I live, moving to a new account probably soon, here's a fic. Russia/Emmory (East Prussia). Post Battle of Koenigsberg. I could make it a little more comprehensive, but it was written on a whim.
Leather clad hands clasps around his jaw, a thump lightly running over his lips in a sort of twisted, comforting fashion. His body shakes. He’s weak, frail--he was starving, and all he wanted was to be able to eat something so he could go to sleep without fear of dying while he drifted into a dream. The hand is almost soothing. It was like he’s being told he could accept this pain in his stomach as a sign to let go, but yet it was an invitation to keep holding on.
“How you managed to hold back so long is astounding.” he was told by the man over him. He was tall, so much taller than he remembered from his childhood. Perhaps it was the power he had gained that made him seem so much bigger now than years in the past.
East Prussia, Ostpreussen--whatever you wanted to call him--was at his end. “Is this how nations die?” he asks hoarsely as he attempts to swallow the last wad of saliva collected in his mouth to moisten his parched throat.
“Perhaps.” the other man--Russia--says, crouching down to his level. “But you’re not going to die, although you are dying.” East Prussia looks away from him, chin pulling free from the warmth that was the large nation’s hand.
“I understand what you’re referring to.” he says helplessly. “But I don’t feel as if I should give in to you.” East Prussia had fallen in the Battle of Koenigsberg only days prior, thanks to a surrender. He wished he could have kept fighting, but his people were so weak. And therefore, so was he.
“Emmory, my love.” Russia purred, pulling his face towards him again without a single instance of force. The region turned willingly. “Without someone you will die.”
“Then I’ll die.” he says with the remaining Prussian defiance within his blood. “Ivan you’re asking me to turn my back on my family.”
“And sometimes one must put themselves before their brothers.” Russia says with an air of sympathy in his voice. “This is one of those times, Emmory.” His head turns to the side, frowning a bit. Russia looks genuinely upset. “Ostreussen, I’ve seen you grow up from a shy, speechless little boy clinging to his father’s cape, to a powerful, influential capital. I’ve seen how you’ve coped through every tragic moment in your life. You and your brother have always been so strong. But strength will fade one day. Everyone grows old, even nations.”
The region’s head falls. Why did Russia always have to seem right to him? He had always lived so close to the man and would turn to him for help. This was one of those moments where he wished this man was lying to him, and in a moment, would just turn around and pat his back, admitting his joke. But the pat on the back never came. Just another batch of silence, and then silent sniffling from the weak nation on the floor.
“I don’t want to let go yet!” he cries out, hands balling up against the floor into fists. “I can’t leave Gilbert and Ludwig to fight this war alone!” Russia reached out to place a hand on the region’s shoulder, but Emmory slapped the hand away. “I don’t want your sympathy! I can do this on my own!”
Silence emitted from Russia. The man was lost for words, this was so unlike the passive region, confessing he was willing to hold on. “No, Emmory.” he says sadly. “You can’t.” His hand reaches for his chin, turning it up again, this time with some force. “You are dying, and your brothers are not coming for you.” His rough hand moves to the scarred man’s cheek, caressing it lightly. “You might be willing to fight for them, but they’re not willing to fight for you.”
All Emmory could do was stare at the man with fear in his sulfuric eyes. Fear and anxiety. “They’ll come…” he says to himself. “They just want me to keep rationing for a few more days.”
“Ostpreussen!” Russia snaps, jerking the young man’s head forward. “They are not coming to help you! Your people are down to a hundred and eighty grams of bread a day in rations! You will not survive if you wait for them!”
“Y-Yes I can!” Emmory shouts, feeling his eyes well up tears. “I can hold out!”
Pain rises through the man’s cheeks as the same comforting hands that were just soothing his soul struck across his face. “You will die, Ostpreussen.” Russia says. “I don’t wish to see you die like this. I would have rather shot and pierced your heart and had you suffer to death of a battle wound than of starvation.”
