Archive of Our Own ^beta

The umbrella, when it rains

At first the rain wasn't coming down so heavily, but the splattering droplets soon came in full force. Which, to one of the two walking through town, was no surprise. Meaning, the one who actually looked at that day's weather report who also happened to be the one who, minutes ago, was being mocked for walking around with an open umbrella.

"Liet, you cannot be serious!?" Poland shrieked, trying to duck under the umbrella his friend was holding. "I'm getting so soaked right now, come on! Way uncool!"

His squawking was because of a playfully extended arm, holding the umbrella as far above and away as possible from the blonde. "Didn't you just tell me, and I quote, 'You're being totally dumb if you think it's going to rain?'"

"I don't remember." He stepped into the shade only to have it moved back over the person holding it, Lithuania. "But I'm getting wet so please?"

"Bring your own umbrella next time!" He chided, in his most stern voice. There were many times a day where he tried to be strict and succinct with Poland who's lackadaisical thoughts and strong whims usually got the better of the both of them, as he could see from Poland looking more and more like a wet cat.

But that never meant that he had to stick by that. Or, for a better word, he never could.

"Hurry up before you get wet." He sighed, holding the umbrella over himself again and in place. He didn't mind a little water but in modernizing, Poland seemed to become even less accustomed to the elements some how. The other man quickly side stepped under, breathing a sigh of relief. Lithuania didn't quite know if Poland stepping on his foot, hard, was an accident or on purpose.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

The harsh whisper made Lithuania jump as he looked over inquisitively. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what is your hand doing...?" Poland asked, gesturing to it with his head.

A man in front of them turned around with a finger to his lips. An appropriate gesture for people talking in a movie theater, Lithuania thought, so he couldn't be mad. He'd apologize in a second after he looked over at his apparently offensive hand.

He'd been going for the popcorn, focused on eating, dozing off at the screen. Whatever was going on in this movie wasn't that interesting. There was a woman, she liked to cry he had gathered. Poland seemed engrossed by the whispering under his breath. He was also the snack keeper, so he had of course crept his hand over to where it should of been, in Poland's lap. That apparently wasn't the case as he hand, fingers in position to grab some popcorn, was hovering above Poland's crotch like a claw-machine game.

Quickly retracted and a whispered apology to the gentleman still eyeing them, Lithuiania harshly whispered back to his friend. "I'm sorry! Where'd you even put the popcorn then?" Incredibly embarrassed, he held his hands in his lap.

"Jeeze, it's in the seat next to me." He turned a bit to grab the bag that was indeed propped up on top of the folded seat. "Just ask instead of being creepy, huh?"

"I didn't mean to be," Appetite soured now, looking away as Poland passed it to him, trying to hand it over but instead putting it on the armrest. If he had looked, he might have noticed, even in the dark theater, how red Poland's face was.

It was very rare that Poland had a lot to do with his human co-workers, but occasionally they would go out for drinks or go out. He was invited to all the government functions, the occasional private dinner with people. Nothing Lithuania was unfamiliar with

The sound that came from the foyer was definitely unfamiliar though, as he heard the door open and a loud high pitched wail began as soon as the door slammed.

"Poland what on earth-" He started, walking into the living room area from the kitchen. His eyes went a little wide and his head titled at the sight.

A frazzled Poland had in his hands a baby carrier, actually containing an infant. It couldn't have been more than eight months, dressed in yellow so he couldn't discern the gender. Poland sat it down on the floor, holding his hands up afterwards as if he had just sat down an oozing garbage back and almost ran to him as if a bomb was about to go off.

"Don't even ask. Some work girl was like 'Hey, your house is on the way home, can you please watch him, I have an appointment, blah blah', you know how it goes. Anyway. Not dealing with that thing. Glad you're here. You deal with it."

With a quick pat, Poland was long gone, completely absolved of all responsibility.

