His finger hovered uncertainly above the call button before he pressed the key and held the phone to his ear with some trepidation.

A cold, clipped voice came over the phone. "Russia speaking."

"I-Ivan? Are you there?"

His voice was uncertain and weak, and he knew it was not America speaking to him, but Alfred. "да, Alfred. I am here."

He swallowed the lump in his throat and whispered, "How are you?"

So many ways to answer. He sighed. Life was tolerable, his people were of average contentment, but Ivan? Ivan was confused. He wanted to know if they could forget, if maybe he felt the same…

"Fine. My country is running as smoothly as to be expected. You?"

He sucked in a shaky breath. Fine, he could say. He could say fine, and let the conversation wear on to more pleasant topics. But Alfred was not fine, no, he wasn't. He so wanted to hear his voice, the little giggle he gave at the end of a statement usually accompanied by a 'да.'

He wanted what they had before he had started to hate him. When had that started? It had always been doomed. His sadistic, negative nature often was at odds with his own personality. Doomed, like fire and water, to use a cliché. One of them would eventually triumph, having destroyed the other, and he could just lie and watch him leave.

If only he could just hold him, just see him smile onc.e more. But he remembered what he had done to him and the world, what they had done as countries, and he could not suppress the shivery triumph in seeing his pain.

"I…I'm not fine."

There was something mumbled on the other line, but he pushed on, the words spilling from his mouth in a rush.

"Because I want to see you again. Because I wish things could be like they were before the First World War and before we started to hate each other." The line went dead, but he paid it no mind. "I wish I could tell you, and I wish I could be brave enough to ask. Because-"

He choked back a sob, whispering over the dial tone and the dead connection,

"I love you."

Angst...

Oh, I'm back everyone! Was on my other account (...) and now I've got writer's block and I've got a cold, but I had this idea and decided to finish it up. *sniffles miserably* Getting sick sucks. It's an entire fucking fellatio party. Yup.

...do I make any sense anymore? No, not really. *massages temples* I want to diiee...