Respite.doc

It is the middle of the night and the snow is falling, and Lithuania thinks he has never been quite so cold before. He stands before the doors of the little cabin in the foothills, rubbing his arms and blinking back tears that are just from the cold wind this time.

When the door opens, Lithuania actually startles a little, shifting in the snow. Switzerland stares at him across the snow, his shadow long from the lights within the cabin and just brushing the toes of Lithuania’s boots.

If it weren’t so dark, Lithuania is sure he could see the way Switzerland rolls his eyes; instead, he hears it. “Come in before you give yourself frostbite or something.”

The inside of the cabin is not much warmer than the foothills, but the lights are welcoming enough and Lithuania can feel his bones begin to thaw for a moment. Switzerland does not offer him a chair at the table, just sits there himself and takes up a pistol. After a moment, Lithuania pulls a chair out and sits, watching Switzerland in his busy work.

“Uhm,” Lithuania begins when the silence drags on between them.

Switzerland says over him, “Why are you here?” Lithuania deflates slightly against the chair, picks at a bit of cracked skin beside his fingernail. Switzerland makes a noise, half of disgust and half of despair, and asks, “Does he know you’re here? Running from him? I’m not getting in the middle of your little Eastern European lover’s spat.”

“That isn’t what it is, and you know that,” Lithuania objects. When he looks up, he can only meet Switzerland’s eyes for a moment; his gaze deviates to the fireplace after that, and he chews on his wind-chapped lower lip for a moment. “I need you to tell someone.”

“I just said—”

“This isn’t about that!” Lithuania says, shaking his head. Switzerland stares, bland and noncommittal, pistol still in his hand. Lithuania is shaking. “He signed that Convention, you know. We all did. He can’t do this to us.”

“Technically—”

“I’m tired of technicalities,” Lithuania hisses, and feels like he might be shaking apart. He stares into the fireplace and watches the wood crackle and pop.

Switzerland is silent a moment, before he says, “It’s not technically a war. And even then, what am I going to do?”

“Tell someone.”

“It’s none of my business, what he’s doing to you.”

“It will be, soon enough,” Lithuania says, and looks at Switzerland again. The light gleams across his skin in a way that makes him look like he’s made of slightly warmer stuff than the snow outside. Switzerland stares back at Lithuania, and after a moment, he sets the pistol aside.

“I can’t do anything.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because,” Switzerland snaps, grabbing his cap off his head and throwing it onto the table, “I have a policy not to get entangled in the utter shit you all get yourselves mixed up in. Neutrality doesn’t get lifted because of some breach in the Convention. Go ask America; considering he has the nuclear weapons pointed at your dirnemeister, he’s probably your best bet for any rescue missions.”

“I don’t want him to come for us,” Lithuania objects.

“You can’t be choosy, Lietuvos,” Switzerland grumbles, glaring across the table at Lithuania. When Lithuania does and says nothing in response, Switzerland growls at him, “Why me? Why not one of the others that might actually think about saving your sorry ass?”

“Because they don’t have as much to loose as you do.”

Lithuania can’t look at Switzerland then, after he sees the blank, somehow terrifying expression on his face as the idea sinks into his mind. The silence comes and settles heavy between them, and then stretches on and on like the snow outside. When the silence becomes too much, Lithuania stands from the table and goes to the fireplace to try and warm his bones.

Over the crackle of the fire, Switzerland whispers, “I can’t do anything.”

Lithuania sighs, and says, “But you know, at least. And you know, which is more than anyone West of Germany is willing to admit. Except America.”

“Why not go to him?” Switzerland asks, demands practically, and Lithuania hears the scrape of his chair across the floor loud in the silence, the tromp of his boots, and he shivers when Switzerland touches his back. “He can do something, and you know it. Why come to me—?”

“I told you,” Lithuania grouses, turning to Switzerland. “You have something to loose to this—this plague. And do you honestly think Russia will stop in Germany, at the edge of the Baltics, wherever the others draw their lines? He’s as bad as Germany was.”

“I didn’t fight then, either.”

