Originally this was going to have Prussia and Austria in it. But there seemed to be so much to write about Prussia (just little situations and vignettes I imagined) so Austria will be up at some point on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday depending on my motivation. May feature Highwayman!England, which should be fun.
The chapters seem to be getting longer and longer, as is always the case with me. This was supposed to be a one-shot. Oh well. If I redid it I would try an balance it out but meh.
Implied one-sided PruHun, just a little, but it fades pretty quickly if you're not into that sort of thing.
Oh, and I'm getting rid of the het couples (i.e. Belgium and Lichtenstein) because they're probably not going to be popular and this'll take fucking ages to write if I don't narrow it down a little.
Read and review, please! And vote, especially if you know you're going to vote for one of the people I've already written.
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Please Don't Send Me Roses: Prussia
Rating: T for the minute
Genre: Just romance, with a little modern history in there. GCSE History is good for something, after all
Pairings: England X The World-ish. Missed a few countries out or it would go on forever.
WARNINGS: None except implications and language. Maybe some angst.
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..:.:.:.]Prussia[.:.:.:..
Gilbert could pinpoint to the day, in fact, to the moment, when he began loving Arthur. He had always had something of a fascination with the island nation: he had in the past had very little to do with him; he had never invaded that far west, the furthest his territories expanded to being Alsace-Lorraine briefly from the end of the Franco-Prussian was until after the First World War. However, he had heard from Francis when they were little about the lonely little Kingdom across the sea to the west, where it always rained and a small yet violent boy with no-one in the world tried to show them all that he could handle himself, thanks very much. As the Teutonic order he reacted indifferently but secretly could not ignore the fact that the bells in his head were ringing because this boy sounded very much like himself.
Much later on he would sit and listen to Antonio complain suspiciously loudly about the rather dashing green-eyed pirate who spoke with a cut-glass accent and delighted in stealing Spanish gold. And Gilbert, who had rather a splendid empire going on at the time, contemplated both their pasts and where they ended up. He concluded, Well, little island man, looks like we both did pretty awesomely for ourselves in the end. You even avoided having you vital regions seized by the awesome me.
As Arthur came to hold a third of the world in the palm of his hand Gilbert's fascination grew; such a very small nation having such great power and territory was unheard of since Rome. He would occasionally ask Francis about him when they were still on speaking terms. (There was a hundred-and-twenty year gap from the end of the Franco-Prussian War – a French loss – to when the Berlin wall came down where they exchanged not a word. Preceding that had been a hundred years or so of slow-burn enmity where the only words between them were insults. They were only very slowly regaining the mutual trust they used to have over the past twenty years or so.) He would always ask, jokingly, "Perhaps you could do him the honour of introducing him to the awesome me?" He would always note with some interest the brief flash of anger, and was that possessiveness?, that would twist his features for a fraction of a second before the blonde would laugh like a stabbed horse and say something along the lines of "Mon cher, he is so very superstitious, is mon lapin. With your eyes he would think you were a vampire or something similarly malevolent and non-existent." He never tried to visit England, fearing Francis's reactions if he did would not be pleasant. There was always a hint of possessiveness, whether intentional or not Prussia drew a blank, in the way Francis spoke of Arthur. Gilbert always found this laughable.
The War of the Austrian Succession came, and from across the battlefield he saw a wild-green-eyed demon so intent on destroying his dearest enemy he would fight in a war that gained him nothing purely because of the chances of destroying him. He also saw himself: a feral teenager with too much power and no idea what to do with it, concerned with personal slights and personal gains, with no concept of the future, only which battle to fight next. The last remains of innocence long vanquished from a child born into war and hardship, alive on the battlefield if anywhere at all. They even both had one long term enemy whom they had been fighting as long as they could pick up a sword. Fitting that we should meet on the opposite sides of this theatre of bloodshed, we children of war. The awesome me will crush you exquisitely, my friend.
He laughed when he hear that his fellow wilderness boy had deserted his ally in the middle of a war purely to get back at Francis. This boy positively screamed arrogance and the pleasure of security at last after a life made of question marks; now so powerful he would dare to risk war with a former ally because of a personal vendetta. He would dare to leave an entire war because it simply wasn't interesting to him. Gilbert's throat swelled with delighted chuckles at the sound of Austria cursing Arthur to hell. Truly, Arthur was a man after his own heart.
Overall, the feelings were always a little strong to be purely admiration. But the exact build-up of events which lead to Gilbert falling head-over-heels for Arthur only really culminated on that day.
