Chapter Text
Emerald eyes fixed on the tongue of flame dancing on a white pillar of wax. She was beguiled by the embers entertaining her for the night, unable to sleep after he had said her name during the meeting.
He had assigned her an important role and she had just accepted it. Escorting a large community to Poland should prove no problem. She knew the way from Cluj, to Baia Mare, and all the way to Sighetu Marmației. It should take her a couple of days in good speed.
Hungary curled her fingers around the blanket and pretended to shut her eyes. Aside from the thoughts of the travel ahead, she was tossing and turning from the incident that had occurred before the meeting. She had craved for someone else, not the one who had infuriated her. She desired for an answer as to why she had done what she did to him just hours ago - it had almost distracted her from the whole meeting. Why did she felt so lost in his touch? Her brain was in chaos, fighting urges and questions.
Total confusion.
The mattress wasn't as warm as the room, and she was happy with the slight chill against the side of her body. It was stuffy and hot in some areas of the caves.
His cursed caves.
Hungary had been in here for a day, and the couple of hours touring with Nadia after the council meeting had well spent her muscles. The little girl had shown her the showers, and Hungary was glad of the opportunity to finally wash and scrub herself clean.
Romania and Turkey had found their own bathing areas before the meeting was held, and after the council meet and division announcements, she felt relieved she hadn't seen them for the rest of the evening. She needed the space to think.
There was an indoor hose system that brought filtered water from a couple of the running pools in the caves. Families don't bathe as often as they used to, Nadia had told her. The cavern pools were mostly for drinking and for bathing occasionally.
Romania had running rivers and new floods, so he had built a filtration system for one of the cave's pools. It was successful enough to keep drinkable water from the northern rivers. He had said something about avoiding the Danube's tainted waters.
Thinking about her beloved river also kept her mind awake on top of other things. She wasn't just tired anymore. She was restless and fidgety. Her mind kept wandering over aimless dreams and memories, returning to the impulsive moment with that stupid fanged-nation in her room again. All of a sudden Hungary wondered if it had already been a day since they had tortured each other’s lips.
Hell, she swore she was not even interested in that poison of his. She was hellbent on finding Prussia and Austria no matter what, and if that Romanian was in the way, she'd shove him aside and bruise him where necessary. Stop thinking about him, she told herself groaning.
"Sadik it's to your left!" called a familiar voice outside the hall.
Hungary had leaned her bed's wooden frame against the curtain door, but sound still seeped right through her barricade. She was bothered by the lack of a good solid door, especially when -
"I'll see you there. Just give me a few minutes!" His voice grew louder as he neared room. "...Elizaveta...?"
He sounded hesitant before clearing his throat and knocking on her bed-frame barricade.
There was a pause. When she heard a chuckle outside she knew he was amused by the barricade and how right he was about one.
"Wow. Ugh... Hédeváry ...?"
She did not want to answer, but she was curious of what he damned wanted at this late hour. She let out an irritated noise, loud enough for him to hear on the other side of the wall.
"What do you want?" she asked aggravatingly.
"You forgot your division instructions," he replied.
"Slip it under the door, dumbass!" Or you could've had Turkey give it to me, she added silently. She covered her ears with a pillow, but she could still hear him.
"It's not in paper, dumbass," he retorted.
Lies. Must be. Damn it. Surprising herself, she got to her feet and strode up to her makeshift door.
A couple of frying pans leaned beside a bag near her mattress. During her little cave exploration with Nadia, she was invited to the kitchen where the cooks had given her two of their favourite frying pans. They warmed up to her after she'd agreed to Romania's terms in the meeting.
She grabbed a pan with one hand, and her other arm pulled the bed frame aside to peer through the curtain door.
"What?" She glowered at the Romanian Nation in her doorstep. She didn't care if she was only wearing a loose tank top and trousers. It was late in the evening and she felt the right to sleep with pajamas on.
"We need to talk," he said quickly. He on the other hand, was in full gear, wearing a grey shirt under a new black overcoat with white-and-red striped folded sleeves. He wasn't wearing his hat, but his gloves, faded red pants and black boots were his usual style. He looked like he was about to travel outside without a filtration mask, unarmed and vulnerable. What on earth for? Patrolling in the dark this late? Does he ever sleep? She wondered.
