Chapter Text
He wakes to a satisfaction not unlike Leipzig.
It’s the satisfaction of an irrevocable victory, the distant memory of actually being complete for the first time in too long, and it reminds him of the victory high he hasn’t experienced in a near fucking century—
…wha? He thinks blearily, reaching for the fuzzy border between West and him in reflex, finds it still there between the people but nothing between them—
—wait, no—
—but reality still comes crashing down like the broken link he thought he’s maintained, and between one breath and the next Prussia finds himself heaving over the edge of a too-familiar bed as things he should not be able to see or hear or touch floods his senses, the West leaking into the East like a broken dam, the lifeforce of millions that feel like utter betrayal.
“Fuck,” he breathes, smelling the fresh morning grass of Harz, hearing the bustling cacophony of a law office in Cologne; Thuringia’s beacon of warmth pulsing from somewhere downstairs, West’s a weak stutter in comparison.
Oh, God.
West, West, WEST—
—and the warped world twists further, stinging cold creeping up his face as it hits hard wood; his damned senses aren’t clearing, but that means West’s flickering presence is still palpable, if only barely.
Trembling arms force his body up through a rambling litany of old prayers, bare feet cold against old wood as he tries to build up that nonexistent wall between him and West, beelining towards his brother’s room with a body that felt barely tangible.
Hasn’t he— hasn’t he been patching up the holes between them?
Left, right, straight, no thinking about how his heart hasn’t beaten this evenly since ‘47, and vertigo nearly has him falling over West’s door when a child’s playroom winks in, out.
Blink, and he’s not standing anymore.
Blink again, and his eyes clear enough to register that the strange lump underneath him is West and not something he’s tripped over, and— he’s cold.
He’s cold.
His hands scramble to find West’s wrist— also cool, no pulse.
“Have you thought about how you will break if Ludwig does not wake?”
No.
No, he manages to think through the haze, and then—
“ANDREAS! GET YOUR ASS UP HERE!”
The words crack in the hollow of his overworked throat, but that doesn’t matter because West is cold and he has no pulse and no, go back, he will not cry, goddamnit.
You’re not this weak, are you? Spits the part of himself that’s always held too much pride for his own good, all vitriol and fear and stubbornness, and he— Prussia, finds himself falling heavily onto West’s bedside desk, blinking back eye-water in the dimness of the… early morning?
Probably.
And the floor’s shaking as Thuringia throws the door open, the gigantic crack making Prussia flinch a moment late, grabbing for the rosary— and the Cross— under his shirt in reflex, freezing like the glimpse he sees of the teenager caught graffiting in Spreewald.
He follows Thuringia’s stare as his state blinks tiredly, brown hair frizzy like it’s been since 68’.
“… Ost?”
Yes, fuck, call him Ost.
He hates the goddamned name, but they need the distinction—
The table’s mahogany is cool under clammy skin, and Prussia breathes in, out, forces away the clamoring voices and lives that shouldn’t be his.
“Can you feel West?” He asks without thinking, in one of his first languages— fuck how it’s more Lithuanian than Prussian, because it’s instinctive and familiar and he needs that right now.
Thuringia freezes.
A moment, the doorknob squeaking under his state’s grip as understanding dawns— and then he’s stumbling towards their brother like he did Holy Rome, when the boy’s fading link finally gave out in his first capital.
There is disbelief in the way Thuringia’s takes West’s pulse, his shaking hands; Prussia tells himself to not think about the distinct lack of that worry for his own imminent death all through last year, because this isn’t about him.
“Ludwig— West, I can’t— no,” Thurningia gasps in a subset of Saxon Prussia can’t be bothered to remember the name of, steadying himself on the bookshelf behind him, books from the first half of this damned century rattling under creaking wood. “He— is he…?”
Prussia’s legs start moving on their own despite West’s people playing hot potato with his sense of balance, and the next thing he knows his knees are scraping against hard wood as he collapses at West’s bedside, taking his brother’s cold hand into his own.
