They are surprisingly similar.

Both have fair hair, strange eye colour and they're both warm on the outside but cold inside. They both can drink alcohol like it's just water, they both have that strange aura around them, they both can beat you to a pulp. They're both snowy, they are so soft and beautiful but it's cold and it can freeze you to death.

Natalia doesn't care because that's what she is looking for.

Besides, Tino isn't completely like Ivan. Tino's cold core is deeper, he almost seems like a warm and welcoming person, and someone who doesn't know would mistake him for one. Ivan, his cold core is just under the layer that is his skin, his outside appearance. Behind the smile is the icy personality, and everyone knows it. They don't know that Tino is like that too. Tino and Ivan don't look like each other, either; Ivan is tall, all manly if you forget his innocent facial expressions, and Tino is short, just a bit taller than Natalia, and has slightly chubby face and genuine happiness around him. He seems like a totally balanced fellow until you get under his clothes, under his skin.

Scars, Tino has a lot of scars. Ivan has made several of them. The most visible one is the one on Tino's left arm, back from the Winter War, a partially healed line that indicates his arm was ripped off. Natalia doesn't know what happened back then. She never asked Ivan, neither did she ask Tino. It's not a subject to be spoken about.

And Tino is cold. He's cold, freezing, but not the way Ivan is. Ivan's coldness focuses on other people, he uses them to survive. Natalia doesn't blame him; sometimes it's the only way. Tino's coldness is something that is only about himself. He is polite to others, but he doesn't let them too close either. He protects himself. Maybe it's because he lived with Sweden for so long and then Ivan.

Tino's coldness also allowes him to be insane.

Once Natalia witnessed how Tino's vodka bottle sunk into a frozen lake. After a few swears in his native language, the Finn stripped himself completely naked and jumped after it. Two minutes later he came back, grabbed his clothes and ran to the cabin he was staying at to warm himself up.

Tino allowes himself to act in dangerous ways.

Maybe that's why he let her come to him so often.

Natalia didn't see Tino first; he was merely a substitute, the closest thing she could find. But things changed. Natalia found herself talking to the Finn, conversing with him about the most every day things, not just because it's polite. She began to come to him because he listened, not just the substitute body. But she began to notice other things too; personal things. Tino was interesting too. Little by little, the body became secondary and Tino primary. Talking with him was more intriguing than empty fantasies.

And then there was no more empty fantasies, because Tino replaced them. There was reality, raw, primal. Real. There was the moment, and it was between both of them, and it was something they both focused on and wanted; Natalia wasn't using Tino to silence her heart and Tino wasn't using Natalia to ease his need.

It's satisfying, but it's still cold enough for her.

She watches Tino's bare back, marveling the fading scars on it. Tino has a tattoo on his left shoulder blade, some symbol Natalia has seen somewhere but she can't quite place it. Tino is asleep; the blanket on him is covering the lower half of his body. Natalia wonders would Tino notice if she stole it since she finds the air in the room chilly, for some reason. After a while of debating she decides it doesn't matter whether he notices or not because dammit, it's his fault for not having thicker blankets and she reachers for it, revealing all of the naked body of the Finn. She wraps herself in the blanket, watching the Finn for any signs of discomfort, but Tino does nothing but lays there, and for some reason Natalia thinks of a bear in its slumber during the winter.

She touches Tino's back with her hand, tracing a scar and wondering where it came from. She is, however, yanked back to reality when Tino groans in his sleep, and very-non-gracefully turns to face Natalia, one eye open.

" 's somethin' wrong?" he mutters. Natalia watches him, expression not changing a bit.

"No."

Tino stays there for a moment, staring the Belarusian woman, and then seems to remember something and looks down.

"Didn't I have a blanket?"

"You did", she answers, and he blinks, digesting her words.

"Huh."

Silence falls between them. Tino's brain works slowly in the night. "What happened to my blanket?"

"I took it. I was cold."

"Huh."

"Do you want it back?"

Tino thinks for a moment, but his eye falls shut and soon he is back in sleep, snoring softly every now and then. Natalia watches him, wondering, and closes her eyes, trying to catch some sleep before morning.

FinBela is one of my favourite pairings, so I thought I might write something for them.