Germany woke the next morning to find Prussia sitting on the kitchen counter.

"You're up early," Germany said in sleep-fuzzy surprise.

"It's six-thirty already," Prussia said, "You slept in."

"Mmm," Germany said. Even so, Prussia usually slept until eight at least. Just another reminder that until last night his brother had been literally on the brink of death.

"Coffee?"

"Please!" Germany said. Prussia handed him a mug.

"You really should do something about that caffeine addiction of yours," Prussia said.

"I'll make a note in my schedule," Germany said, then, "You made breakfast," the coffee having restored in him the ability to notice things.

"That I did," Prussia said proudly, "Who's the awesomest big brother in the world?"

Prussia with breakfast ready for him when he got up, it was like being a kid again. Germany smiled.

"Switzerland, probably," he said.

Prussia pouted. "I can't believe I raised such a brat," he said.

They took their time with breakfast, talking and relaxing. It was nice.

"So," Prussia said as they finished, "What's on the agenda today?"
"Nothing," Germany said, "I'm supposed to still be in the US. I suppose I should-"

"Awesome," Prussia cut him off, "You get a day off! Go read a book or something. After you reschedule with America, I guess."
"I'll email him this afternoon," Germany said, "It's one am his time."

"Oh, he's definitely still awake," Prussia said, "He has the worst sleep schedule of anyone I know. You don't have a sleep schedule so don't look smug."

Germany rolled his eyes, and made to start cleaning up the dishes.

"Don't worry about that," Prussia said, shooing him away, "I'll clean up. You go enjoy your luxurious one-day vacation."

"You're sure?" Germany asked. Prussia had drilled into him quite firmly the idea that you did not leave the cleaning up for other people.

"Of course I'm sure. Go! Shoo!"

Germany shooed.

Apart from the digs at Germany's life choices, Prussia was being almost disturbingly nice. Germany chose to enjoy it while it lasted.

Prussia was right about America still being awake. He answered Germany's email in under a minute, and they were in the middle of the deeply annoying and complicated process of rescheduling when he heard Prussia yell, "I'm going out!"

"Remember to wear sunscreen," Germany yelled back.

"Yeah, yeah," Prussia replied, and the door slammed.

Prussia hated sunscreen. He loathed it with every fiber of his being. He hated the way it smelled and he hated the way it felt even more. It was just so incredibly gross . He'd survived for centuries without it, and he saw no reason why he should have to start wearing it now. Sunburn was annoying, sure, but he was used to it, and if he preferred his skin to be on fire than to cover it in slimy-sticky-ickiness, that was really none of Germany's business.

However, at this point Prussia had no idea how he was still alive. And, jokes aside, he had no idea in what sense he was alive either. Was he human now? Did God just… forget about him? He knew that last idea wasn't how it worked, but he couldn't think of any other explanations that made sense either. Could he get cancer now? Who knows!

So Prussia was wearing the damn sunscreen. And a hat for good measure.

Prussia was going out. He had vague ideas of buying groceries at some point, but mostly he just wanted to walk out his front door and continue to walk, and enjoy the fact that he could keep walking and look at his city without collapsing immediately from pain and exhaustion.

Gilbird flitted from Prussia's shoulder to a tree and fluttered round his head, delighted at being out and about again.

"You'd better not die," Prussia threatened him. Theoretically he wouldn't, he was still in close proximity to Germany. Gilbird was an unusual case anyway, being around Nations tended to make animals age more slowly, but it didn't usually make them stop aging entirely. In any case, Prussia suspected Gilbird was some sort of immortal cryptid creature in his own right, because he had no idea what sort of avian a Gilbird was supposed to be. He mostly looked like a baby chicken, but obviously wasn't.

Gilbird twittered at him cheerfully, as if he found the idea of dying funny.

They'd been enjoying themselves for about an hour when Prussia felt an odd buzzing sensation in his skull.

And then long-honed instinct had him ducking out of the way as a stranger, quick as lightning, pulled a sword from under his coat and tried to remove Prussia's head from his body.

"What the fuck!" Prussia said, but he was already running.

Prussia was just minding his own business in a perfectly peaceful park when a stranger tried to decapitate him with a sword out of nowhere. That didn't happen! Was this some sort of cosmic glitch? Did some kind of heavenly bureaucratic error cause him to not die so now the universe was going to have to try to kill him off in increasingly unlikely ways? What the fuck!

