Deepening Rush ; PG - romance/angst - Austria x Hungary

Her hair is dark from damp as her eyes dare him to look anywhere but into them.

"Austria!" and his name is not the cold inquiry or saddened rebuke, it is not a cry in question, but rather a demand. A demand for every cruel and happy and sorrowful and painful and laughter-filled time they have spent at each other's side. It is not yet the cry of betrayal.

But rather one of battle that he knows all too well.

(Fight for me.)

Hungary who has fought time and time again until the weight above her arms had come too heavy to bear and push come shove he had gotten down in the mud with her and pushed as well, until it was lifted (hay, depression, failure, atrocities) lifted because they were they and no one could tell them otherwise. But that.

No longer rang true.

And here he was, sitting at the piano he so loved, unable to play a single song (each and every movement, every song he played did she love) as she looked up upon him through the window and loved with such intensity that he thought finally the line to hate had been smeared never to be redrawn. And yet still he could tell her nothing, could not tell her this was for the best, could not tell her it was because from their strength in being together there had also been birthed- weakness. Could not tell her earnestly that he did not wish for this, could not tell her it was not exactly their own hands that tore them from each other. (She already knew.)

With his fingers perched upon the keys,
He finally played a single song.

But it could not match the creeping sadness in her eyes.
So he played it only half way through.
The blank melody of all that is good must come to an end.

a/n: Austria-Hungary lasted for fifty-one years until in 1918 its military defeats in WWI led to its division.