RUSAME - one shots

𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 (part iv)

!! content warning for medical scenes including blood and pain !! please put your mental health first

— [] —

The motel smelled like sweat and potpourri, and the hallways were long, narrow, and high-ceilinged, jaundiced lightbulbs flickering imperceptibly. Russia stepped over the charred corpses of four enormous moths below, turning the room key over and over in his hand.

Getting into the motel had been almost disturbingly simple. He'd had an arm around America's shoulders holding him upright, though his head lolled like his neck was made of yarn; though the coat he'd put over him covered most of the gashes but the blood down his face was still evident, the traces black as ink in the yellowed light. Russia'd kept a hand in his pocket on the last round in the tiny pistol just in case the meager disguise didn't fool somebody. The guy at the front desk, though, was high off his ass and more than half asleep. He checked them in without question and Russia left him there mumbling, loopy, to himself.

"Love who you love, man," the guy called backward, inanely. Whatever the hell that had to do with him.

Rus stepped into the cramped room allotted to them, kicked the door shut, and locked it. Stripped the bed, wrinkling his nose at the mattress stains, and set America down, and then he rolled his sleeves to the elbow and lit a cigarette.

Bad habit, yeah. As if this motel needed to smell worse than it already did. It would steady his hands, though, he justified as he snapped the curtains shut, flicked on the bedside lamp, and sat heavily on a chair next to the bed.

As a final 'f-ck-you' from fate, America was burning up with fever already. Smoke curled out of Russia's nostrils as he placed a hesitant hand on his forehead, swallowing hard as America's head turned unconsciously in his direction.

F-ck. This was about to really, really suck.

He stubbed the cigarette out on the bedside table, a reedy thread of smoke trailing still from the ashes, and crouched to throw open the door to the mini fridge, observing the contents through narrowed eyes. Ah. There it was. Russia pulled out a bottle of Stolich as long as his forearm by the neck and popped it. Yeah. This would do.

"Okay, America," he murmured, and sat behind him with his back against the headboard. "C'mere." Pulling him up under the arms, Russia tipped America's head back by the chin and poured two shots down his throat. "Best anesthesia I have got." America coughed weakly as Rus undid the coat, laying bare the gashes across his chest, sternum, his neck. They were going rust-colored, pus weeping from the biggest ones.  Damn it.

To tear his eyes away, Russia stripped free a pillowcase and twisted it in his hands, before pressing it gently into America's mouth, thumbs lingering at the corners.

"You will want to bite that."

Shifting so he knelt over America, one knee on either side of his body, Russia bit down on his knuckle. Maybe he'd thought about this before. His annoying-ass mission partner getting knocked down a peg, anything to wipe that smug look off his face just for a second.

Well. His wish had come true, as they often do. America was slack-jawed, locked in the hellscape of some comatose fever dream, an upset crease in his forehead already. The rise and fall of his chest was shallow and too fast. And all it was doing for Russia was making knots in his stomach.

He was going to fix this.

Without letting himself doubt it, he leaned forward, tore a square out of the rolled-up bedsheet, and doused it in vodka.

"Bozhe, Pozhaluysta."

The yell that wrenched from America's chest as Russia pressed the disinfectant to the first cut must have torn holes in his vocal cords. His eyes flew open, fluttering madly, rolled to the whites in the throes of his unconsciousness. Rus leaned forward to press one hand over his mouth, squeezing blood and alcohol out of the other one.