66 → 31_days - December 1

[paella]

Title: Maybe It's the Warmer Climate
Day/Theme: December 1 - there's no rush for the year to pass
Series: Axis Powers Hetalia
Character/Pairing: America, Belarus
Rating: PG
Summary: America goes to visit Belarus just before the year changes.

America usually was overjoyed with the coming of winter - snow falling, presents getting wrapped, the cheer in the air - it was a good time of year. But, after all the cheer and splendor of the holidays died down, he had felt like he had nothing to do. Then, it was just winter - cold, miserable, lonely... It just plain sucked.

So, when he wasn't holing himself up under blankets and almost willing for spring to come early to his land (who said global warming was all bad, anyway!), he tried his best to try to be at other nation's houses and just occupy his mind with better things. Like the company of other people and the warmth of their houses and hearts. Which is why he usually visited somewhere south - or at least somewhere that didn't revel in the winter as much as his lands could.

What possessed him to visit Belarus, then, was beyond him. Because, goddamn, it was cold.

His boss had been muttering frequently about the continued underhanded dealings the country was making, and kept begging him to see if he could get the icy girl to change her attitude. (Because, clearly, influencing the nation would influence the boss, right? Right?) He wasn't exactly happy with the idea (or with his boss at the moment, quite frankly), but he swallowed his complaints and used it as an excuse to flee from the solitary state winter usually put him in.

Belarus, he discovered, relished in the cold solitary state during the winter. And she was none too pleased to see him at her doorstep, just a week before the New Years holidays.

She had hissed at him, and spat any insult she could muster it seemed before he wormed his way in, trying very hard to avoid those sharp looking eyes that promised knives if he moved but a toe out of place. But, he didn't see a dreary house like he had expected, honestly. Instead, he was wowed by how she was decorating her house in preparation for New Years and the Epiphany, and he could feel the excitement stirring all around him again - just like back home for Christmas.

So, he suddenly had that big grin all over his face again, and ran around, trying to help her (and failing horribly) with her strange decorations and her strange traditions (well, strange to him, anyway).

But, at the same time, he saw the unrest in her eyes - her worried face as she hung her old and fragile decorations, the stiffness in her voice when she heard her Brother would soon be coming to call, the cold glint in her eyes when he would ask her what was wrong. Then, he heard the unrest on her streets, the almost momentary glimpses of a second (older) flag, and he could suddenly understand the tenseness in her bones.

He sat with her across her table, both sipping a hot cup of tea. She looked tired, she looked worried, and she even had ignored the glittery flower he had tucked in her hair when he had been "helping" her decorate.

"I do not wish for this year to end just yet."

He looked up from his tea, a curious expression across his face. "Why's that?"

"...It feels..." she trailed off, focusing on her cup. "Somehow unfinished."

He paused, too. He knew that feeling - he still felt that feeling so often - far too well for his liking. He knew that she really must be restless to be talking to him about this - after all, their political relationship was growing more and more strained as the years passed. So, he gave her a soft sort of smile, hoping to let her know he could understand. "I know the feeling."

"No, it is not-" she began, but she stopped sort, catching the look in his eyes. Her mouth closed, forming that familiar fine line he usually saw. She did not answer, and went back to looking at her tea, but he knew she understood him.

He extended one hand, very cautiously but still there, and touched the back of her own gently. She did not shake it off, although she did frown again, using her other hand to sip her tea quietly. "You will correct the strange way you have hung my decorations in the foyer," was all she said, and he gave a laugh, promising that he'd do it.

Company really was nice during the winter, he thought. And maybe this strange girl's company as the year changed wasn't bad at all.

Although, the glare in her eyes when he joked about getting her a ring as a gift after she saw him in her mirror trick was one of his funniest memories of the New Year.

Yup, I fail. This would be set more around when Bush was in office, since that was when America really started to take her seriously? Idk. Also, excuse my fail knowledge of Belarussian culture, ugh.

unrest in Belarus - Actually, there's a lot of unrest in the country against the current government. There are a lot of movements in Belarus that are not fond of the totalitarianism that Lukashenko has in place, and they use the old flag - and not the rehashed Soviet one - as a sort of symbol in their protests.

New Years and the Epiphany - Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, and other nations do not actually celebrate Christmas, but more so celebrate New Years and then the Epiphany (December 7). Although, a lot of the celebrations are rather simliar to Christmas ones - tree, food, church, etc.

after she saw him in her mirror trick - I probably have this horribly wrong, but I did read about a tradition in which a girl will look into a set of mirrors, and the belief is that if two of the mirrors are set up just right, she will see her future husband. I probably should've left this out...