Never done this before, please read and tell me how I did and where I need to improve.

/OOO/

She is, Toris mused to himself, what most people considered a lost cause, or maybe even a basket case. A beautiful young woman, hopelessly infatuated with he older brother.

No, Toris thinks as his face contorts into a scowl, not just her older brother. Her childish, often times cold hearted and malicious, intimidating and completely indifferent to her feelings older brother. The Lithuanian's heart broke a little more every time he saw her fawning away for him.

Natalia is a very different kind of girl. Beautiful beyond a doubt, but simply being in her presence was enough to make anyone uncomfortable. And that wasn't when she was around her brother.

"She gives off this, like, totally bogus aura dude." His friend Feliks had once said to him. "I just like, so don't get why you're into her like you are."

It was true. Toris just simply couldn't help it. He was completely in love with a girl who was completely in love with another. It was excruciatingly hard, but sometimes, every once in a while, it was worth it.

/OOO/

It was no secret to anyone that Ivan Braginski liked to drink, and everyone knew how alcohol affected him.

"Natalia, you should know better by now." Toris chastised as he rummaged around in his first-aid kit. He was referring, of course, to being around a certain drunk Russian. "He could have hurt you a lot worse than he did you know."

"Yes, but big brother doesn't really mean it." The girl replied as she watched the other pull out a bottle of wound disinfectant and a bandage wrap.

"I'm sure he doesn't …." The brown-haired man mumbled. This wasn't the first time this had happened. Ivan would get drunk, he would get angry and he would take it out on the closest person to him. More often than not that person was Natalia.

As much as it pained the Lithuanian to see his love interest hurt and broken as she was, especially by Ivan, times like these were precious to him. They were the few rare occasions that he, or anyone, would ever see the girl with her walls down. Her so called 'bogus aura' seemed to diminish at these times. She could trust him, and she knew that. That was why she always came to him instead of anyone else. It made him happy and heart broken at the same time.

"There we go." He said as he finished wrapping the bandage around a particularly big gash on the girls arm. He pressed a feather-light kiss to it. A slight blush arose on the Belarusian's pale face. Toris had been taking care of Natalia for years now, every time her brother fell into a fit of drunken rage. Now, in times like this, he felt comfortable around the usually venomous young lady. Being so, he had gotten slightly bolder with his affection over time. If only slightly.

"I should probably head back now." Natalia said after the rest of her smaller cuts and scrapes had been tended to. " I should go and check on big brother."

Big brother. Ivan. How Toris loathed that man.

"You don't have to go you know." He blurted out suddenly as he reached for her hand. "You could always stay here." He looked into the girls dark-blue eyes and then looked away. "Y-you know, if you wanted to that is."

Natalia regarded the other for a moment. Toris was annoying at times, weak to say the least, but he had always been there for her. Anyone who knew her would probably put money down that she would tear away and run back to her kind, loving, devious and cruel older brother. She wanted to, she loved Ivan like a wolf loves a full harvest moon. But in that moment the idea of staying, just this once, didn't propel her away.

She always went back, Toris knew that. Why had he even suggested her staying was beyond him. So imagine his surprise when she silently nodded and moved to lean her head upon his shoulder. What was this?

After the first few moments of shock subsided the Lithuanian let his arm slide around the girls slim waist, careful to miss the bandaged wounds, and aloud a small smile to grace his lips. He was a lucky man, he was. No one but himself ever got to see Natalia this way. And this, this, was the biggest small step of his life. Perhaps insignificant, but it was his.

Tomorrow she would return to the man she loved, the man he loathed, the man who seemingly didn't care one way or the other. But now, right now, her time and his time were one in the same. He pressed a light kiss to Natalia's impossibly light blonde hair and was, in that very second, content to feel the rise and fall of her chest and listen to the love of his life breath, sleeping in his arms.

/OOO/

Alright, so this is new territory for me. My Furry Frog (akumanorei) really likes this pair so I thought I'd try my hand at it. I'm sure that the characters came out impossibly OOC. Sorry for that. But I just wanted to test the water and see if I can write for these two and improve. Reviews would be much appreciated. Oh and by the way, I actually like Ivan quite a lot, I just felt this view of him fit into this story best.