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How do you tell your baby brother that you are dying?
It seems such a simple thing. Simple words, a straightforward concept. But then, it is never the facts of things that are difficult.
The trouble, Prussia knew, was that death was tangled up with so many other things. With pain and memories and dreams.
Because it would be simple, to tell Germany he was dying, simple but impossible. Because to do so was too final, a definite end. To do so, alone, like the period at the end of a sentence, the blank page at the end of a book, was too cruel.
Prussia could not say that he was dying, not yet, because there were too many other things he needed to tell him first, things he had never learned to say.
How can you tell your brother that you are dying when you have not told him that he is so very brave and strong and kind, that you are proud of him, that you love him with all your heart, that you would happily die a thousand times over if it was for him.
It was not a thing that needed saying, really, just as all those other things went unsaid. Germany was not stupid, of course he knew. The nation of Prussia was dead, East Germany no more, Prussia’s death was as inevitable as the turning of the world.
But there is a difference, in knowing that your brother will die and knowing that he is dying. And denial is a river which flows both ways.
Prussia was not ordinarily one to procrastinate. It was not a vice that he indulged in others, much less allow within himself. He had always been a man of action, of decision, of purpose. But there was so little fight left in him now, and so much regret, and love was an adversary he had never before had the courage to face. So he procrastinated.
And days followed days and time ran shorter, and he never said the things he meant, but then he had never had the knack for honesty, had always been best at playing pretend.
And oh, how well could he pretend. His laughs were loud as a sunrise, and as free as though they did not threaten to rip his feeble body to shreds. He held his head high, as if it did not feel as heavy as though it held the weight of the sky. He lied with every inch of himself, because he did not know how to break.
How do you shatter without cutting someone?
He was the expert on this once. Could trace exactly the slow painful path of a nation’s death. He catalogued, exact and orderly in his mind, each successive failure within his body as his health crumbled. There were ways, he knew, to slow the inevitable, a few that would not harm Germany. But to do so would be to show his weakness, and still the unsaid words were heavy on his tongue.
And in any case, he had lived fighting. He refused to die at rest.
He would die within a year, and he knew he needed to speak, but maybe not quite yet. A year is plenty of time. And then a year became a month and a month became any day now, but still he was strangled silent.
And so he lay on the couch, passing off exhaustion as laziness, and spoke boisterously of nothing at all while Germany tried to work, and his heart beat weakly in his chest, and all the things he had ever wanted and needed filled him full enough to burst, and time was slipping from his grasp.
Germany was leaving for America. He would only be gone for a few days, but they were days which Prussia did not have.
Eventually he wore through Germany’s patience. “Go do something useful,” Germany said. Prussia did not say he could not.
How do you tell your baby brother that you are dying, when you once promised to protect him always, a promise you have broken again and again? How can you tell your brother that you are dying when you have lied to him for so long?
Prussia watched his brother. He knew this could be his last chance. Second followed second and Prussia watched Germany work. He wanted to scream, to tell Germany to look at him, to notice on his own because Prussia could not say the million things dammed up inside his feeble heart. But Germany noticing was the last thing he wanted in the world.
He said nothing, and said nothing. It was far too late now to say even a fraction of what needed said. Tears filled his eyes, leaking through the dam of his silence, and so he could not speak even if he found the words to say, because his voice would shake. His eyes were filled with tears, which was a thing he never, ever allowed to show, but it was alright, because Germany did not turn around and did not see.
When it was really time to go, Prussia blinked back his tears and smiled his best smile and stood up to say goodbye.
How do you say goodbye to your brother for what is probably the last time?
How do you tell-
Well. It was far too late for that now. Germany had a flight to catch.
“Have fun with America!” Prussia said, because he did not know how to say goodbye.
Germany rolled his eyes in that way of his that reminded Prussia that he was still young and said, “This is for work. I’m not going in order to have “fun”.”
And Prussia laughed at his little brother, so serious, so focused, so blind to so much that was important (why had Prussia ever taught him to be so responsible?), because he wasn’t brave enough to cry.
“You need to lighten up a little!” Prussia said, because Germany did, and because Prussia did not know how to say that life was too fragile a thing not to enjoy it. Did not know how to say that he wanted Germany to be happy, needed him to be okay when Prussia was gone.
“Someone needs to take things seriously,” Germany said, tone laced with annoyance and hurry, and then he was out the door and gone.
How do you tell your brother that you are dying?
Surely anything would have been better than nothing at all.
Prussia sank to the floor, alone in a large house that was not his, and cried.
