[FanFic] Durch Blut und Eisen
Title: Durch Blut und Eisen
Author: jeva_chan
Character(s): Prussia, Russia (with mentionings of others)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, possible OOCness, some historical inaccuracy (it's entirely possible; I am also drawing largely from my recent Russia History course's classes)
Summary: February 25th, 1947, the state of Prussia is abolished de jure by the Allied Powers. Russia, however, has other ideas in mind.
He came back to awareness, coughing, sputtering, and shivering in the cold. Soaked to the bone by the water that had been haplessly tossed onto him--no, not hapless, as he came to realize when a pair of boots and the bottom of a long scarf slid into his vision. They should have registered some kind of familiarity in his mind, told him exactly who it was, but the shock of the cold and of the stench of the filth that began to make itself known to his senses blurred and muzzled his sight, his thoughts. A horrible retching sound came, falling into a helpless choke as one of those boots tipped his chin up.
Tall. Insanely tall. And big. The smile on the man's face more of a grimace as he took in the sight before him. It was only when the first sounds came from that large man's mouth, foreign and lilting, higher-pitched than one would think from someone so large, that the name finally clicked.
He tried not to cough as the toe of the boot shoved itself against his throat.
"Пoздрaвляю!" said the Soviet with as much enthusiasm as a child who'd found himself an unwilling playmate. The smile he wore next showed no warmth, only chilling cold that was fresh in their memories: Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad... "You're dead."
Prussia could feel his heart stop, or he wished he could but the cold numbed him from even that sensation. He did feel something try to fight its way past the pressure that boot was putting on his throat, however. To keep himself from choking again, Prussia put shaking, pale hands down against the ground--filthy, bloodied, rotted--and forced himself to push his weight off of the boot. He nearly cried out when pain registered itself all along his back but gritted his teeth, hissing harshly instead.
"Not... dead yet," he bit out as well as he could, even as his arms began to shake and tremble, fiery pain and numbing cold sapping them of strength.
Russia merely stared down at him, cocking his head to the side as though the German was a small puzzlement. "But I'm sure that's what we decided," he said after a long moment. "Prussia is no more. All that's left are pieces of his land, scattered and given away. Mostly to me. Though his brother was able to keep some of it."
"Bastard..." hissed Prussia who supposedly was no more.
And as though realizing this fact, Russia allowed his boot to drop, nearly having the other man fall back to the ground without support. The large nation then squatted down, sitting back on his haunches, continuing to watch as the German struggled to keep himself up. "Say," said the Soviet quietly, voice sounding almost innocent, "if Prussia is dead, who are you?"
Trembling now with cold fury, the other man attempted to shout, "I'm not fucking dead!"
It was barely a hoarse whisper.
"Ah... but you can't be Prussia, can you?" The laugh in that voice only made not-Prussia shake more with suppressed rage. "Say, do you know? It's been two years since the War. Or maybe you didn't know. Didn't you know? Königsberg is gone. That's why you've been asleep so long."
Somehow the other man managed to lift his head enough to lock scarlet eyes with detached, deadened violet. Shock, dismay, horror, and outrage all went through his body, trembling and shaking from the realization. The pain in his back flared, throbbed and pulsed almost as his heart should have but didn't, and he collapsed back into the filth, gasping, unable to make a sound.
Russia continued to watch, merely watch. "Oh, you didn't know, did you? You remember, right? You failed to evacuate them all in time, didn't you? Just like Leningrad." Something heavy came upon not-Prussia's head--a gloved hand--running through his hair in what would have been a soothing gesture. Then, it paused, fingers tightening around those pale locks. "Ah, and we lay siege to it. England bombed it first. And then the Red Army swept in..."
"You bastard," was all the German could manage, tearing his voice from throat, nearly a sob but lacking the tears in his eyes to make it so.
"Eh..." said Russia faintly, studying his prey. For that's exactly the kind of look he wore. The detachment of a predator, knowing he'd already won the battle. "Does it hurt? Don't worry. I can make it better. I plan to rebuild. Kaliningrad. How does that sound?"
The weakened man made no response, simply trembling in numbed fury.
Two years after it was all over.
There was nothing he could do to change what was happening. It had already happened, was already happening.
