Hey friends, happy new years.

-Author

Prompt: Break away

Pairing: Serbia X Bulgaria X Romania

Beta-read: no

Warnings: Angst

Characters: Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria

Time started: 10:50am

Time Finished: 8:15 pm

Authors note: basically, no historical accuracy (as far as I know.)

Bulgaria stood on the door step, his dark brown eyes narrowed into a glare as he waited in the cold for Serbia to answer him.

He'd rang the doorbell at least three minuets ago, and Serbia still had yet to answer her door.

If it was up to him, he wouldn't be here.

But it wasn't up to him, it was up to Romania.

Bulgaria knew Romania better than most people. Most people believed that Romania was an easygoing man who never worried about anything other than the togetherness of his country and the state of his hair.

In all actuality, Bulgaria knew Romania didn't ever actually care about the state of his hair.

In fact he was pretty sure the Romanian didn't even own a comb. The soft and well kept blonde state his hair was always in was purely unintentional. Romania's hair was complete guess work.

But beneath Romania's distant and easy going exterior, he was actually a complicated man. A network of complicated theories, emotions and ideas. Bulgaria honestly couldn't predict how Romania would feel about one thing from the next.

For example, Bulgaria knew from experience, Romania hated cinnamon. Cinnamon candies, cinnamon candles, everything with cinnamon was out. Once Romania had received a cinnamon candle for a gift, he'd complained about it for an hour after the party.

Except for cinnamon sticks. Romania could eat the hell out of cinnamon sticks.

When questioned about it, or when taunted, Romania just replied with something along the lines of, it was his life and he would eat what he wanted to eat.

The cinnamon debacle was only but a taste of Romania's obscured personality.

But even with Bulgaria beginning to better understand Romania, he still didn't expect the conversation he'd had with Romania last night.

What had originally started off as Bulgaria yelling at Romania for being annoying, careless, and lacking and regards to personal space, turned into a conversation in which Romania dropped his merry exterior to a more serious level. Bulgaria still remembered how Romania's reddish brown eyes had almost born holes in his own with their seriousness.

Their conversation had been on something from Bulgaria's past.

Romania and Bulgaria had only been "dating" for one year. "Dating" because Bulgaria kept denying the fact that that was occurring between the two of them. But then again Bulgaria also denied any rumors that Bulgaria and Romania's relationship was based solely on sex. So, most people just categorized their relationship on their own.

Lots of words were passed between them last night, some Bulgaria would have never suspected were in Romania's vocabulary. Not that they were bad, they were just…not what one would expect from Romania.

A particular phrase stuck to Bulgaria more than any others had.

"If you want things to move forward, you have to stop looking backwards"

Bulgaria's breathe was visible in front of him, turning into thick white clouds every time he exhaled. The sound of ice falling off of the roof in front of him was almost the only sound around him, aside from the roar of the heater coming from the other side of the house.

Bulgaria was almost about to turn around and go home when Serbia finally answered her door.

Serbia was a sight to see with her silvery gray hair in tuffs around her tired looking face. Her icy blue eyes were dull, missing so much of the life they'd held when Bulgaria had first met her.

Her clothes were just as messy as her hair. She was wearing an oversized solid gray sweatshirt and a pair of slightly frayed cotton shorts.

Bulgaria couldn't help but be slightly surprised by the once incredibly collected nation's appearance.

"Bulgaria?" Serbia questioned slowly, surprised to see the man on her doorstep.

"Serbia" Bulgaria acknowledged in his usual monotone.

Serbia didn't say anything. She just stood there, holding her door slightly open and her body positioned in-between the frame and the door itself, as if trying to shield the inside of her house from Bulgaria.

It took Bulgaria a second to find his voice again, accidentally losing it in Serbia's dull and nearly lifeless gaze.

"We need to talk…." Bulgaria said slowly, unsure if his voice was going to fail him again.

Serbia seemed to contemplate Bulgaria's request for a moment, before nodding and warily opening her door.

Bulgaria walked past Serbia into her house, nodding slightly at his neighbor for letting him inside.

Serbia was a good six inches shorter than Bulgaria, but most everyone was, Croatia was the only one of the Balkan's who weren't completely over shadowed by his height.

"What do you need Bulgaria?" Serbia asked. It was obvious by her voice she was almost forcing herself to be polite to the Bulgarian. "Come sit down"

Bulgaria followed Serbia's command wordlessly.