“…probably.”
He doesn’t look at Thuringia, ignores how his voice comes out way too fucking tight like he’s negotiating terms of surrender, staring at the sun leaking through thin curtains as he tries to shove everything that’s not his into a neat little box labelled ‘West’.
He can still hear the radio lines of a police station in Munich.
“ God,” Thuringia breathes, the creaking wood of the bookcase starting to give underneath his weight— Prussia supposes it’s almost time to replace that old thing, anyways— and his state swallows audibly, mutters a prayer under his breath. “You’ve tried, yeah? You can’t feel him too?”
He’s tried. Of course he has.
West’s hand is fucking freezing.
Prussia holds it like a rosary as he closes his eyes, reaches past the noise and feelings and people to the point where the fuzzy border between East and West was ten minutes ago, found it there— between the people, still, but the one that he’s been using to stop the flow of power from West to him doesn’t… exist.
West felt like outdoor barbecue and papyrus scrolls and the stifling oil-stink of a bustling factory, and Prussia couldn’t find him ten minutes ago, he’s still not finding him now—
No, no, no.
He can’t be gone, he can’t be, because Prussia’s the GDR and West’s the fucking Federal Republic, and this whole thing should be happening the other way around but West’s presence is gone and God— fuck, goddamnit, WEST—
—he’s pulling a blanket over his daughter in Erfurt, he’s downing vodka in Hamburg, and he’s blinking at the sight of his fingers digging trenches into West’s dead hand, thick blood clinging to his nails like dried ink.
There’s something dripping down his face, there’s nonexistent wind howling past his ears.
It’s only when the water starts soaking his shirt that he— Prussia, he’s fucking Prussia— realizes he’s crying, barely breathing even as he’s hunched over his brother’s body like all the fathers and mothers and siblings he’s seen grieving over their fallen brethren— and he still feels Thuringia’s heavy stare all through his muddled senses and the scream building in his throat, burning with startled disbelief into his side.
The sun spilling into the room feels like it’s mocking him.
“You know what this means, Andreas,” he manages to choke out, still in that forgotten dialect of Lithuania’s, because he can’t seem to manage normal German right now and he’s used this one enough for Thuringia to understand—
“I— yes.”
The bookshelf creaks out of Prussia’s sight, and between one moment and the next he feels the breeze of clear mountain air, the smell of sun-baked pavement.
Thuringia’s beside him.
He’s not sure when that happened— but his state shifts and Prussia’s tearing his gaze away from West’s sheet-white face, the rustle of fabric bouncing off old walls like dry leaves in autumn; he looks up to see Thuringia’s pale eyes blinking back sudden tears.
Much less satisfying than imagined, he realises with a tightening throat, and—
“Guten Morgen, Deutschland,” says the state that should be his brother’s, blank stare pointed at Prussia like the smoking barrel of a gun.
The words feel like a death sentence.
——
“We need to tell the others.”
Prussia doesn’t realise he’s spoken until the words dissipate, like smoke in howling wind.
“But that’s—“
He’s close enough to hear Thuringia’s birds.
“God. Os— Ge— agh, Gilbert, they’ll be all over us.”
And Prussia finally opens his eyes, blinks back the Chancellor’s Office to stare at his state.
Thuringia looks like a fucking mess, disheveled shirt and wild hair backlit by morning sun, his usual dark circles stark against tan skin— though Prussia imagines he doesn’t look much better, himself.
“They’ll be all over us regardless,” He rasps, tears sticking to his face the same way clotted blood does, stretchy and disgusting and too much like losing Königsberg and Berlin and what’s left of his fucking dignity— the thought makes the crumbling thing in his heart crack further, and Prussia inhales, presses two fingers against West’s wrist again.
