fanfiction: golden apple
Fandom: Hetalia Pairing: AusTurk (Austria/Turkey) Characters: Austria, Turkey Rating: M
Summary: It’s 1924 and Austria and Turkey address the historical baggage between them in an unconventional way.
Also available on AO3 and ffnet (see the links in my profile).
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Turkey tried to take the “Golden Apple of the Germans” twice, in 1525 (Siege of Vienna) and 1683 (Battle of Vienna). In World War I, Austria and Turkey fought on the same side. Their empires were dismantled afterwards. In 1924, they sign a friendship agreement.
—
There is a knock at Austria’s hotel door.
“Can I come in?” he hears Turkey say. “Mustafa Kemal Pasha has made some changes to the draft for our friendship treaty...”
“Yes, go ahead,” Austria replies. He hastily pushes the stacks of paper on his bed in neater heaps, balancing the apple he is eating between thumb and index finger.
Turkey enters, takes a look at the stacks and dumps more paper on one of them. He turns to leave—and stops.
“Is this a golden apple?” There is an undercurrent to that sentence...
Austria looks up.
“Can I have a bite?” Turkey says, and Austria knows, just knows he is daring him to say no.
Instead, he takes another bite and holds out the rest to Turkey.
“Oh no, not like this...”
Turkey leans closer, but there is an element of hesitancy. Austria realises he can push him back or rise to the challenge.
He lifts his head.
“Try it.”
Austria catches a look of surprise in Turkey’s eyes as he bows down to kiss him, trying to open Austria’s mouth far enough to steal the apple piece from him. Austria feels mad laughter bubble up inside of him, for of course that won’t happen since he has already secured the apple piece in his cheek pouch.
Turkey draws back for a moment, and Austria takes the opportunity to swallow it.
The game is up, but Turkey leans closer anyway as if to test the waters. Austria grips the hair at the nape of his neck and brings their lips together for a real kiss. Turkey pulls back to push Austria down on the hotel bed, crawling on top of him.
Austria makes short work of Turkey’s nice black suit jacket and the white shirt underneath, following the trail of black chest hair with his eyes to the point where it vanishes between Turkey’s strained trousers. He notices with some glee that Turkey still has difficulty to work the buttons on his own, very Western European waistcoat before he helps him take it off.
“Is this alright?” Turkey asks, pulling back.
Austria is surprised.
“I would have told you long ago if it wasn’t.”
Turkey looks as if he wants to say more, but Austria simply reaches over to his nightstand drawer and puts a little flask of olive oil in his hand to show him that yes, this is very much what he wants.
Turkey sees it, and now he really looks as if he wants to say something.
“Don’t you dare not to get on with it.”
And Turkey doesn't.
—
Afterwards, they sit on the hotel bed, still undressed, sharing a cigar between them.
“Am I now allowed to say something?” Turkey asks at last.
“Please don’t.”
“You still love him, don’t you? After all those years?”
“I said don’t.”
“And Erzsébet too?”
Austria gives Turkey a curious look.
“Yes, I am trying to read you,” Turkey admits with surprising frankness. “People … were telling me that you don’t do one-night stands.”
“It’s hardly a one-night stand if you’ve known, traded with and fought someone for hundreds of years.”
“Well, but France said…”
“Oh, France said?” Austria snorts. “I bet France had a lot of things to say about me, but I had hoped you were wise enough not to believe them.”
“He did say you don’t sleep with people you loathe,” Turkey said carefully. “But that’s the thing, isn’t it? You don’t loathe me.”
“Why would I?” Austria replies, stealing the cigar from Turkey’s mouth. “You were my rival, but there was never anything personal about your campaigns of conquest…” He takes a pull. “I rose to your challenge until I could beat you. Your empire crumbled before mine, but we received the dying blow at the same time and for the same reason. I believe your Mustafa Kemal deals with it rather better than we do, but in a way, you and me, we’re still very similar.”
“But you don’t think that will remain so.”
Austria gives him a look.
“May I point out that you were the one who initiated?”
“I would have stopped if you hadn’t risen to the challenge.”
Austria nods in acknowledgement.
“Yes, I believe the times when we were this important to each other are over, despite the friendship treaty. You were offering a form of closure, and I accepted it.”
“I thought you might not. After all … after the war …” Turkey trails off, perhaps because Austria has asked him twice before not to be intrusive.
“After the war, I was in a very dark place,” Austria admits. “But now I’m trying to pick up the remaining pieces and see how they fit.”
Turkey smiles.
“Don’t we all?”
 —
This was written both for a drabble challenge with the prompt “Fuck Buddies” (time limit: 1 hour) and for Quarantine Challenge #3 of the 18+ Hetalia Writers Inc. Discord server (“Rare Pair... but not just any rare pair. Take two characters you’re fond of but never dreamt of shipping together and stick them in a relationship, or set them up on a blind date. How does it go?”)
I’d like to write some more about “rejuvenated” post-WWI Turkey at some point, especially about the surname law of 1934, but … we’ll see how that goes.
