A Child's Genius [2/?]
anonymous
January 13 2009, 01:03:52 UTC
"Well, didn't you always wonder what Bonnefoy was watching on that phone of his?" Ivan hums, shifting his deceptively large body into a near-contortionist position. "I rather think the red-haired lady he likes so much looks like my mother. It is disturbing."
"Finally something you find disturbing," Alfred grumbles. "What did Kirkland want to talk to you about this afternoon anyways?"
Ivan's eyes--a most unusual colour of violet--flicker momentarily before he shrugs. "You will not tell, I know, but it is not pleasant talk."
"Spit it out!"
He thumbs the scars that paint his right arm and Alfred knows that this is really bad news. "Kirkland asked my opinion of you. I lied, of course. Said I hated you. And then he told me that he wants me for Command School."
"Isn't that what you have always wanted?"
"Ah, well..." Ivan scratches the knotted scar at his elbow. "He asked me if it bothered me that most people here will not go to command school. I told him it didn't. This does not bother me, no. What does is he only told me I will be going to Command School after I said that I hated you and I didn't care what happened to the people here."
Alfred chews his lip, staring at the red skin of the apple. "Kirkland hasn't asked me anything like that. Bonnefoy mentioned Command School but he mentions a lot of things..."
"I do not want to kill Toris."
It is an abrupt comment, and Alfred's head snaps up. Ivan's face is still mostly expressionless, but the normal nothing smile is replaced by a slight frown. He is scratching so hard at his right arm that it has begun to bleed. Out of habit, Alfred smacks Ivan's hand away. The contact seems to make Ivan decide to continue with his thoughts.
"I am closest to Toris; we were the youngest in my toon and joined it together. He is not to make Command School. Then there is Raivis and Eduord: they will never make Command School. And--think, Alfred--we know deep inside we will be the two who go and the rest will be a long, long crap-shoot. Like bobbing for apples. After a while, every single one sinks if the players don't pick them out."
"So you're going to give up? Just because -"
"No!" Ivan shakes his head violently. "I can't go back to that place. I do not know Earth; it is too strange now."
After all, they are a Russian and an American talking, naked, in a space station's air ducts. On Earth, they are eleven-years-old: children and not to be taken seriously. In this place, these military worlds, they are commanders and fighters, making decisions and watching their effects. Going back to Earth would be worse than death: it would be to give up any semblance they have to controlling their own lives. A child's genius is an adult's plaything; it is human nature to conquer and then utilize weaker beings after all.
Re: A Child's Genius [2/?]
anonymous
January 13 2009, 01:57:05 UTC
Heblehhefeh.
Wow, I'm loving it so far. I've never had the pleasure(as said before, and yes this is Gangster Hetalia!Writer) of reading Ender's Game, but I don't think I need to of have to get a grip on this fabulous setting.
I'm so glad you chose Ivan and Alfred, for some reason (as non-enemies/Cold War era) their dynamic as friends is fabulous. I can see Alfred being one of the few that could put up with Ivan's eccentricities, as is obvious RIGHT HERE.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I LOVE this so much. Unabashedly LOVE it.
Arthur and Francis as (approximations of) Graff and Anderson is too perfect, and the implicit realism/cruelty in the Command School conversation just aches. The attributes and qualities assigned to Alfred and Ivan are so stunningly spot-on as well, and it's so easy to visualize even that which has not been explicitly said: the former's charisma meaning that others would be willing to follow him into battle; the latter's strangeness and brilliance, allowing the Bean-esque air duct conversations make so much sense; the sense of simultaneous innocence and damage throughout. And finally, this phrase in particular is just haunting: a child's genius is an adult's plaything.
I absolutely cannot wait for more installments. Again - THANK YOU. ♥
A Child's Genius [3/?]
anonymous
January 13 2009, 21:44:37 UTC
"Your mother -"
Ivan shakes his head, little nothing smile back but with a bitter, bitter edge to it. "Ah, my Mother. Sweet, pretty Sonya. She would not know this boy as her little Ivan. I might be Ivan Romanovich Braginski, yes, but never again Sonya's Ivan. That boy is long, long dead."
Alfred does not say anything. He knows that Ivan struggles with this feeling of deadness; it is easy to become numb to the concept of battle and conditioned to the conduct of warfare. A former 'toon leader who left a couple years ago for Command School--a smiling Chinese boy named Yao who had preceded Ivan as 'toon leader--had put it best: put on a happy face and just suck it for all its worth.
