Past-Part Fills Part 7
!!! Discussion about moving the kink meme to Dreamwidth!!!
Past-Part Fills Part Seven
Fills from past parts can go here!
Fills from the current part (part 22) MUST go in that part's post until it is full.
Link to the original request (and if an ongoing fill, any previous chapters/sections).
Don't forget to link your new fill at the fill ( Read more... )
"I didn't -"
"You haven't spoken to me since, Russia. Don't lie to me. This is the first time in thirty years we've even spoken face-to-face about something that isn't politics - what was I supposed to think?"
"Please, it is Ivan. You won the right to call me that, I did not simply ... revoke such privileges." Canada wouldn't have been surprised if he had. After all, if Russia attempted to call him Matthew now, he might actually slap the man across the face. "Things were different, then. You don't know the whole story -"
"You didn't give me any story!" Canada protested. "Your last words were, and I quote, I regret to inform you that this affair is over, best of luck in Lebanon and see you at the next UN Security Council. Four years of meetings between us that had nothing to do with diplomacy and everything to do with us. And you brought it to a head with that. I wasn't expecting declarations of love from you, I wasn't expecting poetic language - even though I know you're capable of that kind of thing, I've read Chekhov and Pushkin and they never left me nearly as cold as you did!"
"Then allow me to explain it now!" Russia urged. "Because better late than never, hm?"
He gave Russia his best glare, because all of his previous diatribe made it clear that he was very interested in the story Russia had never told him, but he didn't want to seem too excited. To simply forgive after thirty years - Canada was no grudgeholder, but he wasn't a doormat either. "Fine. Give me your long-winded tale. I've got nothing better to do in this tiny box, anyway," he said, acting as unimpressed as possible, while hoping the Norwegian technicians were working hard so that he could get out of here. (At this point he felt, screw the working group; he'd rather retreat to his room to nurse his wounds in private. Not that he wanted Russia to know the extent of the imprint he'd left!)
"I assume by your reaction that you remember the cafe in Lebanon," Russia began. Of course he remembered the cafe in Lebanon. It was little more than a two-storey hut, the ground floor converted to a cafe. Hookahs available to rent behind the bar with apple-flavoured tobacco for a dollar - or for free if you bought a meal. Between 1974 and 1978, Canada and Russia had jointly been in the same area worldwide over three hundred times, either by wonderful happenstance or by careful planning, because you didn't just date the USSR like he was the boy next door. Approximately fifty of these times had been in Lebanon, in that cafe, where they would meet, share tea, and then carry on to a safehouse, where they would spend the night.
Hell, Canada remembered the mosaic tiling on the walls, remembered counting the blues and reds, waiting for his constantly-late lover to join him. Russia was worth the wait, he had told himself. He could probably recreate the pattern even now.
Lebanon had come across him once, while he was waiting for Russia. He didn't approve of it, he admitted, but he promised not to say anything to America. Be happy, he told Canada, with a sad smile, but happy was the last thing Canada was when Russia met him at the cafe for the last time and told him they were through.
(Moreover, Canada was unsurprised when he heard from Lebanon, a few years later, that the cafe had been utterly demolished by Israel's latest invasion. But by that time, to him, it had been one more nail in the coffin, just like Russia's nonsense idea of invading Afghanistan.)
"Then you will also recall that week's Security Council meeting," Russia continued, and indeed, Canada remembered that too.
Reply
Leave a comment