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The laptop screen cast blue-white light across Germany's face, and from the other end of the couch Poland watched the way it caught on those ridiculous glasses, the sharp line of his jaw where gold skin met the edge of red at his cheekbone, and thought about how deeply, profoundly annoying it was that someone could look like that while reading about Linux kernel updates or whatever the hell he was doing. Germany hadn't spoken in forty minutes. Forty minutes of soft keyboard clicks and the occasional adjustment of his glasses and Poland lying here with his phone held above his face pretending to scroll through anything at all while his brain did something terrible and circular and insistent.
The apartment smelled like the chamomile tea Germany had made him without asking, which was sitting on the side table getting cold because Poland had been too busy staring at Germany's hands to drink it. Large hands. Clean nails. The kind of hands that could hold you down without shaking. Poland locked his phone and pressed it against his chest and looked at the ceiling. Kurwa. Three weeks since his last confession.
He touched the cross at his throat the way he always did when the guilt crept up, running his thumb along the familiar grooves, and the guilt crept up a lot lately because the thing living in his head was not the kind of thing you brought to a priest. It was not the kind of thing you brought to anyone. He had tried, once, to type it into a search engine, and then deleted every letter and cleared his history and sat in the dark feeling insane.
Germany shifted beside him, pulled one leg up onto the couch, and his knee bumped Poland's ankle. "Move your legs, bitte," he said, not looking up, and his voice was that low, absent thing it got when he was concentrating, flat and direct and carrying absolutely no awareness of what it did to the person on the receiving end. Poland moved his legs. He moved them slowly, deliberately, hooking one calf over Germany's thigh instead of away from it, and Germany glanced over with that blank expression that could mean anything from mild surprise to deep affection, then simply rested his free hand on Poland's knee and went back to reading.
The weight of that hand was warm and steady and Poland's skin prickled under the fabric of his joggers and he wanted to scream. He wanted to climb into Germany's lap. He wanted to bite him. He wanted something so specific and so fucked up that even thinking about it made the cross feel heavier against his sternum, and tonight he was tired of keeping it to himself.
"What's in that box," Poland said. His voice came out flat. Good. Bored, even. Like he was asking about the weather, about groceries, about anything at all except the black container he'd seen exactly once in the back of Germany's closet, shoved behind winter coats, unlabeled but unmistakable because Germany had gone pale when Poland reached for it and said don't in a voice Poland had never heard before and never wanted to hear again.
Germany's hand stilled on his knee. The laptop screen dimmed to standby. For a long moment the only sound was the refrigerator humming from the kitchen, and Poland kept his eyes on the ceiling because looking at Germany right now would crack something open that he wasn't ready to crack. "You know what's in it," Germany said quietly. His tone had gone careful, the way it did when he was selecting words like someone defusing ordnance. Poland did know. That was the whole wretched point.
"There's a uniform in there." Poland said it like a statement because it was one. He'd seen the edge of black fabric, the barest glimpse before the closet door shut.
"Poland." Just his name, but weighted, and the hand on his knee tightened slightly and then withdrew. Germany closed the laptop and set it on the floor and sat very still with his hands on his own thighs, looking straight ahead at the far wall where a framed map of the EU hung slightly crooked. His jaw was tight. The gold of his lower face had gone a shade darker in the way it did when blood rose beneath it. "Why are you asking me this."
And here it was, the part Poland had rehearsed in the shower and in bed and during three separate EU meetings while staring blankly at a Powerpoint about grain tariffs, and every version he'd practiced sounded reasonable and articulate and none of them were coming out of his mouth now. What came out instead was: "I want you to wear it." Silence. Horrible, ringing silence. Poland sat up, pulling his legs off Germany's lap, and the distance between them on the couch felt like a country. "When we fuck.
I want you to put it on and I want you to..." He trailed off because Germany had turned to look at him and the expression on his face was something Poland couldn't parse, couldn't categorize, and that scared him more than anger would have. Germany just looked... lost. The blankness wasn't his usual composure; it was genuine incomprehension, as though Poland had started speaking a language he didn't know.
"That is my father's uniform," Germany said slowly.
"I know whose uniform it is."
"He hurt you." Germany's voice didn't waver, but his hands had curled into fists on his thighs, and behind those glasses his eyes were doing something complicated and pained. "He tortured you. You still have the scars. And you want me to put on his..." He stopped. Swallowed. The sound of it was audible.
Poland's face burned. The white of his upper face had gone pink and splotchy, he could feel it, and he hated that, hated how visible everything was on his stupid flag-split skin. "Forget it," he said sharply, already retreating, already pulling the armor back on, and his voice had gone cold the way it did when he was embarrassed, mean and clipped and dismissive. "Forget I said anything, it was a stupid idea, I don't even..." But Germany was watching him with that terrible quiet attention, the kind that saw too much, and Poland couldn't finish the lie. He pressed his thumb into the cross hard enough to leave an imprint and stared at the floor.
