East hates this place. It's new, it's ugly, and it's not even remotely trying to hide its true nature as an insult built upon the ruins of something greater. She wishes she didn't care so much about the past, and she's good at pretending not to feel anything about it, laughing and mocking, shit-eating grins and continuous pissing contests with West, but it's in those kind of moments that she can't help but to feel like throwing up. It pisses her off. It pisses her off so much.
That destroyed city's Kulturpalast and Kaffee-Mix and piece of shit cardboard cars. Fuck.
There's a glass of wine in her hand, and the very real need to start a fight with Poland somewhere in the near future in her stomach. New Year's Eve. Of course they won't celebrate Christmas, godless communists they all are, but it doesn't mean that Russia will pass a chance for the lot of them to drink themselves silly for no significant reason in a true spirit of international struggle of the working class. There's always this very tacky feeling to them coming together and giving each other gifts they don't actively care about, talking about everything aside from the unanswered questions that really do matter.
Family of circumstances, as East likes to tell Hungary whenever she knows großer Bruder Russia can't hear them, and they might or might not be as shitty as the real deal. She still remembers the angry glares around the Christmas table, decades ago, Saxony and Westphalia and fucking Bavaria bitching about religion or something equally stupid. Oh, the days of glory long gone...
East shakes her head. It's dumb to think about it, here, in Dresden, where Saxony is as dead as Czechoslovakia's chances of successfully stabbing Russia in the back. It's not the first time she's dealt with uprising with a swift hand of steel, that she can't deny, but it's probably the first time this feels as unsatisfying to have the tanks rolling over foreign streets. Maybe it's about the fact that those tanks aren't hers, not really.
It's January 1969, and the latest spring of nations had left a sour taste in everyone's mouth.
The off-coloured light of the large ballroom makes the place look almost surreal, in a way, and East wonders briefly, as she drowns her glass of wine in a way that is not exactly what one would call "ladylike", if Russia is going to give her something dumb like a new set of contraband underwear or some actual giddiness-inducing intercontinental missiles this time around. She knows for herself that refuses to ever give him anything, and he doesn't seem to care nearly as much as she'd imagined he would do, years ago, right after he'd beaten her so many times she'd pass out choking on her own blood and turned Berlin, shiny, brilliant, glorious Berlin of years past, into ashes and smoke. No one really does care about those days anymore, nor remembers that time where she'd once ruled the world. The men here are wearing ugly grey suits, the women out-of-date clothes, listening to music, dancing, dancing, dancing.
"Did you know that you look very pretty in that dress?"
She doesn't have to look up her glass to know who's talking, and so she keeps on inspecting the white wine with thinly-veiled disdain as Russia takes a step towards her. He's too close, and East can smell the faint and yet so familiar aroma of crushed resistance all over his carefully ironed suit.
"Black market, East Berlin. Actual cotton, unlike the piece of shit you got me last time you dropped by to say hi."
There's a mock expression of pain that passes through his face as he puts his hand over his chest, wherever his heart would be if beings like them had any.
"How rude, dearest East Germany, how very rude!"
Oh, how annoying and fucking ridiculous Russia's childish voice sounds, and the laugh, that really grating fucking laugh. They both know very well that Russia is all but a child, the same way East herself is all but a fool of whatever joke he's been playing on her in the last twenty years.
"I thought you would like it. It matched the colour of your eyes. And the colour of the revolution, of course."
East has to bite her tongue not to remind him how exactly the revolution happened, all those years ago, and how she had him cornered, cornered for peace. She doesn't feel like dealing with her own broken bones and ego as often as she used to, nowadays. That shit's for Poland.
"I will take note of this for future gifts, then. You know that you'll always be dear to my heart, as are all my little brothers and sisters."
Fucking lunatic.
"However, I think you will like what I got you for the New Year. Someone as practical as you should enjoy the more, well, utilitarian things in life, but feelings are something I'm afraid I'm a bit of a sentimental when it comes to things like this."
There's a slight shiver that runs through her spine as he takes her hand. Russia always wear gloves to look like the villain America wants him to be, but there's something in her stomach that churns when she feels his frozen palms against her own, so suddenly. The music changes. Old notes, notes whose sound sounds true, truer that the premasticated, carefully sanitized sounds of whatever comes out of Moscow's conservatories nowadays.
She hates him. She hates him so much and she hates herself for lacking the will to hate him as strongly, as deeply, as passionately as she used to, back in the snows of Stalingrad.
Sometimes she has nightmares about it, about the snow and the frozen toes that fall, be it in 1812 or 1943, and it makes her wake up with sweat all over her bedsheets in her flat Karl-Marx Allee and bile in the back of her throat. She's never told anyone about this, of course she didn't, but in a way Russia know, probably.
"But first, how about a waltz?"
She raises an eyebrow. Russia has the grace of a bear wearing high heels, if that same bear had the capacity of drunk-singing L'Internationale upon request.
