She sits on the end of the bed, naked and perfect in everyway except for the conflicted emotions in her eyes. They end up sleeping side by side, Liet fighting the urge to hug her like when she was just a child, and Belarus fighting her love and fear and love for her brother as he slips further and further into insanity.
It doesn’t last long. Liet bolts for freedom. What ever Ivan may do or say, it cannot be worse than this.
-
It is.
Lithuania bleeds into the snow, crouched over and retching, his vision swimming. Then, another crack across the back, the head of the tap digging deep into his spine. Another to the back of the neck and everything makes him sick- another and another and all around him is pain and pain and pain.
Once, Ivan had impressed him with his culture and his magnetism and his sheer scale. Somewhere, Lithuania had envied Ivan, because a little girl had walked through the snow just to be with him.
Now, in 1944, Russia laughs like an adult turned child and walks the Baltic with his pipe and swallows everything in his wake.
WWII.
Home again, Lithuania thinks, defeated, as he stands on the sprawling red carpets of Russia’s house. Outside there is war, but here as ever there is silent disrepair. He finds her sitting at the window in a chair in a room full of draperies. Half afraid, somehow now used to it, he stops behind her.
“Hello,” he says through his split lip, wishing there was more to voice between them. She watches soldiers dying through the glass and doesn’t speak. “It’s me. Again.” Nothing. As always Liet is assaulted by the sudden desire to be bigger and stronger and maybe even blond, but he knows now that it wouldn’t change anything. Instead, he glances at her hair. Frowns.
“…you aren’t wearing your ribbon.”
Natashya points westwards with a dispassionate finger, still not looking at him. “I lost it. Out there.”
It does not surprise him to hear that Belarus is shooting enemy soldiers on the German front. “You were fighting.”
“For Brother Russia,” she spits, trying to hurt him again. Hoping, desperately, that she still has the power to do that, at least. Hoping that the two of them haven’t changed, in spite of a world that spins further and further out of their control.
Lithuania is meant to wilt, sad and quiet; he should splutter something stupid, anything, just to be the awkward reserved person he is supposed to be. He is supposed to just stand there and not know what to say, because then Belarus can laugh and sneer and tell him just how much more of a man her beloved Russia is. “I fought for him. Poland can’t do anything against us.”
Lithuania swallows and looks at her, wasted and thin and proud, and feels his chest grow heavy. “I know,” he says. “I know.”
-
Ivan watches the people running through the Gate. They’re all together this time, Latvia and Estonia and Ukraine and Belarus, and they all adjust their threadbare red scarfs around their necks against the cold. The cries and shouts and tears that fill the air around them envelop them like a cloud of sound. Lithuania sees the colour returning to the Prussian next to him as he fidgets and trembles; he hears the small sounds that Ivan is making in his throat with every man who crosses through to Germany’s open arms, and for the first time in years Liet feels something new and tentative stirring within him.
A woman is embracing her family mere metres from where they stand after years of being separated by concrete. Her children hug her and then pull away to run back and find their aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and teachers. She remains for a moment, wiping tears from her eyes, and smiles when she sees them. “It is wonderful to be together again, true?” she calls to them, overcome by emotion as she melts into the crowd.
In the minutes of silence that follow, Latvia mistakes choked throats for confusion at being addressed. Eyes darting between Russia and Belarus and Prussia, he attempts to offer them an explanation.
Of Rue and Powder Sugar (4/5)
It doesn’t last long. Liet bolts for freedom. What ever Ivan may do or say, it cannot be worse than this.
-
It is.
Lithuania bleeds into the snow, crouched over and retching, his vision swimming. Then, another crack across the back, the head of the tap digging deep into his spine. Another to the back of the neck and everything makes him sick- another and another and all around him is pain and pain and pain.
Once, Ivan had impressed him with his culture and his magnetism and his sheer scale. Somewhere, Lithuania had envied Ivan, because a little girl had walked through the snow just to be with him.
Now, in 1944, Russia laughs like an adult turned child and walks the Baltic with his pipe and swallows everything in his wake.
WWII.
Home again, Lithuania thinks, defeated, as he stands on the sprawling red carpets of Russia’s house. Outside there is war, but here as ever there is silent disrepair. He finds her sitting at the window in a chair in a room full of draperies. Half afraid, somehow now used to it, he stops behind her.
“Hello,” he says through his split lip, wishing there was more to voice between them. She watches soldiers dying through the glass and doesn’t speak. “It’s me. Again.” Nothing. As always Liet is assaulted by the sudden desire to be bigger and stronger and maybe even blond, but he knows now that it wouldn’t change anything. Instead, he glances at her hair. Frowns.
“…you aren’t wearing your ribbon.”
Natashya points westwards with a dispassionate finger, still not looking at him. “I lost it. Out there.”
It does not surprise him to hear that Belarus is shooting enemy soldiers on the German front. “You were fighting.”
“For Brother Russia,” she spits, trying to hurt him again. Hoping, desperately, that she still has the power to do that, at least. Hoping that the two of them haven’t changed, in spite of a world that spins further and further out of their control.
Lithuania is meant to wilt, sad and quiet; he should splutter something stupid, anything, just to be the awkward reserved person he is supposed to be. He is supposed to just stand there and not know what to say, because then Belarus can laugh and sneer and tell him just how much more of a man her beloved Russia is. “I fought for him. Poland can’t do anything against us.”
Lithuania swallows and looks at her, wasted and thin and proud, and feels his chest grow heavy. “I know,” he says. “I know.”
-
Ivan watches the people running through the Gate. They’re all together this time, Latvia and Estonia and Ukraine and Belarus, and they all adjust their threadbare red scarfs around their necks against the cold. The cries and shouts and tears that fill the air around them envelop them like a cloud of sound. Lithuania sees the colour returning to the Prussian next to him as he fidgets and trembles; he hears the small sounds that Ivan is making in his throat with every man who crosses through to Germany’s open arms, and for the first time in years Liet feels something new and tentative stirring within him.
A woman is embracing her family mere metres from where they stand after years of being separated by concrete. Her children hug her and then pull away to run back and find their aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and teachers. She remains for a moment, wiping tears from her eyes, and smiles when she sees them. “It is wonderful to be together again, true?” she calls to them, overcome by emotion as she melts into the crowd.
In the minutes of silence that follow, Latvia mistakes choked throats for confusion at being addressed. Eyes darting between Russia and Belarus and Prussia, he attempts to offer them an explanation.
“…Maybe she mistook us for a family.”