Chapter Text
Prussia sat at his desk, lazily twirling a pen as he waited for his computer to boot up. He leaned back in his chair with a huff before spinning in it a couple times, eyes glued to the ceiling.
Irritated with waiting, he stood with a huff and walked over to the shelves and display casings lining his wall adjacent to his desk. He simply stood there—even as his computer finally lit up on the login screen—and scanned the multitude of items he had on display.
He had plenty of CDs and other miscellaneous analog tapes lined up and neatly stacked in their respective categories on one end of the uppermost shelf.
Eh, why not?
He reached up and grabbed a CD, the cover depicting stormy waves. He walked over to his player, popped open the casing and slid the disc into it.
After a bit of fiddling and muttering, the player started up, and the beginning riff of Be Yourself by Audioslave filled the otherwise silent space.
He smirked and stood, listening for a second with a self-satisfied smile on his face. He nodded along as Chris Cornell began singing, finally walking back to his computer.
“Someone falls to pieces sleeping all alone,
someone kills the pain,”
Okay, so maybe this wasn't the best song to play at the moment. Prussia frowned a little as he sat in his chair, but chose to leave the song on instead of fast forwarding despite himself.
He jotted in his password (which is derallertollste0118, but that’s not important!) and his buttload of windows from his last session popped back up in stride. Embarrassed by some tabs in particular—West would definitely remove his internet access if he wasn’t careful—he quickly maximized one containing his blog.
Happy to finally find an actual source for distraction, he skimmed through his most recently uploaded notes, checking the replies under them.
There were plenty of replies from Spain—But that wasn’t all too surprising considering how excitable his close friend was—, a handful from Hungary (which made him smile giddily) and a good few more from the other countries he still kept touch with, although those felt more cordial than out of actual interest.
He did have one that caught his eye, though.
Italy had replied to him under one post, including an attachment. It was a picture of him from the chest up in a white Tshirt and light blue cardigan, face caught mid laugh. He had a bright, carefree look about him that paired nicely with the sunshine that was reflecting off of his auburn hair.
But that wasn’t what caused him to click on the image.
Beside him and slightly out of frame was a man with dark brown hair and olive skin. He already recognized him, but the unruly curled strand jutting straight out of the topside of his hair was a dead giveaway. It was Italy’s older brother, Romano. He was holding a half-eaten cannoli and looking off to the side at something out of frame, but what really caught Prussia’s attention was the smirk highlighting his unusually light-seeming expression.
He even seemed like he had been cracking a joke, the reason for Ita- Veneziano’s delight. Normally, he wouldn’t have been so drawn in by something so simple (and maybe even a little mundane), but it weirdly enthralled him.
He was so used to seeing the Southern half of Italy with a foul expression that it was almost uncanny seeing him look even the smallest bit happy.
Yeah, that was it.
The fluttering feeling in his chest was just his own amusement at the sheer abnormality that he was staring at.
And he was only saving it so he could show it to Spain later.
It was captioned Ciao, Prussia! I see you’re out today! Well guess what? So were me and my fratello! Isn’t that cool? Hope you’re having fun! Come and visit us sometime soon!
He stared at the words, then at the attachment, and then repeated this process for a few more heartbeats.
He tapped a quick response along the lines of “Anything I do is fun!” before quickly shutting off his computer—he made sure to close the incriminating couple of tabs before doing so—and just sat in place for a moment.
He hadn’t noticed his song had ended. Huh. He reached over (very strainedly, because he did not want to stand up just yet) and hit the replay.
When the guitar and drums started up again, he opened his phone and started aimlessly scrolling through his inbox. Why was he still thinking about that stupid picture? It’s not like it was his first time seeing the guy. Hell, they’d spoken for crying out loud!
—Well… More like he spoke at him while Romano’s replies were short and sweet and complete with that oh-so charming signature glare of his.
…That was sarcasm, for the record.
The point is, he and the guy weren’t friends; Hell, he didn’t even really want to become friends with Romano, and that feeling was very clearly mutual. So why was he so caught up by something that wasn’t even the damn focus of the message?
Yeah, the guy could loosen up at times. So what? It wasn’t any of his business, and he didn’t want it to be.
I wonder what it would take to get him to laugh…
Nope. That’s the end of that. He swiftly put his phone to the side, which, by the way, had the goddamned photo pulled up once more on its screen. Feeling betrayed by his own subconscious actions, he buried his face into his hands and groaned.
He seriously needed to get a grip. Like, immediately.
Now that he was gaining clarity, he noticed the final verses of his song going.
“—To be yourself is all that you can
Be yourself is all that you can—”
“Be yourself is all that you can do.” He muttered along the last verse, resigned to the whole thing. His life was genuinely a comedy at this point, the timing of it all utterly impeccable. He couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“Yeah, thanks a lot, Chris, you arschloch…”
Suddenly not feeling as lazy, he stood up from his chair and mechanically prepared for bed, pulling a freshly washed shirt over his head and walking over to his bed. He got everything in order before shuffling into his sheets and shutting off his lights. After adjusting himself a couple of times, he let out a sigh and closed his eyes, feeling himself relax as the premise of sleep suddenly seemed increasingly appealing to his sore body.
He said, he felt himself RELAX because he was SLEEPY!
…
Okay, this whole “narrative” thing’s totally broken.
He let out a huff as he rolled over, letting his back face the rest of his room. Why was he still thinking about that stupid Italian dude? They’d only met a few times up to this point and spoke even less, so what was the point of it all?
He shoved his face into his pillow and just accepted he probably wasn’t going to get any sleep anytime soon.
All because of some stupid smirk.