Nothing, he thinks numbly, despite how he knows West’s been dead since fifteen minutes ago, how with every time he blinks he sees Heidelberg and Düsseldorf and Spyer and too many lives to even count, and he blinks back the tears before they erupt again because feelings are over and they need to handle the fallout of this shitshow right now.
They simply cannot afford to let it go to hell like last time, and—
“—you handle the nations, I handle the humans,” he finds himself saying, two seconds before he entirely registers it— and Prussia can’t seem to bring himself to meet Thuringia’s eyes again, to acknowledge the implicit order he’s just given, because that would be acknowledging the power he has in this goddamned position and he just can’t—
—Thuringia reaches for the phone, Prussia throws himself out the door, and reality comes crashing down all at once.
——
“C’mon, damnit, pick the fuck up—“
Clack.
“Kohl.”
“Thank fucking God—“
“Prussia? Is there a problem with the NATO—“
“ I’ve been dialling you for half an hour, what took you so long?”
“…I apologise, but I presume you have a reason for doing that?”
“—West’s gone.”
“Repeat that for me.”
“West died half an hour ago, Chancellor. Andreas— Thuringia, you met him last week— he’s calling the other states, maybe Austria and Italy, and I’ve called President Weizsäcker, the Federal Court— Herzog, to be specific, and, uh, you.”
“…it wasn’t just a sickness. On God, you’re really telling me that Germany is dead?”
“Germany is not dead. West is. The— the idea of a divided Germany is… fading. I suppose. We’ve definitely been expecting something of the sort, just not— not like this. Never like this.”
“—no. Prussia, you’re telling me—“
“I—“
“Am I supposed to call you Germany, now? It— he’s really gone? Ludwig?”
“NO. Wait, fuck, I mean— yeah, he’s gone. Just— I— agh. Don’t, right now. Don’t call me that.”
“ …I need some time. To think. And to do damage control. I presume you will be back in Berlin as soon as possible?”
“The states will be freaking out. I’ll come after the shouting match.”
“Noted. I will call again in the afternoon. Auf Wiederhören.”
“…Auf Wiederhören."
——
The next time Prussia steps into West’s room, he almost sees Italia and Holy Rome instead of Veneziano and West.
It’s near noon, he’s reeling from multiple terrible phone calls, and when he sees a blurry shape standing vigil over his dead brother his mind just goes—
“Italia?” Prussia says, five seconds before his brain catches up, but Veneziano’s blank stare is already fixed on the hall somewhere over his shoulder.
His hand is in West’s, he notes numbly.
“Thank you for telling me this time, Gilbert,” what used to be Italia whispers, words echoing like funeral bells off the lone chair, the floor, the walls, and Prussia feels like he’s failed both of them all over again.
——
Austria and Hungary come together, sometime after the sun starts to set.
The can of Pilsner’s freezing his fingers numb when they step into the living room, harried and unpoised and looking exactly as they did after the first War— clinging to each other’s presence like it’s the only saving grace left to them, and Prussia registers the burning in his throat a moment after he swallows the instinctive insult.
“Ludwig’s really gone?” Hungary demands in the same dialect Austria’s always used, leaning forward into the warm light above them.
It casts her hair in a pretty bronze sheen, some part of him notes, pretty and brown and pinned back into a braid she hasn’t worn after the 17th century.
Right, he hasn’t seen her since the Pan-European picnic—
—and then Prussia remembers her question, and he more infers his nod from her shaky inhale than by actually feeling the motion himself.
“Are you… drunk?”
Austria’s eyes are narrowed; his voice echoes through the returning silence, low and disbelieving and in a tone that somehow reminds Prussia of his sneering chidings from so long ago.
Am I?
His can scratches across the table like live steel against chainmail.
“Didn’t mean to,” Prussia mutters— and fuck, glancing at Hungary and Austria definitely took too much energy— “West’s still upstairs, Feliciano and Signe’s with ‘im.”
“Feli’s here?”
“How can you be this irresponsible?”