(It had been one of the non-existent secrets at Battle School that Ivan had had a raging crush on his 'toon leader. That was the first thing Alfred drew a line at taunting him with; he himself had been crazy for Kirkland, whom he still found tremendously dashing.)
"I was four when they pulled me from my family," Alfred says when the silence stretches on too long. "You were four, too. Of course we've changed."
"Women are so strange," Ivan nods. "I cannot understand why Feliks wants to be one. It is funny, yes, but I cannot comprehend it."
"Is that why you let him run wild with your First?" Alfred asks, referring to Toris.
"Ah, well," Ivan smiles his nothing smile, "they are entertaining together."
"Oh, man, I did not need to know that!"
--
It is years later until they meet again. After that conversation in the air ducts, Ivan had received his papers in the morning and had left, his face impassive as ever as he did so. Alfred had received his own paper a week later, and then he had been launched off to another station while Ivan began life at another.
The circumstances surrounding of their reunion are grim: hundreds of ships missing, weapons and resources destroyed. They only are able to meet each other because Alfred saw Ivan descending from the ramp of a large battleship that had fished his downed fighter out of the Earth's ocean. Alfred himself had been downed, only just managing to avoid crash landing on a small island.
"Ivan!" Alfred yells, waving a hand at the unresponding back of the Russian man. "Braginski!"
Ivan's eyes are just as pale and unusual as ever. He wears the high scarf that Alfred has seen from the holograms, the insignia denoting his Rear Admiral rank half hidden in its folds. Alfred is also the same rank, but he wears his marks proudly on the front of his uniform, only ever hiding it when a thick leather sport's jacket is called for.
"Jones," he says in the blank tone that Alfred has heard on sound bites; but then his voice drops, and the Rear Admiral whispers, "Alfred."
"How are you?"
The nothing smile--Braginski the Bear, they call him, who always wears his fangs in a smile--is in place but that whisper of the American's name tells Alfred his friend is not gone. So many are now, Alfred realizes suddenly, as he looks up at Ivan. He had grown used to it.
Ivan's smile does not change but his voice does not rise. "You always asked the stupidest questions," he murmurs.
"The Eagle is Down," Alfred shrugs, and he hopes the emotion does not show in his voice. "God, Ivan, it's been -"
"Fifteen years, seven months, sixteen days -"
"Christ, you're as precise as ever. Don't you ever forget anything?"
A Child's Genius [4/?]
anonymous
January 14 2009, 06:36:53 UTC
They go to a bar, a couple miles off the Cuban International Base. Alfred has been on and off Earth since he graduated Command School, but Ivan has not been back on Earth since he went to Battle School all those years ago. He moves carefully like a man used to being too large for everything around him, sometimes twisting his body in and out unnecessarily. It tell Alfred that his friend is not comfortable; it also tells Alfred that Ivan is still as flexible as when he used to contort himself in the Battle School air ducts.
"You guess correctly," the Russian tells him over his glass of vodka as they settle upon rickety bar stools. "I am most disoriented?"
"No kidding, man. I don't think I've ever seen a guy turn into a snake just to get through a door," Alfred snorts around his beer.
Ivan tilts his head slightly to the left, scarf--already loose in the hot weather--slipping open. "Why are we friends? I should have hit you by now, but I haven't. Very -"
"Christ!" Alfred exclaims, cutting off Ivan's out-loud train of thought. "I was wondering why you were wearing that thing."
"What?" Ivan lifts his gloved fingers to his scarf before comprehension dawns in his eyes. "Oh! Yes. Yao is a rather possessive lover," the Russian explains in a tone of voice that is both bashful and boastful. "He likes my neck."
Alfred stares at the numerous hickies that cover his friend's neck and takes a gulp of his beer. Life with Kirkland is nothing so... well, violent as that. And the American had those his Brit was kinky. It seemed the Chinese Admiral had some issues with being seen publicly (well, within the bathroom gossip circles) as the submissive partner.
"Weren't you dating Toris?"
The pleasure drains from Ivan's face and he mulls his vodka before choosing to answer. "Ah, well, yes, but we had grave artistic differences."
"Huh?"
Alfred nearly jumps when Ivan lifts his eyes, smiling. It is the same smile except with a different edge to it, a battle edge that has been honed and harnessed. Now he knows why some people in the International Forces go out of their way to keep Ivan happy.
"Toris likes soft edges and colours; he couldn't paint with me properly. I prefer evidence of my passions." And, as if to emphasize this disposition, Ivan rewinds his scarf around his neck lovingly. "This way Yao is always with me~!"