That hand relaxed in his hair, carded through it despite the filth matting it down, pulling tangles out roughly as they went. "What should I call you then, if Prussia's dead?" wondered the Soviet idly.
"Why... am I here, if I'm supposed to be dead?" His voice was flat, all emotion numbed with the realization of what the cost of failure had been. The realization that he'd made the same goddamn mistake that Corsican bastard did way back when. The realization that he'd tried to prevent it from happening--at least some part of him had.
"It's odd, isn't it?" said Russia with a bemused laugh, though his hand proved to show that his cold fury had not left as his enemy's had. Not nearly even a bit. "The others want you dead. They think you are dead. They are content to take care of that other one. He's younger, not as stubborn, adaptable, they say. They can show him the ways that his brother taught him was all wrong. Say, what should I call you now, Dead Prussia?"
Again, the other man said nothing. Didn't know what to say. Abandoned by the rest of the world, written off as... what? The war-monger? Just how had his teachings been wrong? Trapped between empires the way they had been since his formation... was there another way other than what he'd been doing?
Of course not. He'd learned that time and time again. They should've known. They should've all known--
Those fingers pulled on his hair, lifting his head so that his eyes could meet the Soviet's again. There was a small frown on the large nation's face, though it seemed less to do with his prey and more to do with the silence that came from him.
"No? You surrender too easily, Dead Prussia."
That name made him grit his teeth and spit out hoarsely, "Not fucking dead!"
Seeming genuinely surprised, Russia blinked and laughed. "You do still bark!"
"I still bite," warned the German lowly, drawing his lips back tightly, clenching his teeth together.
Russia laughed again, letting his other hand reach down to pat his pale hair. "No, no, товарищ. You should not begin a new living by biting the hand that will feed you."
If the other man still had a heart, somewhere, even among the ruins of his beloved, ancestral city, it would have frozen at those words. As it was, that one word was enough to bring a chill down his spine.
Tovarishch. Comrade.
"I'm not one of yours," he hissed out, almost desperately.
Again, Russia went quiet and watched him, head cocking slowly to the side. "Hm? But I have a problem, you see," he began lightly, adjusting his hold on the other man's head so his free hand had him by the chin, bending his neck back until it hurt. "The land that I have... the piece of Germany that is mine. You would think that another would have shown up by now, since it's a new one, wouldn't you?"
The supposedly dead nation held his breath, swallowing thickly at the implications.
"Say, Dead Prussia," said Russia quietly, "is it because you're alive that no one's showed up?"
He didn't dare taking a breath even to answer, simply staring up at Russia whose violet eyes stared right through him. Even when his lips traced themselves into a smile again, his eyes remained dim.
"If that's why, then you're part of that land, yes? Then, you are mine."
Red eyes closed, shielding themselves from the possessive look that began to enter in those deadened orbs. "Thought I'm supposed to be dead," was the dull response.
"But you just said you weren't~" said Russia with a bit of a whine. Fake, fake as hell. As it went to prove when he continued in his normal tone, "Ah, you need to make up your mind, Dead Prussia."
"Stop calling me that!"
"What should I call you then?" the question came again. "You don't like your name anymore? Say, Dead Country, what should I call you?"
The German began to shake again, knowing that Russia hadn't planned at all to get his input on what his name should be. Just dangling that option before him, ready to take it away the moment his prey reached for it. Bait. An entrapment. Part of which he'd already fallen into, his name being taken away the moment he'd said he didn't want it.
But the "Dead" stayed.
Because everyone thought he was, didn't they?
"I'm not..." he struggled to say, but there was something choking him again, caught in his throat.
"Hm? 'Not'?"
He gasped for breath, trying to swallow down the lump there. "I'm not fucking dead, you bastard!" he tried again to shout, and again it came out as nothing more than a harsh whisper.
Only his teeth striking home into the other country's leather-covered hand showed just how much he meant his words.
Complete and utter silence, still as those days of winter in Russia, those days he'd fail to take any of the three cities, came then. He did nothing to break the silence, simply burying his teeth in further, tightening his hold on Russia's hand. Silence rang in his ears.
