For some reason, I have a thing for smoker!America. And, you know, smoker!Ivan. Just don't ask why - and I do not promote smoking, it is a bad idea.
Here's some sexually frustrated, love-hate relationship, tense and bittersweet RusAme for you. Hope you enjoy...
The window swung gently open, Alfred stepping softly into the brisk October morning. His socked feet padded almost noiselessly on the red tile floor, him moving to lean against the brown iron railing. He looked to his side, where plants were growing - quiet, always seeming like they were observant, spectators. The green contrasted nicely with the red brick wall, the one Alfred had grown so fond of, so accustomed to. His eye turned to the window-door, hearing nothing from inside. He dug into the pocket of the trousers he was wearing, taking out a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter.
A cigarette between his lips, soon lit, he turned around to gaze at the expanse of the city that spread out below him.
New York, the city of the hopeful, the city of dreams. He'd always loved New York, where his home had been for so long, the most populous city in his country. He saw every skyscraper, every building, every street, every person on the streets below. He felt nothing but pride - pure and unadulterated. He was glad that his people were so prosperous, so great. But he knew that there always was a price to greatness.
He watched the smoke twirl upwards, the smoke waltzing in the air, hanging, before dissipating into the coolness around it. He took a moment to just watch the sky - they grey, clouded sky, with few silver linings. He checked his watch, and knew he needed to be at work in just over an hour. He'd woken up too early for his liking.
Although there was little chance he would get any sleep when his worst enemy was lying in the same bed.
Just like cigarettes, Ivan was a guilty pleasure. A sadistic, masochistic side of him, itching for another fix, always ended up getting the better of him. But maybe, maybe that was the better side of him. Who knew, who cared? Certainly not Alfred. He might hate himself for giving in, he might love it for the rush and feeling of being alive it gave him, but he never cared to decide which feeling it was.
It was always the same routine. Whether it be after a World Summit, a UNO meeting, a simple political meeting between the two countries, on a battlefield or behind desks, it always ended up the same way. They would gradually spit more and more vicious insults, threats, at each other - words that were meant to wound and to scar. They would circle each other, either by trying to crawl under the other's skin and eat them from the inside, by using desks to create that separation, isolation they both wanted yet hated, by trying to find a way to outwit the other. It was always the same pattern.
In Moscow as in Washington, they would always end up slamming inside an apartment, flinging doors shut, maybe flinging a curse or two at the other, pushing and pulling - violent, it was always violent. Walls, floors, furniture, everything suffered from it; everything but the two of them. Every time Alfred was smashed into a mirror, Ivan would sport a victorious, wolfish grin (so different from his usual innocent, terrifyingly sweet smile). Every time Ivan was knocked to the floor with blood running down his cheek, Alfred would snarl threats at him with a grin (so very unusual for such an innocently happy nation). There was so much more depth yet shallowness in their interactions, more than with any other country.
But that was predictable, wasn't it?
And the cocky, proud American would end up pinned down, battling for freedom, while the broad, smug nation would succumb to a poisonous charm. It was never about who won - it was about how. They refused to anything but a fair fight. Perhaps that was why they so easily fell into an addiction for the other.
He heard movement from behind him, but did not even turn around as he smelt another cigarette being lit, didn't even acknowledge the person who went to lean on the railing near him - but never too close.
"Lovely sight you have here." The statement was dull, it was bland, bored. It reeked of arrogance.
"Take it in while you still got it," Alfred replied, another remark made with histrionic pride.
Ivan spared a glance his way, bored, dismissive. "All dressed up, I see," he said, taking in the clean white shirt and crisp black trousers Alfred was wearing. He himself was wearing a rather similar outfit, only with his scarf flung around his shoulders. "Which nation will you be whoring yourself to today?"
Alfred snorted, taking a slow drag. "Ah, Braginsky, I reserve that pleasure only to you, sweetheart." It was a battle between two similar voices, both so sweet and delicate and light, but holding so much venom, so much bad blood, violence.