"...You're a freak."
Ivan chuckles, low in his chest. "You have told me that. But I think you're a pervert."
"What?!"
Several people in the bar look over at them only to quickly look away again when Alfred rounds on them, beer sloshing over the brim of his mug as he does so. Ivan looks up at him, elbows on the counter as he sips delicately (how can a man with the body of a bear do anything so delicately?) at his vodka; Alfred sits back down hurriedly and settles for glaring at his drinking companion.
"I," he declares slowly, "am not a pervert."
"But you have sex with men almost three times your age!" Ivan exclaims, loud enough to reattract the just-disappated attention. "You have had many public lovers--men and women. I would not put it past you if you have had an alien."
Re: A Child's Genius [5/?]
anonymous
January 14 2009, 06:37:45 UTC
"Why, I oughta -"
Ivan shakes his head, draining the last of his drink. "Ah, Alfred, you have not changed in the slightest. It is very refreshing."
Alfred gulps his remaining beer, glaring as the bartender refills their drinks. Ivan hums a silly little tune in the back of his throat, making whatever it is sound a lot like a disembodied jukebox from an old horror movie. Bonnefoy loves to watch those old horror movies, and they get Alfred every damn time.
"So," Alfred says, hopefully not sounds too obvious in his distraction tactic, "how long did you get to stay on Earth?"
"Two weeks," Ivan answers into his vodka; it is rather a worrisome rate he is consuming the large glass.
"'Got any plans?"
Ivan doesn't respond immediately, opting to finish off his second vodka, wait for a refill, and start upon his third. A slight blush is creeping up high on his cheeks, highlighting his bone structure. The pink matches his eyes.
"Maybe go to Russia. See the snow. But, no, mostly just wait." He finishes his third vodka and signals for another. "I am very good at waiting."
Alfred just raises his eyebrows. "You're drinking a lot."
Ivan pauses, newly refilled glass halfway to his lips. "Mm..." he intones, drinking some of it before setting the half-drained glass down with a light thump. "Yes?"
"We haven't had anything to eat since landing. Or, at least, I haven't. I know you probably haven't had anything since yesterday."
"Kirkland has rubbed off on you," Ivan observes, leaning on the counter with eyes half-lidded; he is enjoying his buzz. "Earth is such a strange place."
"It's our home."
"Is it?" Ivan lifts his drink and drains it. "I do guess it makes sense. It smells very interesting at least."
Re: A Child's Genius [5/?]
anonymous
January 15 2009, 17:08:14 UTC
I'm really enjoying this anon! I was hesitant about reading it at first because I usually don't like crossovers/AU's and I'm not familiar with Ender's Game, but I'm loving your style and Ivan & Alfred's friendship.
I'm also incredibly entertained by the Ivan/Yao possessive relationship issues and the 'evidence of their passions'.
"Finally something you find disturbing," Alfred grumbles. "What did Kirkland want to talk to you about this afternoon anyways?"
Ivan's eyes--a most unusual colour of violet--flicker momentarily before he shrugs. "You will not tell, I know, but it is not pleasant talk."
"Spit it out!"
He thumbs the scars that paint his right arm and Alfred knows that this is really bad news. "Kirkland asked my opinion of you. I lied, of course. Said I hated you. And then he told me that he wants me for Command School."
"Isn't that what you have always wanted?"
"Ah, well..." Ivan scratches the knotted scar at his elbow. "He asked me if it bothered me that most people here will not go to command school. I told him it didn't. This does not bother me, no. What does is he only told me I will be going to Command School after I said that I hated you and I didn't care what happened to the people here."
Alfred chews his lip, staring at the red skin of the apple. "Kirkland hasn't asked me anything like that. Bonnefoy mentioned Command School but he mentions a lot of things..."
"I do not want to kill Toris."
It is an abrupt comment, and Alfred's head snaps up. Ivan's face is still mostly expressionless, but the normal nothing smile is replaced by a slight frown. He is scratching so hard at his right arm that it has begun to bleed. Out of habit, Alfred smacks Ivan's hand away. The contact seems to make Ivan decide to continue with his thoughts.
"I am closest to Toris; we were the youngest in my toon and joined it together. He is not to make Command School. Then there is Raivis and Eduord: they will never make Command School. And--think, Alfred--we know deep inside we will be the two who go and the rest will be a long, long crap-shoot. Like bobbing for apples. After a while, every single one sinks if the players don't pick them out."
