Hetalia Oneshots

Russia - Count on Me

Song: Бери шинель, пошли домой (Take Your Trench Coat - Let's Go Home) - Bulat Okudzhava

Art by: eteru666 (Twitter)

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Ivan's P.O.V

Fyodor's body laid lifeless before my eyes.

"Fyedya!" I stopped my retreat with the other soldiers as soon as I saw him, and knelt down on the mud, patting him and checking his pulse, desperate to know whether he was alive.

But he was dead.

I felt all my life drain away.

Fyodor was my best friend. Our friendship began when we were children. Seeing his dead body made my insides twist and churn even though as we retreated, I had already seen many corpses of my fellow Russians, both soldiers and civilians.

I tearfully tore off the name patch from his uniform and put it in my pocket. One last look at his body, I saw holes in his chest and stomach.

Vital organs. I winced and quickly got up. I joined the other soldiers and civilians in the retreat, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from falling.

I wished I could carry him with me, or at least give him a proper burial. But I couldn't. Duty called and I had to go.

He'll be buried by more mud, or eaten by scavenging animals, destroyed... From dust we were formed and to dust we shall return.

As I trudged along, I thought of ____, who was Fyodor's wife and also my childhood friend, and couldn't bear to think of how she would react to her husband's death, especially when she was pregnant. My chest ached for her.

-

We may have won the war, but Russia lost a chunk of its citizens. Among the mourning families, peace also settled as the country focused on rebuilding itself from the ruins.

When I returned from my duty as a soldier, I visited _____, my stomach churning as I stood at her door with the sole purpose of breaking to her the tragic news.

I knocked. The sound of hurried footsteps could be heard, and the door opened.

I saw her, eyes tired and sleepy, her face thin, and her pregnant belly bulging over her dress and apron. When Fyodor and I left, she was only a few weeks pregnant. There was a smile on her face, but it faltered slightly upon seeing me.

"Vanya! Welcome back!" she smiled, and I gave her a half-smile.

"I'm back," I said gravely, heart pounding in my chest.

"What about Fyedya?" she asked, looking around, "Why isn't he with you? I thought you would come together,"

I gulped. She noticed my grim face and my silence and asked, "Vanya, what happened?"

"Fyodor..." I said, a sob choking my throat, "Is dead,"

The moment I said those words, I saw the life disappear from her eyes. She stared at me in shock.

"Fyedya, dead? This cannot be!" she trembled, her hands instinctively going to her belly.

She looked at my face searchingly, almost as if she wanted me to tell her I was joking. But my grim face remained the same as I rummaged in my pocket and pulled out his name patch.

"I brought this back for you," I said, taking her hand and placing it on her palm, "He was dead when I found him. Shot in the chest and stomach,"

She held the patch which read "Fyodor Borisovich Smirnov" and traced the embroidery with her trembling fingers, breaking down in tears and wails.