The light outside had dimmed at last; this could only mean that it was nearing to nighttime. Prussia shifted awkwardly to lie down on his side, accidentally dislodging the blanket as he did so. There was no way he would be able to retrieve it. He muttered a curse in German under his breath, enjoying the sound of the German words despite his discomfort.

All of his hurts, those mostly healed as well as the fresh ones, were stinging in the cold air; the vodka, whether or not it was a good antiseptic, hurt like fuck in the open wounds, though he had tried not to show his discomfort in front of Ukraine and Belarus. He initially could not decide whether he wanted to try and cherish these last moments before Russia came in or just try to sleep, but quickly came to the conclusion that there was not much to cherish; his shoulders were numb, his arms in pain, all of his fresh wounds burning from the vodka, and he was freezing cold, not to mention exceptionally uncomfortable in his awkward position on the thin mattress.

This meant, however, that he could not fall asleep for a long time. He had been in enough battles, enough stressful situations, that he had learned to take advantage of any opportunity for rest: learned to relax himself, to gradually shut down his mind and ease himself into sleep. He had never been in a situation like this before, though, and his usual techniques were not working. He was finding it impossible to ignore the thoughts and emotions swirling around in his head: the pain, the anger, the frustration—the fear that he refused to admit to feeling. In addition, it was nearly impossible to relax in his current state. His arms were under so much strain that they would never be comfortable, and they hurt too much to simply ignore.

Bitterly, he realized that he had also carefully trained himself not to shut down under pain, to fight through it, to use it to stay alert rather than to let it overwhelm him. This was now working against any ability to sleep when able, and it was a skill which had been useful in war, where he could fight and scarcely notice his wounds, but which would be nothing but trouble now. He wanted to be able to shut down, and now he could not.

Deciding for the moment to give up, he instead tried to shift his mind to something—anything—besides his current circumstances, besides the pain, besides the cold feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach and the apprehension because he had no idea what Russia intended. His mind refused to come up with anything positive. Think of family, he thought, then quickly shut down this idea; any thought of Ludwig or the other Germanics would only make things worse. He had managed to keep his homesickness at bay and would not give up now.

At last, unable to think of anything else, his mind came to rest on something he had given little thought since childhood, and he was saying words under his breath that he had not spoken for years.

"Gegrüßet seist du, Maria, voll der Gnade, der Herr ist mit dir. Du bist gebenedeit unter den Frauen, und gebenedeit ist die Frucht deines Liebes, Jesus. Heilige Maria, Mutter Gottes, bitte für uns Sünder jetzt und in der Stune unseres Todes. Amen."

The words came easily to his lips and at last he felt himself relax, comforted by the familiar German. He repeated the prayer several more times, more than he had spoken at once in his entire period of captivity, and before long he had drifted off to sleep at last.

He had expected to be awoken by the sound of the door opening, of Russia coming in early to catch him off guard when he was still half-asleep, but he instead woke up naturally when the sun began to creep in through the small window. Despite his circumstances, it appeared he had slept soundly; the blanket still covered most of him, although he had expected to find it on the floor.

He shifted himself a little to look around, to see if anything had changed, and immediately regretted it as the blanket slipped off his shoulders and the icy air hit them. Trying to distract himself from this new annoyance, he looked around the room properly. He had looked around yesterday, but had been dazed from hitting his head so many times that he had not been able to take advantage of the brief daylight.

It was not so small as he had initially thought. Chains hung from the walls in many places, including the ceiling, and he saw with a small pang of apprehension that there was blood on the floor—more than what he had left there the previous day—and on the walls. The window was too high to look out of if he stood next to it, with a small pane of glass inside that he guessed was still too thick to break. He could not have climbed through the window, even at his full strength and unbound, because of its size, but he guessed Russia would not want him trying to commit suicide by slitting his wrists with the broken glass. It was not a possibility he had considered until now, but he quickly pushed the thought from his mind. He had to stay alive. His brother needed him. And he would not be in the Soviet Union for much longer; it would all be over soon.