"You couldn't have said no?" Lithuania called, quickly going over to the poor thing, barely able to hear himself think over the ear-piercing screams. It was very quick to calm as he approached, picking it up and holding it awkwardly. He couldn't remember the last time he had held a child, but it came back pretty naturally as he patted it back to a calm state, picking up the carrier, and walking back into the kitchen where he had his own work documents. It shouldn't be too difficult.

He sat with the baby, cooing appropriately and balancing it between his arms as he would occasionally sign something, stamp something, approve something. Poland came down in the meantime, stripped of his work slacks and into khakis and a tank top.

"See, that's why I keep you around, you know." Poland joked, barely glancing at them as he perused the fridge.

"So what's the baby's name?" Lithuania asked softly, peeking over. It would have been nice if he could get it to sleep.

"Uh. Luka? I think."

That didn't answer the base level question he had. "So...is it a boy or a girl."

Poland shrugged, biting into a plum he'd found. "No idea."

"How do you not know?" Lithuania asked, though he shouldn't be shocked at his flippancy.

"Didn't come up." Poland strode over, finally giving the baby a going over, but not before leaning down. "But I'm sure you'll find out before long."

He'd rushed over as fast as possible with a napkin, knowing exactly how this would go if he wasn't curt. Lithuania had come back over in a mad dash, napkin already unfolded and wrapping around Poland's dirty hands.

"Thank goodness." He breathed, letting them be massaged and wiped clean of the offending, steadily melting ice cream. "That was about to get super gross."

"Eat more than you talk, please." Lithuania requested, folding and refolding the napkin to remove all the liquid. "Then your hands wouldn't be sticky."

"What I had to say was super interesting?" Poland looked at him with a glance that said 'Are you kidding me?' before going back to his still dripping snack. Lithuania made a mental note to get more napkins soon.

He also didn't know about that as he'd checked out when Poland had started to talk about going to Belgium for a UN meeting Lithuania had to miss and having dinner with Italy and his brother and the wonderful time they'd had. He'd only been shocked out of tracing letters on the table top of their cafe when Poland's dessert had started to melt in his hand, a yell alerting him to this.

"Do you want some? It's gonna melt. I don't want to waste more." Poland pouted as he looked forlornly at his ice cream, still continuing to soak the napkin Lithuania was trying to use. He was still trying to lick at it furiously, taking a bite only to be afflicted with brain freeze.

"Yeah, sure." Lithuania casually offered. He was right there anyway. Falling for the same trick Poland had, Lithuania took a large bite, but immediately regretted the twinge he felt all over his head.

"Can you please pick one?"

Lithuania wasn't even paying attention to the television, trying to read in his miniscule bit of spare time he had that day. But something about the white noise in the background, Poland flipping through the channels, was driving him crazy. He'd used his nicest voice, and everything.

"It's so hard, you know? Because on this one they're showing you how to make hard candy and, woah, would I love to make hard candy. But then I haven't seen this episode of Milcz i całuj and Szymon is just now getting over his mom dying. It's really emotional. So like. Must see TV, right?"

"I don't know." Lithuania honestly answered. "But one has to win over the other, right?"

"What if we had a hard candy business? But what if we make one and it fails and then I'll have just missed Szymon for nothing? This is pretty life altering, dude."

Lithuania couldn't help but roll his eyes as he went back to his book, having a hard time focusing on the very first sentence as the channel kept switching back and forth, back and forth.

At first the box upon box being put into the cart didn't annoy him, but after eight, he decided it was a little excessive.

"Po, do you really think we need all this stuff?" Lithuania asked.

"Uh. Duh?" Poland paused at the foot of the cart, placing another box in the cart. "These are for me on the weekends, those two are for when Hungary comes over, those two are for Italy when he comes over. And the rest is just normal food stuff, huh?"

He skipped off again, not waiting for a confirmation. Lithuania looked at the horrible things in the cart, haphazardly strewn around his average grocery shopping fare, neatly stacked in order of how he would like it bagged.

Poland came back quickly, this time with a bakery item that he was just eating as is.

"Poland, I don't think they look kindly on things like that, so please..."

"As long as I pay, it's cool, right?" He chewed on a bite of "his" gniastko. "It's good, try some."