Their voices mix like a bitter harmony, leading up to a pleasant coupling but missing the mark in all the ways that matter— and Hungary’s surprisingly casual clothes rustle like shifting paper as she grasps the edge of the table; Austria’s eyes flick her way as his lips press thinner, as he pulls at his dress shirt, folds casting sharp shadows with black against white.
God.
He doesn’t know how to deal with this.
He doesn’t know how to deal with any of this— be it Hungary and Austria, the horrible tightness in his chest, the fucking millions of people he’s suddenly gained overnight—
—and he’s sinking deeper into the uncomfortable chair, hard wood digging into his sides as his eyes slide shut.
“…Signe told me to cry my heart out down here before she’ll let me into West’s room again,” he mumbles, finally, leaning further back. “I’m a liability otherwise, apparently. Too ‘emotionally constipated’.”
Hungary and Austria’s faces are substantially larger than they were a second ago.
“That’s not an excuse.”
“…mmhm.”
And Austria’s sigh registers a moment late, again, because between one blink and the next Prussia isn’t in his pathetic position on the chair anymore.
His legs feel like nothing but air under him— they definitely aren’t supporting his weight— but another few blinks have the world coming into focus, and it’s then he realizes the warm thing around his arm is Austria, with Hungary at his back.
Wait, fuck—
“— no, let go, ‘m fine—“
“You obviously aren’t,” Hungary mutters under her breath like an insult, as the world blurs with her shove, as Austria stops the vertigo with a practiced catch.
Like an injured veteran and their buddies, he thinks hysterically.
“I’m afraid Erzsébet’s correct, Gilbert,” Austria sighs, and Prussia distantly notes his arm getting pulled tighter ‘round his old enemy’s middle, feet dragging painfully across cool wood, blurry colors shifting into what vaguely looks like the bathroom.
“You have much to do, if I presume correctly— and I don’t imagine you want to be looking like… this, for any of that.”
——
Nine in the evening finds Prussia cross-legged on the living room table, landline in hand, the states crowded around him like knights around a king.
“How’s your hangover?” Saarland drawls, too close for comfort even as the chair closest to him creaks under her weight; Mecklenburg snorts next to Anhalt on the far side of the table.
Assholes, Prussia thinks, telling himself to ignore how Saxony and Austria and Nieder’s stares burn a hole into his side, to stop being a fucking pussy and call America already.
He can finally almost let himself get lost in the silence and not the people that aren’t his, anyways—
—and he flinches as the sharp screech of a chair rips the quiet apart like an arrow through the night, as Hesse says, “You’ve been staring at that for a bit, Ost.”
“Shut up, Liesel.”
The bravado in his voice is ruined by its crack, the landline’s disgusting plastic sticking to his hands, the table’s old oak digging into his legs.
The states’ stares continue to burn into his skin, wound tight like sails in a storm—
“God knows we’ve have enough of your stalling, give me that—“
—Prussia blinks, the landline slips out of slick fingers, and it takes a long moment to realise that the beep-bip-beep-beep he’s hearing is echoing from Westphalia and not the family he’s been trying to tune out.
“Wait, fuck—”
There’s a set of warm arms ‘round his middle— Hungary, his panicked mind supplies— he can’t get to Westphalia, son of a bitch, and the phone’s ringing and ringing like a harbinger of doom and God, he’s gonna fuck this up, isn’t he?
“Just do it, Ost.”
Thuringia’s words do nothing to help stem the clamoring voices or the way his heart’s trying to become an Olympic gymnast the likes of Mary-Lou Retton, but before he can think too much about it Westphalia thrusts the damned landline back into his hands, America’s voice loud and casual and—
“Jones, International Relations.”
Inhale, exhale, ignore Hungary’s loosening hold, Bonn’s bustling government office.
“…Jones, this is Beilschmidt.”
——
Prussia leaves for the capital the next morning, because no matter how much this feels like the end, the world carries on.