"So you're going to give up? Just because -"
"No!" Ivan shakes his head violently. "I can't go back to that place. I do not know Earth; it is too strange now."
After all, they are a Russian and an American talking, naked, in a space station's air ducts. On Earth, they are eleven-years-old: children and not to be taken seriously. In this place, these military worlds, they are commanders and fighters, making decisions and watching their effects. Going back to Earth would be worse than death: it would be to give up any semblance they have to controlling their own lives. A child's genius is an adult's plaything; it is human nature to conquer and then utilize weaker beings after all.
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Wow, I'm loving it so far. I've never had the pleasure(as said before, and yes this is Gangster Hetalia!Writer) of reading Ender's Game, but I don't think I need to of have to get a grip on this fabulous setting.
I'm so glad you chose Ivan and Alfred, for some reason (as non-enemies/Cold War era) their dynamic as friends is fabulous. I can see Alfred being one of the few that could put up with Ivan's eccentricities, as is obvious RIGHT HERE.
Oh, I can't wait to see the rest. KEEP IT UP.
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Arthur and Francis as (approximations of) Graff and Anderson is too perfect, and the implicit realism/cruelty in the Command School conversation just aches. The attributes and qualities assigned to Alfred and Ivan are so stunningly spot-on as well, and it's so easy to visualize even that which has not been explicitly said: the former's charisma meaning that others would be willing to follow him into battle; the latter's strangeness and brilliance, allowing the Bean-esque air duct conversations make so much sense; the sense of simultaneous innocence and damage throughout. And finally, this phrase in particular is just haunting: a child's genius is an adult's plaything.
I absolutely cannot wait for more installments. Again - THANK YOU. ♥
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Ivan shakes his head, little nothing smile back but with a bitter, bitter edge to it. "Ah, my Mother. Sweet, pretty Sonya. She would not know this boy as her little Ivan. I might be Ivan Romanovich Braginski, yes, but never again Sonya's Ivan. That boy is long, long dead."
Alfred does not say anything. He knows that Ivan struggles with this feeling of deadness; it is easy to become numb to the concept of battle and conditioned to the conduct of warfare. A former 'toon leader who left a couple years ago for Command School--a smiling Chinese boy named Yao who had preceded Ivan as 'toon leader--had put it best: put on a happy face and just suck it for all its worth.
(It had been one of the non-existent secrets at Battle School that Ivan had had a raging crush on his 'toon leader. That was the first thing Alfred drew a line at taunting him with; he himself had been crazy for Kirkland, whom he still found tremendously dashing.)
"I was four when they pulled me from my family," Alfred says when the silence stretches on too long. "You were four, too. Of course we've changed."
"Women are so strange," Ivan nods. "I cannot understand why Feliks wants to be one. It is funny, yes, but I cannot comprehend it."
"Is that why you let him run wild with your First?" Alfred asks, referring to Toris.
"Ah, well," Ivan smiles his nothing smile, "they are entertaining together."
"Oh, man, I did not need to know that!"
--
It is years later until they meet again. After that conversation in the air ducts, Ivan had received his papers in the morning and had left, his face impassive as ever as he did so. Alfred had received his own paper a week later, and then he had been launched off to another station while Ivan began life at another.
The circumstances surrounding of their reunion are grim: hundreds of ships missing, weapons and resources destroyed. They only are able to meet each other because Alfred saw Ivan descending from the ramp of a large battleship that had fished his downed fighter out of the Earth's ocean. Alfred himself had been downed, only just managing to avoid crash landing on a small island.
"Ivan!" Alfred yells, waving a hand at the unresponding back of the Russian man. "Braginski!"
Ivan's eyes are just as pale and unusual as ever. He wears the high scarf that Alfred has seen from the holograms, the insignia denoting his Rear Admiral rank half hidden in its folds. Alfred is also the same rank, but he wears his marks proudly on the front of his uniform, only ever hiding it when a thick leather sport's jacket is called for.
"Jones," he says in the blank tone that Alfred has heard on sound bites; but then his voice drops, and the Rear Admiral whispers, "Alfred."
"How are you?"
The nothing smile--Braginski the Bear, they call him, who always wears his fangs in a smile--is in place but that whisper of the American's name tells Alfred his friend is not gone. So many are now, Alfred realizes suddenly, as he looks up at Ivan. He had grown used to it.
Ivan's smile does not change but his voice does not rise. "You always asked the stupidest questions," he murmurs.
