Prussia padded downstairs in his new yellow bird slippers, courtesy of his fantastic little brother.
"I'll get that," he told Germany when the doorbell rang again.
His brother merely nodded from his desk, still bent over work papers.
"What is it?" He asked as he opened the door. On the other side stood a sad and broken human shaped being, known to most as Spain.
"Prussia I'm a monster!" He yelled, and hugged Prussia so hard, Prussia's back creaked.
"Whut?" asked Prussia, trying to pull away. Spain reeked of sweat and sex and despair. "Shit, Spain, stop! Let go of me! What the hell?"
Spain finally let go, but started sobbing and mumbling something.
"Dude you're not making any sense," said Prussia, letting him in and closing the door. He noticed that Spain seemed to have ran to his house straight from bed, if the rumpled shirt and red boxers were any indication. "You need to take a shower and calm down."
"No, no, I..."
"No nothing. Come here. Go up and take a shower, you already know where the bathroom is. I'll go talk to West now. I don't think you'd like him to see you like this."
Spain nodded, and walked upstairs.
Prussia saw him go upstairs and sighed. He had expected to spend a quiet night at home wearing his new slippers, but friends came first. He went to Germany's study and found him putting on his coat.
"Who was it?" asked Germany, looking around for his phone.
"Uh, Spain. He…has a problems with the plumbing at his house, so he's taking a shower now, and will stay the night…," said Prussia, tapping his fingers on the doorframe. He hoped Germany would just not ask any more questions because that was as far as he had planned his excuse.
Germany nodded. "Fine. I'll be gone now then. I'm having dinner with Italy, so I'll see him later. Please tell him I'm sorry to not be able to say hi to him, but I'll be running late if I don't leave now."
"Sure thing," said Prussia, hitting Germany's arm softly as his brother walked out of the study.
"Please don't do anything strange," said Germany.
"Nah, don't think we will. But you never know. Adventure always calls to our door!"
Germany shook his head. "Then I'd appreciate if you closed the door on adventure. At least for tonight. I don't want to have you calling me at one in the morning from the police station. Again."
Prussia felt his face turning red. "T-that's so totally not usual!"
"Goodbye Bruder."
Prussia kicked the floor when Germany was gone "Nagging at me before I do anything. He's losing respect for his elders," he said. The fact that he had indeed called him from a police station three times that year failing to register in his mind.
He heard the shower stopping and ran upstairs to get some clothes for Spain. He pulled out some jeans and an old shirt of his and went to the bathroom. He opened the door, and found Spain sitting in the bathtub, wet and miserable.
"What are you doing there?" asked Prussia. He left the clothes in a shelf and pulled out a towel for him.
"Nothing."
"Then get up and dry already," he said, pulling on his arm, but Spain refused to move.
"No."
"What? Why not?!"
"I don't want to move anymore. I want to stay here. Forever."
Prussia gritted his teeth. "You can't stay in my bathroom forever! Goddammit Spain, what is wrong with you?" he kneeled down next to him and pulled a stray lock of hair away from his eyes. He had never seen Spain so completely sad.
"I made Romano sad," said Spain, letting his head fall.
Prussia blinked. Well, that was more understandable. "Alright, explain yourself," he said, and started drying Spain's hair.
By the time Prussia had convinced him to put on pants, they had reached the part of the story that had too much detail about Spain's sex life for Prussia's taste.
"No, stop," said Prussia. "Put on a shirt and give me a minute to change. We're going out. I'm way too sober to be listening to that."
Five minutes later, he had changed his slippers, put on some decent boots, found a coat for Spain, and they set out to the center of Berlin.
"I just don't get it," said Prussia, hands in his coat pockets as they walked into an old favorite bar of his. Dark and quiet. They sat at a table in the far corner. "I thought you both had, you know…," he moved his hand, trying to find a word that was far enough from fuck to be comfortable to him, but still conveyed the meaning. "Frickfracked."
Spain lifted his eyebrows at that, and ordered a bottle of spiced rum. "Seriously? Frickfracked?"
"You know what I mean!"
Spain took a shot before speaking. "We hadn't," he said. The burn of the rum down his throat felt good after being so cold since Romano left. "And we….I mean, we shouldn't in the first place."
"You shouldn't? Spain you love him. You are head over heels for him. You say his name like a hundred times a day, and he spends more time at your house than at his own."
"I know! But I didn't know that Romano felt…the same way for me. I knew he appreciated me, but not…like this."
"I'm not following."
"Prussia, he was basically my son! I cared for him since he was a little child."
"Yeah, and he has not been a little child for at least a hundred years."
"But that doesn't erase the hundreds of years I spent caring for him, and feeding him, and raising him like a son, and," he covered his face with his hands. "And I still want him, oh God Prussia, I'm a pervert.
Prussia bit his lower lip. That was a difficult situation. In any case, they were immortals. The usual rules of human morality didn't always apply to them. Beheading someone's relative, for example, was usually considered a very rude thing to do, and if such thing was applied to them, France wouldn't be in very good terms with Austria.
"Ehh, I don't know," finally said Prussia, and took a sip from his drink. Rum and coke wasn't his favorite, but Spain seemed intent on getting drunk as fast as possible. "The kid loves you, that's for sure," he said, and immediately regretted using the word kid.
