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He could already see the stars, if he squinted at the sky just right.
He tilted his head back against the hand-knitted throw pillow, watching the wash of vibrancy stain the heavens above as the sounds of the country trickled in. The buzz of fireflies that gleamed at him out of the corner of his eyes; the soft swish of the wind as it whistled through the fields. The setting sun calming the rustling wildlife settling in for the evening in the forest just out of sight. The portable radio hummed softly nearby, the soothing tenor of Nat King Cole’s “Stardust” crooning to him lovingly in the background.
It was a beautiful evening. More than that, it was a peaceful one. Those were even more rare, and ever more prized, even with the war having ended over a year ago.
But even then, it was an evening Alfred could take no comfort in.
He sighed, pushing himself up until he was sitting upright, and scooting down the berth of his truck until he could dangle his legs over the edge. He could still feel the ridges through the soft blanket he’d covered the bed in, pressing up against the lower half of his bare thighs as he shifted. For all that the length of his cutoffs would get him the side-eye if he stopped anywhere on his route home, in the sticky wet heat of his summers he was increasingly grateful for the lack of fabric.
He idly contemplated the slightly too-big collared flannel he’d nicked from his brother from where it was dangling, half off the wall fencing in the truck bed, before dismissing it as he tugged on his own sweat-soaked white undershirt. The chill of the evening had yet to settle in, and even though he’d repurposed the plaid flannel to suit his own style, it didn’t make the material any more practical.
Instead, he reached over and snagged a bottle of lemonade from inside his new cooler. It was a bright red one Coca-Cola had sent him, as a preview for the ones that would come out on the market in a year or so, and it had been a god-sent gift on hot summer days like these. He popped the top of his bottle, twisting the cap around his fingers in one hand as he wiped the top and took a swig of it.
He hadn’t had a peaceful summer day in so long. Not since…
The setting sun cresting over a hill in the distance. A multihued watercolor washing over the sky. Legs tangled together against, the blanket at their backs as the faintest hint of the stars began to sparkle above.
Not since Ivan.
He took another swig of his lemonade, letting the sour taste chase souring thoughts into contemplations.
How did everything turn into such a mess?
Yeah, he had problems. God, who didn’t have problems right now? But for Ivan to say Alfred was being led around by the nose? That he just blindly supported his government (the same one that would blacklist him without hesitation if they ever knew he and Ivan had ever been more than friends)...
And to imply that Ivan himself stood beyond reproach - that his system would work, and that his government was just, when he'd heard Ivan screaming in his sleep on those nights they'd had together (Tehran, Yalta, Potsdam, he breathed them to himself, just to make sure he hadn't dreamed them) about the famine, the death, the fear...
And you know what, maybe Alfred did parade around like he had the world on a silver serving platter. Maybe he did act like his government knew best.
But Ivan had known him better than anyone in the world, and he knew the kinds of masks Alfred wore.
How could he not know what Alfred felt? Had he ever not known?
He took another swig of his lemonade, letting the too sweet liquid sit on his tongue, the twinge of sour growing stronger and lingering once he’d swallowed it down. Ironic, he thought.
Bittersweet like the memories. And they had so many memories.
Cunning and calculating violets that watched him step ashore, meeting for the first time. Yet that voice was kinder, understanding almost, and that was worth more than the other nation would ever understand.
Paint covered and snow dusted as they set the shutters onto the cabin, framing the windows, just in time for another snowstorm to blow in. Sharing exasperated gazes when they shelter inside their newly completed cabin for the first time. Together.
The desperate joy on Ivan’s face when he saw the red cross on the standard Alfred bore. The white clad nurses and frantic helpers who brought first aid from across the sea. A hand, cool and dry, against his sweaty forehead not even a decade later, as he felt his people try to rip him apart.
Dancing underneath the Aurora Borealis, watching the colors dance and twist in tandem with their own beat, and matching them effortlessly. Love, but not yet. He couldn’t say it out loud yet. But that look, in Ivan’s eyes…
A kiss at the turn of a century. Even more on the eve of war.
A gamble. A risk.
Then a tide of red-not-blood. A hardness in that gaze that had never been turned on him before. And only he was left, standing in the ashes of old memories.
And look where it had left him: sitting in the back of his old pickup truck, drinking too-sweet lemonade in his ratty cutoffs as he watched the sun set on a lifetime of loving memories.
Sweet memories that burned sour now, that ached in places he couldn’t reach alone. Places he couldn’t heal. Memories that left nothing tangible behind, like they didn’t even exist. Like what they’d been, together, didn’t exist.
Like Ivan didn’t see him anymore.
Didn’t see how his smile was too big and too fake. Didn’t see how bold promises and cunning words from his politicians dripped poison and paranoia into his veins. Didn’t see how tired he was of playing king of the world, when all he felt like was a boy king with strings around his wrist.
A marionette with dreams too big, a painted on smile; built on lies and false kindness, searching for his heart without a yellow-brick road to lead him there.
He huffed an empty laugh at the very thought, and downed the last of the lemonade in one gulp. He dropped the bottle back into the cooler, deliberately keeping his grip light and loose, knowing that to do otherwise would have it shatter in his hands.
A spike of sunlight and color washed over the horizon, chased by a bruising purple darkness. He pushed himself off of the truck bed and stood.
A war was heating up. Everyone knew. It would be dangerous, played out in words and threats and a deadly dance people would watch with bated breath. There would be no peace, for all that there would be no troops taking arms against one another. No war outright declared between the two dancers.
You’ll ruin me one day, Ivan had laughed, wrapping his arms around him tight. Alfred had laughed back, wrapping himself in those arms. It had been a joke.
For you, I would ruin myself, he thought. Thinking of whispered endearments under a starlit sky, of sly glances traded at elegant balls, of rough laughter around a campfire, lungs filled with the crisp scent of wood smoke and the evergreen around them.
And knew, the knowledge like a painful spike driven into the heart he’d given away, that this thought was no joke at all.