"I don't want to talk about it," she snapped.
"You don't know what I was about to say - "
"Aren't you going to ask about what happ- ?" She stopped herself. Okay maybe he did forget about the incident.
What had happened between them before the meeting was...stupid. Impulsive and irrational. She wanted to forget it and he seemed like he had dismissed it already.
"Hurry up with your stupid instructions and get out of my face!"
Romania's lips scowled at her. Hours ago she had let that mouth violate hers with a terrible poison, tender and biting, but soft and decadent in taste for some reason.
She shook her head. "Okay. Time's up," she said, not giving him any time at all, she was ready to hit a pan in his face and close the door. "Get out!"
"Wait!" Romania placed a firm hand on her door and draped the curtain aside as if it were all a stage.
"Aside from my important instructions," he said, eyes steady on hers, "which you kinda need for the journey ahead in the morning...I think you and I have some other matters to discuss."
"No we don't." Hungary felt her cheeks flush red.
Romania knocked on the bed frame, frowning, "You know, what happened last night...I can't shake it off eith- "
She didn't let him finish when she pulled him into the room and roughly slammed him against the leaning bed frame. Kill three birds with one stone: let him in, close the door, bruise him in the process. So he did want to talk about it.
He grinned. He was expecting the rough welcome.
"Alright, asshat," she scowled. "Start talking." She held her frying pan with one hand, while the other gripped his jacket collar to keep him in place.
In an instant the Romanian moved. His gloved hands gently clutched her bare shoulders, slightly pulling her closer. She froze, unable to resist the light rolling massage of fingers on her muscles.
"I think..." His eyes half shut when he leaned in. "We really..." His lips paused just above hers, hovering apart in less than an inch. "Misunderstood each other..."
His breath caressed her face, and she shut her own eyes and parted her mouth to reach his. "Misunderstood each other...?" she murmured.
"...damn..." He kept his distance ghosting over her lips in a heated dance that made her heart race.
Foreheads and noses touched, hair tickled, hands soothed.
Closer idiot. Just kiss. This curse.
Pulses quickened. Romania taunted her lips with a teasing grin by the corners of her mouth and sighed. A smiling idiot by the borders of her warzone.
"...you like...this..." he purred.
She could feel fire rising in her cheeks, arching her neck. Tension wrung the handle of her frying pan. She could get rid of him, right then, right there...but she chose not to...for some reason.
"Idiot," she scrunched her brows.
"Mhmm..." he coaxed her lips with a light brush, still unable to give in to her. She could hit him with a frying pan right there. Right now. But what was resisting that urge?
Something between them was at war with another feeling so strong, it restrained them from killing each other on the spot.
Asshat. Closer. Just…
"Why...are you...here?" she asked, her hands relaxing their hold on the frying pan and his jacket.
A hand in her hair tilted her head closer to his mouth, but it was another tease, lips evading, pulses racing. She was perplexed as to why she was enjoying this little game. This new game.
"Just to torment you," he smiled. His breath tasted different, fresh and zesty from the bathing pools. He had prepared for this damned tease and she hated him for it.
Closer. Idiot.
"And find some answers," he added, his other hand languidly moving from her shoulder, to neck, to collarbone, pausing just above the swell of her breasts making her sigh and curve to the faintest touch. The gloves he wore didn't help, as it slid through her skin as soft as silk. She hated how good he was feeling her in this war - this devil's dance - between them.
Annoyed, she made her move.
She pulled herself away. He looked dazed for a moment as she marched up to the wall opposite from him and leaned, her frying pan tucked in her crossed arms.
"Jerk," she scoffed half-heartedly, hiding her interest in this new game of theirs beneath an unamused look. "Just tell me your instructions, give me the details and get out of here."
He shook away his confusion, falling for her facade. "Right," he started, looking away from her with an awkward grin as if he had just made a joke. "So, the division's to be led to Sighetu within two to three days time." He exclaimed, pacing around in circles, to her and then to the opposite wall.