"I should have stopped him. I should have done something, but I just…I wanted it so much. I wanted him for so long, and managed to stop myself every time. But when he was kissing me, and moaning my name, I…I lost it. I couldn't stop myself anymore. And then I made it all worse when I tried to explain myself. He probably thinks I hate him."
"Then tell him you don't!"
"No, I can't even look at him now! What am I going to tell him? I love you, but you've been like a son for me all this time, and I feel really weird about wanting to fuck you? Should I tell him that Prussia?"
"Well, shit, no of course not. But come on, you're the only one having this problem. Look at England and America."
"Don't compare me to England! You're supposed to be helping me with this, not making it worse!"
Prussia threw his hands in the air and decided the matter was off his capacity to handle.
"Look," he said, filling both their glasses again. "I don't know shit about relationships, because my amazing sword of chastity –which I must remind you, was an actual sword-, kept me happily non married for…well, since forever I suppose. But the thing is, I don't give love advice, so let me call France and once he gets here-"
"No!"
"Why not?! Who better to help you on this than France?" said Prussia. He was running out of patience with his friend's obstinacy.
Spain picked up his glass and slouched back on his seat, mumbling something that Prussia didn't manage to hear.
"What was that?" asked Prussia.
"I said I already talked about this with France," said Spain, scowling.
"You already…And what did he say?"
"It doesn't matter! It didn't help me!" yelled Spain, and Prussia realized that they had been steadily rising their voices and draining the bottle of rum.
"Let's…let's get out of here and look for another place," said Prussia, noticing the looks the waiters were giving them.
They picked up their bottle, and left the bar.
Prussia swayed when the cold night air hit his face. Spain held on to a wall.
"Shit, I'm getting old," said Spain with a sharp smile. "I used to drink much more than this and not…act like a fucking lightweight."
"Let's go to the White Trash to eat something," said Prussia, and started walking.
Spain followed. "Don't you need a reservation?" he asked.
"I always have reservations in all the clubs of Berlin, dumbass!"
Spain laughed aloud for the first time in the night, and bumped against him. Prussia laughed too. A burger and a few more drinks, and maybe Spain would stop being so closed off to all the options. It wasn't like him to be so gloomy, and it was starting to worry Prussia.
As they walked they saw a couple girls ahead talking with some guys from a van. The girls said something and kept walking with a slight sway that showed they were at least a bit drunk. The van followed them, advancing slowly. One of the girls yelled something, and the van stopped. Two tall blonde guys got out, and Prussia elbowed Spain, who nodded and jogged up to them. Prussia followed.
"¡Hola! Excuse me~," said Spain in a heavy accent. "My friend and I, we are lost. Could you help us?"
The girls looked relieved, but one of the guys spat at Spain's shoes.
"Go away!" he said. The other one pulled one of the girls into the van.
Spain kept smiling, up until he was close enough to punch the guy's lights out. He hit him so hard, he felt something breaking under his knuckles.
"What a rude guy," he said, smiling again and looking down at his shoes. "These aren't even mine."
The other one let go of the girl he was pulling into the van, and tried to hit Spain, but Prussia kicked him in the stomach, grabbed his arm and pulled it back in an armlock, pushing him down on his knees while he was trying to breathe.
"How about you apologize to these ladies?" he said with a smirk. "It's not gentlemanly to pull young women into cars like that."
The girl who had been pulled into the ban lifted her bag and hit him on the head with it. Prussia laughed, and let go of the guy who fell down next to his friend.
"I trust you will be safe now ladies?" said Spain, smiling brightly. "I hope they haven't ruined your fun."
The girls laughed. "Thank you, they started following us a couple blocks away, it was so scary!" said one of them, the tall one that had been pulled into the van. "We were going to the cookies. Come, we'll buy you a drink!"
"No, thank you. We have to, uh…go somewhere…" said Spain, the smile vanishing from his face.
"Fine then. Here, have this!" said the other girl, and pulled a bottle of vodka from her bag. "As thanks."
"No, thank you but-"
"Take it please!" she said, and started walking away.
The other one leaned inside the van, took out the keys and threw them at Prussia. "Those jerks don't deserve a van!" she called back as she ran towards her friend. She tripped a little, but her friend caught her, and they laughed.
"Well they don't," said Prussia.
One of the guys started moving.
Spain smirked. "Yeah, let's take it," he said.
"Take? The van? What?!" cried Prussia.
But Spain had already jumped inside. He found a couple jackets, threw them at the guys and settled himself in the passenger seat. Prussia shook his head, but jumped into the drivers seat.
"Where do we even go now?" he asked, putting the keys on. He leaned back, and the van started by itself. Luckily this was an old Volkswagen, and all German cars knew to listen to Germany's big brother. The little van dutifully started advancing at a slow pace.
"The beach!" proclaimed Spain, and took a swig from their newly acquired vodka bottle.
"The b-…what beach?!"
"Uh, I don't know…What's the closest one? Uhhh…Neinhagen?" said Spain.
"Nienhagen, dumbass," said Prussia. "Fine, whatever. There's a hotel there, at least."
The little van then started advancing faster. It didn't have enough gas to reach Nienhagen. It barely had enough gas to get them out of Berlin, but those things didn't concern Prussia, and they didn't concern the little van either.