“I’m not asking you to fight,” Lithuania urges, and he touches Switzerland then. He wonders how cold his fingers are—and then he tries to remember the last time he could feel with his fingers. Switzerland stares at him evenly, and Lithuania says again, “I’m not asking you to fight, for me or anyone else. I’m just asking you to convince them to pay attention. To stop him before he gets too far.”

“I can’t,” Switzerland reiterates, and Lithuania nods slowly, still touching Switzerland’s face, staring at him in the soft light of the cabin.

The moment passes, and Switzerland steps back, clearing his throat and adjusting his coat.

“You can stay here for the night,” he says after a moment of nervous adjustment. “I’ve only got the one bed, but it’s fairly large. Or—ah, I’ll be up a while...”

“Might I?” Lithuania whispers. “I’d rather not go back yet.”

“Just for the night,” Switzerland grumbles, returning to the table.

Lithuania finds himself smiling, just slightly, and thinking of Poland. The thought in and of itself makes him shake his head, and he steps toward the partition between the bed Switzerland keeps for himself in this cabin and the rest of the room. Staying had never been a part of Lithuania’s plan, but now that it is, he can’t bring himself to press upon Switzerland’s begrudging hospitality to ask for night clothes.

He hears the scrape of the chair again, just as he pulling his shirt off. The silence becomes tense.

“Did he do that to you?”

Lithuania doesn’t bother to reach for the scars. He can hardly feel them any longer. “Not just him.”

“Why not fight back?”

Lithuania looks at Switzerland then, over his shoulder, and sees Switzerland staring not entirely at his back. Unobtrusively, he undoes his belt, and then turns and sits on the bed. The light hits his chest, and he sees, out of the corner of his eye, the way Switzerland straightens at the sight of bruises there.

“Not all of us are as strong for our size as you are, Schweizerische.”

Switzerland continues to stare, even as he says, “I think you’re confusing stubborn defiance for strength.”

“No,” Lithuania whispers, taking off his shoes and stockings, and then standing again to remove his trousers and shorts. He turns down the sheets, and continues softly, “I’ve seen some strength in my times. I think I know it now.”

The silence coasts after that, and Lithuania thinks he might sleep for a little while. Then he hears the hiss of the lamps being shut off, and he turns on his side and watches Switzerland. His coat has been flung onto the table next to the guns, and without it he looks somehow longer; Lithuania thinks it’s the shirt, mostly, untucked from his slacks.

Switzerland closes the floo and turns the coals on the fire, and then goes to the bed, where he seems to know Lithuania is lying awake and watching him. There is a glimmer of light from the moon on the snow outside, gleaming into the room. Lithuania sits up on the bed, shivering slightly, as Switzerland sheds his clothing.

The scar on his back doesn’t surprise Lithuania as much as he thinks it should. He runs a finger over it but doesn’t dare ask.

Switzerland simply supplies, “I wasn’t always neutral, you know.”

Lithuania traces the contour of muscle and sinew in Switzerland’s arms and chest, even as Switzerland lifts the other side of the sheets and slides in beside him. Switzerland, after a moment, guides his fingers on a more daring exploration, though he is quiet and, when Lithuania touches him intimately, still soft.

But that is when Switzerland kisses him, controlled and almost tender, and Lithuania lets himself be pressed back against the pillows and firm mattress. Suddenly, Switzerland’s hands are upon him, calloused in places Lithuania isn’t entirely used to, not all together gentle but not demanding and brutal and possessive. Lithuania finds himself, beyond reason, kissing Switzerland back.

It is simply that for a moment: roving hands and the shifting of their mouths against each other, until Lithuania can feel the stirring in his hand. He curls his fingers effortlessly, stroking and swallowing Switzerland’s panting breath between kisses that are growing more and more aggressive with each movement of their body.

Switzerland’s hands on his shoulder, urging him to turn, startle him, make him pull back and stare through the half-darkness. For a moment, Switzerland only stares back, pupils blown and expression one of the purest confusion; then it seems to dawn on him, and he sooths his hands down Lithuania’s side in a gesture that, were it to come from anyone else, Lithuania would call consoling.