The inside of the Serb's house was almost disturbing to say the least.

Old pictures that at once had never even seen a spec of dust before, where now layered in the material. So much that some of them appeared to be a solid gray. Dead plants lined the foyer of Serbia's house, a broken pot was the floor next to an umbrella basket that smelt like mildew.

Serbia's kitchen and dining room were no less concerning than the rest of the Serb's house.

Piles of papers littered the table, along with empty beer bottles blended with empty coffee mugs and a few other dirty dishes.

Bulgaria said precariously on the edge of one of the chairs at Serbia's table, feeling an incredible sense of uneasiness in the house.

Serbia offered him a drink from the kitchen.

Bulgaria looked down almost disdainfully at the mess on the table before politely declining the drink.

"So, why are you here, Bulgaria?" Serbia questioned, coming out of the kitchen and sitting down in one of the chairs across the table from Bulgaria.

"Like I said earlier, I need to talk to you" Bulgaria replied fluidly. He didn't turn to face Serbia as he spoke, instead he kept his gaze focused outside, watching the melting snow drip off of Serbia's roof in front of the window.

The winter outside of the house made everything seem beautiful. Bulgaria loved winter because of this. Because it was almost like a cloak, anything to snow laid on instantly turned it beautiful. Even the poisoned country of Serbia.

"what do you want to talk about?" Serbia asked, her voice hard, obviously displeased by Bulgaria not turning to look at her while he spoke to her, but choosing to keep quite about it.

"I-I need to set things straight between us" Bulgaria began after another moment of hesitation. This time, he turned to face Serbia, just in time to watch her arch one dark eyebrow in silent question, before speaking.

"Bulgaria, I-'

'I'm not trying to come back to you. I wouldn't ever do that to myself.' Bulgaria stated, his voice almost as hard as the look in his eyes was.

'Something flashed in Serbia's eyes after Bulgaria spoke, but the other country didn't have enough time to see it and study it before it was concealed with a glare.

Bulgaria continued after waiting for Serbia to retort somehow to his comment, something she would have inevitably done ten years ago. 'But I do want to resolve things with you. Nevertheless. The way I broke things off, it didn't finalize anything-'

'Yeah, it did Bulgaria. I think you made it quite clear what'

'No, I didn't! let me finish" Bulgaria snapped in response to Serbia's interruption. "Serbia, the way things are between us…I just want to apologize to you."

Bulgaria didn't missed the surprised look on Serbia's face, before it was replaced with a glare.

"What are you apologizing for?" She asked, her eyes narrowing slightly in a glare.

"The way I treated you, or rather, the way we treated each other." Bulgaria began, closing his eyes for a moment as he drew in a heavy breath " the way I abandoned you. Where I left you" Bulgaria continued. He wanted so badly to stop. Just to stop talking and leave. But he had to do this. He had to end things with Serbia, officially. He had to stop looking back at this relationship and wondering what it could have been in order to make something out of his new one. He just had to.

Serbia sat across from him, still giving him a scrutinizing glare as she began speaking 'why are you doing this?"

"Because I have to" Bulgaria answered immediately.

A strained silence hung in-between them for a few moments before Serbia got to her feet.

"You can show yourself out. Apology not accepted" she growled. Leaving her cup on her table, Serbia left the room.

Bulgaria made no move to go after her. Instead he did exactly as she asked.

Bulgaria felt relief wash over him as he left. He'd done what he came to do.

Even though Serbia had ignored his apology, he'd resolved things between them with an resolve to leave things unresolved. There would always be conflicts between Serbia and Bulgaria, both as countries and as personifications.

Bulgaria had also ended any questioning that he and Serbia would ever had worked out. Even if he had stayed with her and not left, their differences would have eventually drove them apart.

Bulgaria had ended things between he and Serbia.

Now he could move foreword with Romania, without looking back at Serbia

Sorry again it was late :,( New Years kind of kept me away from my laptop.

I'll try to be more prompt, by my school starts back up again tomorrow, so I have no idea where this will leave me.

Oh, and in a last and final thing. Does anyone feel like helping me Beta-read this? I really need one, like super bad, and everyone I ask keeps saying they don't want to do a 100-prompt challenge. Help me, please?

Also, does this make any sense at all? I was torn between publishing this and writing a completely different prompt, but I just settled on this one. It makes sense to me, but maybe its just me being crazy, I dunno.

Don't forget to review, thanks!

-Author