Then the sound of shifting cloth alerted him to movement. He braced himself for the blow sure to come--
And blinked his eyes open when the hand in his hair loosened, began to stroke the pale locks.
Confused by this, his eyes followed that arm to the trunk it was attached to and then on up to that face. A smile sat on Russia's face. A simple, childlike smile that, somehow, had found its way into those dim eyes of his that had shown absolutely nothing toward the other man until now. Now, Russia looked down at him... as an owner would their pet. Even one as bad-mannered as to bite his master.
"Say, Dead Country," said the Soviet quietly, and the German tightened his jaw around the hand he'd latched onto, shaking for a reason unknown to him, "does it hurt?"
He didn't respond, couldn't. His jaw seemed locked into place.
"I ask," began Russia again, a lower timbre entering his soft voice, arm tensing just slightly, "if biting the hand that will feed you hurts you, Dead Country."
He didn't expect a slight flexing of the arm to be as powerful as it was, pulling him along by the grip he had on the gloved hand and slamming him hard into the stone wall beside him. His head struck first, made him clench his teeth more, a sound of pain coming from his throat as the rest of him followed, back--bare, pained, throbbing, fiery hot--striking next. Cold stone and grit dug into his wounds--open and sore and something hot leaking out of them the same way it was from his head.
He only managed to keep his hold until the third time his back met the wall, mouth opening in a scream that came out more as a yelp. Crumpling to the ground, panting harshly, sight threatening to split on him and blurring at random intervals, he lay there.
And Russia simply watched.
Ignoring his possibly pained hand, he remained crouched, leaning over slightly to sigh at the German. His hand then reached out and stroked his pet's hair once more.
"I don't want to hurt you," said Russia in what could have been a pained tone, but that could have been the concussion making the German's hearing fade in and out. "I know you were not the one who thought of that operation. It was that man, wasn't it? Your brother's boss? And you tried to get rid of him, didn't you? I know, I know. I tried the same, but they always come back, you know. And why did you do it, I wonder. Was it for your benefit? Your people's? You've always been so opportunistic, Dead Country..."
Dazed, gasping and curling up in pain, even as it stretched the wounds on his back, the former German nation could only give a small noise.
Russia leaned closer still, obviously straining his ear to listen. "Eh? What is it you're saying? Are you crying? Do you cry for yourself? Your people?
"Or are you crying for your brother?"
The cold note in his voice made the former nation cringe inwardly, shudder outwardly. Unfocused as he was, however, he could only mouth his brother's name, a dull ache in him that he'd yet to acknowledge.
Russia scooted himself forward, closer, hand still petting and keeping well away from the other's mouth. "But you know. He's one of the ones that killed you, too," he said simply.
No answer came from his pet then, only the harsh breathing of one who struggled to maintain consciousness out of pure stubbornness, red eyes dully staring up at violet.
"Don't you remember?" asked the Soviet quietly, that childlike quality still there in his voice. "Your supposed marriage? That is what that man called it, wasn't it? But that's not what happened. Do you really do so much for that person, your brother who betrayed you? Forced you to the Eastern Front? Gave you the order to kill indiscriminately? Left you to be chased back to Berlin... all alone? Do you want to see that brother?"
Again, there was no response.
A sigh broke the heavy silence, thick with the scent of blood. "You will learn, товарищ. Don't worry. I will take care of you. Give you back what that brother and his friends took."
Through the pain and the fog of looming unconsciousness, something rang wrong with that promise. Something... something he could almost grasp but it slipped through his fingers. It hurt to think. It hurt to breathe. It hurt. Hurt.
"Say, товарищ, does it hurt?" Hands trailed over him, fabric rubbing against abused and neglected skin until the German felt himself being lifted, cradled. Then, more movement came, and that voice, so much closer with violet eyes staring down at him with a strange, alien fondness that didn't make any sense, said simply, "I will make the pain stop for you."
He lost awareness shaking, bloodied, and soundlessly whispering his brother's name while surrounded by the warmth of his enemy's arms.
- Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad were the three major cities in Soviet Russia targeted by the German offensive. Despite laying siege for 872 days, the Germans never in fact won the city of Leningrad. As quoted from Wiki: "The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation."