Prussia was not a crier. The last time he cried, really cried, tears streaming down his cheeks, body shaking, was… he couldn’t remember when. A very, very long time ago. Prussia did not cry. Ever. But he was too exhausted for pride now.
He tired himself out crying there on the floor.
Death is such a strange concept for a nation. There are no definite edges to a nation’s life. No old age, no real childhood, only rise and fall and rise again, until there comes a fall you can’t recover from, maybe it’s a slow decline, maybe it all falls apart at once. In this sense nations don’t really have age.
Prussia was not old exactly, he was younger than England, than France, and compared to Japan or China the length of his life was almost not worth mentioning, but he was not young either. In the beginning he was not even a true nation, and there was no reason to expect him to be particularly long lived. But he survived. He adapted. He grew to be one of the powers of Europe, and who would have predicted that once upon a time.
He was younger than some, but older than many others. And so many of his friends and enemies had died before him. He should have died after WWII, but he adapted, survived. If any nation could be said to have died before its time, it was certainly not Prussia. He was not entirely unafraid, nor was he resigned or content to die, exactly, because it was in his nature to go kicking and screaming into that good night. But he had lived long enough. So it was for Germany, more than himself that he cried.
When was it that he first realized that he cared so much for Germany? Was it when he stood so tall at Prussia’s side, having grown up so quickly, and Prussia realized that he had become a true partner, not merely a tool to follow Prussia’s own will, and he found that he didn’t mind? Was it when Germany, just a child still, put his small hand in Prussia’s and looked up at him with eyes filled with complete and perfect trust?
Or maybe, though he would never admit it, it was before even that. Maybe it was when Holy Rome was dying, and Prussia held the trembling child in his arms and wished every ounce of his suffering upon himself. Maybe Prussia was willing to die for Germany before he even existed.
And now he was dying with everything still left unsaid.
“But,” he told himself at last, “Dying is no reason to be pathetic.” And he wiped away his tears and he stood, knees grinding against each other, brittle cartilage and fragile bone.
He weighed the effort of making dinner against the harm of not eating, and in the end had some toast with nutella.
He slept and woke again in the late morning, Gilbird pecking gently at his face and slowly sat up. One of Germany’s dogs looked up at him worriedly. Prussia stood, breath panting in his chest at the effort, and fed the dogs and Gilbird.
He wanted, no, not wanted, but needed, to call Germany, to give him some sort of warning at least. But Prussia had sent him too many prank calls, bothered him without good reason too often when he was busy. Germany would not answer his number. Prussia did not know what he could say in a voice message, and it would be a deep cruelty to call, knowing that Germany almost certainly would not know what he was calling for until it was too late, and entirely unfair.
He should call someone , he knew, if for no other reason then so that someone would be around to look after the animals. But there was no one he wanted to tell, loathed the thought of admitting the inevitable. It felt too much like defeat, and he refused to give in to defeat. And he was so very tired.
He spent most of the day in his room. Gilbird sat on his shoulder, nestled in the hollow of his neck, round and warm and soft and comforting. He invited the dogs onto his bed, even though they were under strict orders not to get hair on any of the furniture. They curled up all around him, unusually subdued. They understood, Prussia supposed, in the way that dogs do.
He petted the one nearest him as he failed to concentrate enough to read any of his books.
This was far from a bad way to die, he thought, surrounded by dogs, the afternoon sun slanting warmly through the window, peaceful. It was the last thing he would ever expect, the mighty Prussia going out, not with a bang, nor even a whimper, but with a sigh, like the death of springtime as it fades softly beneath the heat of summer. But the most fundamental truth of the universe, in Prussia’s opinion, is that you can never prepare for everything, there are always unforeseen circumstances, sudden curves in the road. All you can do is prepare for anything and take what comes. As surprises go, this slow, painful yet peaceful death, which gave him all the time to prepare but none of the wisdom to use it well, is not what he would have chosen, but is far from the worst.
“Look after Germany for me, won’t you?” Prussia said. The dogs wagged their tails in that uncertain way that dogs do when they know that they are being spoken to, but are not sure what is being asked of them.
“You’ll look after him,” he said, “You’re good dogs.” And the dogs grinned at him and wagged their tails more confidently at the praise.
Death came to him that night in his sleep, because death has never had the guts to fight fairly. He felt it come, though, in the way of a soldier, instinct honed to a razor edge, he heard its footsteps approach in his sleep, and felt as the last threads tethering him to living earth were severed.