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This shouldn’t be possible. This isn’t possible. He’s dead , Ivan killed him himself, this isn’t possible .
Poland’s face stares up at him from the photo in his just-barely-steady hands. Hungary’s there, too, grinning in a twisted, mournful kind of way. Her arm is slung over Poland’s shoulders, hugging him to herself, and he’s leaning into her heavily, his cheek pressed flush into her neck, but he's smiling , however small and tired.
He looks the same as he did when Ivan killed him, still sixteen or seventeen years old — they're about the same age now, and the realization leaves a dry, sticky sort of feeling in his mouth. The wound Ivan knows should be on his neck is hidden by a high collar. A stark-white stripe of bandages wrapped around his head contrasts the light gray of his skin and short, choppy hair ( too short to weave flowers into, like his own, too short– ) that seems thinner than Ivan remembers it being. His cheeks and eyes are sunken, hollowed by hunger. The suit he’s wearing is wrinkled some, with stains littered over it, and ill-fitting, hanging loosely on his shoulders — he hadn’t even had the chance to get proper clothes for himself before taking the photo ( how long has he been alive at this point? ).
There is that familiar lump of glacier in Ivan's stomach, the one that started out as a tiny snowball way back when but quickly tumbled into something that tries to come up his throat. The photo seems– burning, somehow, in his fingers, and it takes everything he has to not drop it this instant, to not let it flutter down to the ground and watch it turn into ashes — except, of course, it is not actually burning, no matter how aflame his fingertips feel.
There's a lighter in his pocket. He could make it burn. He should make it burn.
Except–
His chest prickles with uncomfortably warm longing, his fingers itch with soft-sharp want.
Ah .
It's that piece of him that is still wholly human, still not entirely tainted with the inhumanity of a Nation's nature. It's that piece of him that is still a little boy hiding behind his mother's skirts because all of this death and blood and war is too much for him. It's that piece of him that is still weaving flower crowns without comprehending the truth of his existence.
The photo is crumbling before he even knows what he's doing, and the flames are
poppy
blood red.
Blood drips to the floor steadily from– just about everywhere, honestly. Poland looks only marginally better than when he was killed — he can stand, for one, though just barely, leaning almost all of his weight on the wall, and his limbs and head aren’t hanging onto the rest of his body by mere threads of skin. There’s blood spilling from his lips, though, and his left arm is tightly bound into a sling, and more of his worn clothes are drenched in red than not, and–
And.
And he stares at him, eyes clouded but determined, and he bares his bloody teeth in something between a scowl and a grin. And he can barely stand, but he straightens up, just a bit, just as much as his body allows without immediately giving out, and he raises his head to face him properly.
“I’ll live through this, too,” Poland says, awfully clearly for someone drowning in their own blood, and then his eyes roll back and he’s on the floor before Ivan can even think about catching him — not that he would, mind you, but he doesn’t even have the chance to consider it.
He sheds his coat and scarf and scoops up the blond’s body, and it’s so frail and fragile he can barely believe this is who he used to call “big brother”.
Poland is a weed, Ivan decides, just like his oh-so-beloved poppy — every time you get rid of it, every time you think it's gone, it springs right back up again, over and over again.
It'd be impressive if it weren't so infuriating.
Poland glares up at him and it’s still so mind-numbingly odd , for Ivan to be a head taller, even after all these decades. Latvia is clinging to the blond’s arm, shaking with glassy eyes as he stares at the pieces of shattered ceramic in a puddle of chicken soup and noodles on the floor. Lithuania stands to the side, frozen with his arms outstretched as though he could still catch the tureen before it crashed.
It’s quiet, the silence broken only by Latvia’s hitched gasps for air and hammering heartbeat.
Ivan reaches out towards Latvia to do– something , but Poland growls lowly, pushing the boy behind himself. There’s a crisp, white bandage above his left eye — Ivan’s not sure when or where he had gotten hurt there.
“Don’t touch him,” Poland hisses, in that English of his that he hates so deeply but still so much less than Ivan’s Russian, breaking the spell of silence, and there is red on his teeth, and Ivan really wonders how long the other can be hurt — how long has it been since his body bore no open wounds? He doesn’t care , but. He wonders.
“You will not tell me what to do in my own house, Polsha.” Ivan smiles something sharp, something deceptively sweet — Latvia ducks his head out of view but Poland only glares harder, only raises his chin higher and crosses his arms. Lithuania slowly lowers his arms to his sides, pale-faced but steady on his feet.
“Only once you stop telling me what to do in mine,” Poland spits, and it is this stubbornness that keeps him alive — refuse, refuse, refuse, for so long as he draws breath, for so long as there is something hanging over his shoulder.