In comparison, the battle of Moscow was lost due to lack of proper equipment for the harsh conditions of Russian winter in addition to the Russian's well-layed offensive-defense. Stalingrad proved to be the turning point of the war, despite the fact that the Germans were successful in reducing the city to rubble before they were expelled from the region.
- Königsberg was the final part of the East Prussian Offensive in which Soviet troops at first lay siege to the city (following bombing by British air raid in August 1944) from January 1945 to April 1945. Tactics were then changed to direct assault April 6th, 1945 when there were no signs of surrender from the German forces. Königsberg was finally captured April 9th, 1945 by Soviet troops and remains in Russian territory as the city of Kaliningrad.
- The operation Russia mentions is Operation Barbarossa, the code-name for the Nazi plans to invade the Soviet Union that commenced June 22nd, 1941. It is also this invasion that led to the Soviet Union's joining the Allies against the Germans during WWII.
- Russia also alludes to the Preußenschlag, one of the first major steps toward the end of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi Germany. Of course, the way Russia mentions it is not entirely accurate and is more for turning one brother against the other.
- товарищ, also known more commonly to English speakers as "Comrade", the address most socialist and communist parties use in order to maintain neutral titles.
- Пoздрaвляю!, translated as "Congratulations!" Obtained from a Concise Oxford Russian Dictionary.
- And finally, for the title. We can thank Otto von Bismarck:
"Nicht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschieden - das ist der große Fehler von 1848 und 1849 gewesen - sondern durch Eisen und Blut."
Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided - that was the error of 1848 and 1849 - but by iron and blood.
... yes, I am using the irony of the Iron Curtain. Hurhurhur.
... that is a lot of notes. Blargh blargh. Okay. So. I wrote this on a whim because of my Russian History class and all the things I've been learning in it. I don't know if my portrayal of the events or the characters in question are any good, but... well, I just had to get it out, you know?
Hope those who made it to the end of the read enjoyed! And... I might write more, since I'm all for this messed up relationship between Russia and Prussia (mindfuck mindfuck, it's awiiiiight). Ha.
Author: jeva_chan
Character(s): Prussia, Russia (with mentionings of others)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, possible OOCness, some historical inaccuracy (it's entirely possible; I am also drawing largely from my recent Russia History course's classes)
Summary: February 25th, 1947, the state of Prussia is abolished de jure by the Allied Powers. Russia, however, has other ideas in mind.
He came back to awareness, coughing, sputtering, and shivering in the cold. Soaked to the bone by the water that had been haplessly tossed onto him--no, not hapless, as he came to realize when a pair of boots and the bottom of a long scarf slid into his vision. They should have registered some kind of familiarity in his mind, told him exactly who it was, but the shock of the cold and of the stench of the filth that began to make itself known to his senses blurred and muzzled his sight, his thoughts. A horrible retching sound came, falling into a helpless choke as one of those boots tipped his chin up.
Tall. Insanely tall. And big. The smile on the man's face more of a grimace as he took in the sight before him. It was only when the first sounds came from that large man's mouth, foreign and lilting, higher-pitched than one would think from someone so large, that the name finally clicked.
He tried not to cough as the toe of the boot shoved itself against his throat.
"Пoздрaвляю!" said the Soviet with as much enthusiasm as a child who'd found himself an unwilling playmate. The smile he wore next showed no warmth, only chilling cold that was fresh in their memories: Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad... "You're dead."
Prussia could feel his heart stop, or he wished he could but the cold numbed him from even that sensation. He did feel something try to fight its way past the pressure that boot was putting on his throat, however. To keep himself from choking again, Prussia put shaking, pale hands down against the ground--filthy, bloodied, rotted--and forced himself to push his weight off of the boot. He nearly cried out when pain registered itself all along his back but gritted his teeth, hissing harshly instead.
"Not... dead yet," he bit out as well as he could, even as his arms began to shake and tremble, fiery pain and numbing cold sapping them of strength.
Russia merely stared down at him, cocking his head to the side as though the German was a small puzzlement. "But I'm sure that's what we decided," he said after a long moment. "Prussia is no more. All that's left are pieces of his land, scattered and given away. Mostly to me. Though his brother was able to keep some of it."