Prussia ran full tilt, with Gilbird twittering frantically above his head, in the direction of streets and people, with the hope that the murderous madman wouldn't want to kill him in front of witnesses. Prussia's legs were shorter than the stranger's but Prussia was good at running, and also, he was running for his life, which always gives you an edge.

Damn he'd missed this.

He slowed down when he reached a busy street with plenty of pedestrians, and fortunately the crazy guy hung back and didn't attack him. He did keep following him, though, despite all of Prussia's efforts to lose him.

The smart thing at this point, Prussia knew, would be to go home, where he had a door that locked, and also weapons. However, it was Germany's day off. Germany deserved a nice, relaxing, totally murderer free day off!

So, Prussia was not going to lead this guy back home. He continued wandering around in an effort to get away, or at least make him lose interest. Unfortunately the guy turned out to be both incredibly good at following a target (seriously, what was he, some kind of super spy?) and absolutely fixated on murdering Prussia specifically.

By noon, Prussia was eating lunch at a cafe, and the crazy sword murderer was glaring at him from across the street. Prussia was resigning himself to the fact that he had no way to get the creep to stop following him. He knew he really should just admit defeat and take a taxi home at this point. But. Germany's Nice, Stress-Free Day! Bringing home crazy sword murderers just wasn't polite .

What Prussia did next was, in retrospect, quite possibly the stupidest choice he'd ever made, which is really, really saying something. In his defense, he hadn't known his stalker was potentially a trained killer with millennia of experience. In his not-defence, he probably should have thought of the possibility.

Prussia pretended to get lost and ended up in an abandoned back alley on purpose.

As far as he knew, his attacker was just some guy with a sword. He was the Awesome Prussia. He could totally take some guy with a sword empty handed.

Unfortunately, it was immediately apparent that this man knew what he was doing. It was all he could do for Prussia to dodge. The alley was a dead end, so there was no escaping, and Prussia tried desperately to get inside his attacker's guard with no luck.

The sword grazed him on the arm, and the cut healed with lightning sparking over his skin.

Fuck, Prussia finally realized he's an Immortal, we're Immortals , followed almost immediately by, Oh, shit, I'm gonna die. ( Almost immediately because his first thought was, Yay! I don't have to wear sunscreen!)

Luckily for Prussia, this particular Immortal was somewhere in between Some Guy With a Sword and Millenia of experience, honed to a razor's edge. He was competent, but nothing special, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated that Prussia was not dead yet. (What kind of Immortal didn't carry a sword? What kind of Immortal didn't carry a sword and walked straight into a dead-end alley knowing he was being followed? What kind of Immortal was that clueless and still this hard to kill? )

With his new perspective, Prussia was better able to assess his assailant's weaknesses. He was very experienced, but his experience was very narrow. He was used to one-on-one sword fights, specifically one-on-one sword fights where both opponents were aiming for the head. This left him with a few blind-spots.

Eventually, Prussia found his opening and charged, low to the ground with his head and neck forward and inside his opponent's guard, ignoring the sword coming down to stab him in the back and bowling the enemy over onto the ground. They grappled, Prussia using his bony elbows with great efficiency, until he had his opponent's sword arm pinned down and pried the sword from his hand.

Prussia rolled to his feet and cut off his attacker's head as he tried to stand.

Lightning flashed.

It was a feeling like taking new territory, that feeling of Who I Am being altered, added to with the lives of others, but somehow more . More, intense, more personal, altering something on a deeper, wrong level. There was a feeling of euphoric power, like winning a victory that history books would one day call a "Turning Point", it was nothing like what being shot through with high voltages of electricity actually feels like, but a lot like how you would always half imagine it would feel like.

Prussia collapsed to the ground, panting.

"I am never doing that again," he said.

Gilbird swooped down from where he had been hiding and swooped down to nestle in the hollow of Prussia's neck comfortingly.

Immortals. He was an Immortal. It made sense, in its way. Prussia had never heard of a Nation becoming an Immortal, but then nobody knew how Immortals worked in any case. Many Nations didn't even know that Immortals existed, and Prussia didn't know if any Immortals knew of the existence of Nations.

Prussia looked down at himself. "Shit," he said.

His clothes were ripped and covered in blood, both his own and the other Immortal's. What was he going to tell Germany?

Nothing, he decided. Germany didn't need to know that anything had happened.

By some miracle, Prussia managed to buy a new shirt and pair of pants and change in a public restroom without anyone calling the cops on him. It helped to act very calm and confident and polite, and not at all like someone who had just killed a dude in a back alley. Most people probably thought he was wearing a very convincing costume of some sort.

