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It starts with a bar, as many things do.
Canada has his coat drawn tight around himself despite the stifling hot air, and prays that America does not come looking for him, in the corner furthest from the round table by the door where America and his friends are enraptured in their little party games and drinking whisky penalty shots. America does not seem to understand that, oftentimes, certain people wish to be alone in certain places, in certain moments of their lives.
Canada does not expect anything to happen to him, but then again, he wouldn’t mind if something did.
The bar is loud enough to drown out any extraneous thoughts, and no one has bothered to seek him out for small talk, so Canada finds himself nodding off, a glass of aged champagne dangerously close to spilling all over his chest. A small droplet — negligible, really — has trickled from the rim, but he barely registers it when it comes in contact with his thumb.
His chin drops to his collarbone.
“Hey. What’re you doing all the way over here?”
Canada looks up. “Oh,” he says. “Prussia. Hi.”
Prussia, as always, is dazzlingly unremarkable.
He holds a glass of beer in one hand and has the other nestled in the crook of his waist, gazing down at Canada with interest. His shirt is a patternless black and so are his trousers, and they are loose for comfort, but his boots, also black (Canada is starting to see a trend in his outfit), are worn through, fraying at the tips and peeling at the sole. Slowly, he takes a sip from his beer, keeping eye contact with Canada throughout.
“Not a fan of parties?”
Canada shakes his head, willing Prussia to give up on his quest to make idle small talk. He is not a sociable person, and Prussia will eventually get bored of him, and that will be one more person who finds Canada strange and uninspiring, and he will forget him.
Yes, when Prussia realises how futile it is to try and chat with him, he will forget about him, like everyone else does, and, perhaps, that will be for the better.
To Canada’s immense horror, Prussia sits down beside him, seemingly enjoying this far more than Canada is, if the grin on his face is anything to go by, and Canada cannot fathom why on Earth that might be. It is all well and good that Prussia, as far as Canada’s limited psychic perception allows him to observe, is confident in others’ eager disposition to engage in new friendships, but Canada has no such disposition, and feels no other emotion when Prussia’s knee touches his than a fierce, burning discomfort spreading through him in rippling waves.
“You’re Canada, right?”
Canada offers a watery smile, lips quivering at the edges, and nods, still not wishing not to encourage further conversation. He shouldn’t be this glad that Prussia remembers his name — it is a basic gesture of courtesy, not a once-in-a-blue-moon, miracle-adjacent event — but the instances in which this is the case with most of the other nations are so far and few in between that Canada is glad, and pleasantly surprised, and he takes a tentative sample of the champagne (decent, but the bottles in France’s wine cabinet remain unrivalled) to relieve his giddy excitement.
Silence washes over them, which is exactly what Canada had hoped for, but he did not anticipate the awkwardness that accompanied it, idiotically. He has never had the courage required to spur the conversation back into motion, and he screams within the cage of his own mind for Prussia to either leave or take it upon himself to prompt a verbal response.
“Would you like an orange?” Prussia blurts out.
Canada resists the urge to nod again, and says, “Sure. An orange would be great, thanks.”
To this, Prussia grins, and fishes a slightly squished orange from his right trouser pocket. He places it on his palm, spotlighting its bruised and battered form, and proceeds to stare blankly at it, as if wondering how it had ever come to materialise in his hand. “Um,” Canada begins, “is there— is there something wrong?”
Slowly, Prussia swings his head left, and then right, and Canada presumes that he is replying that no, nothing is wrong when his expression and actions clearly imply the opposite.
Following several more seconds of rigid silence, Prussia asks, “Do you have a tissue I can use?”
“No,” Canada says. “Sorry,” he adds, instinctively.
Then, he smiles. He has never pegged Prussia for one to be averse to the orange juice released by peeling. Prussia has a sort of confidence about him that begets an indestructible will — or so Canada thought. “Would you like me to peel it?”
Prussia nods, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah. Thanks, man.”
Canada takes the orange from him (and ignores the brush of their fingertips, the tingling itch spreading across his knuckles like wildfire) and begins to peel it, and wishes that he had not clipped his nails yesterday, or the process would be much smoother, now, and not result in sugary fluids trickling down the length of his arm and onto his sleeve — a minor inconvenience, but one that frustrates him nonetheless. “Here.” He tears several segments off of the main body and passes the remainder of the orange to Prussia, taking exceptional care to not to touch their fingers again.
And then, Prussia stares at it, as he did a minute before, with an expression identical to the one he wore while the orange still had its outer layer. Then, he glances up at Canada, briefly, holds out the orange segments he had been given, and says, “I— Sorry. That whole orange was supposed to be yours. I gave it to you. You didn’t— um, you didn’t have to give me any.”
“Do you not want it?” Canada bites into two of the four divisions he had assigned to himself, and is pleased with Prussia’s ability to select quality oranges.
“No, it’s just— ah, fuck, excuse me— it’s just that— that I—“ Prussia coughs into his fist, eyebrows knitted together. “Fuck. What’s wrong with me? I didn’t come here to give you an orange.”
Canada’s face flushes entirely, and he thrusts his remaining orange parts towards Prussia, utterly humiliated. “I’m so sorry,” he says, occupying himself in the peculiar phenomenon that is the erratic wrinkling of his trousers. “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to take your orange. I shouldn’t have said that I would like it. I’m sorry. Please excuse me.”
“No, I—“ Prussia buries his head in the palms of his hands. “I didn’t mean it like that. That orange is for you. You can have it.”
“Oh. Thank you. Sorry.” Canada’s leg twitches, and one of the ridges in the trouser fabric running along his left calf suddenly splits in two. Fascinating.
He should not have even come along to this party in the first place, despite America’s repeated insistence that it would be all fun and games and getting drunk with friends, because Canada is not having fun playing apologetic acrobatics with Prussia, and he has been so put off by the resounding mortification in his chest that he feels he will no longer be able to stomach any more wine.
“And, um, I actually came to ask you a question.” Prussia pinches the wispy strands of white lining the inside of his orange and strips them off, depositing them atop the discarded orange peel in front of Canada. Then, he brings his hands together to clasp in his lap. “Would you—“ He inhales sharply, swallows, and Canada looks up. “Would you like to go out with me?”
Oh.
The proposal is given so out of the blue that Canada cannot help but smile.
He has never once been asked out before — not by his human friends, or any of the other nations, or even one of America’s fangirls mistaking Canada for him. Prussia is the first, and Canada, it would appear, had not been forgotten in between the intervals of the world meetings as he thought he might have.
There is one issue, however, with Prussia’s request.
Canada has no real interest in him.
But Canada is tired of not being loved, and if Prussia had dredged up the courage to ask him out, then why shouldn’t he give Prussia a chance?
Perhaps it is the alcohol numbing his self-restraint, or the adrenaline surging through his bloodstream.
Canada cups Prussia face in his hands and kisses him.
Later, Prussia is called away by Germany, and he scribbles his number on the back of Canada’s hand, and waves goodbye, and Canada takes it upon himself to bid him good night, Prussia.
America fetches Canada not long after, and asks him if he had fun.
Canada says that he did not, and America says that he is lying, which he is, of course.
He falls asleep to the sunset, and, tomorrow, he wakes with the sunrise, and a message from Prussia.
Good morning, schatzi.