LithuaniaXBelarus or TorisXNatalia. My OTP! Please note that I'm an AP English student, and I use fanfics (though I've only written a few) to practice my creative writing skills. So if you notice a literary device of some kind, it may not be coincidental :D But don't expect anything from me…

Story By SweetVerses (Naitengale)

Disclaimer: If I owned Axis Powers Hetalia...this story wouldn't be on fanfiction freakin' dot net, would it?

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~ One ~

Toris Laurinaitis and Natalia Arlovskaya are seeing red, in different meanings of the idiom.

The brown-haired Lithuanian can feel the hot blood rushing to his face when her platinum blonde hair flutters past him. In the disoriented moment, he can see the faint pinkish-red light fall across her, and in a bough of wishful thinking he often believes there is a soft peach hue blooming along her ghostly-white cheekbones. There is always, without fail, a similar color making its way just below his glimmering eyes.

The young White Russian woman glazes over everyone she sees with an icy stare, much like the precarious icicles dangling from her roof, ready to take a victim. She hardly knows a warm color; the passionate glow of flame has never flickered in her lavender eyes, and for many years she believed the blood swimming in her veins was the dark blue of a winter sky. It was only when she merged with the other Soviets that she began to feel the uncontrollable, evil flame for that man welling inside her core, scalding her heart. Her brother, her protector, her only "friend" had allies more important than her. With her pride crushed, and her heart melted into a slimy paste, she would march past her brother's favorite "friend", that pathetic excuse for a man, and see him violently washed in the steaming red fire behind her eyes. The red of Hell's volcanoes burst into thoughts of torturing him, stabbing him, evil thoughts that crowded out the icy wasteland her mind once was. She seemed externally to be a quiet, perhaps shy girl with a sweet blue dress and a white bow in her crème-colored hair. When she passed him, however, the searing blaze erupted inside of her again, and she was enraged with the poor man for being her brother's favorite. She saw the blood pouring out of him as she sliced his disgusting skin apart like paper; she saw red.

Toris works a 24-hour-shift at the Soviet house; midnight to midnight every day, even Sundays, he cleans, he cooks, he does the menial tasks that would have brought him such shame in the days of his power. When he is finished his tasks – which was rare, considering the enormous size of the mansion – he sleeps an hour or two at a time. He is awake at midnight every night, the only conscious one in a lonely house. The daydreams that filled the air during that Cinderella hour were nearly palpable, and you could taste the sadness, the loneliness; if you concentrated, it is possible you might sense the silky white of Miss Natalia's hair swaying as she touched her imagined lips to his. He often sat at the table with his tea and drank her image into himself.

It was storming one night, the wind and snow pounding at the enormous glass windows, nearly chipping them. Toris barely noticed it as he poured his tea and added a swish of crème. During the day, he took his tea black, but when the grey sun disappeared and everyone in the house shifted to their rooms, he needed something sweeter to brave the silence. The sweetened milk flowed into his teacup and he thought of her swinging hair, just then realizing that he didn't even really like his tea with crème. He really just wanted to watch the liquid splendor cascade like silky blanched locks falling across a bedspread and have another reason to dream again…

He heard an icy whisper from the grand staircase in an instant that threw him off guard.

Toris thought, mixing reality with his thoughts, that he recognized the sweet sound. He shivered with anxiety and crept to the edge of the kitchen entryway, peering into the desolate darkness. The scarlet halo of candlelight tinted the young woman's thin white nightgown and her harrowing face a dusky pink. Toris squinted into the dreamlike scene to find if it was real, and discovered that the tears gathering in her eyes were also dyed a shade of red.

Toris inhaled sharply at the sight of his love's sullen eyes, and at the sound of his breath, Natalia turned and glared at him with embarrassed fury. They were frozen there, staring at each other with wrath in one face and surprise at being caught in the other. The seconds passed without making their presence know, until Natalia could not hold it in any longer. She hardly stifled her deep sob as she turned away from Toris and the candlelight and let the tears fall from her lavender irises as quietly as possibly. The Lithuanian, forgetting his shyness at witnessing the girl in such pain, ran to her and knelt on the step below her. Her sparkling hands swatted him away, but he understood, and sat there examining her haunting beauty. Behind her closed eyes the red was burning again, the hatred for letting her brother disregard her like an old toy. Ivan left her cold and alone; she was so vulnerable without her brother. She was broken.

After minutes of violent, restrained sobbing, Natalia grew weary and began the slow descent into serenity, still letting the tears drip off her delicate chin. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the worried face of the man sitting in front of her, his eyebrows tilted in empathetic concern. She was tired and sleepy, and was nearly nodding off when she slowly lifted both her arms out to Toris. He looked surprised and started trembling in embarrassment. But Natalia, the silent murderess-like girl, was so tired of sobbing that all she desired at that moment was a protective embrace. She reached for Toris, disregarding all the pain he caused her, just needing to be held. He blushed as he silently drew his arms around her small frame and she clasped her hands across his back. She is so small, he thought, holding her close enough to feel her heart beating in time to the slow whimpering into his shoulder. The crying sounds eventually faded into sleep, and Toris smiled and blew out the candle as he placed his free arm under her knees. He carried her up the enormous staircase into her room, placed her on the bed, and stood over her for a minute or two. After a minute of just gazing at her silent figure, he leant down and lightly grazed her pristinely white forehead with his lips. He swore to himself there that in the moonlight emerging from the dispersing storm, a quick flash of light pink filled her cheeks and her lips quivered into the shape of a slight smile.