"Bastard..." hissed Prussia who supposedly was no more.
And as though realizing this fact, Russia allowed his boot to drop, nearly having the other man fall back to the ground without support. The large nation then squatted down, sitting back on his haunches, continuing to watch as the German struggled to keep himself up. "Say," said the Soviet quietly, voice sounding almost innocent, "if Prussia is dead, who are you?"
Trembling now with cold fury, the other man attempted to shout, "I'm not fucking dead!"
It was barely a hoarse whisper.
"Ah... but you can't be Prussia, can you?" The laugh in that voice only made not-Prussia shake more with suppressed rage. "Say, do you know? It's been two years since the War. Or maybe you didn't know. Didn't you know? Königsberg is gone. That's why you've been asleep so long."
Somehow the other man managed to lift his head enough to lock scarlet eyes with detached, deadened violet. Shock, dismay, horror, and outrage all went through his body, trembling and shaking from the realization. The pain in his back flared, throbbed and pulsed almost as his heart should have but didn't, and he collapsed back into the filth, gasping, unable to make a sound.
Russia continued to watch, merely watch. "Oh, you didn't know, did you? You remember, right? You failed to evacuate them all in time, didn't you? Just like Leningrad." Something heavy came upon not-Prussia's head--a gloved hand--running through his hair in what would have been a soothing gesture. Then, it paused, fingers tightening around those pale locks. "Ah, and we lay siege to it. England bombed it first. And then the Red Army swept in..."
"You bastard," was all the German could manage, tearing his voice from throat, nearly a sob but lacking the tears in his eyes to make it so.
"Eh..." said Russia faintly, studying his prey. For that's exactly the kind of look he wore. The detachment of a predator, knowing he'd already won the battle. "Does it hurt? Don't worry. I can make it better. I plan to rebuild. Kaliningrad. How does that sound?"
The weakened man made no response, simply trembling in numbed fury.
Two years after it was all over.
There was nothing he could do to change what was happening. It had already happened, was already happening.
That hand relaxed in his hair, carded through it despite the filth matting it down, pulling tangles out roughly as they went. "What should I call you then, if Prussia's dead?" wondered the Soviet idly.
"Why... am I here, if I'm supposed to be dead?" His voice was flat, all emotion numbed with the realization of what the cost of failure had been. The realization that he'd made the same goddamn mistake that Corsican bastard did way back when. The realization that he'd tried to prevent it from happening--at least some part of him had.
"It's odd, isn't it?" said Russia with a bemused laugh, though his hand proved to show that his cold fury had not left as his enemy's had. Not nearly even a bit. "The others want you dead. They think you are dead. They are content to take care of that other one. He's younger, not as stubborn, adaptable, they say. They can show him the ways that his brother taught him was all wrong. Say, what should I call you now, Dead Prussia?"
Again, the other man said nothing. Didn't know what to say. Abandoned by the rest of the world, written off as... what? The war-monger? Just how had his teachings been wrong? Trapped between empires the way they had been since his formation... was there another way other than what he'd been doing?
Of course not. He'd learned that time and time again. They should've known. They should've all known--
Those fingers pulled on his hair, lifting his head so that his eyes could meet the Soviet's again. There was a small frown on the large nation's face, though it seemed less to do with his prey and more to do with the silence that came from him.
"No? You surrender too easily, Dead Prussia."
That name made him grit his teeth and spit out hoarsely, "Not fucking dead!"
Seeming genuinely surprised, Russia blinked and laughed. "You do still bark!"
"I still bite," warned the German lowly, drawing his lips back tightly, clenching his teeth together.
Russia laughed again, letting his other hand reach down to pat his pale hair. "No, no, товарищ. You should not begin a new living by biting the hand that will feed you."
If the other man still had a heart, somewhere, even among the ruins of his beloved, ancestral city, it would have frozen at those words. As it was, that one word was enough to bring a chill down his spine.
Tovarishch. Comrade.
"I'm not one of yours," he hissed out, almost desperately.
Again, Russia went quiet and watched him, head cocking slowly to the side. "Hm? But I have a problem, you see," he began lightly, adjusting his hold on the other man's head so his free hand had him by the chin, bending his neck back until it hurt. "The land that I have... the piece of Germany that is mine. You would think that another would have shown up by now, since it's a new one, wouldn't you?"
