Author's note: This is one of two stories that waited so long to be posted, it expired. So if there was an AN at the top, I don't remember what it was. Just know that these two have one of my favorite relationships in Hetalia, and that this story is part of the Let It Go arc.
Shell
When Ivan Braginski steps off the train he doesn't even look up, doesn't bother to see if anyone had come for him. It makes the French nation sad, really, that someone so beautiful was so disdained. Even after everything that had happened, Francis still truly believed that his friend was worthy of love.
Carefully he slips between the Austrians; it had been easy to guess where Ivan would be coming through. Francis had known him for so long that he could feel in his bones when the Russian was going to leave; it would hurt him less, the restructuring, if he wasn't in the Soviet Union while it happened. And who knew how long it was going to take anyway?
He follows a couple steps behind, Ivan carrying the few possessions he'd brought with him on his back. Francis imagines the pain of leaving behind his precious books as he reaches out, letting a hand fall on the man's wrist. The Russian startles, attempting to shrug the intruder off, but then his head turns just enough to see the long blond hair and old blue eyes behind him.
Ivan seems beyond words at that.
"Francis?" he breathes. It takes him a couple goes, as if he hasn't spoken in days or perhaps had cried himself hoarse. Francis likes to think that maybe Ivan has never cried before save when the tsar died and then again when he had to let his daughter go. This was the station the Frenchman had driven her too, just over the Hungarian-Austrian border. There was something so predictable and yet comforting in knowing the father was retracing his daughter's steps, following after her albeit ten years too late.
"Hey there handsome," Francis smiles. "Thought you'd need a lift."
Out in the parking lot they throw Ivan's bag in the trunk, the Russian standing awkwardly. Francis steps to him, grinning to see the boy he knew was beneath the man showing through.
"Have I told you yet how much I missed you?" he coos in Russian with his French accent; it used to make Ivan laugh to hear him speak like that. Francis knows he hasn't laughed in years.
"There is little of me to miss; I am a shell of my former self."
The republic's first instinct is to say, "Nonsense," and laugh to try and make the man feel better. But he knows something stronger is needed and so steps to Ivan, wrapping his arms around his neck to pull him down. They embrace, the Russian holding Francis a bit tighter than most would, but that was just perfect. He lets a hand slip through that silver hair, turning his face to inhale the smell of this Russian survivor and kiss Ivan's ear. That makes his taller companion blush and stiffen.
"Ah," Francis near-laughs, releasing the man. "Erzsi is really the one, isn't she?"
Ivan stutters for a bit, Francis imagining he was denying that she was the one and denying the existence of « the one » and then denying his denial of his feelings for the Hungarian before finally sighing and nod. "Da," he says in that deep voice. "Da."
"She know that?"
"She did."
"Now?"
The tall man shrugs. "Now she is free."
Francis takes his hand, linking their fingers together. "I cannot imagine the strength that took to–"
"Let's go." Conversation over is what Ivan really means.
"You can put the seat back," Francis remarks. They speed along the German road, Francis having little patience for following the rules in Switzerland and so avoiding the country. "While you were gone the world got shorter, I'm sorry to say."
He doesn't take his eyes off the road but instead listens to the fumbling of his companion before there's a soft clicking noise as the seat moves so Ivan can stretch his legs. "Thanks."
"No problem."
The bed bounces a little as Ivan's back lands on it, the man panting in only his straining briefs. Francis between his legs loves this side of the Russian, sweaty and mussed hair and rolling eyes and bucking hips. With little patience he removes himself, then Ivan, of the last of their undergarments.
"She'll want you back," he pants in French, leaning over Ivan to steal a kiss before grabbing their erections and rubbing them together. "Oh God– she'll want you back."
"Fuck!" Ivan curses quietly, a hand sneaking down to join Francis's. "Really?"
"She still loves you," the man on top manages before letting go and shifting to straddle the wide hips. Leaning over to pull something from his bedside drawer he adds, "She just needs time."
"I can do that."
Looking over at the man below him Francis smirks something devilish. "Oh, I am sure you can, Big Boy." Then he shoves a bottle of lubricant into Ivan's hand, burying his face in the man's shoulder to nip and bite at. Little time is wasted preparing him, the French nation mewling and pushing against the fingers pressing into him and taking large breaths every time he remembers to breathe.
"Thank you," a voice whispers in his ear before French hips find themselves being shoved down onto the Russian cock.
His ass in the air, sheets falling from his body, Francis wakes with his face shoved sideways into a pillow. "You sleep funny," Ivan mutters beside him. "Have I told you that?"
"I am an attractive being," the Frenchman retorts before rolling over, half-draping himself over the large chest beneath his back. He stretches like a cat which wins him a Russian hand scratching at and rubbing his abs. "Breakfast?"
"I thought you'd never ask." The joke is there though the voice still sounds hollow.
After a few days Francis finally asks, "When did you two know?" Ivan, beside him in the top-floor sunroom, shrugs despite definitely having an answer. "Vanya," Francis tries softly.
"She knew three days before," the Russian finally breathes out.
"And you?"
There's a long pause before Ivan answers the question. "A month."
"You didn't tell her then."
"I–" He takes a deep breath, purple eyes looking out over the landscape before them. "I told her to pack. I told all of them to pack. Most of them were by train, arranged by their own governments. Erzsi I arranged myself."
Francis nods, not really knowing what he was agreeing to. Maybe it's the care that, even till the end, Ivan gave to his Hungarian lover. Or maybe it's the pain that's clearly there, not necessarily of letting everyone go but of knowing that he was about to be alone again. There will be parties thrown and catching up to do and Ivan Braginski won't be invited to any of it because he was the Soviet oppressor; not by choice, not by wish, but by fate. Francis knows there are many terrible things the man himself has personally done, but he's not sure that Ivan has ever done something unforgivable. Russia, yes. The Soviet Union, for sure. But Ivan?
Looking to the oddly handsome nation, the French republic thinks he was right: he is a shell of himself, of what he fought so hard to become. And if it was the last thing Francis ever does, he swears to himself, he'll help fill in that shell again, with nice clothes and new music and good food and old friends who will forgive him. It takes time, it always does, but time moves so quickly when you've nowhere to go.
"The last thing she said," Ivan whispers and Francis holds his breath to not miss a word, "as I held her in our room, was that she didn't regret anything we did."
It's a small smile, but that it was there is undeniable.