The brief daylight came and went without Russia's appearance, until it was once more dark in the cell, though this might have meant it was early afternoon. Prussia grew more and more nervous as the day dragged on, jumping every time he heard a sound. The only positive aspect of this heightened anxiety was that he had finally managed to ignore the pain in his shoulders and arms, although every now and then he would try to move again and remember. By now he had shifted so much that the blanket had fallen completely to the floor. The cold was nearly unbearable.

He couldn't believe he was saying this but fuck he just wanted Russia to come in, to break up the monotony; the waiting in scared anticipation was far worse than anything the stupid Soviet could dish out. He pulled again as hard as he could at the ropes around his arms, wincing a little as he felt them dig into his skin further. Blood might have been trickling from the wounds there, but the combination of the cold and their strained position had ensured that he could not feel his arms at all anymore.

Come the hell in here, you stupid fucker. Do your worst. I'm not afraid of you; the awesome Prussia has nothing to fear from a big idiot bastard like you. I never have and I never will. I know what you're doing by waiting, you're trying to throw me off guard, to unnerve me, and it's not working.

He said these words to himself in his head with all the confidence he could muster, knowing in the back of his mind that it was working beautifully. He was in agony waiting, utterly helpless, with no way of knowing how much longer he would be left alone, painfully aware that he would not be untied until Russia came in.

In an attempt to distract himself, he once again began the Hail Mary, murmuring the words rapidly under his breath as if by speeding up the prayer he could somehow also hasten the ponderous passage of time. "Gegrüßet seist du, Maria, voll der Gnade, der Herr ist—"

The sound of a key in the lock.

Prussia broke off abruptly, feeling his heart begin to pound and adrenaline rush through his veins, overwhelmed with both excitement and fear. There was a click from the other side of the wall and the heavy wooden door was pushed open with measured slowness and Russia was standing there at last.

Prussia struggled to sit up, pushing himself against the wall so that he could face Russia. He wished that he could stand, but was well aware that this was out of the question in his current state. Russia was smiling; clearly, Prussia thought, inwardly cursing, his sense of helplessness and his frustration were evident on his face.

He walked to the center of the room and pulled a thin chain hanging there, and suddenly the room was flooded with light from a single bulb on the ceiling that Prussia had not even noticed before. He was holding the pipe in his hand, as well as a knife tucked into his belt; Prussia recognized it as the one Belarus had been carrying the previous day, or at least one like it.

"Priyvet, GDR," he greeted him cheerfully. "How did you sleep?"

Prussia did not answer. He was watching the pipe mistrustfully, his red eyes narrowed in his pale face.

Russia sighed, then walked across the room to where Prussia sat against the wall. He knelt on the mattress, facing the unmoving younger nation, then buried his hand in his white hair and used it as a grip to pull him up until Prussia was on his knees, teeth gritted, furious. He then stood, pulling Prussia up further.

"You must give me a good reason to untie you," he said calmly. "And if you will be so rude to me, if you will not even say hello, then why should I be kind to you?"

He let go of his hair and Prussia swayed a little on his knees but managed to regain his balance. Once there, it was possible for him to slowly raise himself to his feet. He took a few careful steps so that he was no longer standing on the mattress, so that he had a more solid footing. It felt good to be standing again, and to be, if not quite at eye level with Russia, at least not looking up at him quite so much.

Russia looked at him, frowning a little, then gave him a light push that made him stumble backwards until his back was against the wall. He then placed his forearm against his collarbone, pinning him there, and took the knife from his belt. This he waved in front of Prussia's red eyes, smiling as they widened in apprehension, then, with an expression on his face almost of curiosity, as if he simply wanted to see what would happen, he drew the blade across Prussia's bare collarbone, leaving a thin red trail behind it.

Prussia did not move. The blade was sharp enough that this had scarcely hurt at all, but he supposed it had not intended to; judging by Russia's pleased expression, the larger nation had only wanted to see his blood. This was now beginning to run down a little, stark red against his white skin. Russia beamed.

"You look even paler when you bleed," he told Prussia, who simply scowled back at him. "Now, I just want you to say hello to me. If you are polite to me then I will be polite to you. You want to be untied, da?"

