Have a Seat on My Couch

Moving On Up/Out.

2009-12-13T05:36:11Z

As the title says, I'm leaving this account into another one for a new handle and just a feeling of new space in general to post stories and other random tidbits from my life. I'm sorry about the complete and total randomness of this, especially since I haven't been on LJ in a while due to non-Interwebz related things. And I probably won't be able to furnish the new journal until I finish my paper and portfolio due this Tuesday. If anybody would like to continue being in touch with me, though, drop me a friend's invite at palinka_femme And I'll get back to you as soon as life stops being fail.

Otherwise thanks guys, it's been real. <3333

[Fanfic] RussiaxAmerica Drabble

2009-10-18T23:52:14Z

Title: Let’s Bring Back the Cold War (To Save on Air-Conditioning)
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Russia/America
Rating: PG
Warnings: Adult language, use of human names, more likely than not OOC-ness, and err...violence with a book? >>

Summary: If you can't take the heat, call your BFF Ivan.

Author’s Notes: X-posted on deviantART. A RussiAmerica piece, but nothing to do with my multi-chapter fiction. It’s just a random insomnia-induced one-shot that I was finally able to finish after my computer stopped holding my Word documents hostage. And posted because I haven't updated anything writing-wise since the summer. So I decided to break this block of inactivity with a crack piece inspired by the fanon idea that Ivan does not produce body heat. I'm not making fun of it, or the writers who write it, but this didn't stop my brain from thinking, "Gee, wouldn't that be awesome for Alfred to have on a really hot day?" Sorry in advance for the madness. @w@

Disclaimer: I don’t own Axis Powers Hetalia.

________________________________________________________________

Saying it was hot that day was an understatement.

Saying it was so fucking hot that it felt like the sun had rented the apartment above him and cranked the thermostat as high as it could go was a little more accurate.

Every single air molecule was bloated with a hundred degrees too much heat, expanding and coalescing like a bag of gummy bears kicked underneath the backseat of an old car. So one giant amorphous glob is formed—that was what he felt on his skin. It went inside his pores, making him feel sticky from the inside out, and way too solid.

He blew out a gust of air in irritation. Heroes shouldn’t have to sweat. It didn’t look or feel awesome to have it creeping like insects or Francis’s fingers probing in places he didn’t even know he had glands…

Water didn’t help, either. He waited for the semi-cool water to fill the dish of his hands, stooping over the sink once it did in order to splash it onto his face. It turned tepid by the time it dribbled down his neck into the collar of his T-shirt, which clung to him in the most awkward of places no matter how many times he tugged.

When Alfred finally realized there was a solution in taking his shirt off and tossing it aside, he blamed it on the heat as opposed to one of many blonde moments in his lifetime.

…Not that it did much good, anyway. He got four, maybe five seconds of relief before heat wrapped around his skin again like tight cellophane. It caused him to bang his forehead into the mirror for contact with the cool surface, where his vision went from blurry to clear and cross-eyed. Then back to myopic when he drew backwards again. Blinking back the pinpricks of sweat stinging his pupils.

Alfred left his glasses on the edge of the sink as he dragged himself out of the bathroom and didn’t stop until his knees hit the edge of the bed. There he considered his mattress with a type of half-lidded focus, as if contemplating the coolest entry point. He finally rolled into bed like a tranquilized wildebeest, letting his arms and legs fold to the side when his head hit the pillow—and his ass bumped into the thigh of another person.

“Ah, Alfred, have you cooled off now?” Ivan said with as much interest as if he asked whether or not he ate lunch, or cleaned his toilet lately.

Alfred squinted. “Was that a joke?”

“Does it sound like one?”

“No. Not a funny one, anyway.” He wriggled. “…Fuck, it’s just too hot.”

“I had not noticed.”

“Because you’re a freak, Ivan.” The words hung in the air as a fragmented insult, which Ivan didn’t react to, and Alfred hesitated to continue as he shifted around to get comfortable. “How are you not burning up? I’m sweating like a pig’s nut sack over here. And you were wearing that giant fucking flasher coat before…”

Before he made him take it off because the sight of layers made Alfred’s stomach twist like a towel in the hands of a teenage jock, ready to whip one of his teammates (heterosexually, of course). And it was a struggle of wills to get him to take the damn thing off.

