Author: Cyhirae
Notes: And on to part four; provided it doesn't run away from me, there should be two or so more parts after this. Now we swap to Austria's PoV again.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, Hetalia is not mine. Just this strange little story is.
Switzerland had a very good question for me when I arrived on his doorstep with an unconscious, drunken Prussian being carried on my driver's shoulder and a bit of luggage in hand.
"What the hell are you thinking?!" This once, I may have to confess I had not been thinking very well at all. Or I would have chosen a different place completely. I had forgotten that Switzerland had something of a sibling situation himself; he was far likelier to sympathize with Germany's desire to keep his sibling out of the line of fire.
There was also the simple fact he honestly had no reason to concern himself with Prussia.
"You haven't changed at all; every time you get in over your head, you always run to me or someone else!" I make no attempt to stymie the flow of accusations; I suppose there is some truth in it. But, then, I had never been of much use in a fight. And this situation was not a fight.
Not yet. Now if I had gone straight to my home as I nearly had…well. I hadn't; thank goodness for rethinking that right away. Now if only I had some actual plan for the rest of this.
Switzerland finally stops mid rant to note I had made no attempt at all to stop his rant; instead I have been sitting, having tea with Lichtenstein while Prussia snored away on the couch. Hopefully he would also sleep through the hang over.
"Well? Say something! Why did you even start this and why did you bring your hostage here?!"
"He is not my hostage, Switzerland. You know I don't do such things." What, precisely, we could call Prussia right now was rather up in the air. I suppose I did technically kidnap him but I hadn't made any demands for his return.
If I did, restriction from feeding him any more of that land's vile beverage would most certainly be on the list of terms for his return. He had been even more impossible to talk to than ever before; I certainly hadn't thought that possible. He had babbled from one emotional extreme to the next on the drive here until he had finally passed out. And then he had used my shoulder for a prop and drooled. Ugh. It is enough to make me wonder why I even cared.
Of course I had asked myself similar questions whenever he had been on the receiving end of a beating from Hungary or provoked Poland and Lithuania - again - into a fight.
"Well then why did you drag your 'guest' here and get me involved? You know I want nothing to do with anything you're starting!" Yes, a point that had been made abundantly clear many times in the past. Why did it seem all of my past associates wanted so little to do with me now?
"I brought him here for….for…" Switzerland waits, arms crossed as I try to find a solution which will not see me being escorted out at gun point to return home and Prussia simply put back in his brother's spare bedroom. "…A vacation."
"Ah, that's so kind of you, Austria!" Lichtenstein beams at the thought, then jumps as Switzerland's hand slams down on the table. Cups and saucers hop a bit with the force of it, sending drops of tea splashing about on the wood.
"You kidnap Germany's brother after he already warned you off and bring him here, against his will, for a vacation?!" He is positively seething; and I suppose I cannot blame him. In retrospect, I certainly hadn't thought things through quite as thoroughly as I could have.
There had simply been something painful and cruelly pathetic to watch how instantly overshadowed by Germany he had been in that moment. He had been all but about to disappear into his brother's presence. That was not the arrogant, laughing Teutonic Knight I recalled, my oft enemy and sometimes ally.
"Switzerland, may I speak with you in private for a time?" Something in my tone catches the smaller nation's attention, stilling the waiting rant with a small, sharp frown. He nods after a moment, gesturing for me to follow him into the other room.
"If he does anything to Lichtenstein, it's on your head too." Well, a compromise of shared blame then; hopefully Prussia would continue sleeping peacefully away. Lichtenstein was content enough to play nursemaid to the albino as we exited to the other room and settled at the table there. "Now explain yourself. Don't expect me to buy this bull of a 'vacation'."
"Well in a way it is; you never knew Prussia very well, I know. He is not nearly the-" And the words halt there. I continued to call him "Prussia", but he had already noted it himself that the land he once represented was gone. He was not a nation; how should I refer to him? "…nearly the…person he used to be."