18th June, 1815. The battle was finally won, the two children of war at last subduing the overgrown monster the French empire had become. Francis had been carted off long ago by his soldiers and the two victors stood giddy with victory and high on the endorphins keeping the pain from their injuries at bay. The air smelt of gun smoke and tasted of death. Red and green eyes glowed triumphantly as they surveyed the chaos that they left in the wake of their victory. Arthur looked awed, and as a matter of fact so did he. They both knew they had a mutual appreciation of the utter beauty of chaos and destruction; the childish satisfaction of blowing away in an instant what must have taken a lifetime to create.
Ash fluttered in the air and nested in Arthur's eyelashes like snowflakes. He had a cut tracing the line of cheekbone trickling blood down the left of his face and some of his face was blackened with gunpowder and dirt. If he noticed he did nothing about it. His torn, blood red coat was now blood-stained, and his hat abandoned a while back revealing messy and at some points singed hair. The sky in the background was sunset red and orange, the clouds lavender grey. The shades matched the burnt blacks, grey ash and red blood that coloured the battlefield all over the place. And Arthur seemed to fit the scene as if painted in. If I am a vampire then he is a demon. Was what came into Gilbert's head.
The exact moment Gilbert fell for Arthur was when the green-eyed man just about finished enjoying the damage. He suddenly took Gilbert's hand in his and said the three words that captured the almost-albino's heart. Spoken softly, almost inaudibly, eyes still firmly fixed on the chaotic wasteland the battle left. Perhaps they were inappropriate; to Gilbert they were the most beautiful three words in the world.
A reverential whisper of, "We did this."
Gilbert couldn't help but whisper back, "It's awesome."
Arthur tittered a little (Gilbert's heart skipped a beat) and replied, "For once your use of that bloody word is appropriate." Gilbert replied, still murmuring, "That 'bloody' you use so much wouldn't exactly be ill-fitting either, eyebrows." Arthur seemed to be in too good humour to scowl. Gilbert was happy that they seemed to have established a rapport. He was also happy that he was in love with someone so awesome. Not like Elizabeta, who used to be awesome before she fell for that prissy aristocrat. The awesome me could never fall for someone lame.
He was even happier at Arthur's next remark. "Do you want to go somewhere and fuck? I haven't had sex in days and you're not an awful person." He snickered slightly at Arthur's reasons for sex. But then he had spent a large portion of time around Francis.
He looked around pointedly. "What, here?" He asked slightly apprehensively – as much as he found this beautiful, he didn't thing battlefields made particularly comfortable beds.
"No, I know a place." Gilbert ran as fast as Arthur could drag him, so they got there pretty quickly.
'There' turned out to be the church in the abandoned nearby village. Gilbert faltered a little. "It's a church…"
What Arthur did next completely sealed the deal for Gilbert. He grinned a wicked grin and answered, "Yep. Problem?"
Gilbert returned the grin tenfold. "After all, who is God to tell us what to do?"
Arthur seemed very pleased with that answer and smirked back, "Precisely."
Gilbert was one of the first people to receive a rose from Arthur, and indeed one of the few to have it hand delivered by the man himself. "As a small thank-you." The smile he wore this time was warm rather than smug or mocking and Gilbert just felt his heart do backflips.
Right up until the start of WWI Gilbert would receive a rose to match his eyes on 18th June every year. He never saw anyone deliver it, as every recipient of the flower.
Of course, they stopped during the war. Gilbert missed them dreadfully, although he was occasionally rewarded with a glimpse of green eyes or blonde, scruffy hair from the other side of No Man's Land.
Except for one night: the Christmas truce of 1914. Entirely by coincidence, of course, they met in the middle of No Man's Land, while the sound of Silent Night in English and German drifted back and forth across the trenches. Arthur looked weary and thin, although his eyes still blazed inhumanly brightly. He was in his natural habitat, of course. War.
They had a brief conversation about how things were going, both lying through their teeth of course. Arthur then sighed a little sadly. An abrupt topic change from the light-hearted lies of seconds before occurred.
"How bright your eyes burn. I know mine do the same. My battalion remark often on how happy I look in this theatre of death." Gilbert just frowns, not exactly knowing where Arthur is going with it. "We truly are creatures of destruction, are we not, Gilbert?" His then-ally nods in reply. Just nods.
"Our time is drawing to a close. My empire is fading. I am being succeeded by my ex-colony. The very existence of Germany means your time is running out." Gilbert looks like he might object before he realises that would be lying. To himself.
"We are only at home on the battlefield. But people don't want that anymore." At this Gilbert at last responds. "Nein, they don't. But there will always be war."
"But not our war. War is not fought for territory, any longer. War is fought for peace. Empires like us cannot exist in such an environment. Who knows, by the end of this, war may be fought with machines, not men." Gilbert grins uneasily.