Nothing that a hero couldn’t handle, though. And his plan—like anything spawned from a hero’s mind—was foolproof. All he had to do was convince Ivan they were going to have sex. That got Ivan to let him touch his buttons, and he was going to take off his shirt, anyway…

The only problem with his awesome plan was his escape, when he snatched the coat and Ivan made a face terrifyingly close to that of a little boy who was just denied a Happy Meal. So different and atypical from the normal Ivan Braginsky that he was shocked into dropping it (that and the material made his palms sweat).

The coat was now slung over a chair, and Ivan’s eyes seemed to assess it from afar before he smiled. “Mm, actually I find it pleasant. But if you say so, Alfred.”

He then opened his book back to the page he held onto with his thumb and resumed reading, not saying another word. And after a few beats of unbearable suffering alone, Alfred tugged childishly at the hem of his shirt. “Let’s go. This is stupid.”

“Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere that’s cold—where there’s a working air conditioner,” he added, glaring in the direction of his thermostat as if it could understand his resentment. “Let’s go to your house.”

“Do you think there will be snow at my house?”

“Yeah, because there is. Isn’t there?”

Ivan’s lips turned up. “…I have summer too, you know. It is not always snowing at my house.”

Alfred blinked. “Seriously?”

Ivan’s smile became strained, but he nodded all the same.

“Awesome. I always thought, y’know, whenever I think of Russia I think of—”

“Snow, funny accents and people wearing big furry hats, da?”

Alfred hummed, but the sound broke off into more of a frustrated groan, slapping a hand on the back of his neck and palming the sweat off. He almost reached for Ivan’s scarf to wipe it off, but had an uncharacteristic flash of foresight and wiped it off on his shorts, instead.

“Do you still have that vacation ticket I got for you?”

“The what-now?”

“The ticket to Siberia.” Alfred continued to stare at him vacantly. “The one I got for your birthday.”

“…I remember you gave me condoms…”

“After the condoms, Alfred.”

He squinted, scratching his hairline in thought. “Err…there was that really sharp tissue I used to blow my nose…if that wasn’t it, I might’ve thrown it out, or used it as a bookmark, or a doorstop…something…”

If Alfred had been paying attention or had his glasses on, he might’ve noticed the flash across Ivan’s face, like a strand of lightning in the clouds. A dark, concentrated presence in the room that was slowly making the plant next to Alfred’s window die (he thought it was just the heat). But then it vanished, and another sunny expression took its place.

“My, that is unfortunate. The Arctic Ocean is very cold.” His eyes crinkled behind his smile. “You are strong, Alfred, I wonder how long you could hold your breath as I force your head underwater…”

Alfred flopped against the pillow. “Thanks for trying. But I think I’m just going to dunk my head under the faucet again. Maybe I’ll manage to knock myself—”

He did not see Ivan mark his page or put his book down. He did not even feel the shift in the mattress as he tried to sit up but was forced back down again by Ivan, who rolled on top of him without warning or invitation.

Alfred let out a gust of breath, pushing at his shoulders. “The fuck are you doing?”

“Helping~” Ivan laughed in a singsong.

“Bullshit, you’re crushing me.” Alfred wheezed. “I can’t feel my spleen. Get off!”

Ivan continued giggling, not showing any sign of listening, pressing their foreheads together.

“Do you feel colder yet?”

Alfred didn’t understand or care what he meant at first; because he was too busy trying to push Ivan off, which was like a kitten trying to crawl out from underneath a bear. And his nose was in the way. It kept digging into his face and he kept shifting around trying to angle their faces without accidentally kissing Ivan, which he was too pissed off to deal with right now. He was already being smothered by the other’s body weight, stuck between a rock and a former Communist country, as some would say. The thought of sucking face on top of all that almost gave him heatstroke.

But when he decided to push Ivan’s face out of the way instead of moving himself (it was Ivan who started it, after all), his fingertips caught a very different sensation. He was so surprised it took him a few seconds to realize the change in temperature came from Ivan.