Lithuania takes Switzerland’s hand instead, draws it from his side to his mouth and places the fingers against his lips. They linger there for a moment, pressing gently, before Switzerland pushes them into Lithuania’s mouth and down against his tongue. His fingers taste of oil and powder, sharp and strong and not terribly appealing when compared to memories of the calm medicinal tang of hand cream; the strong smell of guns and a hundred other things that are all purely of Switzerland helps to drive away the stench of vodka and dirt and blood, though, and Lithuania sucks at Switzerland’s fingers willingly.

They come from his mouth with a quiet slurp, and Lithuania is surprised when he notices how fast his chest is heaving. The first tentative press of a blunt finger at him is barely anything. He spreads his legs for it, bringing them up and planting his feet firmly on the mattress, grabbing just below his knees.

On the second finger, the sting begins. Switzerland seems utterly lost when Lithuania makes that first pained noise, and stops moving entirely—doesn’t even seem to breathe—until Lithuania tells him, “It’s alright. I’m used to it.”

It doesn’t seem to inspire any great confidence. In fact, Switzerland removes both fingers, and sooths his hand down Lithuania’s stomach, before laying a kiss to the soft skin below his navel.

“It shouldn’t hurt,” Switzerland says against Lithuania’s stomach with great authority. His fingers have crept back, that first one already deep inside and pressing pleasantly about. Lithuania wonders, for a moment, if he is Switzerland’s first man.

Lithuania makes a conscious effort to ignore the sting on the second finger. He grips Switzerland by the hair and moans softly, arching his back when Switzerland kisses a line up from his navel to his lips, grinding down against the fingers inside him. Now, he can feel Switzerland hard against him, the insistent press of a third finger.

He reminds himself, it has been far worse than this. Switzerland is not inconsiderate, simply uneducated in the finer details of how this is supposed to work. Then again—Lithuania arches at a particular brush of Switzerland’s fingers inside him, and thinks perhaps he might be a trifle uneducated in things as well. But only a trifle.

Switzerland fumbles then, seemingly at a loss. He presses his face against Lithuania’s chest, and Lithuania doesn’t dare ask him to repeat himself. After a moment of quiet contemplation, he pushes at Switzerland’s shoulder, and—when he has turned and rolled and sprawled himself out with his stomach up and his elbows supporting him—brings himself between Switzerland’s legs.

As he licks and sucks gently, trying to get Switzerland as wet as possible, he touches himself, inside, until he is practically panting. When Switzerland can bring himself to not be quite so distracted by Lithuania’s mouth, he scrapes his nails down Lithuania’s back and presses his fingers in beside the others already there.

Lithuania is not entirely certain when he ends up on his back again, only that he is suddenly staring into the darkness above him, holding his thighs up and apart as Switzerland breathes heavily into the air between them. He is not as long as some of the others, and that is actually quite nice; Lithuania lets himself enjoy it, lets his body take pleasure from it as he hasn’t for—far too long, anyway. From the noises Switzerland is making, the feeling is mutual.

The hand on him is almost too much, wrapping him up, and the feeling of warmth is absolute for a moment. He shuts his eyes and can see the rye fields and hear laughter and quiet words spoken to him, and he thinks he might be crying and isn’t entirely sure if its from frustration over loss or from the pleasure surging through him suddenly.

His grip on his thighs slips, but Switzerland catches his legs, supports him as he continues to work inside him. Everything is hypersensitive; he can feel Switzerland everywhere, even deludes himself into believing he can feel the texture of Switzerland’s hair and skin under the pads of his fingers. He watches Switzerland’s face in the odd half lighting of the room, sees the exact moment, and then feels it, deep inside him; it makes him moan.

Switzerland is still for a moment after he is done, letting Lithuania’s legs slide from his arms to the bed, slowly pulling out. Lithuania lies there and lets the dread of going back close in on him.

Then Switzerland has wiped him off gently, pushed him over onto the other side of the bed, and curled around him. He draws the covers up over them, enveloping them in warmth and Lithuania finds himself tucked in against a much smaller body, Switzerland’s hand firm and consoling over his heart.

“Worry in the morning, Lietuvos,” Switzerland murmurs in a puff against the back of Lithuania’s neck.

Lithuania knows, then, that this is the best he will receive from the other. He closes his eyes, and accepts the gift for what it is.