It makes Ivan want to wring his neck, no matter how fruitless of an endeavour that would be.
Poland still ducks away from the hand that comes at his face.
The thick envelope is glaringly white on his desk, obvious even in-between all the clutter around it. Ivan hasn't touched it since he tossed it there two days ago. He doesn't want to touch it.
There is a stamp with a white eagle on a red background on it, and it's signed in curly, Latin-like letters that hurt his eyes trying to read them.
Still, the words are already branded in his brain, making themselves known at the most inopportune moments.
Feliks Łukasiewicz.
Poland sent him a letter.
It’s been itching at the back of his mind ever since he received it.
He's not scared , absolutely not, just… wary , because Poland had gotten his hands on glitter a while back and hasn't let it go since. Yes. That is why he hasn’t opened the letter yet. Certainly not because he’s in any way concerned about what may be written in it.
The last time he had received a letter from Poland, it was furious, drunken rambling he could barely decipher, though he did manage to figure out that it was mostly insults and threats with a few lines about when they were kids. It left a thick frost over his heart for a few days, though neither of them ever mentioned it — honestly, Ivan wonders if the blond even remembers writing it.
… Alright, so he may be a tiny bit apprehensive about what Poland sent him, especially since he’s had a rather good week, it being his birthday week and all, and he knows whatever he’ll find inside the envelope will likely cause shards of ice to form in his chest and he really doesn't have the energy for that.
Curiosity stabs at his back, nips at his feet, and he takes the few hesitant steps he needs to stand at his desk. He collapses into his chair with a huff and sets his elbows on the desk, cradling his face in his hands over the letter, chewing at his lower lip.
It wouldn’t take much to open it. There’s a letter opener in the top drawer, with his own golden eagle making up the hilt. Or he can just rip it open, that’s not a problem either. He can also just tear it to shreds or feed it to a fire, decide not to look at the contents at all.
Except, despite how… apprehensive his government is about Poland ( and he knows the sentiment is returned ), they still wouldn’t be anywhere near happy to learn he didn’t take even a glance at what Poland wrote.
Something cold and slick and wet crawls under his skin the moment his fingers brush the envelope, a memory of nearly tearing a different letter into pieces in his excitement to read it shoving its way to the forefront of his mind.
He hates this.
He hates this.
Hating Poland is meant to be as easy as breathing , with how long ago their relationship was set on fire, the flame only growing stronger and stronger with every day. The last time they actually, properly at least tolerated each other was centuries ago! There has not been a single time since then that their words to each other weren't thinly veiled threats, that there wasn't fire and ice simmering underneath their skins.
It's supposed to be easy , an unchallenged second nature.
It's not supposed to be easy easy easy until something stupid comes up and memories resurface and make Ivan ache to be a child again. It's not supposed to be Poland mocking him with a plastic grin being interrupted by a memory of how soft the smiles he aimed at him used to be. It’s not supposed to be picking flowers and absentmindedly weaving them together, Poland’s instructions in his ears.
It’s not supposed to be challenged , at any point, by anything.
He hears the paper tear before he sees himself cut the envelope open with the blunt knife in his hand. It’s mechanical, as he slips his fingers into it and pulls out the letter and something drops onto his desk with a small clink.
It’s a bookmark, with poppy and chamomile flowers painted on it with a careful, skilled hand.
He stares at it, frozen in place, something thick in his throat, and his fingers aren’t shaking, but they’re still clumsy and numb as he slowly unfolds the letter in his hand and forces his eyes to read it. It’s in English, though the writing isn’t nearly as fancy as the signature on the envelope and therefore far more legible.
“ Don’t get your hopes up, my president is forcing me to write this because “it’s your birthday and can’t you at least try improving your relationship?” As a matter of fact, I don’t, but if I don’t write something that’s even vaguely nice, I’ll probably get cut off from something and you’re not worth that.
So. Sto lat or something. Actually, that doesn’t work, we’re both way past one hundred. Happy Birthday, then, so long as it’s not at someone else’s expense. The bookmark is something I found while cleaning, probably made it ages ago. You can have it, since I’m also being forced to give you a gift that isn’t a threat or just this letter .”
Ivan blinks.
It’s short, without even an introduction or signature, and it's lacking any direct insults.
It has a gift attached to it, and it’s a nice one, regardless of what Poland says.
It’s… strange , and his chest swirls with hot-cold, unsure of what to think as his mouth goes dry.
Hating Poland is supposed to be easy .
( He avoids Poland’s eyes at the next meeting, a new bookmark pressed carefully in between the pages of the book he’s reading )