Hi everyone!

I have put together a collection of drabbles and oneshots that I've been posting to my tumblr account. As many of you know, I have so many detailed historical and shipping headcanons that often I feel too overwhelmed to make them into multichapter fics. But I've found that writing them as single scenes is a lot easier, so why not publish those? A big thanks to everyone who sent me prompts!

I will write a brief introduction to each drabble with some background for my headcanons regarding that time/setting/characters. As always, history notes can be found at the bottom. Hope you all enjoy!

This first drabble takes place in the late 50's, at an underground jazz bar in Moscow.

"Okay," Gilbert said, swirling his beer in the lights. "Tell me something I'd never believe."

Raivis leaned forward on the bar, fist curled under his chin. For a moment the jazz music swelled around him, and Gilbert allowed his gaze to shift to the bodies moving to the music. At last the boy's voice pulled his attention from the hypnotic scene:

"Eduard is in love with Toris."

It was a good thing the dancers were far away, because Gilbert spewed his beer at least two meters across the room. He broke into coughs, raising the back of his wrist to wipe the alcohol from his chin as his back lurched and he sucked in gargled breaths.

He was sure Raivis would have helped him… except the boy was too busy laughing so hard, he nearly fell off the bar stool. At last he managed to hold out a napkin with a trembling hand, "S-sorry!"

Gilbert glared and snatched it up, but not before flashing a wink at a young Russian girl as he tried to dab the beer dripping from his face while still looking Awesome, thank you very much. She just laughed,

"Oh no, Raivis, what did you do? Your brother is a mess!"

"Just told a joke." Raivis flashed a grin which was much too innocent and adorable for an underground jazz bar. "Want to hear the rest?"

Gilbert watched as that smile melted these Russian girls more easily than a thousand Awesome winks ever could. Sometimes he wondered if he would get half the attention he did without Raivis by his side. Damn Latvian. Always using his young appearance to his advantage.

"Maybe next time!" she laughed, and leaned in with long, painted nails to leave a perfectly lip-shaped mark on Raivis's cheek.

"I'm playing next week, too!" the boy shouted after them, and Gilbert heard the group of girls giggle about 'cute' and 'the German is so lucky!'

"You monster," Gilbert growled, now having finally dried his face. Without asking, he grabbed Raivis's cheeks and the boy screwed his eyes shut as he smeared off the lipstick with the wet napkin. "Taking all my women."

"Says the guy who's got a girlfriend. You'd better be glad I don't tell Hungary half the shit you tell me – "

"Or that I tell Eddy you've been spouting his secrets! So what the hell is this about him being in love with Lithuania? I don't believe that for a goddamn second."

A stubborn spot of lipstick refused to come off, and Raivis pushed Gilbert's hand away when he started rubbing too hard. He wiped a hand down his face, checking his palm to see if he got the evidence off.

"Oh, Eduard wouldn't be mad. He doesn't even know it himself."

"HA! So it IS a lie!"

Raivis flagged down the bartender and asked for another beer. "Sure thing, Galante!" he answered with a grin. Everyone in this place knew Raivis by name, and they didn't charge him a kopek for alcohol. The boy's trumpet playing was payment enough, drawing crowds of hundreds each night. To say he was popular was an understatement. It had gotten so bad, Raivis had to wear a scarf over his face when traveling with Russia so Muscovite girls wouldn't come up to him squealing and asking for his autograph. Gilbert would spot some goggle-eyed fans from across the street, then point very deliberately in the direction of Russia's hulking figure. Hopefully if they knew the sob story, they'd take the hint and let Raivis be.

Orphaned by the war, became best friends in the orphanage, adopted by a hard-line Politburo member who beat them at home. Or so the story went, and the girls gushed over Gilbert and Raivis in solidarity.

"Oh, you poor boys! You know you could come live with our family if you wanted!"

"But Gilbert, you're in the army, aren't you? Can't you two move out?"

"How could anyone hurt such an adorable face? I just don't understand it, it's horrible!"

