Re: A Nation's Heart [2/3]
anonymous
June 21 2009, 17:54:42 UTC
“Yeah, I know. That’s why you never let her anywhere near you.”
“I -” Words began to fail Ivan as panic and rage bubbled up. “Alfred…Alfred, I -”
He stuttered to a stop as Alfred stroked his arm, pressed lips to it. “Who did this to you?”
Ivan felt himself unravel and flay away. He giggled, cupped his face in his hands. “I…I do not expect you to understand,” he murmured.
“Ivan -”
“What do you know of disunity, of poverty? Your people are not starving. You do not have groups clamoring to break away.” Ivan dug his fingers into his arms. “You do not understand oligarchies. You care only for your Madonna and your Paris Hiltons and the American way of life.” Ivan bowed his head. “You do not understand this need. You do not understand what it means to do anything to keep yourself sane.”
Silence. Ivan didn’t look up from the sink bowl.
I said nothing that wasn’t true.
So why does it hurt?
Alfred’s fingertips on his cheek; Ivan let them rest there.
“Watching you in the mirror I wonder -”
Ivan looked up, eyes sharp and gleaming. “What nonsense are you babbling now?”
“Shush,” Alfred said, meeting and returning the glare. “Let me talk.”
Ivan considered a moment, then snorted and dropped his head. Alfred took this as permission, wrapped his arms around the great barrel of Ivan’s chest.
“Watching you in the mirror,” Alfred started again, “I wonder what it is like to be so beautiful and why you do not love but cut yourself, shaving like a blind man.”
They became very still in the bathroom’s sallow light. Ivan did not look at their joined forms, but through them, through Alfred, through to whatever shining, precious thing unspooled from those depths.
“I think you let me stare so you can turn against yourself with greater violence,” Alfred continued, “needing to show me how you scrape the flesh away scornfully and without hesitation until I see you correctly….”
Alfred’s voice fell into a slow rhythm, rising and falling, a cadence to the gentle, open-mouthed kisses on his collarbone. Ivan took in the smallest breath; then one deeper, another deeper than that, trying to drink down Alfred’s voice and Alfred’s words.
“…as a man bleeding,” Alfred whispered, “not the reflection I desire.”
Silence skittered over their eardrums.
“…a song of yours?” Ivan whispered.
“Poetry.” Alfred smiled against one of Ivan’s shoulder blades.
“I…I do not understand.”
“A Nation’s music may be its voice,” Alfred murmured, “but Arthur once told me that its poetry was its heart.”
Ivan thought about this. Yes…it almost made sense in a way.
“I see,” he said, with a secret smile, and reached up to brush his fingers over Alfred’s arm. “What else is in this heart of yours?”
Alfred grinned and turned off the bathroom light, taking Russia’s hand and guiding him back to the bed to lay on his side. “Hmm,” Alfred mused, thinking as he slid in behind Ivan and wrapped his arms around the other man’s middle. Ivan felt his smile as warmth when it flicked onto his face.
“There’s our candle, on the bedstand still,” America murmured, “that served, warm nights, for lovelight, and the rays of its glass panels played on our entangled legs and shoulders like some sailor’s red and blue tattoos….” And here, Alfred paused to trace patterns into Ivan’s stomach while he kissed down the line of Ivan’s neck, from nape to the vertebrae between Ivan’s shoulder blades.
“Or as a cathedral stained glass alters, congregated flesh to things less carnal, tinged by its enfolding glow.” Lips beneath Ivan’s ear. Alfred lifted one of Ivan’s hands and kissed the fingertips. Ivan let out a quiet breath when he thought he felt the very tip of a tongue on them.
“”What could the frail lamp seem to prowlers outside - the fox, say, the owl, or to some smaller creature, shrieking, pierced in the clutch of tooth and jaw that interrupted love’s enactments?” Ivan gasped at the teeth on his pulse, felt his heart beat against Alfred’s mouth for long seconds. Then Alfred let go and kissed it, licked away the pain.
But he could not banish the growing warmth Ivan felt at the reminder of their lovemaking, violent and hot, teeth and nails and tongue.
Re: A Nation's Heart [3/3]
anonymous
June 21 2009, 17:57:02 UTC
“Our glancing flashlight, though, showed only scattered grey fur, some broken feathers, bloodstained, on the…on the lawn.”
Ivan frowned at the hitch in Alfred’s rhythm and opened his mouth to ask about it, when Alfred stood and left Ivan cold on the bed. “Alfred?” he asked, and for one wild moment he thought America would open the window, spread great unseeable wings and fly away from what Ivan was -
Ivan shut the window and drew the curtains. Ivan’s eyes took a few moments to adjust; even then, he could only make out a few of America’s features, outlined in a soft, thin grey, as he walked back over to the bed and crawled over Ivan’s form.
