Krasavitsa

"It's days that are cold like this," he'd been told by the man waiting to die by the doorstep, "God finds a way to show us what it is we really need."

'I don't believe in God anymore,' he wanted to say, 'It's not allowed.'

He went home with a sack full of paint and blocks made of soft wood, the knife shoved in his jacket's pocket jostling against his hip, bouncing against it in a sort of wheedling tempo.

'Use me. Use me. Why haven't you used me yet?'

'I'm going to,' Ivan promised, 'I'm going to.'

Ivan remembered the last time America had deigned to visit him, an awkwardly polite "social" visit that their superiors had insisted upon.

"Still as drab as ever, I see." America remarked bluntly, examining the dark wallpaper.

"It only seems dark. There's no need to put on all the lights if it's only me here."

It was what he wanted to say.

"It only seems dark because you've gone blind and dim in the head."

It was what he really said.

It escalated into a full-scale battle where only barbs hidden as polite words were thrown instead of punches, but Ivan found himself much more enervated by fighting with inaction. It just wasn't right. If you were going to argue, then argue. If you were going to yell, do so. But if you were going to fight, then fight. He sighed and sat down heavily in a chair. The ancient cushion exhaled a cloud of dust, and not even America missed the atmosphere this time.

"You—"

—need to clean your house, you lazy Red.

"…need a hobby," America finished lamely, folding his hands behind his head and leaning back to stare up at the high ceiling and the cobwebbed chandelier that hung from it.

That was how Ivan found himself at this store at least twice a week to buy paint and wood, and having one-sided conversations with the dying man who had no legs waiting by the door.

The man kept dying for over 608 days. He remembered because he had developed a system for remembering that sort of inane detail. On the 613th day, the dying man wasn't waiting for him by the door to impart an old man's wisdom to another man whom was several millennia older.

'"You're like this house. You suffer, you show your wounds, but you stand,"' the man had called after him as Ivan trudged away through the refrozen and clotted slush, humming to himself. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the dying man's face wrinkle in what could either be a smile or a grimace.

'"Did you notice he almost never smiles? While I was singing, I turned around suddenly and caught him looking at me and he was smiling then. And I felt - but it's almost impossible to describe - I felt as if someone had given me the most enormous, beautiful present." '

He had done as America wordlessly suggested and cleaned a bit. Or at least, he'd tidied up a few rooms on the first floor to suit his purposes; going upstairs was too lonely now. The new room (it seemed new; it was so familiar and so unfamiliar with the old majestic furniture hidden under sheets to protect them from the residue and mephitis of wood dust) was beginning to get rather full; he would perhaps have to clear a new one soon.

America invited himself back one day for another of his visits. Or perhaps the visit had been schedules, but Russia remembered telling his superior in no uncertain terms that he was not to be disturbed until he had finished his work.

And yet, here was America. Bursting into his house, leaving the front door ajar, shattering his piece of mind—

"What the hell, Russia."

"…is there a problem, America?" he asked mildly from his place on the floor.

"We're supposed to discuss that new union—and you—I find you sitting in your house playing with dolls!"

America glared down at Russia in his impeccably pressed suit, hair tamed and slicked back handsomely, glasses glinting in the dim lighting. Russia stared back at him with his lips pressed together in a tight smile. He tilted his head slightly to regard America, ignoring the wood dust that was shaken from his pale tresses at the motion.

"Playing?"

"Christ Almighty, there's millions of them…" America muttered, glancing around and hunching his shoulders.

'I don't believe in God anymore. It's not allowed.'

"Ah, yes. Well. America did say I should find a hobby." Ivan murmured softly, bending over his newest creation to brush on the final few strokes of paint.

"You crazy son of a—but there's MILLIONS of them!"

"Oh yes," Russia replied brightly, gazing up at America with radiant violet eyes, "I do have several million children, so it wouldn't be fair to exclude any of them. A parent can't show favoritism. Not that you would know, since you embrace it. Capitalist pig."

America stiffened and shot Russia a cold stare.

"These are supposed to be your children?" he drawled icily, picking one up from the shelf beside him.

"Yes."

"You painted sunflowers on all of them."

"I like sunflowers."

"No shit. But all of them have sunflowers. Another way to reduce favoritism?"

"No. I just like sunflowers."

"Then how do you tell them apart?"

"Their faces are different."

"They're all ugly."

Russia paused then, paintbrush hovering over the face of a tiny whittled gourd-shape no longer than the first joint of his pinky. Silently he painted her face, placed her inside her brother, him inside his older brother, the oldest brother inside the mother, and the mother inside the father. He set the matryoshka family aside and pulled a plain block of wood towards him from the pile by his feet.

"You are not so beautiful yourself."