note that didn’t fit into the writing anywhere without sounding clunky and weird: THEY’RE SPEAKING FRENCH
“Um,” Russia manages to squeak out over the lip of his teacup, “what did Francis want to talk to me about?” Because they talk, of course, all the time! About politics and war and shopping and who should do the dishes. This time, though, it had been scheduled, the day cleared so they could talk, which was just strange…
The set of France’s face was very serious, too. Russia’s stomach felt a little uncomfortable, the way France was looking at him, so he gulp down some more of the tea. “Listen, I’ll — be kind, and not drag this out. We aren’t, ah, going to work out.”
Russia sips more tea, not quite understanding the words. “How do you mean?”
“It’s… what it sounds like,” France clarifies with a wave of his hand. “I hate to, I do, you have to understand that if I thought we would be able to salvage — but it’s been long enough, and I… am not as optimistic as I perhaps once was. And, ah, Germany has been rather harsh with me on this point. England, too, although I suspect he takes any excuse to ridicule me.”
His eyebrow raised, Russia sets his cup down, lest it break in his increasingly strong grip. He’s not sure what’s being said, but it is making him very angry on some base level. “You’re rambling, Francis.”
The man across the table blinks. “I — I am, yes. I apologize,” he says (and it’s very sincere, Russia can tell). “Russia, I’m… breaking up with you.”
…he’s at a loss, really, and that may make the conversation awkward but really it’s France’s fault for st-starting it, by saying that, so he doesn’t feel sorry about it! Let it be awkward, let his response hang in the air; he doesn’t understand —
“I-I don’t understand…” His voice is wobbly and unsure. It’s embarrassing. But he’s — he’s so happy, with France, so why?
There’s a sigh, long-suffering, and Russia bitterly wonders how long this has been a plan. Has he gone months on the cusp of being broken up with and not known? Awful! This was awful! “Russia, please, I am sorry —”
“If you were sorry then you wouldn’t want to in the first place!”
“No, sweet, I… you misunderstand me, I think. I lov— that is I still very much like… you, I as Francis enjoy coming home to you, to your ways, but I am not Francis, I am France…”
Russia has, has heard this before, from others; he hated it just the same then, but he chokes down the feeling of rising tears. “We can stay together a-as Francis and Ivan, it doesn’t have to go this way!”
He sees the expression on France’s face and knows. That he wasn’t the first of the two of them to consider that, and also that it isn’t going to happen. So he stands from the table instead, leaving his chair pushed out at an angle, and feels his expression set into an emotionless mask. “I tried, back then, France. I bought the clothes and the makeup and learned how to dance like a Parisian and I fixed my government and —”
"Russia, Russia, please, that was the eighteenth century —”
"And it may as well still be, don’t you think?”
Russia’s heart hurt, it was beating faster and harder than it had in years and it ripped a pain through his chest like nothing he’d felt since 1991, and yet there was a dark, cold part of it that rejoiced at the way France’s face fell.
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