"No, I'm really not okay with you just eating food in the middle of the grocery-"

"This totally reminds me, I'm really in the mood for jagodzianka. Can you make some? That's way better than buying them. Oh my gosh, I'll go get the fruit for you. See how nice I'm being?"

He was long gone before Lithuania could yay or nay the idea. This was why he didn't like to go grocery shopping with him, even if he was his best friend.

It may not have been a fancy dinner date out, but it was still a date all the same. Which added to Lithuania's nervous fervor as he sat the table, lighting a candle quickly, and pulling out the chairs that were seated at their rustic kitchen table.

He smoothed his pants, intermittently checking on the food he was keeping warm. He didn't off splurge on expensive cuts of meat, but he had bought nice steak cuts for the evening, letting them slow cook for most of the day. In all honesty, he was a little anxious. He knew that Poland couldn't exactly control himself with being critical and was very quick to criticize, so the less risk involved, the better off he was. He smelled it and could find no complaint, so hopefully Poland couldn't either.

As if he knew he was being thought of, he suddenly made a strange noise from somewhere, Lithuania heard as he looked up from his meal simmering. Wondering what the deal was, he called out. "Poland?"

A loud cough came from behind the kitchen door. Lithuania questioned why he couldn't just open the door on his own so he stood there for a bit, pondering this.

"Are you...alright?" He asked, a sincere question.

There came a loud sigh. "Will you just open the door?" Lithuania quizzically obliged, not understanding what exactly the problem was, but didn't really care for very long.

Poland was on the other side of the door, obviously, though he had had a bit of a costume change since he last saw him. Deciding to dress up, he'd put on red flats and nice slimming dress pants in a deep black, obviously new. A red button up shirt Lithuania knew that he'd bought for him a few years ago.

"Don't you know you're supposed to open the door for me? Gosh, that's how this works, you know." Usually he liked being the center of attention but felt himself get a bit shy as he pushed past his boyfriend, in the way. The staring was getting to be a bit much for him. "I'm hungry, so let's get this going, okay?"

Lithuania just nodded. He found himself speechless.

Taking a train wasn't something they did often but it happened occasionally, visiting another country or if Poland wanted to make a vacation out of Lithuania traveling to Vilnius for work. Which happened to be the case this time. They'd found themselves lucky enough to get a train car cabin to themselves, taking a train that departed at 2AM, making it to the capital in the afternoon.

Lithuania took it upon himself to situate the tickets and get their food arrangements settled, returning to the cabin. It was about ten minutes until departure and Poland looked uncomfortable, propped up againt the side of the train wall and the seat cushion.

"We'll have a breakfast cart come by at about 6 AM and lunch at 12PM." He informed, locking the door behind him. "We'll have a few stops but we can adjust if people stop in. We'll be in Białystok in about...three hours, I think. Sestokai a few hours aft-"

"Remember when they first made trains and it was like. Gosh, how uncomfortable can these even be? This is barely better. It is the new millennium and trains still suck." Poland shifted uncomfortably before getting up and sitting back down. "I so can't sleep like this."

"There's more time to sleep." Lithuania comforted, sitting down next to him, an arm shuffling behind to squeeze him close. "As long as you're up when we get there."

Poland settled in, tucked into Lithuania's shoulder. "But I'm sleepy, I just can't sleep there because it feels gross." His whine barely audible from his cracking, sleep-riddled voice.

"Please don't complain too much. Otherwise, what's the point in going together?" Lithuania asked, rubbing his shoulder.

Poland remained quiet but shrugged Lithuania's arm off of him, causing the other man to wonder if he'd offended him. But otherwise he stayed in place. He quickly found out the point of the gesture as his arm settled back into place, Poland's hand slid up to grasp it closely.

"Gross," He leaned into him more. "You need lotion or something."

"Sorry," Lithuania responded, but squeezed all the same. He couldn't complain. Poland had found a place to sleep.

There were several very obvious reasons why they couldn't get married. Could never legally be married. If asked they'd both answer 'Well, countries can't get married' which was definitely one part of it, though maybe not the most obvious reason to the layman who might wonder.