"It's different when it's you," he said, and his voice cracked on you in a way he would never forgive himself for. "I can't explain it. Kurwa, I really can't. It's... you're not him. You're nothing like him. And when you touch me it's... I'm the one choosing. Rozumiesz? I'm choosing it. I want to choose it." The words were a mess, inarticulate and stumbling, and he felt stripped raw and furious about it, furious at himself for wanting this, furious at Germany for making him say it out loud, furious at a dead country for still taking up space in his head after all these decades.
Germany was quiet for a very long time. Long enough that Poland became convinced he'd broken something irreparable, that Germany was going to stand up and leave the room and they would never speak of this again and the silence would calcify between them like old bone. Then Germany reached over and put his hand on the back of Poland's neck, thumb resting in the hollow behind his ear, and Poland's entire body shuddered because it was such a simple touch and it undid him every single time. "If you want to stop," Germany said, "at any point.
You tell me and I stop." His voice was still quiet, still careful, but underneath the caution there was something steady and deliberate, a decision made. Poland looked at him. Germany's expression had settled back into its usual unreadable composure, but his thumb was moving in a slow circle against Poland's skin.
Poland nodded. His throat was too tight to speak.
Germany got up and walked to the bedroom. Poland heard the closet door open. The rustle of heavy fabric. A long pause that he felt in his chest like a held breath. Then footsteps, and Germany came back into the living room, and Poland's stomach dropped straight through the floor.
The black uniform fit him too well. That was the first unhinged thought, and Poland hated himself for it. The jacket sat sharp across Germany's broad shoulders, the collar high and severe, the silver insignia catching the lamplight. The red armband was a wound on his upper arm. The boots were dark and polished and they changed his posture, made him stand straighter, and for one terrible flickering instant Poland was somewhere else, somewhere cold and concrete and reeking of smoke, and his vision narrowed and his hands went numb.
Then Germany pushed his glasses up with one finger, a quick habitual gesture, almost sheepish, and Poland could breathe again because Reich never wore glasses, Reich never fidgeted, Reich never looked at Poland with that mixture of concern and awkward uncertainty. This was Germany. This was his Germany standing in a dead man's clothes looking profoundly uncomfortable and doing it anyway because Poland asked.
"Chodź tutaj," Poland said, and his voice was rough and low and he didn't recognize it. Come here. Germany crossed the room, and each step in those boots sent something hot and sharp through Poland's gut, want and memory and defiance all knotted together into something that pulsed between his legs and ached in his chest. When Germany reached the couch Poland grabbed him by the front of the jacket and pulled him down and kissed him hard, open-mouthed, graceless, tasting the faint surprise on Germany's lips before Germany kissed him back.
The jacket's fabric was coarse under Poland's fingers, nothing like the soft shirts Germany usually wore, and the wrongness of it made heat pool low in his belly, shameful and electric.
"Tell me what to do," Poland said against Germany's mouth. "W tym języku." In that language. Germany pulled back just enough to look at him, searching, and whatever he found in Poland's face must have been enough because his gaze steadied, and when he spoke again his voice was different. Lower. Clipped. Commanding in a way Germany almost never allowed himself to be.
Poland sank to his knees on the carpet. The obedience was immediate, almost involuntary, and it sent a spike of arousal through him so intense his thighs shook. Germany stood over him, and from this angle he was all black fabric and silver buttons, and Poland's cock was already straining against his joggers. Germany's hand came down and gripped his jaw, tilting his face up, and his thumb pressed against Poland's lower lip, dragging it down, and Poland opened his mouth without being told.
"Gut," Germany murmured, and the single syllable in that low register made Poland whimper and the sound of it should have humiliated him but instead it only made him harder.
Germany's fingers threaded into Poland's white hair and tightened, and the sting at his scalp was perfect, grounding, real. Poland fumbled with Germany's belt, the uniform trousers' clasp stiff and unfamiliar under his fingers, and when he finally got them open and pulled Germany's cock out he wrapped his hand around the shaft and stroked, felt it stiffen fully in his grip, thick and hot and already leaking at the tip. He licked the head, tasting salt, and Germany's grip in his hair tightened.
"Nnhh..." Poland took him deeper, hollowing his cheeks, letting saliva slick the way, and above him Germany made a low rough sound, almost a growl, "Ja, genau so," and the praise in that authoritative voice sent liquid heat straight to Poland's core. He sucked sloppy and wet, gagging when Germany pushed too deep, spit running down his chin, and the obscene sounds of it filled the quiet apartment, slick and rhythmic and shameless.