"From everything I heard about his antics- usually from you- that hardly seems a bad thing." Switzerland's arms cross, a frown fixed firmly on his lips as he looks me over a moment. At least I had had time to clean up from the events leading to our arrival. I could not have taken much more of that scent. "So why the change of heart?"
"…Pity perhaps, or maybe a sense of responsibility. Or simply an unwillingness to see something from the past disappear that completely." I was slowly putting my finger on the heart of my own tangled reasons for taking this route. I could never say we had been friends; not as Switzerland and I had once been. "…I think Germany thinks the same, but his methods are…less than productive."
"And you think you know better than his brother what will help him?" The tone is exasperated, much as it had often been when we were younger. He had been right about one thing; I was indeed dropping a problem I had a hand in creating in his lap. It simply wasn't quite what he was thinking.
"His brother was a child when Prussia was at his height, Switzerland. He has taken far more readily to this new era; both in its peace and its wars." And there, at last, was what had struck me as wrong about the whole affair, suddenly unrolling out for me to see. "Germany did not understand why his brother had hesitated to join him in the last world war."
"After what happened in the first one to him, it would be obvious why Prussia wasn't quick to join in." Trust Switzerland to look completely to the economical and political side effects. I can't quite keep down a laugh at that, shaking my head.
"If he was as practical as you? Perhaps it would have been. Prussia never worried about such things, Switzerland. He left those affairs to his human counterparts to figure out. He only ever wanted one thing." Though this realization of hindsight is bringing a worry of its own. "Prussia lives- lived- simply to fight. So why do you think then that he turned his brother away?"
Switzerland frowned thoughtfully at that, musing back over the events of the war. Just another war, in our long running history of them…though his disgust with their inevitable aftershocks had led to his legendary neutrality of a very non-pacifistic variety. Perhaps that was why I had that thought to bring Prussia here after all.
"One of the greatest wars of the century and he held back. Hm.." Well, it's not surprising the answer isn't presenting itself to Switzerland right away. Look at how long it had taken me to come to this realization, and I had known the former Knight far better.
"He did not agree with it. It was not a fight Germany was leading then; it was a slaughter. He fought and he killed; but the killing was never the purpose behind it. Prizes, glory- ah, the braggart always went for the richest territory he could reach. But he was never out to kill for its own sake. Is it strange I find that so remarkably pure in a world like ours now?"
From the look Switzerland is leveling at me, it's a very strange thing. Admittedly, 'pure' was never a word I had thought to ever apply to Prussia before unless we were speaking of 'pure ego', 'pure arrogance' or 'pure idiocy'. Yet looking back now, compared to the wars fought…it was a remarkably pure, even naïve way to look at the world. Fighting for glory and honor- well saying the latter for Prussia may be stretching it- these were forgotten things. He had followed his people's will, as we all must, but we do have a certain leeway in how it manifests.
"Did you hit your head on something?" Switzerland shakes his head, leaning on the table then to glare at me. "So you brought him here out of nostalgia, basically. You're one step from starting a war with Germany over that."
"There will be no war, Switzerland." A bitter truth, that, strange as it was to think. "It is not as if I took any territory to bring him here in my care. He is lacks land and people both; why he lives on, I cannot say. There are no Prussians or East Germans in the world any longer. Germany can certainly be personally displeased with me, but there is nothing to involve our people in this little concern."
"Then why did you bring him here?" Back to that again; I shouldn't expect any less from Switzerland. He never was one to let me beat around the bush too long. "If you can't give me a good answer, he's going right back to Germany."
"…Because I think he could find a better purpose here than simply collecting dust and drinking beer in his brother's home." The tangled half thoughts were finally resolving themselves into something coherent. All of the clues of Prussia's behavior in the past centuries, of why he was simply fading and taking with him something that seemed painfully absent in the world now. Switzerland looks unconvinced so I sigh and try to pin down those last stray thoughts…I had to present a coherent argument.