"A train is there waiting to make its final trip back here. It has approximately enough fuel to make a travel to Poland then back here. If we're lucky it may be able to travel one last time to return halfway to Poland. Sadly after the river incident, we can no longer afford to make a journey south for an outstanding fuel reserve there. Fortunately," he smiled to himself and paused by the door, "those cannibal asses hadn't discovered the fuel pump, or they'd be burning us to hell."
Hungary's mind followed him, but it also drifted, wondering about the Romanian's searing touch on her skin.
"Anything else I need to know about?" she asked with a biting tone to quell a thought.
He started pacing again, moving to her and back. "I need you to do a headcount every so often while travelling."
"That's impossible," she spat.
He chuckled. "Maybe it is impossible with a mass of people," he said, "but I think you can do it. You have to keep count or else you'll lose someone along the way and I do not want that. Make it count and keep counting those Counts!" He finished nonchalantly, his back turned to her again by the end of his stride.
She could tell he was smirking and for some curious reason, she wanted to see it. Yearned to see it. For days, that damned cursed mouth had insulted her, but had somehow interlocked with hers in a carnal dance hours ago. He had attracted her to lust and her heart quickened from the thought of it...again.
She noticed his shoulders tensed when he turned to her. She wondered if he was gripped by the same devil's hand of desire to sin again. She never flinched when they locked gazes.
She only tilted her head at him and licked her lips to soften the bitterness in her tone. "Anything else you want to say...?"
He looked at her suspiciously. His eyes fixated on her mouth, trying to read the testing words. "Tell Poland I said hi..." he sighed.
She knew he was staying with the final division a little longer than most to secure the rear with the last patrollers, but his community was reassured he would arrive in Poland in three to four days. Walking to Sighetu Marmației was about thirty to forty hours non stop. In two days they should end up in their final destination, followed by the rest.
Hungary narrowed her eyes. "When you get to Poland you can tell him yourself," she said cagily. "So that's it?"
"No, I..." He blinked, perplexed by his response. He couldn't take his eyes off her. He looked cautiously at the frying pan ready to bruise him.
"I...had another thing..." He started, but suddenly shook his head and looked away from her glare. He was concealing something from her - a secret agenda or a damned question.
He suddenly held out a hand and raised his chin. "I was going to thank you for...taking...um..." he stammered, watching Hungary slowly approach him. Conscious of her hips swaying, his words drifted.
"Taking...the role in the...First Division..." She was getting closer. He backed away from her like prey in a web. "Even if...Even if you weren't notified of it - ahem - earlier."
She pinned him against the wall with her frying pan. A smug expression crossed her face as she looked at the Romanian's incredulous eyes. "What are you...?" he began to ask.
"You're just missing something," she sneered, "You've been asking yourself a damned question lately haven't you?" She slowly slid her free hand down his chest to the belt buckle of his pants. "Well so have I."
"What - ?" Before he could register her motives, Hungary loosened his belt and dug through his pants, clutching his manhood and stroking him to a burning thrill. His hands instantly seized her shoulders to steady himself. "The fuck?"
Again. Hungary had expected him to pull her away but he relented when she squeezed tighter, fingers treacherously toying with him into raptures. His hair shadowed his face, but she could see his teeth biting his lip to suppress a moan.
"You know the question," she insinuated, pressing herself against his body. Loose clothing were the only things separating their chests.
"Why - " He was finding it hard to breathe with her fervent grip moving him.
"Idiot. You inspired me earlier...remember?" she murmured in his ear, half shutting her eyes as he heaved in her stimulating touch. "You know I can do so much better in this kind of competition." She continued, kneading him until he tilted his head, gasping, "Fuck." His hips inclined to her will and she had to laugh.
"You're too easy, Romania," she breathed, digressing from her query. "Too easy to take over..." Her voice dipped to a smoldering tone by the shell of his ear. "Too easy for me..." She trailed her lips along his cheek and paused by the corner of his mouth. Like he had done to her earlier, she ghosted over his lips with her own as he panted for breath from the hand in his crotch. She liked the sound of him weak in her control.
"I fucking hate you - ah!" he couldn't finish when she clasped him even harder. His gloved hands gripped her shoulders as if to keep her still as he shuddered in her provoking hold.