Germany pulled him off by the hair, and Poland gasped, lips swollen and shining, a string of saliva connecting his mouth to the flushed head of Germany's cock. "Ausziehen," Germany said. Take them off. Poland yanked his joggers down and kicked them away, pulled the sweater and shirt over his head, and the cross swung against his bare chest, cold metal on flushed skin. Germany looked at him, kneeling there naked except for the necklace, and for a moment his composure fractured, something raw and reverent flickering across his face before he forced it back behind the mask of command.
He gripped Poland's arm and hauled him up, turned him, bent him over the arm of the couch with one firm hand between his shoulder blades. Poland's chest hit the cushion and he arched his back instinctively, pressing his ass up, and the cool air on his exposed hole made him clench and shiver. "Proszę," he breathed, "proszę, kurwa, please..."
The click of a cap. Germany had brought the lube, because of course he had, because even playing this role he had thought ahead, and the absurdity of that almost made Poland laugh except then slick fingers pressed against his rim and the laugh became a moan. One finger pushed in, slow and deliberate, working him open with patient circular strokes, and Poland gripped the couch cushion and bit into it and made sounds he'd deny later, desperate stuttering "aah, ahh, nnh" noises muffled by fabric. A second finger, stretching, scissoring, and Germany's other hand gripped his hip hard enough to bruise, the black sleeve of the uniform rough against Poland's bare skin.
"Więcej," Poland groaned, more, and Germany added a third finger and crooked them forward and found the spot that made Poland's vision white out. "KURWA, tak, tak, right there, Boże..." His thighs were trembling, his cock dripping onto the couch below him, and the cross dangled and swayed beneath his chest with each shuddering breath.
Germany withdrew his fingers and Poland whined at the emptiness, a high thin sound, and then the blunt hot head of Germany's cock pressed against his hole and pushed in and Poland's mouth fell open in a silent scream that became a loud one. "Aahhhh, fuck, fuck..." Germany sank in slow, stretching him wide around the thick shaft, centimeter by centimeter, and Poland could feel every ridge of him, the heat, the fullness, the burn that hovered right on the edge between pain and something transcendent. Germany bottomed out and stilled, both hands gripping Poland's hips, the uniform jacket brushing Poland's lower back, and for one suspended moment neither of them breathed.
Then Germany pulled back and slammed in hard and Poland screamed.
The pace Germany set was brutal and precise, the way he did everything, each thrust deep and angled and punishing, and Poland took it and begged for more, his words dissolving into a babbling wreck of Polish and English and sounds that weren't language at all. "Nimm es," Germany commanded himself under his breath, and drove in harder, and the sound of skin slapping skin filled the room, wet and obscene, and Poland was drooling into the couch cushion and sobbing with pleasure and his cock was bouncing untouched between his legs, leaking steadily. Germany leaned over him, chest to back, the silver buttons digging cold into Poland's spine, and his mouth found Poland's ear.
"Du gehörst mir," he murmured, low and dark and possessive, you belong to me, and Poland clenched around him so hard they both groaned.
"Yours," Poland gasped, "yours, don't stop, don't you fucking stop..." Germany reached around and wrapped his hand around Poland's cock and stroked in time with his thrusts, tight and fast, thumb swiping over the slick head, and Poland was gone. The cross pressed between his chest and the couch, a small hard point of pressure over his hammering heart, and he thought deliriously of sin and salvation and how they felt exactly the same.
Germany's rhythm stuttered, his breath ragged against Poland's neck, "Ich komm gleich, ich..." and Poland clamped down around him and came with a ragged shout, spilling hot and thick over Germany's fist and the couch, his whole body seizing, clenching, pulsing, and Germany followed him over the edge with a deep groan that vibrated through Poland's bones, hips jerking as he filled him.
They stayed like that, draped and tangled and heaving, for what felt like a long time. Poland's face was wet. He didn't know when that had happened.
Later. Germany had folded the uniform with the careful precision of someone handling something that burned, and put it back in the box, and come back wearing a faded black t-shirt that said I USE ARCH BTW in block white letters. Poland, still boneless on the couch under a blanket he didn't remember pulling over himself, looked at the shirt and said "This shirt is so ridiculous" in a voice that sounded wrecked and fond. Germany sat down next to him and pulled him in without asking, and Poland let himself be pulled, let his head rest against Germany's chest where the stupid letters pressed against his cheek.
Germany's hand found the cross necklace, turned it gently right-side up where it had twisted on its chain, and then his thumb traced along Poland's collarbone in slow, absent strokes. Poland's fingers curled into the soft cotton of the shirt and held on, and he pressed his mouth to Germany's throat, not quite a kiss, just the warmth of being there, and closed his eyes.