part one; prussia
As horrible as it is, Prussia is glad for the war.
(He is not, in actually, as bloodthirsty as many believe he is. He's seen the ravages of war, the pure waste of it, and that little amount of violence simply isn't worth it. And this is certainly a far cry from throwing arrows at Lithuania, all those years ago.)
Revenge on France, certainly- but it's also that irritable birdcall of war, pulling at his hair and his veins because he was created for this, for this purpose, and it keeps him alive now. Prussia isn't supposed to exist, you see. (He pretended he didn't see the relief and shock in Germany's eyes when he showed up holding a beer at midnight. His house had disappeared and he's woken up on literal bedrock. He'd promptly gotten pissed drunk.) He might have lived, maybe, if he'd killed the little reincarnation of the Holy Roman Empire that he'd found on the road and called the German Confederation when he'd first found him, but he'd kept him- as a matter of idle curiosity at first and then a growing, personal and rather petty desire to show Austria that yes, he did in fact have sufficient parenting skills to take care of a kid, thank you very much.
And now, because of that, he didn't have a reason to exist properly, but he couldn't bring himself to hate the beautiful man that his brother had grown up to be, not now when he was tall and proud with his uniform and Iron Cross and most of all his alone, no matter what- so he stood silent, refusing to die. To help his brother, he whispered to the specter of death, let me hang on- and it had been true too, at that, and (memories of Teutonic Knights, black on white shields and yelling his awesomeness to the world and tussling with a little bossy brown-haired boy with big green eyes). He's determined to live as long as he can, and when they win (or not) and West doesn't need him anymore, maybe then he'll fade away. Or maybe he'll die like a martyr in a battle, even though that's a sad idea, not getting to say goodbye to West, but it'll still be awesome. And if he can take France down with him, and maybe the crazy drunkard Eyebrows too, all the better. He smiles, crouching in the dark, and the young soldier stationed next to him glances, shudders, and looks away.
(west is sharp-sunlight and blue sky eyes and he's unsurprised to just know one day he's in love.)
(and then- after- one day west comes into his room and confesses with a pinched face and drawn-together eyebrows, perhaps expecting that he'll disapprove or mock, but he just laughs, self-deprecatingly, and says that love is love and because he's old-fashioned that yes, they do have his blessing for a union, and that he'd better enjoy himself. he grins as west flails, blushes and nods, and in his mind he adds the unspoken, don't get your heart broken. he just hopes italy, bright-eyed, amber-colored italy, the one who stood over a broken france repeatedly slamming the broken end of a spear into his chest and cried endlessly- won't break him. because he deserves it, even if prussia doesn't.)
a/n. I don't even know. Hetalia isn't mine. These drabble-fic things are the result of my brain screwing me over during math class or possibly breaking down due to stress. They used to be mostly incoherent. I've cleaned most of it up, but sorry for any confusing stuff or typos or disjointed sentences. Also, these aren't really meant to be historically accurate, and again I'm sorry for the length and the disorderly sentence structure. Two more parts to go. Will be posted quickly.
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