Fic Present for Azzie
Title: Tracks
Characters/Pairings: Prussia/France
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Two nations have a futile encounter on a hill before a war.
Author's Note: Present for diaage. I'll write you something longer later.
If someone had asked him for an honest to God reason why he was there, Prussia wouldn’t have been able to give them an answer. It wasn’t rational, but he wasn’t the most rational of people. It wasn’t because he hoped it would change something, because he knew that it wouldn’t. It wasn’t to try and make amends, even though he’d like it if there was something he could salvage. The only thing he could have said in response was that he and France were both stubborn and selfish and had a complex about letting things go.
They were sitting in the grass on a hill, looking down at a swathe of green below them. Prussia hadn’t seen France dressed so simply and willingly sitting in the dirt in decades. Then again, the last century hadn’t been a stunning example of their past friendship. On the few occasions they’d seen each other off the battlefield, the exchanges had been sharp, fleeting, and gratifyingly shallow. There had been a bittersweet satisfaction in the antipathy they could feel for each other, something charged and on the cusp of being deadly. Of course, that only lasted as long as they managed not to miss one another.
“So…” Prussia’s voice was rough, raw from having to shout commands over the rush of new machines. “How’s the new emperor?”
“New,” France answered noncommittally. His eyes were half-closed, focused on the horizon. “How’s the unification?”
Prussia shrugged one shoulder and leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees. The questioning note in Ludwig’s voice when he’d left to meet France rang in his ears again. “Not quite unified.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
There was an awkward silence that France knew England would have filled with a sarcastic remark, Prussia knew Ludwig would have filled with a study on why sitting in a field in the middle of nowhere having a conversation about nothing was not very productive, and both knew Spain would have filled with a comment on the warmth of the sun.
“I don’t want to fight you.” Prussia’s voice was steel, whetted like a weapon.
France gave a laugh so weak with cynicism that it was lost in the wind. “Yes, cher ami, you do.”
Prussia shifted. The movement was uncomfortable, restless. “No, I want to fight.”
“As do I,” France agreed smoothly. “Once again, we were simply convenient for one another.”
They heard the sound of the train from a long way off, but stopped speaking long before the volume would have impeded them. In silence, they watched it pass on the tracks far below their hill, understanding in more than one way that they were watching what could be a piece of their end.
Over the months that passed, Prussia lost count of the number of times he glimpsed France in the line of enemy soldiers, couldn’t begin to recall the number of times his sword and gun had found France’s chest as often as the fodder. There was something unspeakably freeing in the knowledge that this nation, this man, this friend that he’d loved brutally for centuries held such little sway over him, and in return France could unhesitatingly cut into him, unfalteringly try to break him apart. He’d always had a thing for red and blue, his eyes and Ludwig’s, France’s eyes and the blood slicked over his face, the sky and the sparks of light reaching up through the smoke, the bud of a rose Prussia had once set in France’s hands over too-long sleeves as a child...
The next time they saw each other long enough to have a conversation, Prussia was in Versailles with his boot against France’s throat, grinning down at the defeated nation beneath his heel, and cackling, “You still think I’m convenient?”
xxx
- The Franco-Prussian war lasted July 19th, 1870 - May 10th, 1871. France had just gotten a new (self-declared) emperor that felt like he needed to win a war to regain some prestige and public support. Bismarck on Prussia’s side believed that a war between the two countries needed to be fought before Germany could unify, arguing that a common foe would help the process. Prussia won rather spectacularly. The use of trains played a major part in this.
Characters/Pairings: Prussia/France
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Two nations have a futile encounter on a hill before a war.
Author's Note: Present for diaage. I'll write you something longer later.
If someone had asked him for an honest to God reason why he was there, Prussia wouldn’t have been able to give them an answer. It wasn’t rational, but he wasn’t the most rational of people. It wasn’t because he hoped it would change something, because he knew that it wouldn’t. It wasn’t to try and make amends, even though he’d like it if there was something he could salvage. The only thing he could have said in response was that he and France were both stubborn and selfish and had a complex about letting things go.
They were sitting in the grass on a hill, looking down at a swathe of green below them. Prussia hadn’t seen France dressed so simply and willingly sitting in the dirt in decades. Then again, the last century hadn’t been a stunning example of their past friendship. On the few occasions they’d seen each other off the battlefield, the exchanges had been sharp, fleeting, and gratifyingly shallow. There had been a bittersweet satisfaction in the antipathy they could feel for each other, something charged and on the cusp of being deadly. Of course, that only lasted as long as they managed not to miss one another.
“So…” Prussia’s voice was rough, raw from having to shout commands over the rush of new machines. “How’s the new emperor?”
“New,” France answered noncommittally. His eyes were half-closed, focused on the horizon. “How’s the unification?”
Prussia shrugged one shoulder and leaned forward to rest his arms on his knees. The questioning note in Ludwig’s voice when he’d left to meet France rang in his ears again. “Not quite unified.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
There was an awkward silence that France knew England would have filled with a sarcastic remark, Prussia knew Ludwig would have filled with a study on why sitting in a field in the middle of nowhere having a conversation about nothing was not very productive, and both knew Spain would have filled with a comment on the warmth of the sun.
“I don’t want to fight you.” Prussia’s voice was steel, whetted like a weapon.
France gave a laugh so weak with cynicism that it was lost in the wind. “Yes, cher ami, you do.”
Prussia shifted. The movement was uncomfortable, restless. “No, I want to fight.”
“As do I,” France agreed smoothly. “Once again, we were simply convenient for one another.”
They heard the sound of the train from a long way off, but stopped speaking long before the volume would have impeded them. In silence, they watched it pass on the tracks far below their hill, understanding in more than one way that they were watching what could be a piece of their end.
Over the months that passed, Prussia lost count of the number of times he glimpsed France in the line of enemy soldiers, couldn’t begin to recall the number of times his sword and gun had found France’s chest as often as the fodder. There was something unspeakably freeing in the knowledge that this nation, this man, this friend that he’d loved brutally for centuries held such little sway over him, and in return France could unhesitatingly cut into him, unfalteringly try to break him apart. He’d always had a thing for red and blue, his eyes and Ludwig’s, France’s eyes and the blood slicked over his face, the sky and the sparks of light reaching up through the smoke, the bud of a rose Prussia had once set in France’s hands over too-long sleeves as a child...
The next time they saw each other long enough to have a conversation, Prussia was in Versailles with his boot against France’s throat, grinning down at the defeated nation beneath his heel, and cackling, “You still think I’m convenient?”
xxx
- The Franco-Prussian war lasted July 19th, 1870 - May 10th, 1871. France had just gotten a new (self-declared) emperor that felt like he needed to win a war to regain some prestige and public support. Bismarck on Prussia’s side believed that a war between the two countries needed to be fought before Germany could unify, arguing that a common foe would help the process. Prussia won rather spectacularly. The use of trains played a major part in this.