When he shoved again, it was a little bit easier to flip Ivan over and scramble on top of him, pressing his cheek against his shoulder. It was the sensation of snow angels, ice skating and breath-freshening gum all at once. A cool breeze seemed to be circulating under Ivan’s skin instead of blood, escaping through his pores, melting upwards into his belly.

“Alfred?”

“Hnn—?”

“You never answered my question.”

Alfred hummed, adjusting his arms and legs to fit the shape of the body beneath him. Only then could he think about responding: “It’s like hugging a refrigerator…”

Ivan bobbed upwards to reach for his book (Alfred grunting in protest, and Ivan chuckled), propping the bind against Alfred’s head with a hollow-sounding thud. That seemed to either amuse him, or strike his curiosity, because he thwacked him harder just for the sake of hearing it again.

By then Alfred was too sedated to react with even a finger. Maybe it wasn’t Ivan’s lack of body heat that made him sleepy, because something about that just didn’t fall together correctly. Then again, neither did the concept of anything about Ivan being soothing, and this moment of peace between them.

Maybe it was the sound of the heartbeat underneath his ear that he listened to like a seashell on the beach. Or the aged paper-scent of Ivan’s book he kept breathing in. It blended inexplicably with the smells of wool, snow and earth. And it somehow overpowered the presence of the city in his senses: the perspiring, sun burnt asphalt and the exhaust from cars packed together. Alfred shut his eyes, and he wasn’t in New York City, anymore. He was wedged somewhere where his thoughts blended together, and he wondered if he dribbled water on Ivan, would they freeze together.

When he woke up again, there was a slight damp spot where his mouth was, and he couldn’t see Ivan’s expression. His paperback was splayed over his nose, as if Dr. Zhivago was trying to eat his face, but he half-assumed he was sleeping.

He sighed and turned his head in the opposite direction, consciously avoiding the place where he drooled to look out the window towards the sound of traffic and invasive orange light filtering into the room. Not quite red or gold.

Before he disturbed Ivan from his nap, and found he could walk around his apartment again without enjoying the sensation of being cooked, he got to thinking: maybe a vacation to Siberia wouldn’t be so bad.

Hetalia picture show: the Greece edition~

2009-09-17T00:30:20Z

Comment and I'll give you a person. Find a picture of that person for each category. Post the results in your journal.
<lj user="kamilah_adair"> gave me the "Gree" in Greenada. XDDDD

1. Choose a picture of the funniest face on your person.
Greece's "angry" face," which I put in quotations because I have my suspicions that it's "anger" that's coursing through Greece in this picture right now. : | Unless it's the kind of "angry" that some people require a cigarette afterwards...

2. Choose a picture of your person eating.

3. choose a picture of your person with an animal.

4. choose a picture of your person with a member of the opposite sex.

*SHOT*

So I don't have any pictures of Greece with an actual female. This was the closest thing I had, and it's close enough. THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR WEARING A SKIRT, JAPAN!

5. choose a picture where you would have sex with this person.
Err, unfortunately I don't even swing in Greece's direction, but this has to be the sexiest picture I have of him.

And for shits and giggles...

*Bom chika wow wow...*

6. choose a picture of your favorite outfit on this person.

OR NOTHING AT ALL! BWAHAHAHAHA *SHOT*

7. choose a picture of your person smiling.

8. choose a picture of your person half/naked.

I love how Kiku's personality goes from sweet, sensual *<3333* to *UNBEARABLE MORTIFICATION* almost like a before/after scenario.

9. choose a picture of your person doing an outdoor activity.
Not his *favorite* outdoor activity, but...

10. choose your favorite picture(s) of this person.

[Fanfic] How America Became...

2009-06-24T01:08:05Z

Title: How America Became...
Character(s) or Pairing(s): England, America, with mentions of Russia, France and the brief acknowledgement of an OC nation.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Adult language, use of human names, and author-altered historical events. Also be prepared for snarkiness.
Summary: Set during the Malta Summit of 1989. An unexpected hiccup in plans may cause more than just a shift in location.