"You are the last genuinely active military power that has a goal I think he could agree with." Well that sounded weak and the expression on Switzerland's face tells me as much. I press on even so, hand raised to still any forthcoming commentary. "You do not start fights as he used to; but if one came to you? We all know you would fight and fiercely, to keep what is yours. You would actually face your enemy."
Switzerland's frown deepens, but more in thought than any immediate rejection. I have his attention; now to push it a bit further perhaps….
"Prussia was famed for his military might and organization; he has had a hard time adapting to the modern way of doing things but I would say it is a matter of ideals clashing than inability. You could certainly do far worse than him for assisting in the training and organizing of your forces and introducing strategies."
"Austria- you brought him here to ask me to give him a job?" The tone is absolutely incredulous; I suppose I can hardly blame him. It does sound rather ridiculous, when stated like that. The door on the idea is visibly closing in his mind as I raise my hand to try to recapture his attention.
"Essentially yes- and please consider it. I am certain he could be an asset, even if he is…somewhat difficult to get along with at points." If someone had told me, even so much as ten years ago, I would be trying to get a job for Prussia, I would have recommended them to the nearest insane asylum.
Then again, I would not have believed even a week ago that I would see Prussia on his knees weeping before the remains of the wall. It truly wasn't fair to look back on it; we had all lost something of course. The finger that had once bore a wedding band felt so much heavier for its absence; Germany had endured being picked apart by the victors and then his brother being taken away in the raising of the wall. We had nearly all gained in the years to pass, however, save for one of us.
It felt grossly unfair and cruel that the one of the three of us who had first entered into that war and had done so unwillingly had paid so heavily for it. And he still was; how much longer could he hold on as he was? Particularly when he did not even seem to be fighting it. He was just…waiting. Fading bit by bit as his brother grew stronger.
"Nations fall and when they do, we die." Switzerland's cold words cut through my thoughts suddenly then. "Rome, Germania- it happened to them too. It will happen to all of us eventually." I shiver at those words; there is a truth to them after all. We are not immortal; long lived would be a far better term. Long lived and able to survive so long as our people did.
"Then why does he live, Switzerland? There must be a reason- this slow death is not how we die." The blond scowls at me in response to that hole in his logic; but it is true as well. We died when we fought another nation and lost; we died at their hands and they took our lands and people. Rome and Germania had died the same way. "If he can be saved, and to have lived this long after his dissolution makes me think he can be, there must be a reason."
"…Fine, I will talk to him when he wakes up." Any iota of relief that may have started to emerge is dropped into confusion as he takes a pen and some paper from the table's drawers and sets them on the table between us. "But in the meantime, you have some business to take care of."
"Such as..?" The papers are not blank; they're a contract of some kind. He had these sorts of things already written up and ready for use? He's going over them quickly, filling in some points before turning the pages over to me. "Ah- what precisely is this?"
"Terms of our agreement, of course. For a fee, I will lodge your 'guest' until we decide what we're going to do with him and Germany's response has been settled. I expect this may damage our relations at least temporarily so you will have to compensate for the potential loss." Heavens above, I should have seen this coming. I look the papers over a moment, eyes widening at some of the points listed. Oh this absolutely would not do….
"I will need a telephone, if you will. I will have to discuss these terms with the Federal President…" And think of a very good explanation for why these negotiations were even taking place. Trust Switzerland to turn an entirely personal situation into a chance to draw some profit in for his people.
I am in the midst of the negotiations and pondering just how much my apparent sentimentality is worth in trying to spare an old enemy and ally from his fate when the door at the far end of the room opens up. Lichtenstein peers in, a shy little smile in place.
"Um…Austria? Your friend has woken up…I think he is a little angry for some reason…"
Well; that certainly wasn't going to help the situation now. I push the papers aside and inform the president I will have a more in depth report on matters in an hour or two and set the phone down on the receiver as the door pushes open a bit wider…
I must remember in the future that Lichtenstein has a rather frightening gift for understatement. The last time I had seen such an expression on Prussia's face had been after Hungary had joined in alliance with me.
"Start talking, specs." Oh, this wasn't going to go well…. "Start talking real fast."
~To be continued