"I forgot that detail, yes," Ivan smiled viciously. "It is almost like I own you, дорогой, isn't it?"
A blonde eyebrow arched derisively. "What, you mean these?" Alfred lifted his sleeves to show the rope burns on his wrists. "Pathetic, I call them."
They slowly were turning towards each other, because as soon as the inevitable argument broke out, they would both face each other. "Says the man who was screaming and begging for more," Ivan taunted - always taunting, playing.
"True," Alfred relented. "But there's such a thing as a lapse in judgement - leading to a mistake." And you are mine - have always been, perhaps.
"Really?" Ivan seemed amused. "And tell me, what do you call a mistake that you make repeatedly?"
Alfred thought for a moment, staring Ivan in the eyes.
"I think the word you're looking for is 'drug'," Alfred finally stated, and Ivan's eyes held something - a flash of an emotion.
"I believe that there is addiction involved with that word?"
They were standing face-to-face, eyes both meaningful and shallow. A drag here, another there, soon their cigarettes that held death by nicotine would give way to another, more dangerous, more violent drug.
"Hm," Alfred hummed softly. "True." He put the finished cigarette into the ashtray, slowly crushing the ashes. "I think we'd bot h know all about that, right, Braginsky?"
Ivan chuckled. "I find it quite funny how you refuse to call me by my first name, still." Anywhere but in the bedroom, where it falls from your lips, so easily, so quickly.
"We aren't friends," Alfred stated dully, and Ivan could not argue that. Yet,... are we enemies?
"I don't believe we are, no," Ivan responded. "But even you have to admit, you know more about me than anyone else - and I about you. Am I wrong?"
Alfred grinned. "Can't say you are." His fingers tapped against the iron railing.
I know you. I know what I can expect of you. I know what you expect of me. I know what you think and feel, and in a perverse, twisted way, maybe it's because I feel the same.
"Tell me, Braginsky, what do you think is gonna be my next move?"
Ivan raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe you're going to let me out of this apartment that easily, are you?"
Alfred's smiled showed teeth - too wide, too artificial. "Of course I won't, love, where would be the fun in that?"
Ivan stubbed the cigarette out before marching back inside. Alfred waited for a moment, before pushing off the railing into the living room. Ivan had moved to Alfred's liquor cabinet, immediately finding a bottle of vodka. He poured himself a generous glass, and took another one wordlessly, for Alfred.
"Bit early for that," Alfred stated as he picked up the glass. "I've never quite understood your infatuation with the drink. I could think of ten much better ones."
"And yet, you have a bottle in your cabinet every time - and not always untouched, even." Ivan smirked.
"Caught me there," Alfred said, taking a sip. He looked at the clear liquid in the glass thoughtfully. "I guess there's something in me that just always comes back for a burning, bitter pleasure."
"Guess there is."
"You know," Alfred continued, as he knocked back the rest of the drink. He felt it burn down his throat, and knew that he would barely be affected by it. Enough, though, to justify another bad decision - another mistake spurred on by an incurable disease, a helpless addiction. "I could always come up with a way to spend the next hour before I have to go to work."
"Could you, now?" Ivan sported an amused face.
"Yeah." He placed the glass onto a counter, and leant against the wall. Casual, maybe an ounce of predatory. Maybe a bit more. "Involves me getting payback on you for the shit you pulled last night."
Ivan snorted into his drink, before swallowing the rest of it. "Really? You honestly think you can get any kind of revenge on me?"
"There's always roundabout ways to everything," Alfred grinned.
"Hm... And yet, it always seems like you are determined to avenge something that really, was a favour to you."
Alfred inspected his nails, clean, cut, trimmed. "And what could a Red like you give me as a favour?"
"Do I really need to specify?"
"Well," Alfred started, malice in his burning eyes. "Last thing I can think of was very special gift, right in my backyard." He pushed off the wall to slowly advance towards the Soviet. "Gotta be very grateful for that one."