Author's Notes: De-virginizing my old journal with new writing. Finally. This is trippy. I've been working on this project since March (which says all kinds of dorky/pathetic things about me), and now that I'm actually posting it's surreal. Especially since there was a period of time when I was ready to give up on this thing before it even began. Which ended a couple weeks ago when I reread my rough draft and didn't hate it anymore. I'm still insecure since this is the first piece I've finished after a slump, but someone once said you have to be willing to write badly in order to improve...and there's always my BFF revision. There probably will be some tweaking in the future once the other chapters start popping up. But one step at a time.

I will say this, though: the later chapters will explain the title of the fiction. Unless I change it to something else which I've been considering...

I have Charlotte/Jebba to thank for getting this far, for not only reading and critiquing my drafts, but also humoring me with discussion, and and being excited about the project. I could write on and on about how much I heart and appreciate your help.

Disclaimer: I don't own Axis Powers Hetalia.

“In a world that seemed to be dissolving, where better to meet than in a place with no boundary lines, no familiar landmarks—and no firm footing?” – Richard Lacayo

It was never their idea to begin with. It was France and England who prevailed upon them to meet. It was the President’s brother’s idea of where they should go: a country conveniently located between them, where north mingled with the south, and the west booked a flight over the Atlantic to meet with the east.

It was never their idea. But things were changing rapidly around them. The Berlin Wall fell, the Iron Curtain lifted and the production of A New World Order was said to begin. As two poles of power standing across from each other in the midst of political evolution, they had to acknowledge it.

He’d been experiencing it for weeks beforehand: a tiny flicker of hyperawareness growing larger like ripples in a pond, or a viral epidemic. The air crackled with something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but it lived in the newspapers, the televised news programs. The calm of his enemies—it was all disorienting with an underlying feeling of significance.

It was never their idea. So he wondered: when things went wrong, could they really be blamed?

________________________

December 1st, 1989

Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword, Alfred decided, as he stood in the middle of an airport in Rome, must have been British.

Any other day he would think that the idiom was too stupid to consider any deeper than surface level, because that’s where the contradiction shot up with bells, whistles and a humored snort on his half. If two people stood facing each other in combat and one has a sword and the other is brandishing a pen—hell, an entire pocketful of all types and colors—there was no mystery in who would be leaving that battlefield alive.

But now Alfred understood what it meant, along with the definition of irony, though he would never admit he thought so. Arthur didn’t need a sword; he didn’t even need a butter knife to cut into people. He had his words.

“Would you mind repeating that, please?” Arthur asked, and sounded polite, but his question lurked with a fine edge, like a weapon wrapped in a silk cloth. That bastard who once sat on a quarter of the world’s land now reclining in some posh living room somewhere (as Alfred always seemed to picture him), sharp as ever, ready to unsheathe his condescension at any moment.

“I couldn’t hear a word you just said. You’re eating right now, aren’t you?” And there it was. “Typical rude behavior…”

Alfred swallowed the mouthful of burger he was chewing and resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at the payphone. “So sue me. The food on the plane was terrible—almost as bad as your cooking.”

He paused for the mental picture of the flustered contempt that must’ve been slowly making its way across Arthur’s face. He had seen it a hundred times in person, and knew what would bring it out. “…But anyway, I said that Malta’s out. The summit has been moved because of weather.”

“…I was afraid of that…”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Alfred squinted. “You knew?”

“I knew the weather was ghastly down there.”

“Because…you’re secretly a weatherman?”

‘Ghastly,’ though it sounded serious when Arthur said it in his clipped accent, did not even seem to begin to describe what was happening in Malta. Apparently.

Alfred didn’t even know where Malta was. But somewhere in the Mediterranean, in the one-dimensional ocean of his map, were kamikaze waves crashing furiously against the harbors, collaborating with winds powerful enough to shove politics away from the island. It was like one big “fuck you” from some invisible force that found out his boss had wanted to hold the summit on a boat—possibly from Arthur, who was far more involved with the business of their leaders than Alfred felt comfortable with.

“I know because I spoke to Malta, of course.”

He returned to the conversation with a question mark on his face. “Why?”