He could've pushed her off if he wasn't so pleasured. She moved her frying pan away from his chest and tucked it under one arm. With her free hand she groped around his jacket in search for something, leaning on the Romanian surrendering to her against the wall.
"Admit it you sad little, romantic," she taunted, her lips caressing the lobe of his ear. "I'm so much better at this teasing game than you."
He scowled, panting, "Keep...telling yourself...that..."
She felt a slip of paper folded in one of his pants pocket, and she took her time to pull it out from its hiding spot. Romania sensed her prying. He was about to push her away when she finally met his lips.
After what had happened many hours ago, they avoided kissing each other to prevent a repeat, but Hungary couldn't resist her fascination. Quieting his laments with her lips was one thing, his wicked touch on her skin was another.
With tasteful venom, she stifled his moans with her hungry mouth and probing tongue. It was all a ruse to her, then again, this little misdirecting trick had the potential to stir her off course.
This time, he felt different, softer than before - probably because of her other hand still tantalizing him in his pants. This time, he tasted sweeter…
She had so many questions to ask him and she didn't mind surrendering herself in this sort of battle. Curiosity and deviousness was driving her wheel.
"Ummpf!" She pulled away. She had managed to fish out the paper he'd kept from her.
"I knew it," she said. It was the Division List with instructions. "You asshat."
"What?" He gritted his teeth. He could barely make a proper sentence while her hand was still tormenting him firm in the lower regions, his knees were buckling.
Freeing him from her coil, she stepped back to read the instructions on paper, indifferent to Romania shrinking back against the wall.
"You bitch." Bending his knees, he couldn't bare to look at her, but she could tell he was red in the face, hot and hard from the sensual torture. Too easy.
"What was that for?" He asked furiously, legs wobbling to stand.
She shrugged. "Misdirection," she stated simply, her eyes skimming through her new found instruction sheet. Hungary would never admit that it was also for her own satisfaction to watch him squirm.
"Somehow I knew you were hiding something from me. You had your instructions in paper all along, and yet you decided to come in here and bother me."
"But I thought - ?" He stopped himself suddenly; she knew what he was gonna ask. "You didn't - you didn't have to do what you just - !" He kept his back against the wall as he pushed himself up. His face was flushed, and his hair clung on to a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. Knees ready to give in, he scowled in frustration. "Fucking bitch!"
"Don't be surprised," she jeered at his pitiful enlivened state. "It's fun torturing you. Besides..." She tucked the paper instructions in her pants pocket.
"You started it," she crackled, "I just wanted to show you I'm so much better than you."
Romania raised a brow at her steady gaze, unable to hide the fact he was completely turned on.
"Oh, so you say so?" he smirked, tilting his head up with half-lidded eyes glinting like a sunset in the dim light of a candle. He looked like a demon craving skin, goading her on to do terrible things, and she was damned to his temptation.
"Yeah..." she said calmly, as he leaned forward, using the wall to support himself. Hungary swallowed appearing unfazed, but her wandering eyes betrayed her and he sensed it.
"So about that one question..." the Romanian whispered the words in her ear, and she felt herself leaning in for the nuzzling warmth of his cheek and mouth.
"What..." she felt his tongue and a pointed tooth tease her lobe, and she shivered, "the hell..." Her hand reached his collar, "was that...?"
Damned curiosity.
Laughing menacingly, she roughly pulled and whirled him away from the wall until he stumbled to the ground.
"Fuck!" Romania gasped, winded from the fall. He propped himself on his elbows, before his eyes widened up at her lowering herself on to him, straddling his hips and pinning him down with her knees.
"I'm up for that challenge," she smiled at his stunned expression, putting her frying pan aside and shifting her hips on him.
"Not what I - mmf!" Hungary leaned in to contaminate his lips with hers. The touch was gentle, but she wanted him to surrender. Again.
She groaned and prodded until his hesitant mouth parted for her intrusion once more. Her fingers combed his hair, tilting his head up, deepening their kiss. Again, she stirred his senses to delirium as she explored his taste, and again he eroded to a soft vulnerable being she can control. He responded ravenously, the knot between his legs hardened beneath her.
