A/N: Please, I implore you, listen to Emilie Autumn's "Cold" while you read, especially during the last third. I know I always say things like that, but this time I mean it.
...
It might have turned out to be a day like all the others.
He had known it was going to bad as soon as he caught Russia's eye at breakfast. The desperation had been there again, the unmistakable hint of nights spent half awake and half in nightmares, of too much alcohol and too many tears. He had also known that, with his – his captor, his master, his enemy, his lover – in a mood like this, any weakness of his own would be taken advantage of, every step in the wrong direction could mean pain to him, desperation to him.
Nights he himself would spend in a nightmare, but one that was reality. Until his own eyes became as hollow and haunted as the ones he was staring into.
Oh.
His first mistake of the day, he was staring. Once he made his first, he would become nervous, and then more would follow, and then the nightmare would follow. He knew that. They both knew.
He sat down and held onto his own cup of coffee, but he couldn't help that he and Russia were sitting in front of each other with only the table separating them.
Russia had, when their locked gazes were threatening to become painfully awkward, glanced down into his coffee almost shyly. Now the silence was stifling.
Toris knew he should try to be as careful as he could, to avoid Russia, especially to avoid angering Russia, who was in such a bad mood.
A bad mood? A terrible mood, not angry, just...alone. Cold, and frightened. Like a child.
Toris also knew that Russia was insane. Somewhere, deep in his own mind he supposed he was insane as well. All of them were.
Torn apart by so many conflicts, conflicts between the their people and their government, between groups of their people. Religious conflicts, cultural conflicts, bloody ones, serious ones, petty ones. They were all not sane.
He was broken from his reverie – his escape from reality – by the sweet, raspy, horrible, familiar sound of Russia giggling. He looked up to see what in the world could be so funny.
And their eyes locked again.
Toris took a sip from his coffee, trying to dispel the awkwardness of the situation, and Russia did the same, and then they noticed they had done so in absolute synchrony.
Russia giggled again, the sound again reminding Toris of broken glass and windchimes and the slowly creeping horror he hadn't been able to shake off since they first met.
"Do you know what we are like?" Russia asked, both mirth and terror sparkling in his eyes, incongruous next to each other but both undeniably part of him.
"I don't – please tell me."
"I don't want to know" were words that didn't exist in Russia's vocabulary. He only heard what he wanted to hear.
The latter obliged the request.
"I think we are, well, we act like we're...married. Why, don't you think so, too?"
Toris opened his mouth to reply, but no word would come out. There was no right thing to say to something like that, and so he closed his mouth again, completely dumbstruck.
Married? Married?
He found his voice again.
"Married?"
His second mistake: asking stupid questions. This was shaping up to be a terrible day.
Russia chuckled, a deeper and more natural sound, one that was closer to the part of him that was...whole.
"Da. Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy, didn't you know?"
He should have left it at that, he should have left the room and gone to attend to something or the other, but he couldn't.
"What makes you think that? Do you think I'm your enemy? Not your slave?"
"You're too curious, Toris. Much too curious."
That was his warning, and he should have taken it. But he didn't.
His last mistake for today.
Instead of running, he got closer, and closer still, until they were not much more than a hair's breadth apart.
He could see the hunted look in Russia's eyes, and he knew that with every question he asked, every inch he got closer, Russia felt more and more cornered. And when he felt cornered, he struck out.
But if he admitted it to himself, Toris felt pleased about these few seconds that he had a kind of power over Russia. It was almost stronger than his pity, and certainly stronger than his fear.
That he should make Russia feel scared.
But the rush was over as soon as it started, the consequences of his actions in form of two strong hands closing around his shoulders shook any feeling of power from him and then the two eyes boring into his, more than eye contact this time. Very suddenly there wasn't a table between them any more, and his hands were at his sides and wouldn't move, and he felt a fist connect with his face. But it didn't hurt nearly as much as the expression on the face so close to his own, the cruelty was the thinnest of masks over the fear, and to think he had enjoyed that fear seconds – hours? - ago...
And then he could move again, his hand shot to his injured cheek, and he heard something like "I'm sorry!" over the pounding in his head and didn't know whether to believe it.
He got up and ran, somehow noticing he wasn't being followed, but he ran farther, the giant house like a labyrinth around him. There were doors and corridors and huge rooms and he didn't even care where he was running anymore.
I'm becoming like him.
The thoughts ran panicked in his mind, that being the only clear thread. It scared him so much more than the prospect of violence. The situation had escalated, and he didn't know how. He might have been running for hours already. Or maybe for seconds.
He became aware that he wasn't moving anymore very slowly. Then it registered why he'd stopped moving. He was only a few steps away from the kitchen, from where he'd started, and to his right lay a salon, a large room with hopelessly old-fashioned furniture. Music came through the half-open door.
Very slowly, he walked towards the door, his footfalls quiet, but somehow still terribly heavy.
His hand came up on its own accord, and he opened the door a little bit farther.
Ivan was standing there, cradling a violin almost like a child, his hands moving so violently the beautiful sounds they coaxed out of the instrument seemed incongruous, the rest of his body stock-still. The music was desperate, it sounded like wailing, like screams, but it was also so sweet, and every note was incredibly pure. Ivan was putting his beautiful, twisted, terrible, pure soul into words that weren't even words.
His closed eyes opened at the sound of the door, even though it should have been inaudible over the music that Toris didn't recognize, but still, he somehow heard it.
Their eyes locked again, but this time it was neither awkward nor frightening, it was only moving, moving a piece of him to the outside, making him feel raw. Ivan smiled, a smile that was as pure and as honest as the sounds he was still drawing from the violin, and just as heart-rending.
They were looking into each other's eyes as Ivan played, and it was somehow more intimate than anything they'd ever experienced together, be it good or bad.
When the music ended, Toris felt like his entire focus on the world, on his captivity, had shifted.
The change was so profound he felt like he was looking at a stranger, and at someone he'd known all his life, both at the same time.
Ivan had put his violin down on a table, and then they were standing inches apart again.
"Sorry." he said, his fingers gliding over the bruise on Toris' cheek.
He believed it.
Suddenly, everything seemed terribly funny. Toris knew he had probably lost his mind.
"S-Sleep with the enemy?" he gasped, laughter bubbling out of his throat. He was unable to stop it, and he didn't even want to.
The mirth had returned to Ivan's eyes, but the terror wasn't there anymore.
"Is that an offer?" he asked. He sounded quite serious.
Toris was still laughing, trying to suck down enough air to speak between the fits that shook his whole body.
"T-taip, yes, it might just be-" he didn't get any farther, suddenly there were arms around his middle and his laughter was muffled by a broad chest.
"Very well, then." Ivan was shaking with laughter as well.
They were both insane, he knew, but they could be out of their minds together. Sorrow shared was sorrow halved, happiness was doubled, and misery...
Misery loved company.