"At least you have each other!"

Gilbert snorted to himself; if Lithuania could see the masses fawning over Raivis and his East German "brother" he would probably have a seizure. The Lithuanian did come to the bar on occasion (and let's be honest, he was better at these American dances than anyone) but Gilbert always made a point to schedule a no-show on those nights. He'd rather not be shot daggers while trying to enchant the ladies.

The bartender arrived with Raivis's beer, and Gilbert reminded himself yet again the boy was well over a thousand years old as he lifted it to his lips like a pro. I wonder if there's some kind of machine that could stretch him out a few centimeters…

"Quit looking at me like I'm a science experiment. You should be used to it by now."

Gilbert scoffed and took a swig of his own beer. "We were talking about your brothers, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Well that's it, basically. Eduard is in love with Toris, and he has no idea."

Gilbert scrunched his nose, "That doesn't make any sense."

"For Eduard it does. He has a weird way of loving people."

"And by weird you mean science-ing them to death with all his talk of aerodynamics and rocket trajectories?"

What started as a laugh turned into a loud snort, and Raivis's beer sloshed in his hand.

"I'm going to kill Russia for letting that nerd attend University," Gilbert groaned, raking his hand through bangs still damp from dancing.

"Eduard loves his jo-ob," Raivis sang, in a way that indicated jealousy. Sure, the trumpet gig was fun. But he only had time because he felt so useless around the house, cleaning Russia's trinkets like he had since Day One. Would it kill his master to give him a little more responsibility?

"Okay, but for real, explain to me this… 'love' or whatever you're talking about."

The boy closed his hands around the beer pint, eyes wandering to the ceiling as his legs swung on the bar stool. "It's like… Eduard doesn't do romantic love. For him it's more like, there are a few people he cares a lot about. And Toris is just one of those people."

"Hold up a second – aren't I one of those people?"

Raivis plucked a napkin from the bar and started folding it into origami. "Yup."

"So now you're saying Eddy is in love with me?"

Raivis looked about to answer, then he paused a moment and narrowed his eyes at Gilbert as if appraising an artifact. "Mmmm…. I don't think so."

Gilbert wasn't sure if he was relieved or upset at that answer. He'd rather not think about it. "Okay, so what's the difference?"

"I think… if you were standing in the middle of the road and a car was hurdling in your direction at two-hundred kilometers per hour, Eduard wouldn't throw himself in front of you. But if it were Toris? He'd do it without a second thought."

Gilbert frowned as his reflection in the beer, the foam clinging to the edges of the glass pint. "That's a weirdly specific criteria."

Raivis shrugged, returning to the napkin which was slowly taking the shape of a swan. "Well that's how I see it, anyway. With me it's different because Eduard and I really are brothers; I can barely remember a time without him. But in the 1860's I had to twist his arm to get him to even talk to Toris. For awhile it felt like I was setting up dates."

Gilbert narrowly avoided spewing more beer. "Pfft, like what?"

"Well I'd say something like, hey, you should invite Lithuania to the printing press with you! And Eduard would be like no, that's stupid. And I said, okay, then why don't you go shopping in the downtown market! No, again. And after maybe like ten suggestions he'd finally give in and the two of them would go do something way better than my tenth suggestion." Raivis set a perfectly-folded swan on the bar and shifted backwards in his seat to admire it. "I didn't want to go with them, because Toris and I would just end up talking the whole time. I wanted Eduard to get to know him the way I did – to learn that he wasn't the 'evil Duchy' we'd made him out to be."

Gilbert scoffed. "It amazes me how you three started out hating each other."