"I don't have much of a choice, do I?"
Russia's expression is devious in that dangerous, controlled way, soft smile that he only ever use nowadays when he's talking about the care provided to Czecoslovakia after that little incident in Prague. It all feels like some kind of bad repetition of whatever happened in Hungary, years ago.
"We live in the paradise of the workers and peasants. Of course you do have a choice."
That's one of the most typical Russia things to say, and East has to muster all the will power she can find not to punch him in the face as she knows she wishes so bad to do.
"Yeah, just like Finland, right?"
He doesn't answer anything to that, but his grip on her hand doesn't waver, not one bit, making it very clear, once more, of the person in charge of this maskerade they liked to call the Socialist World. He's entertaining himself over his own restored glory, even though they're both perfectly aware that he's just as sick of whatever they're doing with this war of words and spies as anyone else. It's the smell of alcohol that follows him everywhere that betrays him, and the sharp glint in his eyes whenever anyone mentions America's name.
East, back when she had another name, a name that she doesn't dare saying out loud anymore, would waltz the same way she waged wars. Discipline, as always, no elegance, no chivalry, and only the pressing call of victory ever guided her steps. She's not like Russia, whose smile seems to turn into a laugh the whole time, twirling like this was some kind of game, like there was not a full century of them trying to destroy each other and nearly, nearly achieving it, one way or another. He's good, because of course he is, in the same manner he's pointlessly knowledgeable about things like chess or French literature.
There's Russia's hand on her hip, holding her in a way that makes her want to rip out his arm. It's not the worse, not really. The worse is Hungary's stare, understanding betrayal on his face, and Poland's grin. They're just as aware as what this thing, Russia's little game with her ever since he got sick of hitting submission out of her with that stupid pipe, means. Now he has her following his lead, and she wonders if his skill as a dancer comes from all that ridiculous ballet he's so fond of or out of his peculiar brand of insanity.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" she mutters under her breath.
"Dancing, my little swan," Russia says, and the infuriating smile is still there. "And winning, too."
One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. East closes her eyes. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.
It all feels like Vienna in a way that is almost painful, and East wishes she could stop herself from going back to those memories, the painful ones. They're always about Austria, of course they are, and about how she'd fight him and break him effortlessly, basking in her own glory. She misses those days, so much it makes her stomach twist into knots. Russia knows this, and it makes him smile.
"I wanted to thank you personally for your cooperation in Prague," he says. "I was surprised to see you so, well, in your element, but once again I feel like I shouldn't have been so."
"Shut up."
Russia continues to guide without missing a beat. It's the ballet training, and it would make East laugh if she wasn't very much aware that it is also the ballet training that had me Russia look very much elegant when he was beating the spirit out of her in Berlin a few short decades ago.
"It seemed like I'd won you after all."
East had nothing to say to that, nothing that hasn't already been said, nothing that will keep herself from feeling like a pawn in a game that isn't her own. She's lost the will to fight, and it should make her rage, break and fight, but all she can feel is that unfamiliar, odd sense of self-disgust. Russia's right, in all the unsaid words that don't cross his mouth, that she's grown used to this, and that Russia has mastered the dances of old, the words, the steps, the blows and the blood, better than she could ever have.
The waltz ends. East feels drained, and Russia knows it, from the way he lets her go, smile still on his face, kiss on her hand as if she was the kind of lady that hadn't tried times and times again to destroy him.
"Thank you, Prussia," he whispers in her ear.
She has to use all the discipline from centuries of training not to do something really, really stupid.
It doesn't keep her from drinking herself silly later that night, stupid enough to let Russia slip between her legs and use his ridiculously skilled mouth on her when they're alone in a hotel room not too far from the train station from which the both of them will head towards Berlin in the early morning. She curses and she fusses but her hands are firmly keeping him into place, skirt rolled up on her legs ("Rip it and I rip you dick out.") and the very real need for release and oblivion. It's not the first time this thing happens, and at least Russia hasn't yet tried to put his cock inside of her so far in all their encounters, the weird fuck he is. Somehow, she doesn't mind it as much as the angry fucks between her and Austria or France, back when the lot of them still mattered. It doesn't have the bitter taste of regret practically everything has nowadays.
It's okay, she tells herself. It's not like if empires, in all their glory, never tripped on themselves and died like she did, years ago. It's not like if one day Russia wouldn't go down in flames like Berlin, Königsberg (it's Kaliningrad) and the rest.
She can only hope he'll choke on his own tongue, sooner or later. Outside, there are fireworks over Dresden, as if the city hadn't had enough fireworks for a full century in 1945, and the very real feeling that something, something is off about the world.
New decade on the way, same ugly premiers and apparatchiks, wars, peace, life and death. Maybe one day East will finally be able to look at herself in the mirror without wanting to break something. Maybe.
In the meantime, there's her long-forgotten iron cross on the bedside table, and Russia's contraband cigarettes when they're done.