“Scuttling back to bed, a little chilled from the wet grass, we scratched a match restoring our small gleam to see there -” Fingers pressing into Ivan’s collarbone, oh, sweet pressure, “- sinking in soft wax, the wings and swimming dark limbs of that moth - still there, hardened by the years like amber.”
Ivan lifted his head as Alfred bowed his. Those lips were so close he could feel Alfred kissing him through the warmth between them.
“While I remember the scathing fire-points of his eyes,” Alfred finished, pressing those words into Ivan’s lips.
They twisted and slid into their kiss, hot, needy, and desperate. Ivan’s trench coat billowed around them, and Alfred smiled and slipped underneath it to run his tongue over the crook of Ivan’s arm, over belly and thighs to finally close around -
Ivan arched and gasped. Alfred let Ivan weave thick fingers into his hair and push himself deeper into Alfred’s mouth, throat, and heart. ___
It wasn’t until the afterglow, when Alfred drowsed against his collarbone, that Ivan found words to give back to Alfred.
“Then you waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt,” he mused to the ceiling, voice low and thoughtful.
“Roethke,” Alfred slurred through closed eyes and a sleepy smile.
Ivan looked down at Alfred, waiting for elaboration. But the deep, even breaths pressing into his ribs told him there would be no more words tonight.
That’s fine, Ivan thought, and closed his eyes. For the first time in a long time, he felt all right. Perhaps not as a Nation, but as a human being. As someone who could be held and loved.
Ivan drifted off to sleep thinking of silken words and steady rhythms, seeking his own heart to find something to give back to Alfred in the morning. ___
Poems used here are all from the Eighth Edition of Contemporary American Poetry. The first poem is “The Mirror”, by Louise Glick. The second is W.D. Snodgrass’s “Love Lamp”. I did not write either of these poems, and I encourage all readers to go out and at least take a look at their works - there are some really beautiful ones that I don’t know if I could fit in here. Last two lines are from Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” which is one of my favorite poems ever.
Hope you all enjoyed this at least a little. Thank you for reading!
Re: A Nation's Heart [3/3]
anonymous
June 21 2009, 19:56:13 UTC
<3333333333
I love your choice of poem in this because it works so well! One of the sweetest fics of Russia/America I've come across, and not just the usual angst and the tense craziness. The whole thing makes me so warm, even though it's winter over here.
“I -” Words began to fail Ivan as panic and rage bubbled up. “Alfred…Alfred, I -”
He stuttered to a stop as Alfred stroked his arm, pressed lips to it. “Who did this to you?”
Ivan felt himself unravel and flay away. He giggled, cupped his face in his hands. “I…I do not expect you to understand,” he murmured.
“Ivan -”
“What do you know of disunity, of poverty? Your people are not starving. You do not have groups clamoring to break away.” Ivan dug his fingers into his arms. “You do not understand oligarchies. You care only for your Madonna and your Paris Hiltons and the American way of life.” Ivan bowed his head. “You do not understand this need. You do not understand what it means to do anything to keep yourself sane.”
Silence. Ivan didn’t look up from the sink bowl.
I said nothing that wasn’t true.
So why does it hurt?
Alfred’s fingertips on his cheek; Ivan let them rest there.
“Watching you in the mirror I wonder -”
Ivan looked up, eyes sharp and gleaming. “What nonsense are you babbling now?”
“Shush,” Alfred said, meeting and returning the glare. “Let me talk.”
Ivan considered a moment, then snorted and dropped his head. Alfred took this as permission, wrapped his arms around the great barrel of Ivan’s chest.
“Watching you in the mirror,” Alfred started again, “I wonder what it is like to be so beautiful and why you do not love but cut yourself, shaving like a blind man.”
They became very still in the bathroom’s sallow light. Ivan did not look at their joined forms, but through them, through Alfred, through to whatever shining, precious thing unspooled from those depths.
“I think you let me stare so you can turn against yourself with greater violence,” Alfred continued, “needing to show me how you scrape the flesh away scornfully and without hesitation until I see you correctly….”
Alfred’s voice fell into a slow rhythm, rising and falling, a cadence to the gentle, open-mouthed kisses on his collarbone. Ivan took in the smallest breath; then one deeper, another deeper than that, trying to drink down Alfred’s voice and Alfred’s words.
“…as a man bleeding,” Alfred whispered, “not the reflection I desire.”
Silence skittered over their eardrums.
“…a song of yours?” Ivan whispered.
“Poetry.” Alfred smiled against one of Ivan’s shoulder blades.