From the very moment he had returned to her room, Hungary predicted this would happen after what had occurred earlier. He was the one who wanted to play this game again, and she let him.
As the Romanian moaned in her coaxing mouth and invading tongue, her fingers slipped down his jacket and shirt, unbuttoning clothes until she could wickedly palm his bare chest with treacherous fingers.
He tore away his gloves and explored the curves of her body, feeling every back muscle relax under the touch. If he was wondering why he was playing this game with her, she was also wondering why she's letting him.
With her languid movements and raking nails, Hungary set him ablaze until his elbows gave in, sending him flat on his back, separating their ravenous mouths for a moment to breathe.
Reason be damned.
She was on him again, lips unyielding to his curses. "Asshat..." she murmured, rocking her body against him, agonizingly slow and teasing, stirring his hips to move with her.
"Witch." He groaned in her mouth and she stole this chance to snake a hand down his pants once more.
"Ah! I fucking hate...you!" he gasped as she terrorized him deeper, right in his weakest sanctum.
"And I to you too," she murmured over his lips, as she played with his yearning in a slow rub to a burning desire, worst than the first round of this game.
He took in a sharp breath. "Why are we doing thi - ?" She hungrily kissed him to another moaning pleasure before he could finish.
"Just shut up," she commanded before biting his lips to bleed and relishing the red, as her hand continued to mark his length.
"Fine," he rasped from her gameplay. Letting go of her lips, he gave her a knowing look in his smirk.
Before Hungary could say anything, he lifted her chest to his face, loosening her grip on him. Slow, kneading fingers in the side of her mounds pulled up her tank top, making her breath catch in her throat.
Hungary frowned. "Are you seriously gonna - ahh!" Lips touched her supple breasts, tasting them, making her back arch. She bit back a yelp as her lungs heaved, further pressing herself against the Romanian's titillating kisses.
She cursed herself for not wearing a bra. Too easy. This was too easy for him, and she flushed, roused from the murderous gloved hands groping and massaging her breasts, kissing her raw in her most tender peaks. She let herself go limp, panting over his treachery.
"You'll...ah! Ngh! Pay for this," her breath caught when his mouth closed in on one of her nipples. One of her hands squeezed his length while the other clawed his hair. "Damn it..." she swore, feeling his thumb and tongue linger on her.
"And be damned," he said, ending the vengeful torture with a lick of his lips and a fanged-toothed smile.
Curious, he slipped his hands down her pants. "Nghhh!" She surrendered to him for a mere second, as he fondled her ass making her slack and writhe on him. Fingers found themselves snaking down her front, surpassing her garment and into her very core, soothing it excruciatingly to whet. She buried her face on his shoulder, nipping his neck before she could let out a surrendering cry.
"This isn't - " he started. His heart pounded against her chest.
"I know," she finished. Her hands brushed his sides.
Hair was ruffled. Shoulders were clawed. Kisses deepened to swell and cover up cursed moans and hastening breaths.
Hungary moved on him and he returned the favor, following her rhythm under her sheer control as he teased the sacred spot in between her thighs, driving her senses to chaos.
"Really...isn't - " she started. His tongue tasted her mouth.
"Hell no," he finished. Her fingers raked his hair.
They were both thinking the same thing. This was all a pleasurable game between enemies. A competition. Who could drive the other into tainted lecherous bliss.
And yet...
Even through their amorous play of circling hands and moaning lips, they kept their boundaries.
They had boundaries.
The Romanian resisted his yearning under the Hungarian, and she did the same with her hesitant thrusts.
They kept their game enticing, fervid and carnal, almost savage to sex, but slow in fear of a loathing to turn sour. Between them was clothing and an undying secret.
Between them was a history of hate.
And they loved that hate so much more...
They bit each other's lips, marked each other's heated skin, drank each other's tastes and ripped each other's innocence to sin. Every gasp was a plea for mercy from the depths of a hateful hell. This single shred of pleasure was nothing compared to their hate.
"Too..." she breathed.
Romania stopped. "...close."
"Idiot." Her lips hovered over his, but he wouldn't meet them. Suddenly they opened their eyes wide in panic.
Too close.