"I wouldn't say we hated each other… more like, we just didn't know any better." It seemed Raivis was so happy with his first swan that he started making a second one. The image was endearing – the famous trumpet player in the most popular underground jazz venue in Moscow, intently focused on folding the bar napkins into paper birds. "Well so after awhile, Eduard stopped complaining about me 'forcing' him to hang out with Toris. And before I knew it, he and Toris would be off doing something without me having to say anything. And then one day, Eduard came back talking about it: 'Did you know Lithuania told me…!' and then he'd name some battle tactic, or diplomatic move, or any random fact Toris had taught him. And his face would light up, and Eduard never gets that look, unless he's talking about Finland or Ukraine." Raivis held up the second swan, a mischievous smile lighting up his face. "The second I saw that look on his face, I knew."

"But… by then, you had already agreed to be brothers."

"Right, which is why I knew it would never work out. Eduard was experiencing positive feelings towards Toris, but it was all through the filter of being brothers. So, that's how he interpreted it. He's never wanted anything more, because being Toris's brother is about the closest he could possibly get." Raivis set the second swan facing the first, so their draping necks formed a heart. He swiveled in his bar stool, leaning back against the counter. "In the end, I think that's all that matters to Eduard. He worries about Toris, a lot, even more than I do. It tears him up to watch Toris make bad choices, and that's why they fight so much. I don't think Eduard even cares if he's with Toris – he just wants Toris to be happy." Raivis turned to send Gilbert a knowing smile, and for once the wisdom of his age showed through those rosy cheeks and sparkling violet eyes. "And if that's not love, I don't know what is."

Gilbert's face flushed at the sentence the boy had teased him with before he started dating Liz. "Yeah, yeah, madame match-maker, thou knowest all," he drawled in Old German, and to his delight Raivis understood the reference and started laughing.

"Hey, you asked me to tell you something you'd never believe!"

"And that you did."

The two clinked their glasses in a toast.

Gilbert really did love these nights. Multicolored lights swirling across the dance floor, beautiful women in all colors and shapes of dresses, lively music that would make any true Communist's ears rot off. Sharing a beer with a nation he readily considered to be his little brother, talking freely in German while they laughed at dumb jokes. If Gilbert closed his eyes and let the sounds and smells overwhelm him, just for one second, he was back in Berlin. He knew by now it was an imaginary Berlin that only existed in human memory – before the war, before the depression, before everything that had led to him sitting here wearing this ridiculous suit in an underground jazz bar in the capital of the Soviet Union.

Gilbert was snapped from his thoughts by a cloud of perfume that hit him so hard, he nearly broke into coughs. He opened his eyes to see a group of sweaty girls crowding around the bar, gushing in rapid-fire Russian for Raivis to please please PLEASE play just ONE more song? For me?

And then Raivis, in a fantastic display of suave sophistication (Gilbert taught him that. The kid certainly didn't get any Awesome points from Eddy, that was for sure) modestly accepted, saying "Okay, I guess I can, for you," and threw a wink in Gilbert's direction, which the girls were too busy squealing in delight to notice.

"Come on, before they start the next song!" they cried, and had barely taken hold of Raivis's hand before the boy had vanished into the crowd of dancers. As Gilbert watched a head of honey-gold hair disappear into the swirl of color, a shout in German called back,

"Don't you DARE touch my beer!"

Gilbert laughed. He slammed his pint on the table and swept the two origami swans from the bar, then began to invent Russia's next greatest pick-up line involving a bird pun, as he set out to find himself a dance partner.

History Notes

The Stilyagi movement (стиляги) was a subculture that emerged in Soviet Russia in the late 50's and early 60's. This was largely due to an emerging generation pushing back against the strict uniform policies of Stalinism, and were importing pieces of American culture through crazy clothes and smuggled music. Soviet propaganda tried to repress this by explaining how Stilyagis would become lazy delinquents, and were a hindrance to Communist society. There was an entire black market of jazz bars and performances, crazy-colored suits, and smuggled music which was recorded on circular x-ray printouts called "rock on bones" (рок на костях)

It's my headcanon that Raivis got looped into an underground record-smuggling company and met a jazz band who taught him how to play the trumpet. It was basically a side job for him until Ivan realized it was getting out of control and hired him to be his personal assistant abroad.