——
The world carries on, and he’s back the next week with half the government in tow.
They’re lucky so much of it is still based in Bonn.
——
The wake comes a few days later, with the humans settled and the shock starting to wear.
It’s tiny and quiet and filled to the brim with alcohol from West’s basement; cheap shit that wouldn't be missed, because good beer is for enjoyment and this is for forgetting everything for a night.
Veneziano drinks too, along with Hungary and the Priss and Romano when he comes shouting, and the next day Prussia finds himself unable to stand the stench of cornflowers anymore, and he throws the lot out with Westphalia.
The praying and crying and shouting from the night before goes unmentioned.
This wake is for them and them alone; the funeral is for everyone else.
——
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven,“
——
‘Everyone else’ fills half the pews of the old Lutherkirche down the road; most of West’s colleagues, some of Prussia’s old cabinet, certain humans that’ve left a deeper impression than most.
….all of them, plus a considerable number of nations.
He’s not sure whether to be flattered or offended by that graciousness.
——
“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal,”
——
Ironed brown flits into view like camouflage into open air.
Prussia pretends he hasn’t flinched when he meets Japan’s eyes for the first time in a half-century, backlit by the gigantic windows spilling sunlight all over polished wood; he’s wearing a drab three-piece that blends in almost perfectly with the pews beside them, pressed and unwrinkled and so very far from the picture of the waif that still haunts his nightmares.
“You look… better,” he finds himself saying, a moment before his brain catches up on the idiocy of said comment— but Japan’s dull eyes don’t change even as he stiffens.
“… gomenasai. I… did not know what to wear. I apologize if this attire is inappropriate.”
Prussia swallows.
“No, no, you’re good. It’s just… nice? I guess. That you came.”
Japan’s shoulders relax like a deflating lifeboat, and Prussia watches as he glances towards the dithering Brandenburg near the door, the staring Chancellor Kohl in the pew behind them, the coffin out of sight beyond the church doors.
“I considered wearing a ceremonial uniform. I suppose that was not a good idea?”
“…no, not really.”
——
“A time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together,“
——
America and Britain arrive together with New York and Maryland, five minutes before the service starts.
Britain doesn’t acknowledge Prussia beyond a slight tilt of the head and a bouquet of saffron, but America manages to mutter his condolences awkwardly as he shoves a handful of milkweeds into his hands.
“…good luck, Germany,” he says, finally, like he can’t believe the words coming out his mouth—
—and Prussia finds himself sitting shell-shocked in the middle of the front pew, hands near-crushing the flowers in his grip, nodding dumbly back at America’s states as they settle behind an uncomfortable President Weisäcker.
“… ’abuse not’, ‘ let me go’,” Palatinate murmurs beside him, quiet and bemused and lost.
The Victorian flower language of saffron and milkweed.
Cool liquid slides from stem onto shaking hands, and Prussia can’t help but wonder if this truly is happenstance.
——
“A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away,“
——
Italy and Austria and Hungary corner him, in one of the lulls that litter the arranged eulogies.
Prussia’s seat isn’t even warm when it happens— America and England’s flowers now decorate West’s coffin— but their footfalls are distinct as ever, and he doesn’t bother looking up until Austria’s voice reaches his ears, quiet and murmured in the chatter surrounding them.
“You’re not going up?”
The weird question gives Prussia pause.
But it’s really not anything horribly invasive or insulting, and he shrugs, ignoring the painful tightening of his chest, the warm wood of the rosary under his shirt.
“Catholic,” he says, simply.
All three of them blink simultaneously— and Hungary’s groaning, “I told you.”
Austria scowls.
“His kings converted, didn’t they? Forgive me for thinking he did as well.”
The leaflet he’s holding goes onto the pew, and it’s Prussia’s turn to blink, finally raising his head to stare at them, bodies framed by the simple splendor of the old Lutherkirche.
