Title: The Club House
Summary: Ivan Braginsky seeks to find a reprieve from the cold, and succeeds - but not without taking many pains.
Pairings: Ivan/Unknown, most likely some generic pairing
Disclaimer: Hetalia Axis Powers and the 200 Phenomena in the City of Calgary are the creations of Hidekaz Himaruya and an unknown author respectively. I am merely a writer taking creative liberties.
During the winter months, the river grows shallower in places. Between this and the ice, in the dead of winter, it's possible to walk across it in places where the ice is particularly thick. During these months, when the weather is thirty below or colder, walk to the very end of The Street, to the cul-de-sac. Between a large, ill kept lot and a house from the early eighties you will find an ill-kept bike path. Though it was once paved, the roots of the trees that line it have rendered the pavement bumpy and impassable for cyclists.
Walk to the end of the path and climb down the rain-water outflow at the bottom, then cross the ice to one of the island-like patches of scrub and small rock. Look for a damaged, dingy little shack made from water damaged wood and corrugated tin. If you fail to find it, move on to the next pile of rocks, and then the next, until eventually you find the small structure. When you do, hold your hand up to the door. It will either be very cold or very hot to the touch. Neither is truly fortuitous, but you'll be dressed for the cold and so it will be easier to weather.
When you step inside the shack, you will find that it is empty other than a small boy who hanged from the roof by a hastily tied noose. His clothing will not be contemporary, rather it will be aged and ragged to the point of anonymity, unlike the boy's perfectly preserved body. After a time, his eyes will open, and the rotted out sockets will stare into your eyes. Do not blink, do not look away, do not even move. The room's temperature will grow more extreme during the hours-long moment you spend looking into those holes.
And then they will close.
From that moment on, you will not feel the temperature anymore. Any temperature at all. Nor will you get burns, frostbite, heat stroke or hypothermia.
Ivan whistled to himself as he strolled down the depilated lot at an excessively leisurely pace. His eyes flickered around as he took in his surroundings.
He smiled as he found the path he had been told to follow. The path was ill-kept, overgrown with roots. Once it might have been a well-paved bicycle path, but nature had claimed it back over time. The process was slow, but Ivan respected the great force it would take to bend and break concrete and force tender shoots through such brittle, nutrition less soil, creating the path he was now stumbling through with such imprudence as to not bring a pair of thicker, warmer socks. Fleetingly, he thought of home and, how he could make it back if he just left now.
Still, he persisted, and was rewarded for his efforts. Eventually, the path opened into a steep overhang he climbed down, careful not to slip on the ice, and planted his feet on the riverbank, scanning the frozen waters. Several minutes passed and Ivan's nose turned red from the frost, but he stayed his ground, searching for it.
Then his eyes touched on a particularly far-lying island of rock and scrub and he grinned. There it was - an abandoned old shack made of scourged pieces of tin and rotten wood.
Stepping carefully onto the ice, he slid to his destination with surprising ease, although his toes were numb from the cold. He placed his hand on the door, about to open it, but drew back in an instant with a small widening of his eyes.
The door was cold, colder than the Arctic winds. He had been warned of it, but the utter chill of the door was an unpleasant surprise. Still, Ivan steeled himself and pushed open the door. It took great effort to him to move it, flimsily constructed as it was, and made a heavy wooden sound as it collided with the opposite wall.
Ivan, however, did not notice this. All he could do was stare at the boy in ragged clothes hanging from the rafters by a common, thick rope.
Strangely enough, the boy's skin was perfectly smooth and white and looked almost silky, like a certain other person's. Ivan was tempted to touch it and see, despite it not being the purpose of his visit. He took a step forward, hand outstretched, but at the exact moment, the boy's empty eye sockets opened and stared into his own. Rendered a motionless statue by fear and some other unknown, compelling emotion, Ivan could not look away, could not move, could not blink.
Before, when he had been warned not to blink, Ivan had thought it would be hard; to him, blinking was an instinct and a necessity, to keep the moisture in his eyes from drying out because of the cold Arctic winds. In fact, he had come here for that very reason.
Now, time seemed to slow down, and he struggled to take breaths. The air in the shack seemed to have turned viscous, both burning and freezing his lungs as he stared, one arm outstretched, mouth slightly open, into the corpse boy's empty eye sockets.
Then, the perfectly preserved eyelids closed over the dark voids and the temperature returned to normal. Ivan felt a tinge of relief and, strangely, regret, but shrugged it off and stepped outside. He pulled off one of his gloves and frowned. Something was very wrong.
Cautiously, he pulled off his shoe and sock and dipped his bare foot into a part of the river that had not frozen completely. He waited for the burning sensation of his nerves registering the cold slush.
It never came.
He smiled broadly and put the shoe and sock on again. It had worked, to his faint elation and, oddly, regret. He dismissed the feeling. The atmosphere of the shack was probably getting to him. Now heedless of the chill, Ivan began his trek back to his place of residence.