The screams of agony still echoed through Ivan's mind, even though it had been hours since he washed the blood, shed during the encounter, off his body. The Russian paused midstride as he passed the door he had locked behind himself earlier. The shrill painful yells may have been silenced, but there were still sounds creeping out from under the door. Pitiful sounds of a once powerful nation.
Childlike curiosity overcame the blonde haired man, and he fished the key to the room out from his deep coat pockets. The sound main as the lock was opened was loud as a gunshot in the quiet hallway. If his Baltics were awake they knew better then to get in the larger nation's way.
Ivan stepped into the darkened room and looked around. To the casual observer it looked the room was nothing special, an oversized storage closet with boxes coated with dust resting on high up shelves. If someone were to open the door they would turn around without a second glace to see the interior door that lead to another, equally dismal room. It was through this door that the whispers of misery leaked. It was through this door that Ivan entered.
This room was larger than the last but, it was also darker. The only light that filtered into this room came from the insignificant crescent moon, whose reflected light streamed through barred windows. The bed to one side of the room stood bear, its expensive sheets, so out of place in this dank space, remained un-rumpled. The man who was meant to occupy that space instead could be found curled up, cold and shivering on the floor on the other side of the room, still shackled to the wall were the Russian had left him hours before.
The man's body was molted with bruises, dark and fresh, and ones paling with age. His hair, pale as snow in any light, was streaked with dried blood. Ivan could remember the vibrancy of the color when it was oozing from the alabaster skin of the slight man on the floor. Blood the color of the Prussian's now closed eyes. Eyes the Russian could remember with great detail. Eyes he's seen both spark with rage and soften with passion, eyes he never wanted to see stray to another person.
Ivan's own violet eyes raked over the body at his feet, stopping at his mouth. Pale pink lips turned red from being bitten by both men. Lips that now muttered words, foreign words, German words. The Russian struggled to listen, to pick out something he might use to understand the thoughts that plagued the ex-nations mind.
"Bruder…" The broken man whimpered.
'Of course,' Ivan thought, 'He would cry out for his brother' He felt an emotion build up inside him, could he make Gilbert stay if he destroyed the German?
"Ich… hasse…" The Russian could not understand those words. He had never thought about learning his captive's language, now he was considering it. He could use the knowledge of those words against Gilbert. He filtered out the slow stream of words as he contemplated his options.
"Ivan" The man in question broke from his thoughts at the sound of his name, butchered by troubled sleep and German accent. He knelt before his once ally and released his limp, blood stained body from the chains that held him to the wall. Ivan caught the man before he could slump to the floor and lifted him to the bed across the room. He slipped out of the room to retrieve a bucket of water and a rag to use to clean the Prussian of stale liquid life. The water was cold, but it did the job it was meant for without rousing the man from his pained slumber. Unfortunately winter draft leaking though the windows mixed with the moist flesh and caused the Russian's charge to convulse with shivers.
Ivan disrobed himself of his scarf, long and warm, a gift from his elder sister, and wrapped it securely around the smaller man's neck and shoulders. He then proceeded to stuff the man, as gently as possible, under the thick blankets of the bed. He watched, and he waited for the trembling to cease, and when it did not, he joined the albino man under the covers, wrapping his arms around the shaking man in hopes that the additional warmth would calm him.
And as he waited his mind drifted back, and he began to wonder. How had it come to this? How did these two men go from allies to bitter enemies? From comrades on equal terms, to owner and owned? From love to hate and comfort to pain? He couldn't fathom how so much could change over the years. Ivan had stayed the same for the most part, hadn't he? He grew larger sure, but his personality remained intact. What had it been that had changed in Prussia? Russia did not know. What he knew was that it felt good, to hold his broken charge in his arms like this, to warm his shaking body like he had all those years ago, when he first discovered the Prussian on his land.
Why couldn't he stop hurting the man he now held, so carefully in his arms? Was it truly the will of the people controlling his actions? Shouldn't he be more powerful than to allow that? Why couldn't he find the control to hold this man every night instead of raping him body and mind? He did not know. But he promised himself that every night he broke the Prussian, that same night, when his people went to slumber, he would nurse the man. He would bandage his wounds, only to rip them open the next night.
Gilbert rolled over in Ivan's arms, and nuzzled his face into the Russian's shoulder. The trembling stopped, and the painful whimpers ended with a peaceful sigh. And it angered and saddened Ivan, who figured that the only reason the Prussian was suddenly so calm was because he didn't realize who it was he was taking comfort in. He didn't doubt that Gilbert thought it was his brother who was comforting him.
Ivan knew it was time to go. He pressed his nose against the top of Gilbert's head, inhaling his scent, a mix of iron blood and something akin to pine.
"Спокойной ночи, Моя маленькая птица," he said as he slipped out of the bed, and then the rooms, locking the outermost door behind him. He knew he would be back, when the people of his land awoke and decided to wreak havoc on the GDR again. And then he would return later to clean the mess.
And as the Russian wandered off to his own room the thought, 'Gilbert never needs to know.'
Gilbert woke with the sunrise. And he found himself in the bed, clean and bandaged as he had found himself waking up for months. He liked to believe that one of the Baltics had snuck in to take care of him, perhaps Lithuania. But waking up this morning, he could not deny that it had never been one of the lesser nations who would visit him while he slept. It was Ivan. It has always been the Russian. The proof was wrapped around the ex-nation's neck.
AN: What Ivan says at the end in Russian was 'Good night, My little bird.'
AN2: This should technically be a sequel to something... I just haven't dreamed up what that something could be. Maybe some other time.