“I can have a word with my former territories if I so choose. If I didn’t, I daresay you’d be entirely out of friends…”

Crumpling the empty burger wrapper in his fist, Alfred hoped the sound both reached—and annoyed—Arthur on the other end. “It really sucks. I was beginning to like the idea of going to Malta…”

“A summit is a summit. You could hold it on the edge of a cliff for all anyone cares. Or the bloody airport you’re standing in right now—”

Alfred glanced over his shoulder at the businessman picking his nose behind his newspaper, and the woman bouncing a sobbing baby on her knee. It wouldn’t have actually been a bad idea to meet the Soviets in the airport, he thought. After all they decided on Malta because of its neutral location, and there was nothing more neutral than an airport.

Airports carried no nationality in his opinion, no matter where they were located. If anything they were an entirely separate juncture between countries. And they all looked the same to him: wide, gaping fluorescent tunnels that were fitted with petty human comforts, like food dispensaries (not that Alfred was complaining about that), bookstores and gift shops for anybody looking for a themed T-shirt or an overpriced snow globe. They even tried to make it seem cozier by installing carpet next to the vast windows: gray to match the drizzle outdoors.

Airports were an inherently creepy and sterile place, but it was better than where he was going.

“…You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew where they moved it,” Alfred said turning back around.

“What are you talking about?”

“You mean you don’t know? I thought you knew everything.”

“I never said I did. And I’m amazed at your wit at a time like this. Why don’t you just—?”

“Moscow.”

Arthur swallowed something—probably tea—in order to pronounce the next question clearly: “What?”

“Moscow,” Alfred repeated. “We’re meeting in Russia’s capital. Shouldn’t that be against the rules?”

“What rules?”

“I don’t know, the rules of neutrality or whatever. If this is still supposed to be neutral, that is…”

“Of course it is.” He groaned. “This is…an unfortunate change, but the Russians didn’t make it storm in Malta. If that is what you’re implying…”

“Duh. I’m not stupid, Arthur,” Alfred leaned in closer to the payphone. “The storm is not the point. This is ceremony, isn’t it? If I had known we were just going to do ceremony in the end, we could’ve held the summit in Washington. Why does it have to be their capital?”

“I thought you were done treating this like a competition. For god’s sake, where is that obnoxious positive attitude of yours?”

“Back in the states. Where we should be.”

Arthur sighed, impatience dragging in his voice. “If you’re already in Europe it’d be a waste of time to fly back. Why are you fighting this? Really?”

“…I don’t want to go there, Arthur. I just don’t.”

“What about your boss?”

Alfred traced his fingers over a pair of initials somebody took the time to scratch into the booth around the payphone. “…He’s too preoccupied with the Philippines to respond right now. But everyone already thinks the Soviets just want to use this meeting as an excuse to ham it up. And now we’re holding it on their turf. It’ll never be neutral, or equal.”

“But you don’t want it to be equal, Alfred. You want it to go your way.”

Alfred felt like a nuclear warhead dropped down his throat and exploded inside his lower intestine, vaporizing any clever response he could think of. He spluttered: “The fuck? That’s not true—”

“The hell it isn’t,” Arthur shot back. “You still don’t get it, do you? Haven’t Francis and I been over this with you a hundred times already?”

Alfred aligned his forearm with the top of the payphone and leaned his forehead against it, staring hard into the vague distant reflection of himself in the metal plating as he recalled everything. “I’m all about working together, Arthur…how do you know he is?”

It was about time they talked about him. The other end of the map, the second seat at this summit built for two, and the last person Alfred wanted to see.

“Because his leader wants to, and you know how that goes for us.” Arthur snorted. “Honestly, I’m more worried about you—”

The end of his sentence toppled out quickly, clotting between them in the airwaves so thick Alfred could almost hear the words still ringing in his ears, unrefined and awkward. Arthur didn’t even seem to close his mouth before his train of thought: “This is a delicate, diplomatic situation, and you…” Alfred could practically hear Arthur’s jaw tighten over the phone. “Well, I own houseplants with more social tact than you.”

“What do you think I’m going to do? Open up the summit with a Communist joke? Ask Gorbachev about the splatter on his head?”

“…Those had better be purely hypothetical, Alfred.”

“Relax, Arthur, I’ll play nice with Ivan. We’ll go see him and his politicians in Moscow, and we’ll have the stupid summit—even though this is so obviously them trying to fuck with us.”

“We’re not asking you to become best friends. This is politics, not summer camp. But you have to talk to him. Whether you want to or not.”