But, as history has proven, there were always other, less official ways to commemorate things like this. Which when Lithuania brought up the idea, Poland was pleasantly surprised. And immediately said yes.

Which, while not to take away from the nicety and finality of a commitment ceremony, Poland decided (as per usual) to go a bit overboard.

There had to be a lot of compromise. Poland wanted a decently sized invitation list. Lithuania proposed just doing something between themselves and the Lord. Poland wanted a catering. Lithuania wanted to make food. One of those Poland would back down from and another he would not.

The "wedding" had an attendance of five (Lithuania, Poland, God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost) and enough catering platters to feed ten times as many people.

There were a few traditional things that they had observed. Poland was very insistent that they not see each other before the quote-unquote ceremony. Lithuania had made a selection of olden day wedding foods, bought good liquor and each had bought a gift to themselves.

Lithuania nervously rearranged the living room, chopping pillows with his arm and settling the quilts and making sure the fireplace was red and clean. He picked up a few crumbs he found on an end table, quickly shining one of his dress shoes with his thumb. His gift settled deep in his suit pocket, he ran his fingers over the velvet of it over and over again. It was a ring, a glowing silver band that was elegant and petite with a specific engraved phrase he found to be specifically special. While it seemed that it would be appropriate and obviously special, he worried if it wouldn't be well received.

Poland nervously straightened his tie as he waited upstairs, which he found uncomfortable but wanted to be formal and well presented in the eyes of his love and the Lord. His gift settled deep in his suit pocket, he ran his fingers over the velvet of it over and over again. It was a ring, a thick gold band that he thought would be handsome and making a distinct clinking noise whenever he did much of anything with a specific engraved phrase he found to be specifically special. While it seemed that it would be a perfect gift and very suiting, he worried if it wouldn't be well received.

Since there was no officiator, Poland had to do what he considered a very tacky thing and text his "groom-to-be" that he was ready to be presented to. They'd discussed how things would go in between breakfast conversation and lying in bed. Entrance, vows, gift presenting, and then it was as official as official could get with them. And that was fine.

Poland received a text message okaying it and that he was ready. He had to give himself a pep talk ("Okay, you have got to get it together, because like, blowing this after hundreds of years is just way shoddy and uncool, self") to even put his hand on the doorknob.

Lithuania put his phone away, turning it off in case a call from the government even though it was irresponsible. He took a few shallow breaths, wondering how this even ended up happening since he never expected it. After one last loud exhale, he positioned himself in front of the fireplace as best and perfectly as he could.

The steps that Poland took to descend the staircase all seemed laborious, either from nervousness or excitement or reality.

Every step he heard and second he waited, Lithuania felt his heart beat faster and harder, either from nervousness or excitement or reality.

When they finally saw each other, they both were breathless.

"Will you just look normal for once? You always look so. Awkward." Poland giggled while he was adjusting the lighting settings on his phone.

Lithuania had to say that one of the things he'd wish Estonia had never taught Poland was how to take cell phone pictures. To compete with Lithuania's new technology, Poland had to get the same phone that he had no idea how to work. He'd overheard them on the phone; Estonia telling Poland how to open an app and use the camera's reversal setting, check the weather and text. It was almost endearing how Poland, the next day, just happened to become a technological whiz out of nowhere ('Look, Liet, it's just sooooo easy, you know?').

"That's just how I look..." He trailed off, trying to shove in as close as possible per Poland's instructions via a waving hand.

"Sometimes I wonder if you just try to look hilarious." Poland mused, focusing it. "Okay, so say cheese. Or something else that won't make you look weird."

Poland smiled vibrantly and Lithuania managed an awkward half smile before the phone made its shutter noise, signaling his misery would hopefully be over. Poland examined the picture before shaking his head. "I look good. You'll have to do I guess." Lithuania rolled his eyes and got up to go back about his business.

A few days later, he happened to pick up Poland's phone. He smiled to see what his background picture was.