a/n: so apparently i never posted this? anyway. this is about a year and a half or two years old, so. i hope you enjoy it! this was my first time writing these characters, so it might be clumsy. i apologize.
disclaimer: not mine.
matryoshka.
And she knows as she takes his hand―with the certainty, the surety, that the sky is blue and the grass is green and her blood is thumping, that her heart is breaking; she knows in the deepest of her hearts, the true one she locks away, like one of his dolls or a piece of paper unfolding and unfolding and unfolding―that she will never be enough.
His hand is cold.
She squeezes, bites her fingernails into his skin, to remind him that he is alive.
He is the moon, the stars, the sea. The daylight. He is the cold and the warmth and everything, everything, he encompasses the world in his hands (which are big and clumsy, though you would never know by looking) and his smile, which hints at something beneath. Some call it insanity. She knows it is not that (or so she believes).
One day she kneels by his chair and puts her hand on his knee, cushions her head against it and weeps into his lap. Her skirt blossoms out around her. And when she is done he hugs her like he used to, arms enveloping her, her nose buried in the scarf that stupid, stupid Ukraine gave him. It smells like him. She clutches at his shoulders and breathes him in, for while they say he is cold, he is like a hearth in wintertime. Belarus cannot help but be comforted.
But it is still cold, and the treacherous tendrils whisper along her skin. They tell her of betrayal and loss. She ignores them.
"Do not cry, my dear," he says to her, and kisses away her tears, licks away the salt trails shining on her face. "Crying is only for the living."
"We are the dead."
"Yes," and his smile is now like a knife through skin, cutting to the bone; but it is not terrifying, no―it is only weary. "We are the dead."
There is a forecast on the weather channel. Belarus is perched on the edge of the cough, eyes hooked unerringly on the static images, and the hand that clutches her teacup shakes. The tea itself has gone weak and cold. It is the same as the forecast; snow, which will become sludge as it hits the ground, and death.
Death.
Another door opens in the house. She knows it's him. A familiar chill races up her spine and she sets the teacup on the floor. Once she would have rushed to him, hugged him; allowed to be swept up into arms that would never twirl her. She would have tried to kiss him silly, brushing her lips over his face, fluttering her lashes against his skin, and he would jerk away. It is not so now.
"We are going to die," she tells him. It is stated as a fact. She says it firmly, without any room for doubt or questions.
"We are going to die," Russia agrees, and walks out again.
Their empires are crumbling.
Once, when Belarus was young, she dreamed of a happy marriage, of laughter and warm dinners and held hands. She was not so cruel, once. Not nearly so cold.
This is now, not then. When she looks into the mirror she sees a woman with a frowning mouth and chill eyes and dead skin building up in layers on her bones. One of his Russian dolls: a matryoshka.
What is at her center? Which vibrant doll is the real her? It does not quite matter which one it is―after all, they are all hollow, their insides scooped out. Their faces are all painted. None of them have hands. They have no hearts.
She purses her lips at her reflection, and decides that the metaphor is much too apt for her tastes.
His hands are outlined in red, the same color as the scarf Ukraine gave him. His fingernails are soaked in it. Little flecks of it chafe off his skin and spin towards the ground like crimson snowflakes.
Belarus cannot breathe.
"Natalia," he whispers. There are tears in his eyes. "Natalia, I―I think I made a mistake."
The tears fall. She cannot manage to catch them, so she tries to kiss them away instead, and the fact that he leans into her touch is what frightens her the most.
When she pulls herself away, reluctant and frightened, she can see her reflection in one of his gilt-edged mirrors. Her hair is a shock of white against her blue dress. Her skin is severe. Next to her brother, she is a caricature carved out of ice, the only color the bright red splotching her lips. She raises a hand to them. The fingertips of her glove are also red.
It is the only color she sees. Red, red, red, stretching on and on, forever and ever. She's swimming through it. Maybe she would drown, if she had not succumbed to it long ago―and with that she finds the words.
"It's all right, brother," she whispers to Ivan, and cups his face between her hands. He looks up at her. His eyes are nearly the shade of the violets that used to grow by their house in the spring, and they are nearly the shade of the bruises that used to cover them all as well. She kisses his eyelids. "It's all right. I love you still."