“I stand by my people, Ivan!” Emmory cried, tears flowing from his eyes. They stung. His people were still dying as he screamed, small flecks of red coming out from each stream. “I won’t stand down until they stand down!”
Russia’s head shook and he stood up, leaving Emmory on the floor, sobbing weakly. “You’re far too much like your brother.” he says, bringing his foot up and pressing it against the region’s chest. “So stubborn, so clingy to his old beliefs.” Russia’s head shook and he put slight pressure on East Prussia’s chest, pushing him on to his back. “I wish to break that defiance and make you realize that you need me.”
Emmory choked as he fell back. Beneath Russia’s foot , the man’s ribs were beginning to crack. Koenigsberg was crumbling beneath Russia’s weight.
“N-No…” Emmory coughed as he felt air rushing from his lungs as he fell. “I won’t join you yet…”
“Yet?” Russia asks softly. “Do you need to have your will twisted to agree to join me?” East Prussia’s head shook.
“Nein.” he chokes. “I won’t until the last German in my home perishes.”
“That won’t be long.” Russia is able to reply quickly. “Your people are being expelled as we speak. Expelled back to Germany, to Siberia or--” Russia presses down harder on the region’s chest. “Would you find more comfort knowing that we’re taking their lives so they could die as Prussians?”
The sound of ribs cracking, shattering, crumbling--breaking--were clear in the air as Russia’s body overcame the body of Ostpreussen. The region screamed, but jagged, broken shards of rib were cutting into his lungs. It was far too much pain for the man to stand.
“Emmory, your body is crumbling. I can feel it, so can you--I’m sure that your brothers can too. But they’re not coming.” Russia removes his foot and sits down on the floor next to the man. His hand--the same hand that was delivering both comfort and pain--slid on to East Prussia’s stomach, motioning up to where the shattered ribcage was. The region writhed beneath the hand as Russia began to put some pressure. “I could do this by merely placing my foot upon you…Could you imagine what else I could do to make you accept my offer?”
East Prussia cannot speak, all he does is look at Russia with terror in his eyes. “A-are you this determined…?” he asks softly.
The large country’s head turns to the side, smiling gently, with all the compassion and love of a parent. “I just wish to see you live.”
“I’ll live.” Emmory begins to say, but Russia presses down firmly on the other’s chest. He screams, feeling the shards of ribs cut into the organs within him. “Ivan stop!” he cries out, wriggling beneath the man.
“Ostpreussen, every jab you feel in your chest…is another one of your people dying needlessly of starvation.” he whispers. “You’re so selfish. You’d rather cling on to survival because you feel your brothers will save you…While people, no, children! Are dying because of you.” Emmory whimpers a bit, hearing things like that. “Children, just like you and Gilbert once were…they’re screaming ‘Mutti, mutti…!’ while squeezing the lifeless hand of their mother who has perished, just like they will, ‘Mutti, Ich bin krank!! Mutti…? Mutti, aufwachen! Aufwachen!’” Emmory weakly brings his hands to his face, trying to shield his eyes, somehow assuming it would shield his thoughts, trying to remove the image from his mind. “It hurts, doesn’t it, Emmory?”
The region’s head nods. The pain he feels in his heart, the stabs from his broken ribs, they…they were not real.
It was as if a placebo had been administered. Ostpreussen’s chest was miraculously in tact, but the stabs remained. His mind was filled with the horrifying premonitions of children he saw everyday screaming and crying from hunger.
“E-Enough.” he mutters softly, one hand lowering from his face and grasping for Russia’s hand. “Just…save them.”
Ivan’s hand wraps around Emmory’s squeezing lightly. “Will you join me then?” he asks, looking at the man with a sad smile. “And live in my house as a part of me?”
The German word for yes was not uttered.
Instead, Emmory looked at him with tearful eyes, and with a slight nod of the head spoke:
“Да.”
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