The platinum blonde haired nation slid his hands into the pockets of his tan winter jacket as he said, "I really hate the snow..." His scarf was tighter around him, but somehow, he still felt as if he were cold. He exhaled with a sigh, breath coming out as a white cloud, spinning over itself before dissipating in an instant.
Russia stood there for a few moments, violet eyes unfocused as he dreamed of the place he wished he could be at. He found himself sitting in that place. It had a bright blue sky with the sun beating down on a field of nothing but golden sunflowers. In one hand, he had a bottle of vodka that he took a light sip of. Yet, the bitter cold of the real world cut through his disillusion of grandeur like a knife and it slowly shattered before crumbling away.
He frowned. His sour surroundings had managed to effect him more than usual. Ivan was not sure when everything had gone wrong, but he thought that it might have something to do with events prior from the day before.
"Who turned the heat down?" Russia asked, coming down the stairs in his usual attire.
"I-i did," a nervous Latvia answered. "You said about us being tight on money the other day and it just costs so much."
"I limited our other spending to make up for it," the taller nation said as he looked down at the smaller one.
"Yes, but this way we'll have more money for everything else."
Without much warning, Lativa found a rough hand on his head pushing down on him. He winced and clenched his teeth at the pain. He went to move up to bat Russia's hand away, but fear withheld him from doing so. Noticing the twitch, Russia pushed harder down on his subordinate's head.
"That hurts!" the blue eyed boy yelled, finally gaining courage. He knocked the hand off his head and looked Ivan hesitantly in the eye. "You're just a bully!" he continued to shout, closing his eyes and clenching his fists. Lativa never had the courage to actually return the childish cruelty that was thrown at him so he could only run away from his problem.
As he watched his subordinate run off, Russia tilted his head a bit in confusion. "Bully?" he questioned.
In his long life in both the Soviet Union and as Russia, he had been called many things. To Belarus and Ukraine, he was a brother. To the other super powers, he was known to be strange and sometimes frightening and to a select few nations, he was even viewed as a friend. However, he had never once been directly called a bully. Ivan honestly tried his best to give a home to the little ones in his care. He would admit to being a bit forceful, but never a bully.
Russia decided to shrug the comment off though for the time being.
"The cold has seeped down to my blood," Ivan commented as he found himself still unable to find a happy medium where he was no longer cold. The longer he thought though, the more he came to the conclusion that it was not the wind or the cold that was stinging him, but the events that followed Lativa's outburst that had.
As he entered his own home, China thought about what he would cook that evening for himself. He knew that if he wanted to, he could have gone to one of his many vacation homes. Home cooked meals always tasted best though. All of his ideas became stumbles though as he discovered who would be joining him that evening. "Russia, aru?" he asked.
"Hello China," Ivan greeted with a slight wave of his hand.
"What are you doing here-aru?
"I thought I would stop by to see how you're doing now."
The Asian nodded, excepting his reasoning. He left to go make dinner in his kitchen. Within a few minutes, China returned. He set a bowl of a strange and unnameable food in front of the Russian. After thanking his friend, Ivan began to eat. "That's not the real reason you are here-aru."
Russia smiled lightly. "Lativa said something to me today that really bothered me, da." He set his silverware down. "China, do you think I'm a bully?"
"You're not a bully, but you are a lot like the winter snow-aru."
"How so?"
"You can seem innocent and pure at times, but you're also very harsh-aru," China explained the best way that he could.
"Bad choice of words. I don't like the winter," Russia replied. He stood up, leaving his room temperature food at the table. As he walked out, he slammed the door, causing China to jump a little.
"That came out very wrong-aru..."
Once he had left China's house, he returned home. Unfortunately, it was one of the days in which Belarus had been waiting for him. She had attempted to drag him through the door. He shouted in protest, bothered as much by her advances as the other nations were with his naturally frightening aura. The two of them struggled for the longest time. He had a grip on the frame of the door. Belarus still pulled at his legs, nearly taking the frame off as she tugged.
Ivan managed to free himself of his younger sister. Like a mad man, he ran out of the house and into the cold and unforgiving snow. He had been wondering endlessly since.
"Perhaps I am like the snow," he said, thinking out loud. As a Russian, he knew the snow better than anyone else. It was soft, but bitterly cold. It was pure and white, but could just as easily take the life of a person.
Tired of walking, he flopped down in the snow. His arms and legs were spread out as if he were ready to make a snow angel. Russia beheld the gray sky with light tears in his eyes. Flakes of snow continued to fall down on his face. "I am not like the snow. I am the snow, da."
"I did not mean it like that-aru," a very familiar voice said as it flopped down in the snow next to him.
Ivan turned his head to gaze at China. China had on clothes much too light for a Siberian winter and he seemed to be shivering. Sitting up, Russia frowned. "You're clothes are too light for the snow."
"I know that-aru."
"But..."
"I came to tell you that what I said was wrong, Russia-aru."
Tilting his head in his confusion, Russia gazed at his friend. He was not sure what it was that he had said wrong. The taller nation knew that the other had been right in his analogy.
"You are not like the cold winter snow-aru. It's not that you are a bully either. You're more...misunderstood like a beaten cat. You know so much hurt that you can only show claws, but in reality you just need to be loved-aru. "
This new analogy left Russia even more confused than the previous one had. He would never compare himself to anything, much less a cat. Hearing the words come from China though, made him think about it. He could see where he could have come to that conclusion, but there were better ways to say it.
"Why a cat?"
"Kitties are cute-aru," China answered with a light smile before sitting up.
"You need to get out of the cold, da," Russia told China standing up and offering the other nation a hand. The Asian took it, using it to pull himself up. He set his hands to his arms and rubbed them up and down the length as he tried to warm his body.
"Some vodak may warm you up," Ivan suggested, pulling a bottle of it from out of his space defying pockets.
"I'll be fine-aru," China answered.
"I doubt it, but all right." Russia set his head on top of China's, making him close enough that the warm of his body transferred to China. "If you're sure."
Author's Notes:
I've recently had an interest in Russia's character so I figured that I should go ahead and write something with him in it. I found myself thinking about how Russia could be described as similar to the snow even though he would much prefer a place with sunflowers and he hates Siberia. This is my first time writing anything with him and China in it. I'm hoping that it wasn't horrible or cliche. Regardless, the final product makes me pretty happy. Although I do wish that it was less, friendship/fluff-ish. Apparently, I can only do cute though so suffer.~
