Dedicated to Map of the Stars, because I don't think that five pages of stories is enough.
(Dear everybody who says that this isn't romance, shut the fuck up. It's SIBLING LOVE, dammit. With a symbolic handkerchief that would look prettyful in real life.)
Also, I was gonna put some Russia/China in here, but then I thought "Ehh ... let's focus on these two". So you get a sort-of implied Russia/Lithuania implication that I didn't want to be there but I can't get rid of.
Outside, the wind has reached speeds faster than most cars can drive, and snow is being dumped on the ground in bucket-loads. This time of year is General Winter's domain, and he rules with an iron fist even in the capital of Russia.
Inside, Belarus sits quietly in a rocking chair near the fireplace, embroidering a handkerchief.
If Ivan was able to choose, he would sprint outside in a heartbeat. Why? Because when she's quiet, Belarus is plotting something. However, the door has a table and several chairs pressed up against it to keep the Russian winter out.
He moves a bit further away from the fire – he will trade the cold for not being molested any day – and looks up at Belarus quickly. Her eyes are focused on the handkerchief, and her stocking-clad feet slowly rock her back and forth. She looks perfectly innocent, and it is because of that she is able to inflict the most damage – after all, who would suspect their younger sister? Ivan looks back at the fire quickly – he has a feeling that his sister knows when people are looking at her, something that she has picked up from him.
However, he looks away too late or too slowly, because she looks up slowly, catching his gaze. For a while they sit there, neither one of them wanting to say anything to break the pleasant little bubble that they are in now. She is the first to break, and looks back down at her embroidery. For all he knows, she could have planned that, and is acting innocent to prod his subconscious into wanting to start a conversation. But if she hasn't, then it would probably be rude of him not to say something. He sighs and clears his throat.
"What are you making?" he asks. Silently, she holds up the handkerchief.
A sunflower has been sewn on to the center of the white handkerchief, its yellow petals elongated and shortened to form a heart, and flax grows on vines that encircle it. The flax blooms near the edges of the petals, giving the yellow heart blue edges. It must have been hard for her to make this, he thinks. After all, the sunflower's center has brown seeds that are carefully picked out, and the same is done to the yellow center of the flax.
"It's very pretty," he says. "I like what you did to the sunflower." He keeps his voice light, purposefully casual, in an attempt to offset anything that she might be thinking. Suddenly she throws herself at him, hard enough to push him back a few feet, and it's so fast that he doesn't have the time to dodge her. There's a loud gasping sound, and it takes him several seconds to realize that Belarus – stone-faced Belarus – is crying as if her heart was broken. Awkwardly, because he isn't used to comforting others – Ukraine is constantly running away by orders of her boss – he shifts his arms slightly so he is holding her, and rocks her back and forth as a mother would rock a baby. In a few minutes, she calms down, and looks up at him.
"I love you," she says, and her face is slightly puffy and her eyes a little red, but she is still his beautiful little sister.
"I love you too," he says, and out of necessity adds "but only as a sister, da?" It's become a reflex for him, to treat every word from her mouth as a marriage proposal – something that he shouldn't have to do to his little sister. However, something tells him that this isn't fake, that she isn't pretending to be sad for another one of her mad schemes. She is hurt, and he needs to help her and hold her.
Her eyes tear up again, and she clutches at his scarf. "Do you love Ukraine more than me?" Her voice is so low it's almost as if she's asking herself the question.
He pauses for a second. Does he? How does he say that Ukraine is a less psychotic version of her? Should he say that? "No," is his final answer. "I love you both the same." If Ukraine wasn't her sister, he would be afraid for her safety, but blood ties bind and Belarus cannot kill her.
"Do you love Li-li-lithuania more than me?" She seems to have a hard time saying Lithuania's name, it's almost as if she hates him too much to say it.
"Of course not, he isn't my sister." He hugs her a little tighter, and buries his face in her hair. It smells nice, like that flower-scented shampoo that he uses – wait. That is that flower-scented shampoo that he uses. This is Belarus, after all. She slides herself around so she is sitting on his lap, and buries her face in his scarf. He wonders if she's crying again, and then it occurs to him that he doesn't know why she's crying.
"Belarus," he says, and then corrects himself. "Natalya. What is the matter? Did somebody say something to you?" His mind automatically goes to America, the capitalist pig that sees him through red-tinted glasses and would do anything to hurt him or shake him up. But America wouldn't hurt a girl, he thinks it is "unheroic", his subconscious reminds him. So if not America, then who? Switzerland, who has a tight bond with his sister? Could he have said something about Liechtenstein that upset her? No, he thinks. Switzerland is a pacifist.
Who would do this? His mind seems to be stuttering, refusing him to let him see who is hurting his sister.
"No," she says softly. "Nobody said anything to me."
"Then what's the matter?"
"You always say that you love me, but only as a sister. People forget about their sisters, or ignore them, or hate them. I don't want you to hate me, big brother. I know that I'm not perfect most of the time, and that there are lots of other nations out there that you could do a lot better with, but you're mine." Her speech is slightly muffled by his scarf, but he can still hear her. Before he can open his mouth, she continues. "You always ask the other nations to come live with you, and be one with you, and if they do come, then you'll spend so much time with them that you'll forget me. But if you stay by yourself, I'll start to scare you, and you'll leave and forget me."
He looks at her in disbelief. "Natalya … I won't ever forget you."
She sniffs. "Really?" Her face has a childishly innocent look of disbelief.
Nodding, he smiles at her. "Of course not! I love you, remember?"
She clings tightly to him, and for a moment, they aren't Belarus and Russia, the two crazy nations with a love/avoidance relationship. They're just Natalya and Ivan, a girl and a boy, a sister and a brother.
But she looks up at him again, and he can see that her inner core of iron is back. "We're still going to get married, of course," she says. "And Ukraine can be the bridesmaid, and she'll hold a bouquet of sunflowers …" her voice trails off into a laugh as he tickles her sides, something that he's done they were young and not quite so insane.