"You giving away your battle plans, eyebrows?"
"If I had war machines, do you think I would just keep them sitting unused?" Like their first proper conversation Arthur's eyes are fixed on the battlefield.
Gilbert feels a shiver go down his spine when Arthur takes his hand, rough from reloading a gun numerous times, in his own and loosely gestures to the destruction that faces them.
He again whispers, "We did this." But his eyes shine with sadness. Gilbert feels a wave of shock hit him when he realises Arthur is tired of this, and cynical, and no longer the feral teenager he was. A second wave knocks him for six as he discovers that so is he. They are not wild, anymore. The modern world has tamed them both.
They headed back to Arthur's trench with the intent to fuck. They barely got past the first kiss before they ended up just in each other's arms on the fire step, holding each other. At five minutes to midnight Arthur pressed a rose into Gilbert's hand. "For the past." Gilbert nodded solemnly before walking back to his trench. The truce was over. A bullet whizzed past his ear. Gilbert instinctively knew it was Arthur.
He raised a hand without looking back. Neither of them ever mentioned the incident again.
He didn't get another rose until Hitler dissolved Prussia. It was red and thornless and the note bore the boast: 'I told you so.' Gilbert scowled; they might've been almost enemies by then but he didn't have to rub it in. Although the next day Gilbert turned the paper over and it said, 'I'm so sorry. If it's any consolation I know how you feel.' After the official dissolution in 1947, another rose. 'I was forced to agree. I hope you know I never wanted to vote yes. I've lost my empire, too. Your thread has been cut and I have had to watch mine unravel.' Gilbert was so angry and full of hate and confusion he burnt it. And regretted it a second later.
The roses are all I have left of what we used to have.
He didn't get another rose until the wall fell, although he always checked. The ache in his heart when Ivan wouldn't let him so much as call Arthur to moan about old times killed him, more than any hard labour in Russia's house ever could. (He swore once he saw Ivan bending over the fireplace where something that looked suspiciously like a stem was burning. But he brushed it off. Ivan had no reason to burn something like that; it was both diplomatically and literally harmless.)
Even if it wasn't much, it was surely something.
That year, on that day, as he watched the wall dissembled brick by brick with a mixture of incredulity and bitterness, something spiny and sharp and thin was pressed into his palm amongst the jostle of the crowd. A hand closed around his, trapping whatever it was (he didn't dare to hope), in his fist. He glanced around to see who had done it, but if it was Arthur then he had melted into the crowd.
In the end neither of us had the last laugh.
He was yet to work up the nerve to check if it was him that day.
Let me tell you a secret. Maybe, just maybe, I don't think I'm that awesome really.
The rose's note, a little crumpled in his hand, read 'Welcome back.' It also said, in small print at the bottom, underneath a set of digits that looked more than a little like a phone number it said: 'Just in case you need someone to pay for your drink and moan at. I hear German beer is good, hint hint.' Gilbert (now just Gilbert) rolled his eyes but smiled a little, and resolved to take him up on that offer.
While I'm at it, here's another. Maybe you're the only one who really listens.
They became fast friends, discovering that neither of them had really changed that much after all. Arthur was pissed off that Gilbert missed his punk phase, so made an effort to change into punk gear whenever they went drinking. Gilbert was the only one who ever heard Arthur play the trumpet, in Arthur's attic (the only room he really used apart from his study/library in his overlarge house; all the other rooms held memories ready to assault him, even in just their emptiness), practically paralytic. His fingers lazily pressed the buttons. The tune was slow and sounded sad, although Gilbert thought it might have been a love song at some point. Gilbert thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard.
If I could just take your hand like you have done before with me. But I can't. And I will cover it up, my love.
He never could confess. He got close, in the quiet moments when they sat in the attic without any alcohol, and just. Talked. But a voice always said to him, You didn't take him when you were a nation, and why would he want you now? You're not even a state anymore. So he hid his love behind his back, and tried to content himself with being this close to Arthur. Often he would be the one to carry Arthur home, if Francis didn't get him first. But he never did anything except put him to bed, maybe a kiss to the forehead if he was feeling bold. He appreciated just seeing the more vulnerable side to Arthur, the warmth behind the war child. A hand squeezed his heart when he saw Arthur hug the pillow, and he just wanted to hug him and protect him.
I can't protect him. I'm not a nation.
For now this was close enough.
One day I will confess. I love him too much to just let him go. I can't let him be another Liz.
But the pain in his heart was becoming unbearable, as was the way his stomach would twist when others tried to put moves on him.
If only you needed me like I need you.
..:.:.:.]End Chapter Three[.:.:.:..