"But without that, we wouldn't be here, would we?" Ivan held a delighted smile. "Are you trying to start an unnecessary fight, when we both know where that will inevitably end up?"
Alfred shrugged. "Wouldn't give the same satisfaction, would it? That you get to dominate me, and I get to play you?"
Well, Ivan would play along. "And who says I let you play me?"
Because we're both addicted to each other - played right into the other's trap, didn't we?
"I think I just did."
"We can test that out, can we not?"
"How do you propose we go about that, I wonder?"
Ivan advanced on Alfred until he was trapped between himself and the wall, ensnared in a dangerous cage. A cage he never wanted to escape. He lifted his eyes, his breath tickling Ivan's covered neck. His hands ran up, beginning to tug at the stained scarf, exposing the marbled skin.
"I think we both know the answer to that," Ivan breathed into his ear. "It would... release some tensions,... и насытить мою зависимость." And satiate my addiction.
"Oh, switching to Russian already?" Alfred giggled - it was off, not quite in the right place. "Кажется, я побеждаю." It seems I am winning.
"Я знаю, как ты ненавидишь мой язык, любимый..." Ivan lifted Alfred's chin upwards, as to bring their eyes to meet. "Вот почему я хочу, чтобы утопить вас в ней."
I know how much you hate my language, darling, and that is why I want to drown you in it.
"Go right ahead, Braginsky, try me," Alfred snarled, before throwing Ivan off of him and briskly strode into the bedroom. He left the door open.
Ivan debated between taking another cigarette break to torment the American, or easing the addiction within him and going straight into the bedroom.
"I'm beginning to run short of lamps to throw at you, Braginsky, so how about you get yourself over here before I have to force you!" Alfred called from the other room.
Alfred would probably curse him all the way to the U.N. building, they would fight all the way throughout the Security Council meeting, they would snarl threats and bite words and threaten and jeer vile comments and spit insults.
And they would both enjoy every single minute of the game, the teasing, the taunting, the strategy, that board-game no-one else would ever understand. The delicate violence as well as the poisonous sweetness, the cuts and the pain and the endearments and the gentle touches.
It was as if the world had become their playground, the nations their pawns, the people their toys. And they both took full advantage of that.
A grin spread on Ivan's lips. Another cigarette break it would be.
Notes about setting:
- Set on October 25, 1962. Right in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the day after the U.S. air force had been placed on high alert and the USSR had prepared 125,000 troops. That day, a U.N. Security Council meeting was held as per American request, where the Soviets refused to admit to the presence of missiles in Cuba. The following day, military defense readiness condition (DEFCON) was raised to 2 (worst being 1), from which the next step would have been total nuclear war. Tensions between the two countries are running extremely high, so clearly - I decided to turn this into a fic in which sexual frustration is created and released.
Translations: even though most of them are within the story already, I'll put them here anyway:
дорогой - darling
и насытить мою зависимость - And satiate my addiction.
Кажется, я побеждаю - seems I am winning
Я знаю, как ты ненавидишь мой язык, любимый... Вот почему я хочу, чтобы утопить вас в ней - I know how much you hate my language... so I want to drown you in it
A/N: Well, hello, it's me again (with something that is so not what I should be working on). I have a slight writer's block - the next chapter for MAD is a tough one, so it'll take a while. But I just have so many ideas for one-shots etc that I needed to get out of my head before continuing because they're hogging my mind! So here is this bittersweet Cold War RusAme we all crave (admit it you crave it just as much as I do). I am honestly so annoyed because the Cold War is in my opinion the most exploitable resource for RusAme and there's still so little of it around - that, or it's hiding from me. So I had to write this. I'm too much of RusAme and especially Cold War trash to pass up the opportunity. I have a head-canon (actually, there's multiple ones) that America is fluent in Russian, that during the Cold War the tension between the countries was political and personal, and that they had loved each other before so neither really gave that up when they went into hating each other (I almost wrote 'gived'? Where's my english?). Anyway, thanks for reading this, and if you liked it please leave a review or follow/favourite :) Thanks!