Prussia looked down; the new cut was just high enough that he could only just barely see it if he pulled his head back as far as he could. He turned back to Russia, meeting his purple eyes with his red ones.

"Hallo," he said stiffly.

The German hallo and English hello spoken in a German accent were too similar for Russia to tell the two apart, and the act of defiance went unnoticed. He beamed, then ordered Prussia to turn around so that he could cut the bonds around his arms. This order he obeyed immediately, rolling his shoulders gingerly forward and stretching his stiff arms painfully so that he could see the damage where the ropes had cut in. At last, completely untied—a feeling he had not experienced since coming to the Soviet Union, a feeling good enough to negate the pain from the damaged flesh and the other wounds, the stiffness, the cold.

He breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"Are you going to thank me for untying you?" Russia inquired, watching Prussia massage the feeling back into his arms and shoulders and reach up to touch the cut across his collarbone. Prussia considered snapping back, but decided it was not worth it to be tied again so soon; this semblance of freedom felt so good.

"Thank you," he said sarcastically, choosing the English instead of the German this time; danke was similar, but perhaps not similar enough.

"Good, malyutka!" Russia said cheerfully. "You are learning. Now . . ." He leaned against the wall, as Prussia was doing, though the smaller nation was doing so only to support himself. "You see how good I have been to you, little one. When you were dying, defeated, I offered to take you to my home, to take care of you, and the other Allies were glad to see yo taken away. When you told me that you were not happy in your room upstairs, I gave you a new room. When you were polite to me and did what I asked, then I did what you asked. You have much to be grateful for, da?"

He waited for Prussia to say something. When he did not, Russia's face darkened. "And yet," he said, in a measured voice, "you are not grateful. I do so much for you, and yet you do nothing for me except stay in my house while I make sure you are fed and your wounds are cared for. I do this all for you nonetheless. But there is something I want from you now, little GDR."

He looked again at Prussia, who was scarcely paying attention anymore; he had placed a hand—his hands were shaking now, and he could still hardly move his arms—over his new cut and was taken aback at the amount of blood now on his fingertips. He wiped his hand on the already bloodstained wall in distaste. For such a thin cut, it was bleeding a great deal now.

Russia's eyes narrowed in anger and he swung the pipe at the side of Prussia's head, not hard enough to hurt him badly but enough to cause him to give a cry of pain and knock him to the hard floor on his hands and knees, holding the side of his head.

"Fuck you!" he spat from the ground, and Russia hit him again, this time in the back, making him collapse flat against the ground. He struggled to lift himself up and made it to his elbows. Russia placed the pipe against the side of Prussia's face, holding it there until Prussia raised his eyes to meet his. A purple and yellow bruise was blossoming on the side of his pale face.

"I would like you to listen to me," Russia told him. "Is that too much to ask, malenkiy nation? Pay attention to me when I am talking to you."

Prussia did not answer, but this time Russia did not seem to be waiting for a response. He simply continued.

"You know, I defeated you in Berlin as I did your brother. You lost, miserably; no one could have disputed that. And yet I never heard you say that you surrendered. I told you to, over and over again. And in the end, you became unconscious before I heard you say it. But now I want to hear it, malyutka. You are one with Russia now, and I want to hear you admit this, to give in and acknowledge that you are mine. It is a little thing, nyet? I have given you so much, even though you are nothing but a spoils of war and I could have let you die if I had not been feeling generous. Do you understand?"

He waited for the reply that did not come as Prussia raised himself to his hands and knees again, struggling to stand, then kicked him again in the side, so hard that he was knocked sideways. He rolled onto his back, trying again to stand. Russia's hands closed around his neck.

"Do you understand?" he repeated, lifting him again so that his feet were off the ground as Prussia thrashed and kicked, trying to free himself. He shook him a little, hearing the strangled gasp in response. "Nod your head."

