I'm sorry for my lack of Hetalia fics lately, but hopefully this and the promise of a longer PruAus in the making will make up for it. Poor Prussia and his repressed crush.

A Soldier's Dance

Prussia didn't remember the first time he had ever laid eyes on Austria, but perhaps it had been when he was a young child and they were both duchies, and Prussia was always just a little smaller, a little younger, a little less important. He was the stain on the lily-white gloves Austria had worn on his hands, even as a young nation, and even if Austria denied it now Prussia remembered a time when a young Austria had fought Spain viciously and won, and Prussia had sworn in that moment that he could be just as fierce, just as decisive, and just as victorious.

It had been a blow to his pride when he had seen Austria for what he really was, a weak lord who would rather barricade himself behind expensive wooden doors and fluttering paper, a helpless aristocrat through-and-through. The thought that he had once envied such a weakling was sickening, and he had sworn to take Austria down, to show the world that the little master Austria had become did not deserve to stand at the reigns of Europe's power. The little master liked to dance and so Prussia would do so, and he would show Austria that a soldier's dance, a soldier's step, could be just as graceful and powerful as that of a silk-clad noble. And he had. The dance, however, had not stopped there.

Were he honest with himself, he would admit that it still hadn't. The dance was an ever-present thing, a give-and-take that had switched from an exchange of blood to an exchange of words, sharp and disapproving on one side and cocky and unheeding on the other, with Prussia's poor brother left to reprimand them both from the middle ground.

Prussia wasn't concerned. West could handle himself, leaving Prussia free to continue to needle the little master, lamenting the weakness that had only gotten worse with time as his empire crumbled and his marriages dissolved, and if he had pitied Austria, well, that was all right—he wasn't fool enough to ignore the fact that Austria had once contemptuously pitied him as well, no matter what the violet-eyed nation thought, and Prussia also wasn't fool enough to let Austria know that his own pity hadn't been entirely contemptuous.

That was almost like a dance too, Prussia thought sourly. A pitiful one.

He laughed harshly, and the sound must have alerted the other occupant of the room, for he could feel Austria's pretty violet eyes weighing heavily on him from where the other nation reclined on the ottoman, book in hand, glasses perched prissily on the end of his nose. Prussia snorted, but if he had hoped for a reaction he was disappointed, for Austria merely sighed and went back to his book, allowing Prussia to observe him sharply.

Was this like a dance, too? This… sitting here, doing nothing, relaxing? It certainly wasn't like the days where Prussia would march out to meet Austria, steel against steel, on the battlefield. There were no cavalrymen, no muskets firing in the background, no screams of the dead and dying as two nations faced off against each other, and sometimes Prussia found he missed it. Not the dead and dying, he couldn't miss that, but he missed the thrill, and he missed the sight of Austria sprawled at his feet, fallen, his pristine demeanour shattered by blood and grime and his face flushed with defeat and shame as he faced the end of Prussia's blade. It had always made Prussia's heart pound in his chest, and his blood had always rushed at the sight, turning his own face red with the flush of victory at the sight.

He had expressed that to his brother once, and had been confused by the way West had studied him with concerned eyes before the concern had given away to surprise and resignation. West had then merely sighed before muttering that his dance with Austria had been going on longer than he had even been alive, and "would you please try to act civilly around him, brother? It would do you more good than me." Prussia, unwilling to show his confusion, had merely laughed loudly at the idea.

As he studied Austria now, he wondered what West had meant, and he frowned as he realised he was actually thinking about it.

"Are you going to say something, Prussia, or just keep staring at me?" Austria asked, and Prussia couldn't help the grin that stole across his face at the Austrian's testy tone of voice. He rolled his shoulders in a lazy shrug, eyeing the way Austria had tensed even as he flipped the page of his book.

"Just marvelling at how incredibly fucking boring you are these days," Prussia said loudly—almost too loudly, for it made Austria look up again, and the frown on his face made Prussia's grin falter for a moment before he pushed on, and he wondered what it was that had made him so nervous all of a sudden. It was just with the priss, and Austria had never been worth getting nervous over, in Prussia's opinion.

That, of course, didn't stop it from happening over and over, until nervousness in the Austrian's presence had become second nature, making his voice too loud, his actions too exaggerated, and his words too challenging. It had been that way ever since he was small, and Prussia was irked by the fact that it was still present, even all these years later, and he was glad that Austria was too irked by him to pay attention to it.

"Don't be vulgar," Austria said snippily, and Prussia rolled his eyes.

"How is that vulgar?" he whinged, and Austria just sent him another sharp look before he rose from the couch and made to leave the room. It sent Prussia's mind into a frenzy, one he didn't understand—all he knew was that Austria couldn't leave, not yet, so when the violet-eyed nation passed by him he didn't think twice before he reached out to snag Austria's wrist, his grip too tight, something he didn't realise until Austria winced, causing Prussia to release the other man like he had been burned, which was ridiculous because Prussia had gloves on and why the hell was he even—

"Prussia?"

Prussia glanced up from where he was sitting, not liking the small spark of concern in Austria's voice, and he shook his head and scowled.

"It was nothing. Go—garden or something. Or write music. That's what you like to do, right?"

Austria sighed, and when he spoke again the concern was gone, replaced only by weariness. "As you say. Don't get boot prints on my furniture," he murmured before gliding out of the room, leaving Prussia to scowl after his retreating back as he childishly drew his knees up to his chest, pressing his boots into the rest velvet of the chair he sat in, wondering all the while why his heart was once again pounding, and why it felt for all the world like he had just missed some part of the dance.