Drabbles by WhiteWings9

#1 - Stalingrad

A thud, a soldier felled; scramble for cover over screams of, "Sniper!" Gilbert, swearing violently, leapt to drag to the ground the fool who stood frozen, staring wildly about him; Ivan, who had been intent on picking off the boy next, relaxed the finger curled around the trigger – and smiled.

#2 - Königsberg
The little girl clutched tight to her teddy bear, staring with wide, innocent blue eyes at the kindly soldier offering her a piece of bread; Gilbert watched blankly over the scene, unable to believe that the Ivan with the child-like smile here had been the same Ivan who forcibly raped him the night before.

#3 - Moscow
Gilbert would have preferred to deliver the reports from his own office in Berlin, but Ivan never wanted to take the papers on his visits: "Bring it to me when you come to Moscow," he would say with a dismissive wave of his hand.

#4 - Berlin
The sun dipped into the horizon, painting the landscape red; not moving, not saying a word, Gilbert swigging from his beer can and Ivan tearing into a new packet of cigarettes; their feet dangling two-storey high up a shelled Berlin ruin.

A/n:
I'm so busy with university work, I really, really miss writing down my nonsense ;A;

So I bring you drabbles! These four scenes were something I dreamt up long ago but never got the chance to expand on them. And rather than let them fester and rot in my head, I wrote it down in between kanji revision and rote memorising - so I could plague the Internet with moar Russia x Prussia! 8D

Here are the historical backgrounds behind the scenes:

#1 – Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (1942-3) was the bloodiest battle during WW2. The city was first bombed to ruins with planes and tanks, and Nazi soldiers poured in to take over only to be caught in a deadly hide-and-seek game with Soviet infantry – more of this here: .org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad

On the Soviet side, snipers were famous and handsomely decorated for their efforts. One of the most famous snipers was Ivan Sidorenko, a self-trained sniper credited with five hundred confirmed kills by the end of the war. He also invented a way to hide the sniper rifle's flare, a dangerous giveaway of position to enemies, by tying a bit of rag to the muzzle (don't quite know how it works xD). He was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal in 1944 – more info here: .org/wiki/Ivan_Sidorenko

#2 – Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital city of East Prussia. It was a beautiful historical city with very pronounced German architecture, but it all vanished in 1944 under heavy British bombings. It is now modern Kaliningrad, a small pocket of Russian territory not connected to the main Russian landmass – trusty Wiki has more here: .org/wiki/Königsberg

East Prussians were the first to suffer the wrath of the Soviet; the soldiers, bruised from Nazi attacks in their motherland, found themselves surrounded with German luxury and went absolutely wild. Whilst there were many 'good', principled communists who don't believe in being destructive, there were also many who looted, raped and destroyed everything in their path. Treatment of German children were as varied – whilst there were those who killed children as a 'preventive measure' against future Nazi attacks, there were also many who took pity and gave them food.

#3 – Moscow
Not much historical background here. Gilbert is Ivan's lackey as the German Democratic Republic, and I could imagine Ivan trying to keep him close by forcing him to visit Moscow regularly =3

#4 – Berlin
Hmm, you can tell how sketchy my history gets the closer we get to the present… Berlin was heavily attacked as the Soviet encircled the city in 1945, and I am to understand the there were many buildings in East Berlin left in ruins even after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. After all the misery of WW2 and the Cold War, I want to believe that Gilbert and Ivan are on friendlier terms today.

The image of them sitting together on one of those ruined buildings was taken from a scene in 'Good Bye Lenin' (Becker, 2003), where Alex, an East German teenage boy, sat to smoke with his new girlfriend, Lara, hailing from the USSR. The building was used as a kind of underground rave place – thing. Should ask my mum how it was done in the 80s =3

I know I go on about the film in every other of my Russia x Prussia fics, but if you haven't seen it already you should! More info here: .com/title/tt0301357/

…oh dear god, the 'notes' are longer than the drabbles put together =_=

Ivan Braginski (Russia) and Gilbert Weilschmidt (Prussia) are character from Axis Powers Hetalia (c) Himaruya Hidekaz