-A hesitant "T" for language, sexy themes and a gun. Well, a couple guns.
Chicago, United States: early 1950s
What wakes up Ivan Braginsky is the slam of a fist against a wall, and Alfred doesn't care. He is staring down at the streets of Chicago, which are so fucking bright it's unbelievable. Without his glasses, the migrating flecks of red and yellow and the rows and rows of off-white windows on silhouetted behemoths turn into a haze, but he doesn't care. He is looking without seeing, letting the jumble of visual information wash over him. It wouldn't mean anything if he could see it anyway.
Ivan had just drifted off when the thud ripped through his half-formed dreams and he spasmed in the sheets, fighting himself to a sitting position until he realized:
he is in a hotel.
there is nothing that will hurt him.
Except the gun on the table, and the one on window sill, and the man illuminated by the life of the city floors and floors below them.
But besides that, he is safe.
For months, he had been wandering the cities, the major ones - New York, Los Angeles, Houston, San Fransisco, Las Vegas, not Washington DC, because everyone knows them there. He even went to Boston out of sheer need.
Need to see him again.
And Chicago had worked. Three hours after he left the airport, two of which he he had spent inhaling shots of vodka in a bar, he found himself slammed into the grungy wall of an alleyway, a gun at his pulse and those pink lips sneering
What the fuck do you think you're doing here
Commie shit.
He let America - because at the time, the man was America - seethe for a few moments, rant at him, rub the gun into the pale flesh of Russia's neck, until the blue eyes turned soft and flickered AlfredAmericaAlfredAmericaAlfred.
Oh, I, Ivan. He mumbled.
I really missed you.
They found a hotel and rented two rooms even if they only were going to use one and then the rest of the night was that sickly-sweet mix of tears and sweat and pleasure pain, and blood when the hour got late enough. It was nips and stifled moans and shameless pleas until they had made up for all the time they had been apart.
Ivan trips and stumbles over a fold of sheet that didn't let him go before crossing the room.
"What?"
"Nothing," Alfred replies with a frustrated shake of his head. "I just have...I got work tomorrow. If we had done this on Friday -"
Ivan turns him roughly and kisses the if away. Alfred reaches up to grasp his shoulders, massage the tension there and regain his balance before he cups Ivan's jaw with both hands and kisses back.
The lights flash and dip below them. They burn through Ivan's eyelids as he presses Alfred against the window to make the man arch away from it, towards him.
Ivan cards Alfred's hair with his fingers and decides not again, because there's so little softness in these moments. He searches for the squishy parts of the man: the hollow of his neck, his cheeks, his palms, his thighs and Alfred lets out a giggle and mumbles with a sing-song, "What are you doing?"
He thinks it's a game, but it's not.
Between the hard metal and hard alcohol, Ivan looks for soft things: the flush of inebriation, a length of faded scarf, a hotel mattress that will be used for one night and one purpose. Life is contrasts, and if he only has hardness, he will forget what it is to be soft.
When Ivan has taken stock, reasserted himself and filled his hands and eyes and mind with enough memories and sensations, he allows Alfred to stand up because the window sill is cold and sharp.
"Want something to eat?" Alfred asks. He reaches for the light.
"No." Ivan says, harsher than he should. Alfred turns. "I want to sleep."
Alfred stares at him and shrugs. "A'right." He slurs lazily. "Y'know where your room is -"
"With you."
The blue in the darkness asks Again? and Ivan insists, "Just sleep."
Alfred smiles.
"A'right."
Soft.
Ivan resumes his search amongst the sheets as Alfred dozes in his arms; he finds soft lips and a pliable waist, feathery hair and the curve of his ass.
In the dark he stares at nothing and does his best to think of just that. He doesn't want to dwell on the war, on human foolishness and propaganda. He doesn't dwell on Alfred - life is contrasts, and he must limit himself or this will cease to be special.
He connects things in the darkness and pretends: that's a horse, and that's a stove and that's a plane and that's a glass. He imagines and imagines until his brain realizes how tired it is.
The last fleeting thought he has is that his plane ticket to Russia is for tomorrow. He always burns those tickets, but he saves to ones to the country he is supposed to hate.
They are tickets to contrast and so they are tickets to life.
And one day, he will burn them too.
Author's Note: I needed some RussiaxAmerica. Badly. Also gift for the lovely StarGazer453.
This was originally from America's POV. /headdesk I seem to be incapable of writing a piece with Russia that's not Russia-centered. He's just such a fun character to work with.
I took some liberties with the time period: Plane tickets then cost around $60 dollars, and considering Russia would have to make multiple trips between cities, and planes then were only for the very rich, especially in the early 1950s, which is when McCarthyism was in full swing, that would become very pricey very quickly...
Let's just pretend Russia has a hefty disposable (title plug) income.