The supposedly dead nation held his breath, swallowing thickly at the implications.
"Say, Dead Prussia," said Russia quietly, "is it because you're alive that no one's showed up?"
He didn't dare taking a breath even to answer, simply staring up at Russia whose violet eyes stared right through him. Even when his lips traced themselves into a smile again, his eyes remained dim.
"If that's why, then you're part of that land, yes? Then, you are mine."
Red eyes closed, shielding themselves from the possessive look that began to enter in those deadened orbs. "Thought I'm supposed to be dead," was the dull response.
"But you just said you weren't~" said Russia with a bit of a whine. Fake, fake as hell. As it went to prove when he continued in his normal tone, "Ah, you need to make up your mind, Dead Prussia."
"Stop calling me that!"
"What should I call you then?" the question came again. "You don't like your name anymore? Say, Dead Country, what should I call you?"
The German began to shake again, knowing that Russia hadn't planned at all to get his input on what his name should be. Just dangling that option before him, ready to take it away the moment his prey reached for it. Bait. An entrapment. Part of which he'd already fallen into, his name being taken away the moment he'd said he didn't want it.
But the "Dead" stayed.
Because everyone thought he was, didn't they?
"I'm not..." he struggled to say, but there was something choking him again, caught in his throat.
"Hm? 'Not'?"
He gasped for breath, trying to swallow down the lump there. "I'm not fucking dead, you bastard!" he tried again to shout, and again it came out as nothing more than a harsh whisper.
Only his teeth striking home into the other country's leather-covered hand showed just how much he meant his words.
Complete and utter silence, still as those days of winter in Russia, those days he'd fail to take any of the three cities, came then. He did nothing to break the silence, simply burying his teeth in further, tightening his hold on Russia's hand. Silence rang in his ears.
Then the sound of shifting cloth alerted him to movement. He braced himself for the blow sure to come--
And blinked his eyes open when the hand in his hair loosened, began to stroke the pale locks.
Confused by this, his eyes followed that arm to the trunk it was attached to and then on up to that face. A smile sat on Russia's face. A simple, childlike smile that, somehow, had found its way into those dim eyes of his that had shown absolutely nothing toward the other man until now. Now, Russia looked down at him... as an owner would their pet. Even one as bad-mannered as to bite his master.
"Say, Dead Country," said the Soviet quietly, and the German tightened his jaw around the hand he'd latched onto, shaking for a reason unknown to him, "does it hurt?"
He didn't respond, couldn't. His jaw seemed locked into place.
"I ask," began Russia again, a lower timbre entering his soft voice, arm tensing just slightly, "if biting the hand that will feed you hurts you, Dead Country."
He didn't expect a slight flexing of the arm to be as powerful as it was, pulling him along by the grip he had on the gloved hand and slamming him hard into the stone wall beside him. His head struck first, made him clench his teeth more, a sound of pain coming from his throat as the rest of him followed, back--bare, pained, throbbing, fiery hot--striking next. Cold stone and grit dug into his wounds--open and sore and something hot leaking out of them the same way it was from his head.
He only managed to keep his hold until the third time his back met the wall, mouth opening in a scream that came out more as a yelp. Crumpling to the ground, panting harshly, sight threatening to split on him and blurring at random intervals, he lay there.
And Russia simply watched.
Ignoring his possibly pained hand, he remained crouched, leaning over slightly to sigh at the German. His hand then reached out and stroked his pet's hair once more.
"I don't want to hurt you," said Russia in what could have been a pained tone, but that could have been the concussion making the German's hearing fade in and out. "I know you were not the one who thought of that operation. It was that man, wasn't it? Your brother's boss? And you tried to get rid of him, didn't you? I know, I know. I tried the same, but they always come back, you know. And why did you do it, I wonder. Was it for your benefit? Your people's? You've always been so opportunistic, Dead Country..."
Dazed, gasping and curling up in pain, even as it stretched the wounds on his back, the former German nation could only give a small noise.
Russia leaned closer still, obviously straining his ear to listen. "Eh? What is it you're saying? Are you crying? Do you cry for yourself? Your people?
