingertips. She dropped her grip entirely as I trailed my fingers across her cheeks, her forehead. I had never appreciated the arch of her cheekbones so much, or the slightly Slavic curve to her nose. Her eyelids fluttered, her lips parted slightly as I brushed them, feeling her warm breath ghost across my skin. I wanted more of that warmth; my fingers worked their way back across the shell of her ear, tangling in her soft hair, pressing against her neck, pulling her closer.

She was yielding, but at the same time, she just…wasn't. Something in her manner told me that she was letting me do this, that she wasn't folding just because I wanted her to. And as disgustingly sappy as it is, I realized that that was what I was worried she was going to lose, that inner pride and strength that made her who she was. Well, obviously she hadn't lost it yet.

Her fingers were resting lightly at the back of my neck now, gentle but insistent, pulling me closer, pressing my lips to her forehead, her cheeks. She was encouraging me like I was a timid child, and maybe I was; maybe I needed to be led, because…all along I'd been too afraid to act on my own.

Our lips met. My other hand traced its way down her body, resting at her waist. I relished the strength in every inch of her body; I didn't really see until then that that was a lot of what kept me going. She had always been steadfast and stubborn, and without her there to drag my awesome self, kicking and screaming, into doing things, I was a lazy pale lump that was good for even less now that it could barely tell light from dark.

So in the end, she was…well…she was my reason for living.

…

P.S. – Don't let her know I said that.

Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it.

They got rid of the periwinkle button a long time ago, so I guess now I have to say that the little blue hyperlink with the bubble next to it is feeling lonely. Please give it some love in the form of constructive criticism.

~Erisu Koumei