Looking, once again, like a sane and law-abiding member of society, Prussia considered how he was going to explain his change of clothes. An idea struck and he called North Italy.

"Hello, Prussia! How are you today?" Prussia briefly examined the "how are you today", wondering how pointed it was, before discarding that train of thought.

"Hey, Veneziano," he said, "If I were to tell Germany that I lost to you in a game of strip poker today, would you back me up?"

"... Why do you want Germany to think you lost a game of strip poker?"

"I might have had to change clothes because I got in a fight. Just a little one. But I don't want Germany to worry."

Italy sighed. "Prussia," he said, his voice concerned, "You know you shouldn't do these things. It's not sensible, and it's not responsible. Please take better care of yourself."

It was always a little shocking when Italy acted like some sort of older, wiser friend towards Prussia. Like, "Yes, I knew you when you were a baby, and I was a baby too but also hundreds of years old, and even though you look older than me now, I know and you know that you aren't actually."

"I know, I know," Prussia said, "If you'll believe me, it wasn't my fault. You won't tell Germany, though, right?"

"What do you think I am, an idiot?" Veneziano said, "Of course I won't tell Germany. And I'll help you with your little lie."

"Thank you," Prussia said, "How much do I owe you?"
"Owe you?" Veneziano said, "Can't you believe I'd do a favor for a friend just to be nice?"

"No, I can't" Prussia said, "I'm not my brother, I know you."

"That's mean," Italy said, "Germany knows me very well. Parts of me, anyway. And," he added, his voice tinged a little with sadness, "You really don't need to owe me anything for this, Prussia."

Prussia knew that Italy only said that because he felt sorry for him. He thought that Prussia was dying and going down a self-destructive spiral so he wanted to be supportive. Prussia's enormous desire to not be in Italy's debt warred with his desire not to take advantage of his misplaced pity. The latter won.

"I'm not dying, Veneziano," he said, "I was dying, but I got better. I'm better now."

"And because you suddenly didn't feel awful, you went out and picked a fight with someone. Which is a really silly thing to do, and you don't want Germany to know. That is like you. Okay, then, you'll owe me a favor."

"What sort of favor?"

"I'll tell you when I think of one!"

" What ?"

"Just a little one, promise. You should learn to take advantage of people's assumptions, Prussia. Deal or no deal?"

"Fine, deal."

"Excellent!" Italy said, then added thoughtfully, "There is one problem with this plan of yours, though."

"What's that?"

Italy giggled, "Germany won't believe I beat you at poker. He thinks I'm an innocent."

"Oh, come on, he isn't that blind. I did teach him history."

"Yes, you taught him history. I can imagine it right now," he pitched his voice high (higher) "'Big brother Prussia? How did Venice support itself after the trade routes changed and he lost all his terra firma land?" And then you blush very red and you say, "Well, Little Germany, they… well, lots of people came to Venice for the uh… History! Yes, the History, because Venice used to be so very important, you see, and they… they sold glass! Venician glass is very famous!" And then Germany frowns, because he is very clever, even as a baby, and says "Was that really enough to support the State?" And you say, "Yes, it is very expensive glass." No mention of gambling houses, and certainly nothing to do with prostitutes . I bet you're blushing right now just hearing the word!"

"Yes, well," Prussia said, "I guess I'll have to besmirch your completely undeserved good name a little."

"Oh, well!" Italy said, "I'm sure it will all work out somehow."

Prussia was delighted to find Germany messing around with the engine of his car, which was the peak of leisure by Germany's standards.

"What happened to your clothes?" Germany said when he saw him.

Prussia tried to look appropriately embarrassed.

"I ran into Italy," he said, "And then I might, possibly, have lost terribly to him in a game of strip poker."

Germany frowned, "If you ran into Italy, why didn't you call me so I could join you?"

"Did you want to play strip poker?"

"No, you're right, I would have stopped you from teaching Italy to play strip poker. You really shouldn't have done that."
"I didn't teach him! He suggested it, he wasn't born yesterday, you know."

Germany shook his head. "I can't believe you let him win," he said fondly, "And you say I let him get away with too much."

Prussia opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, rather like a dying fish. When Gilbert was just a little baby Holy Order, pure and innocent as the driven snow, it had been Venice who taught him how to gamble, and then how to gamble all his clothes away and come home naked and ashamed, swearing never to do anything so sinful and foolish again.

"WHAT THE FUCK?!" he texted Italy later.

"he's adorable isn't he?" Italy texted back, and then, "you both are"