"Or are you crying for your brother?"
The cold note in his voice made the former nation cringe inwardly, shudder outwardly. Unfocused as he was, however, he could only mouth his brother's name, a dull ache in him that he'd yet to acknowledge.
Russia scooted himself forward, closer, hand still petting and keeping well away from the other's mouth. "But you know. He's one of the ones that killed you, too," he said simply.
No answer came from his pet then, only the harsh breathing of one who struggled to maintain consciousness out of pure stubbornness, red eyes dully staring up at violet.
"Don't you remember?" asked the Soviet quietly, that childlike quality still there in his voice. "Your supposed marriage? That is what that man called it, wasn't it? But that's not what happened. Do you really do so much for that person, your brother who betrayed you? Forced you to the Eastern Front? Gave you the order to kill indiscriminately? Left you to be chased back to Berlin... all alone? Do you want to see that brother?"
Again, there was no response.
A sigh broke the heavy silence, thick with the scent of blood. "You will learn, товарищ. Don't worry. I will take care of you. Give you back what that brother and his friends took."
Through the pain and the fog of looming unconsciousness, something rang wrong with that promise. Something... something he could almost grasp but it slipped through his fingers. It hurt to think. It hurt to breathe. It hurt. Hurt.
"Say, товарищ, does it hurt?" Hands trailed over him, fabric rubbing against abused and neglected skin until the German felt himself being lifted, cradled. Then, more movement came, and that voice, so much closer with violet eyes staring down at him with a strange, alien fondness that didn't make any sense, said simply, "I will make the pain stop for you."
He lost awareness shaking, bloodied, and soundlessly whispering his brother's name while surrounded by the warmth of his enemy's arms.
- Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad were the three major cities in Soviet Russia targeted by the German offensive. Despite laying siege for 872 days, the Germans never in fact won the city of Leningrad. As quoted from Wiki: "The siege lasted 872 days from September 1941 to January 1944. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive, and most lethal sieges of major cities in modern history. It isolated the city from most supplies except those provided through the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga, and more than a million civilians died, mainly from starvation."
In comparison, the battle of Moscow was lost due to lack of proper equipment for the harsh conditions of Russian winter in addition to the Russian's well-layed offensive-defense. Stalingrad proved to be the turning point of the war, despite the fact that the Germans were successful in reducing the city to rubble before they were expelled from the region.
- Königsberg was the final part of the East Prussian Offensive in which Soviet troops at first lay siege to the city (following bombing by British air raid in August 1944) from January 1945 to April 1945. Tactics were then changed to direct assault April 6th, 1945 when there were no signs of surrender from the German forces. Königsberg was finally captured April 9th, 1945 by Soviet troops and remains in Russian territory as the city of Kaliningrad.
- The operation Russia mentions is Operation Barbarossa, the code-name for the Nazi plans to invade the Soviet Union that commenced June 22nd, 1941. It is also this invasion that led to the Soviet Union's joining the Allies against the Germans during WWII.
- Russia also alludes to the Preußenschlag, one of the first major steps toward the end of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi Germany. Of course, the way Russia mentions it is not entirely accurate and is more for turning one brother against the other.
- товарищ, also known more commonly to English speakers as "Comrade", the address most socialist and communist parties use in order to maintain neutral titles.
- Пoздрaвляю!, translated as "Congratulations!" Obtained from a Concise Oxford Russian Dictionary.
- And finally, for the title. We can thank Otto von Bismarck:
"Nicht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschieden - das ist der große Fehler von 1848 und 1849 gewesen - sondern durch Eisen und Blut."
Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided - that was the error of 1848 and 1849 - but by iron and blood.
... yes, I am using the irony of the Iron Curtain. Hurhurhur.
... that is a lot of notes. Blargh blargh. Okay. So. I wrote this on a whim because of my Russian History class and all the things I've been learning in it. I don't know if my portrayal of the events or the characters in question are any good, but... well, I just had to get it out, you know?
Hope those who made it to the end of the read enjoyed! And... I might write more, since I'm all for this messed up relationship between Russia and Prussia (mindfuck mindfuck, it's awiiiiight). Ha.