Alright, so I am attempting another fic! I'm actually going to try to make this one last a little longer than most of my others. And I'm going to take a shot at romance, so watch out. This fic and the title was inspired by the song "Cold War Transmissions" by Anberlin. Look it up, it's an awesome song. :D

And to what you're actually interested in- the parings! These are the current pairings that I have for this. More will be added later, I'm sure. Russia/America (main), Canada/Ukraine, France/England, one-sided America/Mexico (she's an OC), and one-sided Russia/Belarus.

Ivan Braginski glanced down at the paper in his hand with a slight look of contempt and a very menacing smile on his face. Surely, this was an insult against him, or some kind of jest. Ivan's violet eyes glanced from the repulsive paper to a shaking brunet who looked like he really didn't want to be there. "Toris?" Ivan asked, ignoring the startled jump that the other male gave. "Y-yes sir?" Toris Lorinaitis asked meekly. The Russian smiled at the nervous brunet and slammed the paper down on his desk. "Please tell me what this says," Ivan commanded more than asked and he tapped the paper several times. Toris gulped and he coughed nervously. He knew exactly what was on the paper, he had drawn the shortest straw and had to deliver it to Ivan after all.

"I-it's this month's r-rantings," the brunet said weakly. Ivan kept a childish, yet terrifyingly threatening smile on his face and he raised an eyebrow, silently urging the poor Lithuanian to continue. Toris took a deep breathe, bracing himself for whatever was to come. "A-and it says that WKZY 106.9 has h-higher ratings than us," he said.

A terrible silence issued in which Ivan stared at Toris without his expression changing and the Lithuanian stood awkwardly and shivered. Toris swore the temperature in the room had dropped a few degrees. "And do you perhaps have an idea as to why that is?" Ivan asked suddenly, causing the brunet to almost have a heart attack. This was seriously causing him too much stress. "W-well, sir, Eduard thinks that it's because they h-have promotional things going on," Toris mumbled and looked at the floor.

Ivan stared at the Lithuanian for a moment before he burst out laughing in an almost maniacal way before his laugh mellowed into a much softer chuckling (Toris was positive that he had almost fainted right on the spot). "Toris, what they call 'promotional' is slutty girls, horny men, and lots of booze. Of course they're going to have more of an audience," the Russian said as if he was talking to a small child. Ivan stared at the Lithuanian with a contemplative look on his face and Toris willed himself to turn invisible (sadly, it did not work).

"Do you have any ideas for promotions, Toris?" Ivan asked, and the brunet bit his lip. "W-well, there was this one idea I had," he mumbled. A look on the Russian's face urged Toris to continue. "I was thinking that m-maybe we can have some kind of 'Be a DJ for a Week' contest or s-something. I think people would probably be interested," the brunet said timidly. Really, he actually just made the idea up on the site to appease his boss. He doubted that more people would listen to their radio station just to try and sign up to be a disk-jockey.

Surprisingly, the Russian looked almost as if he was considering the idea. Which was totally ridiculous. There was simply no way that he would agree to such a silly idea and Toris would get more time to come up with a better idea- "I like it. Get the paperwork and rules and all of that ready and we'll start this 'Be a DJ for a Week' contest," Ivan said cheerfully and Toris felt his stomach drop. "O-of course," he said with a defeated sigh. Of course Ivan had to agree right away. And pin all of the work on the brunet. Toris wondered if he had done something awful in a past life to deserve this.

***

Matthew Williams was not a happy person at the moment. This was because his older half-brother, Alfred F. Jones, was acting depressed and as if it was the end of the world. And the reason why Alfred wasn't acting like his usual childish and naïve (stupid) self was because his girlfriend, Maria Garcia, had dumped him. This left the older blond miserable which lead to Matthew being miserable because Alfred had a strange ability which caused his emotions to rub off on those around him.

At first, the Canadian had been sympathetic towards his brother. But after almost two weeks of Alfred acting downcast, Matthew was beginning to get fed up by his brother's moodiness. The younger blond seriously wished that he could come up with something, anything to have his idiot brother acting like his normal idiot-self again.

But sadly, no matter what Matthew tried, Alfred didn't seem to respond. It was thoroughly irritating.

The Canadian sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He had gone up into his room to get away from his glum sibling and turned on his radio, hoping that an idea would come to him. As soon as his radio came on, some commercial about cars came on and the blond snorted. Maybe if he got Alfred a car, he'd shut up about his ex-girlfriend. Matthew chuckled at the idea.

Then, the commercial ended and the Canadian heard a male voice with a distinctive accent come on. Matthew smiled. He was a loyal listener of the radio station RUSH 145.9 for several reasons. One was because they had good music (albeit, it had a decent amount of commercials too). But the other (far more embarrassing) reason was because Matthew really liked the radio personalities. There seemed to be only two (and occasionally a third if the other two couldn't be on). One was a male with a smooth voice that went by the name of Ivan. He generally was on during the mornings to mid-afternoon. The other was a female who had a soft and sweet voice that went by the name of Katyusha. She was generally on from when Ivan left off until about ten pm or so.

Matthew had a particular fondness of Katyusha, but that just because he liked her personality and the music she played. Nothing else.

The Canadian plopped gracelessly down on his bed and half-listened to Ivan's accented voice talk about some traffic problems or something. Then Ivan said something that caught the blond's attention. "Now that I am done with the traffic, I have an announcement. RUSH 145.9 is currently holding a contest for all you listeners. This contest is called "Be a DJ for a Week" and, as the name implies, the winner will be able to come to our station and be a DJ for a whole week. Please look at our site for more details and registration," the voice said cheerfully before a song switched on.

Matthew stared at his radio for a minute before an idea formed in his head. Alfred certainly liked to talk and he liked listening to the radio (even if he preferred a different station). If he could get the older blond's mind off Maria for a bit, then maybe it would start him down the road of emotional recovery. Then he would finally stop acting like someone had ran over his dog and life could get back to normal! Matthew was pleased with this idea.

He quickly pulled his laptop from under his bed and went straight to RUSH 145.9's website. He read over the rules and due dates and quickly signed Alfred up for the contest. Really, he sorta wanted to sign up for it himself in hopes of meeting Ivan or Katyusha, but he knew he couldn't really do any public speaking like Alfred could. Plus, this would hopefully take the American's mind of his ex. Matthew decided that he was a good younger brother as he hit the send button.

***

Several days later, Matthew had been ignoring his older brother insane ramblings about Maria and giant robots when he noticed a new message in his inbox. He clicked on it and was confused to see 'Congratulations' written in a large font. He read the message underneath and he felt his heart almost stop.

Alfred had won the contest.

Matthew chuckled nervously and got his brother's attention. "Hey Alfred. What do you think about being a disk-jockey for a week?"

Yeah, so this is just the beginning of the end. More 'getting to know the characters' should happen in the next chapter. Note: I really don't know much about radio broadcasting and stuff, so please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. WKZY 106.9 is an actual radio station around here. Please review so I know if I should continue or not.

Also, if anyone can guess the meaning of 'RUSH 145.9', I'll give you a cookie. Here's a hint, use numerology on the numbers. :D