"The Eagle is Down," Alfred shrugs, and he hopes the emotion does not show in his voice. "God, Ivan, it's been -"
"Fifteen years, seven months, sixteen days -"
"Christ, you're as precise as ever. Don't you ever forget anything?"
Ivan shrugs. "A bear is a noble creature."
Alfred snorts. "So is an elephant."
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Anyway, spectacular. Ivan seems so melancholy, and Alfred is as upbeat as ever, even considering his circumstances.
CAN'T WAIT TILL THE REST.
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"You guess correctly," the Russian tells him over his glass of vodka as they settle upon rickety bar stools. "I am most disoriented?"
"No kidding, man. I don't think I've ever seen a guy turn into a snake just to get through a door," Alfred snorts around his beer.
Ivan tilts his head slightly to the left, scarf--already loose in the hot weather--slipping open. "Why are we friends? I should have hit you by now, but I haven't. Very -"
"Christ!" Alfred exclaims, cutting off Ivan's out-loud train of thought. "I was wondering why you were wearing that thing."
"What?" Ivan lifts his gloved fingers to his scarf before comprehension dawns in his eyes. "Oh! Yes. Yao is a rather possessive lover," the Russian explains in a tone of voice that is both bashful and boastful. "He likes my neck."
Alfred stares at the numerous hickies that cover his friend's neck and takes a gulp of his beer. Life with Kirkland is nothing so... well, violent as that. And the American had those his Brit was kinky. It seemed the Chinese Admiral had some issues with being seen publicly (well, within the bathroom gossip circles) as the submissive partner.
"Weren't you dating Toris?"
The pleasure drains from Ivan's face and he mulls his vodka before choosing to answer. "Ah, well, yes, but we had grave artistic differences."
"Huh?"
Alfred nearly jumps when Ivan lifts his eyes, smiling. It is the same smile except with a different edge to it, a battle edge that has been honed and harnessed. Now he knows why some people in the International Forces go out of their way to keep Ivan happy.
"Toris likes soft edges and colours; he couldn't paint with me properly. I prefer evidence of my passions." And, as if to emphasize this disposition, Ivan rewinds his scarf around his neck lovingly. "This way Yao is always with me~!"
"...You're a freak."
Ivan chuckles, low in his chest. "You have told me that. But I think you're a pervert."
"What?!"
Several people in the bar look over at them only to quickly look away again when Alfred rounds on them, beer sloshing over the brim of his mug as he does so. Ivan looks up at him, elbows on the counter as he sips delicately (how can a man with the body of a bear do anything so delicately?) at his vodka; Alfred sits back down hurriedly and settles for glaring at his drinking companion.
"I," he declares slowly, "am not a pervert."
"But you have sex with men almost three times your age!" Ivan exclaims, loud enough to reattract the just-disappated attention. "You have had many public lovers--men and women. I would not put it past you if you have had an alien."
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Ivan shakes his head, draining the last of his drink. "Ah, Alfred, you have not changed in the slightest. It is very refreshing."
Alfred gulps his remaining beer, glaring as the bartender refills their drinks. Ivan hums a silly little tune in the back of his throat, making whatever it is sound a lot like a disembodied jukebox from an old horror movie. Bonnefoy loves to watch those old horror movies, and they get Alfred every damn time.
"So," Alfred says, hopefully not sounds too obvious in his distraction tactic, "how long did you get to stay on Earth?"
"Two weeks," Ivan answers into his vodka; it is rather a worrisome rate he is consuming the large glass.
"'Got any plans?"
Ivan doesn't respond immediately, opting to finish off his second vodka, wait for a refill, and start upon his third. A slight blush is creeping up high on his cheeks, highlighting his bone structure. The pink matches his eyes.
"Maybe go to Russia. See the snow. But, no, mostly just wait." He finishes his third vodka and signals for another. "I am very good at waiting."
Alfred just raises his eyebrows. "You're drinking a lot."
Ivan pauses, newly refilled glass halfway to his lips. "Mm..." he intones, drinking some of it before setting the half-drained glass down with a light thump. "Yes?"
"We haven't had anything to eat since landing. Or, at least, I haven't. I know you probably haven't had anything since yesterday."
"Kirkland has rubbed off on you," Ivan observes, leaning on the counter with eyes half-lidded; he is enjoying his buzz. "Earth is such a strange place."
"It's our home."
"Is it?" Ivan lifts his drink and drains it. "I do guess it makes sense. It smells very interesting at least."
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I'm also incredibly entertained by the Ivan/Yao possessive relationship issues and the 'evidence of their passions'.
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