For Scarlet.

Hurried Nights

Nights like these were hard to come by as they were so few and far in between. It was nights like these when fear was suddenly replaced by a sympathetic sadness that dominated every rational sense in the Baltic country's mind as he ran slender fingers, crooked from years of labor and abuse, through silver hair.

Despite the bitter winds of a harsh and unforgiving winter, the silver strands carded through Lithuania's fingers were damp with sweat and stuck to Ivan's face as his brows knitted together as though the burly man were troubled by a menacing nightmare.

It was nights like these, when Ivan was most vulnerable, stricken by agonizing grief and past his body's tolerance for alcohol, that filled Toris's head with the ludicrous idea that perhaps this was where he was most needed.

He ran his fingers along a stain of dried tears that ran down Russia's pale features and refrained from releasing the startled squeak of surprise that thrashed in his vocal chords when the bigger man suddenly gripped the smaller hand and held it tight against his face with a force strong enough to possibly shatter the bones and further cripple the gentler nation. Ivan's eyes met the Lithuanian's brown gaze with unbearable sorrow swimming in violet irises and it took every ounce of willpower within Toris to fight back the agony that threatened to invade his soul. He kept a calm expression and Russia could see the implied fragility in Lithuania's blank stare as he struggled to hold back his tears.

It was like the serenity of a lake and the simple toss of a pebble would break the image of a practiced profession that was listlessness. It was nights like these when Ivan pulled Toris down by the breast of his military coat to crush their lips together for an unsavory kiss laced with a synthesis of bitterness and unspeakable sadness that made the brunette wish these nights would last forever. It was when Ivan's hold on his coat would slack, his lips fall limp against Lithuania's, and his eyes slid closed as he fell into another terror filled dream induced by a drunken stupor, that sympathetic sadness was suddenly replaced by fear.

The tears that threatened to break a well rehearsed façade of calm, spilled over and overwhelming pity racked the Lithuanian's body with silent, heart-wrenching sobs. It was nights like these, filled with the bitterest of winter winds, anguish and bittersweet vodka tainted kisses that Toris wished would never end. Yet, it was these nights that seemed to hurry by as if there was something even more greatly anticipated by the world, in the pain of the morning to come.

How cruel a notion it was, Toris mused as he stroked Ivan's cheek with acrid tenderness and quivering fingers, that he preferred the Russian's atrocious distress to his own. So he would stand by with unfaltering loyalty through every lashing, innocent, child-like smile, and every bitter tear as the night unforgivably hurried on to be replaced by the dreary shine of the sun's first silver rays.