“I…I do not understand.”
“A Nation’s music may be its voice,” Alfred murmured, “but Arthur once told me that its poetry was its heart.”
Ivan thought about this. Yes…it almost made sense in a way.
“I see,” he said, with a secret smile, and reached up to brush his fingers over Alfred’s arm. “What else is in this heart of yours?”
Alfred grinned and turned off the bathroom light, taking Russia’s hand and guiding him back to the bed to lay on his side. “Hmm,” Alfred mused, thinking as he slid in behind Ivan and wrapped his arms around the other man’s middle. Ivan felt his smile as warmth when it flicked onto his face.
“There’s our candle, on the bedstand still,” America murmured, “that served, warm nights, for lovelight, and the rays of its glass panels played on our entangled legs and shoulders like some sailor’s red and blue tattoos….” And here, Alfred paused to trace patterns into Ivan’s stomach while he kissed down the line of Ivan’s neck, from nape to the vertebrae between Ivan’s shoulder blades.
“Or as a cathedral stained glass alters, congregated flesh to things less carnal, tinged by its enfolding glow.” Lips beneath Ivan’s ear. Alfred lifted one of Ivan’s hands and kissed the fingertips. Ivan let out a quiet breath when he thought he felt the very tip of a tongue on them.
“”What could the frail lamp seem to prowlers outside - the fox, say, the owl, or to some smaller creature, shrieking, pierced in the clutch of tooth and jaw that interrupted love’s enactments?” Ivan gasped at the teeth on his pulse, felt his heart beat against Alfred’s mouth for long seconds. Then Alfred let go and kissed it, licked away the pain.
But he could not banish the growing warmth Ivan felt at the reminder of their lovemaking, violent and hot, teeth and nails and tongue.
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Ivan frowned at the hitch in Alfred’s rhythm and opened his mouth to ask about it, when Alfred stood and left Ivan cold on the bed. “Alfred?” he asked, and for one wild moment he thought America would open the window, spread great unseeable wings and fly away from what Ivan was -
Ivan shut the window and drew the curtains. Ivan’s eyes took a few moments to adjust; even then, he could only make out a few of America’s features, outlined in a soft, thin grey, as he walked back over to the bed and crawled over Ivan’s form.
“Scuttling back to bed, a little chilled from the wet grass, we scratched a match restoring our small gleam to see there -” Fingers pressing into Ivan’s collarbone, oh, sweet pressure, “- sinking in soft wax, the wings and swimming dark limbs of that moth - still there, hardened by the years like amber.”
Ivan lifted his head as Alfred bowed his. Those lips were so close he could feel Alfred kissing him through the warmth between them.
“While I remember the scathing fire-points of his eyes,” Alfred finished, pressing those words into Ivan’s lips.
They twisted and slid into their kiss, hot, needy, and desperate. Ivan’s trench coat billowed around them, and Alfred smiled and slipped underneath it to run his tongue over the crook of Ivan’s arm, over belly and thighs to finally close around -
Ivan arched and gasped. Alfred let Ivan weave thick fingers into his hair and push himself deeper into Alfred’s mouth, throat, and heart.
___
It wasn’t until the afterglow, when Alfred drowsed against his collarbone, that Ivan found words to give back to Alfred.
“Then you waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt,” he mused to the ceiling, voice low and thoughtful.
“Roethke,” Alfred slurred through closed eyes and a sleepy smile.
Ivan looked down at Alfred, waiting for elaboration. But the deep, even breaths pressing into his ribs told him there would be no more words tonight.
That’s fine, Ivan thought, and closed his eyes. For the first time in a long time, he felt all right. Perhaps not as a Nation, but as a human being. As someone who could be held and loved.
Ivan drifted off to sleep thinking of silken words and steady rhythms, seeking his own heart to find something to give back to Alfred in the morning.
___
Poems used here are all from the Eighth Edition of Contemporary American Poetry. The first poem is “The Mirror”, by Louise Glick. The second is W.D. Snodgrass’s “Love Lamp”. I did not write either of these poems, and I encourage all readers to go out and at least take a look at their works - there are some really beautiful ones that I don’t know if I could fit in here. Last two lines are from Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” which is one of my favorite poems ever.
Hope you all enjoyed this at least a little. Thank you for reading!
Reply
I love your choice of poem in this because it works so well! One of the sweetest fics of Russia/America I've come across, and not just the usual angst and the tense craziness. The whole thing makes me so warm, even though it's winter over here.
-Not!OP-
Reply
Also, YOU MADE ME WANT TO HUG RUSSIA. YOU ARE A MIRACLE WORKER.
Excellent work!
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