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I want to, I want to be someone else so I’ll explode
Floating upon the surface for the birds, the birds, the birds.
You want me? Fucker, then come and find me
I’ll be waiting with a gun and a pack of sandwiches.
And nothing, nothing, nothing.
Nothing.
-“Talk Show Host”, RadioHead
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Alfred didn’t like at all how this whole Cold War business was going.
First of all, it was called the Cold War for a reason (and it wasn’t because Ivan’s house was surrounded with slippery ice and snow that was anything but soft). While Ivan’s smile haunted his nightmares and sometimes Alfred felt the ghost of Ivan’s gloves on his shoulders, ready to pull him back and down – even for all of this, not a single shot was fired between them, no matter how Alfred fingered the trigger.
(Sometimes it got so tense that he had only one bullet in the chamber. And on even worse days, he didn’t know whom the bullet was actually for.)
There was shouting done, certainly, and Alfred built up his nuclear weapons in preparation for the day Ivan decided to get cocky and fire first. Ivan would show off his muscle (metaphorically, of course, because boy is that a disturbing mental image), and Alfred would just go home and build up and be paranoid, cradling his guns to him and eyeing the door in case of intrusion, twitching.
It was only getting worse as the war progressed. The glaring, the filthy looks, mouthing little “Bring it on” phrases at one another – a few nations had begun a pool as to who would fire first, and Arthur had just laughed and said that no weapons would be fired in the course of this war, not this time.
It was something new and fresh in the book of warfare. How do you fight a war without any casualties?
Well. The United States always found new ways to do things, right?
But because things had gotten worse, sometimes even when the actual nations didn’t declare any nuclear weapons to be fired, the personifications were still getting into each other’s faces. Perhaps it was because of this absolute bristling tension that Alfred found himself in some kind of Old West showdown with Ivan, staring at one another from opposite ends of a hall – or like he was now, backed against a wall with that pipe in his face.
“You should be one with Russia,” Ivan whispered into his ear, and as much as Alfred struggled he couldn’t fight. (How fitting for their political circumstances.)
“Fuck you.”
“Is that really what you want?” And Ivan’s pipe trailing down his chest and pressing up between his legs until he felt sick.
“Fuck you, you fucking Communist bastard.”
“Such dirty language.” Ivan made a ‘tsk’ kind of noise and leaned in close, his voice low and sweet and childish despite his accent. “Would England like hearing you talk like this to someone who helped you during the last War?”
“Fuck England too.”
“Oh, I am sure you would like to.”
Alfred shivered and trembled and wanted to punch and kick and scream, but did nothing, just leaned against the wall and glared at him. “Leave England out of it.”
Ivan chuckled softly and brought it down to touch the floor again, leaning on it almost like a walking stick. “But you don’t really want me to do that… You care about England. Oh, but then… he doesn’t care about you, does he, comrade?”
A chilling sensation overtook him and he tried not to let the statement get to him. It was just Russia being a bastard as usual, trying to get a rise out of him. And Alfred hated that it was working, that he was going through all of his own flaws and why Arthur never seemed to be able to overlook them to see a deeper person. Arthur only ever…
“He only ever sees America,” Alfred whispered.
Ivan nodded knowingly. “Mm. Sees you as an ex-colony and not a person, da?” He gave a sickeningly sweet and sympathetic smile and Alfred wanted to slap right off his smug face. “Ah, but I see Alfred as well as the United States of America. You are so smart, comrade Alfred, why would England not see that?”
It was a trap. Alfred wasn’t stupid, he knew it was a trap, and knew he was about to tumble headfirst into it if he didn’t snap out of it. “Because…” Alfred was mentally digging his heels in, not about to be wooed by this… this Red, this ‘become one’ mentality. It was a trap. “Look, just let me go and shut the fuck up about England. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The look on your face says different, da,” Ivan almost sing-songed. “You believe England thinks you are stupid. A child. Nothing but a little ungrateful idiot. I am right, da?”
“I… just shut up, fuck, you talk a lot,” Alfred grumbled, going to push past him, but Ivan stepped in his way, looking far too gleeful. “You don’t know what you’re—“
“England may think you are stupid, but I don’t,” continued Ivan in that same childish voice of his, but nonetheless, it made Alfred stop, made him hesitate. “And don’t you like it that someone can see how smart you are, Alfred? How brilliant you are? You are so bright, have so much potential…” Ivan brought him close, one hand on his shoulder and the other on his hip like a dance. And maybe it was, of sorts. “You could be so good.”
Alfred was flushed red in the face and he was angry, but… hated himself for being so tempted, for wanting to curl up close to Ivan in that praise and that deathly cold, wrap himself in that coat and scarf and be loved…
“I’m already good,” he spat instead, and shoved hard at Russia until he moved, and Ivan paused and watched after him, and Alfred could hear the smile on his face.
“Do svidanya, comrade America,” Ivan sang, and Alfred just ran into the bathroom and proceeded to be sick.