He held him there, waiting unsuccessfully for him to give the ordered sign, until he realized that Prussia had only stopped trying to kick him because he was about to pass out, then dropped him to the ground in disgust, where he collapsed. He waited until the small nation had opened his eyes again, blinking hazily and turning his head from side to side, then dragged his half-conscious body over to one of the walls and chained his hands above his head, high enough that he was pulled into a kneeling position with his back against the wall. Prussia was still barely conscious, his head hanging down against his bare chest, which was now streaked and stained with blood from the cut on his collarbone. Russia, tired of waiting, pulled his head back by his hair and slapped him across the face, causing his eyes to open and his body to jerk away against the chains.

"I said, do you understand?"

Prussia struggled vainly against the chains for a second, feeling them cut into the wrists already torn and bloodied from the ropes, before he spoke, his voice full of spite and hate and, even despite his current condition, strength and confidence as well.

"I never surrendered to you and I never will. I'm not one of your damn Baltics. I will never agree to be part of your fucking Soviet Union."

Russia's fist connected with his jaw, snapping his head back and causing it to slam into the wall behind him. He laughed savagely, his mouth bleeding. "Ich werde niemals aufgeben!" The language only angered Russia more, but he hardly cared. Shouting in his native language elated him, making his adrenaline spike once again. "Du wirst zuerst aufgeben!"

If anything, this caused Russia to hit harder the next time, though after his initial punch he avoided Prussia's head to ensure that he retained consciousness. Prussia gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut as the blows knocked him against the wall again and again, refusing to let a cry pass his lips.

At some point, realizing the relative ineffectiveness of his fists, Russia moved to the pipe instead, hitting Prussia's arms and legs and torso and occasionally ripping new wounds in his skin when the faucet at the end of the pipe struck the wrong way. Whenever this happened he was rewarded with a gasp of pain from his chained prisoner, though Prussia fought to keep back any sound that would betray the extent of his suffering to Russia.

By the time he had tired himself out, Prussia was held up only by the taut chains, his hands limp in the shackles, his head hanging down against his bloodstained and bruised torso. When Russia unchained his hands, he immediately slumped to the ground, groaning as he tried vainly to lift himself off the ground. Russia pulled him up into a kneeling position and seized his jaw, forcing his face upward, waiting until Prussia's half-open eyes focused at last and met his.

"I will be back tomorrow," he told him, his voice icy. "And the next day, and the day after that, for as long as it takes. I will break you down, derzkiy GDR. There are things that even you will not be able to endure."

He slammed out of the room and, vaguely, Prussia heard the key turn in the lock behind him. He laid his aching head on his bruised, bloody arms, too exhausted to try and make it to the mattress.

Author's note:

Ahh... That was fun to write. I hope I'm not being too mean to Prussia. I love him so much, but man do I enjoy torturing him. Sorry for the delay; this was the first chapter that actually took a while to get down, which is odd because I'd very much been looking forward to writing it.

What do you think of the religious bit? He was certainly religious as a child, and I've always got the sense that he kind of fell away from it, but I think it's reasonable to assume that he might turn back to it for comfort. And the Hail Mary would be one of the first prayers he'd go to; the Teutonic Knights were a Catholic Order, the Virgin Mary one of their patron saints, and their official name was Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem. I also just think that it's a beautiful prayer, especially in German.

In other news, I've also gotten a new flash of inspiration and I suddenly have a ton more in my head that I absolutely can't wait to write, so thank you so much to all of you who have continued to stay with me. I've noticed that the follows have gone up, and for that I can't thank you enough. I won't let you down.

Thank you to rookanga, who reviewed the last chapter! Please keep reviewing, constructive criticism is just as good as compliments, and please send me messages if you'd like as well — I absolutely love hearing from the people who read this, all of you are the greatest source of inspiration ever. And favorite and follow if you enjoyed it!

German translation

Not going to type it all out again, but the prayer he says is the Hail Mary in German.
Hallo = hello (duh)
Danke = thank you (also duh)
Ich werde niemals aufgeben = I'll never surrender/give in
Du wirst zuerst aufgeben = you will give up first

Russian translation

malyutka = little one
malenkiy = little/puny
derzkiy = insolent/arrogant/brazen