Estonia pushed open the door to the Baltics' bedroom with an exhausted sigh. Latvia was passed out on his back, having consumed too much alcohol.

After what had happened, Estonia had been tempted to take a couple shots himself, but the next day was already going to be a headache with one of them hung-over.

He had considered going after Lithuania, but he hadn't been entirely sure where to look or what to say, and someone needed to watch Latvia. Besides, the one who needed to apologize was Latvia, and he would make sure he did when he woke up, and then this would blow over and everything would be back to normal.

Except that when he opened the door, he was greeted with the sight of Lithuania packing all his belongings into a bag. Not that any of them had much, but that was beside the point.

"What are you doing?" Estonia asked, laying Latvia on their shared bed.

"I'm moving out. Getting my own room." His replies were clipped, like he was trying to restrain himself.

Estonia was confused. "Why?" It wasn't as if he could just choose to stay in a different room whether he liked it or not. Unless Russia had ordered it. But if that were the case, Estonia was only more curious.

Lithuania shrugged, not even looking at him as he closed the bag and picked it up. "Latvia was right."

Estonia's frown deepened. This…didn't make any sense. And Lithuania was acting weird. "I don't understand."

"Latvia was right," he said again. "I'm not the same as you two. I've been tricking you into thinking I was just one of Russia's servants like you two so that I could keep you under control. But since you know now, there's no point in me playing servant any longer."

Lithuania still wasn't looking at him, and he could see how tense he was. He looked really uncomfortable, like he just wanted to run out of the room that moment.

"Did Russia put you up to this?"

He swore he saw Lithuania flinch slightly.

Lithuania finally met his gaze with a rarely seen seriousness. "I made my own choice." With that, he turned away and walked towards the door.

"I don't believe you," Estonia called to his turned back.

Lithuania paused, hand tightly grasping the doorknob. His grip loosened slightly, and he let out a short, mirthless laugh. He turned to look at Estonia again. His eyes were cold, lacking the warmth Estonia was used to seeing.

"Don't be a fool, Estonia. You're letting your emotions blind you." He opened the door, but just as he was stepping out he threw out one last insult. "I thought you were smarter than that."

And then he was gone.

Lithuania had just finished putting his few pairs of clothes into one of the drawers when Russia barged into his new room.

"How'd it go?" He sounded almost… excited?

Despite himself, Lithuania couldn't help but wonder if these twisted games were Russia's only way of entertaining himself and that if they could somehow find some other, less painful way to keep him entertained, then maybe he'd stop forcing them to play these games.

He vaguely entertained the idea of offering to play card games or something with Russia instead of doing this, but he had a feeling Russia wouldn't go for it, and he was almost certain Russia would find a way to ruin card games.

So he sighed, resigned to his fate, though he still had one faint hope left.

"I don't think Estonia bought it. I'm telling you, this isn't going to work."

But of course, (as he had more-or-less expected) that wasn't nearly enough to convince Russia to give up. "Nonsense! You just need to try harder."

"Well, what exactly do you want me to do about it?" Lithuania was extremely thankful that Russia was in such an unusually good mood. Any other time, speaking to him like that would've gotten him in big trouble.

But he really wasn't in the mood to be polite. He was tired and wanted this entire thing to be over even though it really hadn't even begun yet. Usually it was just him playing Russia's games, but this time everyone was playing along, and he hated having to lie to his brothers. And for what? Russia's amusement?

"Don't worry about it! We'll figure it out later. For now, just try and get some sleep, da?"

Lithuania nodded, and, satisfied, Russia left.

But Lithuania did worry. Russia hadn't seemed bothered at all by the fact that Estonia wasn't playing along with his little game. In fact, he had seemed rather happy about it, which implied that he knew exactly what they were going to do to change that.

And that did worry him. Russia had ways of forcing people to play along, and they were never pleasant.

Latvia awoke the next morning with a splitting headache, but it didn't take long to realize that that wasn't the only thing that was wrong that morning.

"Estonia!" he whispered insistently, knowing from experience how much pain came from loud noises when he had a hangover. He reached over, desperately trying to wake the older boy. His head felt like it was exploding, but he tried to ignore it. This was more important.

"Where's Lithuania?" he asked desperately, though his voice was still hushed. He hoped that Toris had just gotten up early, but one glance at Estonia's face told him otherwise.

Estonia sighed, sitting up. "He's gone, Latvia," he answered, also keeping his voice low.

"Wh-what?"

"I don't know if you remember, but last night you said some things to him, and… well, it turns out you were right."

"I-I don't…" His eyes widened, remembering the event Estonia had mentioned. "But-but… I didn't…" His shoulders slumped. "I didn't mean it…"

"He's betrayed us, Latvia." Part of him thought that there was something odd about the whole situation, but until he found out what, this was all he really knew – that Lithuania had chosen Russia over them. At least, that's what Lithuania claimed… Maybe he had been right. Maybe Estonia was letting his emotions keep him from seeing the truth.

"H-he wouldn't…" Estonia looked away, and Latvia could feel tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He'd thought Lithuania had cared for them.

'How could he –?'

A/N: Hopefully with this chapter things make more sense (if they didn't before). If anyone's confused by Estonia, I don't know what to tell you; I am too. Also, I know nothing about hangovers.