“...you weren’t sure?” he asks, blankly noting how his voice lilts upward, not fighting his gaze when it slips back to West’s coffin. “I don’t exactly hide it.”
Italy’s grimace is an unfamiliar thing, twisting across his face like the shockwave of a grenade.
“We... assumed.”
Ah, comes the realisation a moment late, and Prussia cracks a grin he doesn’t bother making real.
“And you’ve got to love assumptions.”
——
“A time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak,“
——
He’s fiddling with both Crosses around his neck when Russia comes striding in an hour late, with no regard to Anhalt on the altar.
Rude, Prussia thinks, even as familiar insults choke his windpipe with unspoken accusations and long-swallowed pains, but whatever he wants to say dies when Russia’s eyes meet his— a single sunflower falls onto Prussia’s lap as he passes by, vibrant petals brushing cotton-like over a fist he doesn’t remember clenching.
…uh.
The room’s stares turn to him like target-seeking missiles; Prussia finds himself straightening as he exhales, Brandenburg’s scent of brick and mortar slipping without conscious consent past the thin walls he’s managed to build up again, because he’s close and familiar and he doesn’t know how to react to… this.
Is it sincere? No clue.
It’s probably the most he can expect, though, and he jabs his rosary at the bastard.
Russia’s widening smile is less strained than usual.
——
“A time to love, and a time to hate—”
——
The prayers and the farewell go by in a haze; like scattering fog, like clearing rain, and most everyone’s gone by one in the afternoon save for the expected few.
“—see you at the cemetery,” Prussia’s saying to the minister when the echo of dress shoes on wood reaches his ears, still-oversensitive senses meaning that he’s not too surprised when a side-glance shows Chancellor Kohl, President Weisäcker and their bodyguards, staring from below the chancel.
The minister— Mathias Weiß, Westphalia’s— catches sight of them a moment after Prussia, and the man swallows audibly, shoes clacking like cannonfire in the pressing silence as he backs away.
“Should I— go?”
Prussia spares a terse nod for him, and he waits until Weiß stumbles off the raised platform before turning to face the— his, bosses.
The idea still sits wrong even in his head; he opens his mouth before that train of thought travels into dangerous territory.
“You need anything?” Prussia calls, curling his hands into fists to stop from pulling at his jacket— one of the few he owns, anymore, because he’s had to sell his favorite ones during the Depression, and the remaining are either lost or burnt or hidden in places he hasn’t had the time nor resources to access.
Kohl’s answering cough is loud as ever, pounding on glass windows, wood walls, polished floor.
“We still have much to do,” Weisäcker murmurs, both hands behind his back; Prussia doesn’t miss the way his eyes narrow at Kohl. “I’m sure your paperwork has been as neverending as ours, no?”
“…do you need anything?” Prussia asks, again, finally finding the good sense to straighten, keeping his eyes on his bosses because he really doesn’t need to be distracted by his states’ stares burning like sparks into kindling. “I’m sure we all have things to do after this.”
“…yes. What happens now, Prussia?”
Kohl’s perpetual grimace is plastered on like a mask, afternoon sun glinting off his glasses like ricocheting shrapnel.
“ Our expected representative is dead. We’ve only been dancing around the subject for the past two weeks, and you know as well as we do that that is not a state we want to be in.”
…right. That.
Yeah, echoes the damning admission in Prussia’s head— and saliva goes sliding discreetly down his throat as he exhales, says, “I think you know the answer to that.”
He doesn’t bother forcing a grin.
The crows’ feet around Weisäcker’s eyes deepen; Kohl adjusts his glasses with a mouth pressed thin.
Inhale, exhale—
—and Prussia spares one last glance towards West’s coffin, speckled with flickers of blue and yellow and red and black; so akin to Holy Rome’s, yet familiar and foreign all at once.
Abuse not; Let me go.
“…I think it’s time for Germany to pull himself back together.”
——
“—a time for war, and a time for peace."
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
——