“…Fine.”

Alfred started picking invisible lint off his gloves, when a thought suddenly occurred to him. “But hey, Arthur, you’re all old and stuff…you’ve known him longer…”

“What’s your point?” He growled. “Other than being crass?”

“Can he change? Really?”

Arthur didn’t answer for the longest time. “We’ve all been changing because of this—with you as the glaring exception, as usual.”

“And how the hell did you change from all this?” Alfred said mutinously.

“Shouldn’t you be focusing on him, instead?”

“You’re more of an asshole, that’s obvious enough…”

They ran out of things to say to each other after that, so they tumbled into a stiff silence, which may have been for the better. If there had even been a conversation running between them, Alfred could no longer invest full attention to it, as he kept checking his watch and fidgeted at the payphone. Not that he was worried someone wouldn’t catch him in time for the flight…he was impossible to forget, after all. But every time he verified the time, his insides clenched around his digesting burger, and he became painfully aware of where he was going to be very soon.

“…Did you bring warm clothes?” Arthur asked out of nowhere.

“I have my jacket.”

Alfred thought he heard something suspiciously similar to Arthur’s palm colliding with his face. “It’s December, in bloody Russia. You’ll need more than that tacky leather jacket—not that I care,” he added. “On any other occasion I’d encourage you to learn your lesson. But you can’t bring an end to this ridiculous thing if you die from frostbite.”

“It’s not like I thought I’d be going to fucking Russia when I packed yesterday.”

He ruffled his own bangs and sighed. “Speaking of which…it’s almost time for me to go.”

‘Good luck’ would’ve been the appropriate response, but Arthur didn’t say it, and Alfred didn’t expect it.

Instead Arthur told him: “Remember everything I told you.”

And Alfred shut his eyes in a bit of a wince. “I’ll call you when I get home.”

Arthur was the first to hang up. Alfred had waited to see if he would say anything else, then lingered even after the click, until the flat line of the dial tone rang too obnoxiously in his ear. He replaced the phone on the receiver and stared at it, as if pulling their entire conversation over it back into his immediate thoughts.

Things were shifting in the world. Even he could sense it, despite Arthur insisting he was geographically near-sighted. He could see the changes in other places, but there was still a wall between him and Ivan: somehow he remained as untouchable as the boogeyman, or the distant nation of Malta.

He had gotten used to the idea of meeting intangible Ivan in an intangible location. In a place that was not familiar or symbolic to either of them. Now they were going to Moscow. It did not encourage bright, happy thoughts. To the contrary, actually…

He was quite possibly fucked.

Footnotes for the Chapter:

The Richard Lacayo quote at the very beginning comes from his article here, which I recommend to anyone who wants a well-written and detailed account of the Malta Summit.

The Malta Summit was a meeting between George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev a few weeks after the Berlin Wall was brought down. Some people call this the official end to the Cold War, or at least when things really turned around in east-west relations. Though there were a few members of the U.S. administration who for weeks beforehand were not optimistic at all about the summit. As Alfred told Arthur, they thought it was too soon for something like that, and the Soviets would just use it as an excuse to “grandstand.” Of course that was not the case.

There was another, very real “damper” on the Malta summit, and that was the weather. Which was shitty enough that the international media affectionately referred to it as the “Seasick Summit.” And Daddy Bush had arranged for the summit to take place on cruise ships that were anchored in Marsaxlokk Harbor, most likely an idea he got from Franklin D. Roosevelt. In reality there were no backup plans outside the demented “What if?” scope of this fanfiction, so a few of the meetings had to be postponed and rearranged.

England’s reference to Malta as a “former territory” of his refers to how in 1814, Malta became part of the British Empire due to the Treaty of Paris, and remained as such until the 1960’s. They played an important role in WWII, were awarded the George Cross for their courage, and the majority of people I’ve talked to were not aware of either where Malta is/that such a place existed. Like he’s the Canada of the Mediterranean or something…more to be said on Malta the nation-tan if/when I decide to go through with all the drabbles I keep coming up with for his history.

And the thing about the President being preoccupied with the Philippines refers to the 1989 coup attempt, which he was regularly updated on during the flight over. Wikipedia reference here