RUSAME - one shots

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐟𝐞

Twelve minutes into a walk downtown, America gasped like he'd been jabbed with a branding iron and pulled on Russia's sleeve with both hands. "LOOK!"

"What? What is it?" Rus asked irritably, shrugging his jacket out of Ame's grasp. "Not another rat with garbage in its mouth, I hope, because I told you before. They are not worth yanking my arm off for."

"No, dummy. It's the new cafe! It's open!"

Russia lifted his eyes in the direction of America's pointing finger to a storefront nestled into the bristling shopping district— high and latticed windows, dark, varnished eaves with sharp Eastern European trim, and double doors painted enthusiastically turquoise, propped open with flowerpots.

"Charming," Rus murmured, rather mistrustfully, but Ame had already seized his hand and made to barrel across the street. "What— you want to go in?"

"You— nerd!! Why aren't you coming?" America spun to jerk on Russia's unmoving arm with both hands, teeth gritted. "We gotta go get ourselves a coffeeshop AU!!"

"Because you forgot magic word." Russia pulled his arm back, flinging Ame forward into his shoulder. "And what in hell is coffee A.U.?"

"HA! You'll find out!"

Inside, the cafe was stylishly dim, cool, and packed to the gills with a paralyzing number of familiar faces. Evidently every country on the globe had decided to attend the opening; the hoity-toity Europeans were clustered around a little round table, eating ratatouille on toast; most of the South Americans were hitting up the bartender, and a cool, quiet group from Africa surveyed the chaos from a table in the back, faces wreathed in steam from their shared plate of couscous and curry. Russia clenched his jaw and prayed that this coffee AU would be quick; if one more surreptitious whisper reached his ears he thought he might throw a chair.

"CANADA!" As per usual, America considered it his civic duty to be the loudest in a loud room. His flurry of punches to his brother's side, followed by an exuberant hip bump, looked somewhat painful to Russia's eyes, but Canada grinned and dug his knuckles into Ame's skull in what he'd call a noogie.

"Hey! You came! I was just going to go sit with— hello, Russia— I'm sitting with those guys, you should come!" Rus followed his gesture to a large, low wooden table, extra chairs scavenged from elsewhere in the cafe to fit everybody, a veritable sea of toothy smiles and hand-talkers, Mexico and Cuba, Costa Rica and Jamaica.

"Heyyy, all my favorite people!" America slung his narrow hips into an empty space on the bench seat, colliding with Guatemala.

"What is good! What goes on?" Mexico greeted, and Russia watched their two-minute long choreographed secret handshake in morose disbelief. Real chummy, those two.

"He was just barely trash talking him for like ten minutes," El Salvador murmured to Rus. That checked out. Russia had deduced that most countries found the American irritating, stuck up, and uncomfortably unpredictable. He knew better than anyone, though, how hard it was to hate him to his face; and anyway everyone always wanted him at their parties. For better or worse, there was nobody more entertaining.

"No— listen, it'll be good, I swear." Case in point, he was currently wrestling with Costa Rica for custody of his right hand, so he could read the palm. "Oooh. OOOH. You're going to die by choking on a Milk Dud. You eat a lot of Milk Duds, Rica?"

"Nahh," Costa Rica scoffed, and squinted hard at his own palm.

"Do mine," Canada demanded, and Russia half-listened to the story America began to spin about generationally cursed fast-food restaurant chains as he cast a jaded eye over the cafe's inhabitants.

Predictably enough, as soon as he looked out, dozens of pairs of eyes flicked studiously back down to their food and drinks. Russia and America? He could admit they made a weird-ass pairing. The gossips were going to have a f**king field day.

"Vodka," he muttered to Scotland, who had ambled up to take their order. "Make it strong." Scotland raised an eyebrow.

"Feeling like confirming some stereotypes, are we?"

"I am sure they do not pay you to make smart ass comments, da?"

"Nah. That bit's on the house." Scotland finished writing VODKA across his little notepad with an ironic flourish and moved along.

"Russia!" He turned, startled, to find Ame, along with the rest of the entire table, staring at him, expectant.

"Hm?"

"I have to read your palm now!"

"Bull sh!t, you have to read my palm. You cannot read palms at all." Russia swallowed, aware that forty percent of the cafe had half an eye on their interaction. He should be nicer. No. He should be meaner. He shouldn't be in here at all.

"WOW." America, of course, had no such reservations, one hand pressed to his heart melodramatically. "Look, Russki, I know you're jealous of my psychic powers but please try to be a little more mature about it. Now—"

Wordlessly, Rus let America take his wrist and flip it over, feeling oddly tense. There was nothing written in the lines of his palms. But saints almighty, America's warm, bony finger over his pulse was bound to be more telling. His heart had sped up already, something about the hypnotic rhythm Ame stroked over his knuckles without even realizing it. Could he tell?

America dug his too-long thumbnail into the spot next to the throbbing wrist vein, pinching it, and tipped a rapid, wicked smile up to Rus from where he'd bent over his palm. Yes. He could tell.

"Great balls of fire!" Ame announced, drawing back. "There's nothing there. He's just too mysterious and unreadable, everybody."

"Figures," Jamaica pronounced. Russia flexed all his fingers, shaking off the feeling of America's grip.

"I think that means that you suck at palm reading," he said, and Mexico threw his head back and laughed, slapping Jamaica's shoulder. The cafe rang with their joined uproar.

— [] —

Two tables over, France, Belgium, and Monaco, living their girl's day out to the fullest, sipped martinis through tiny straws and side-eyed the madness.

"Russia plus America. Would you ever have thought?" Belgium muttered, tweezing out a dripping slice of lime and squinting at it disdainfully. "Really. I didn't even know Russia liked boys."

Monaco scoffed. "Please. Look at him and tell me that's the face of a heterosexual."

All three peered over the rims of their cups, observing him— fur hat, fur collar, flinty eyes crinkled at the edges with a rusty, suppressed smile. His gaze flickered, just for a second, to America's laughing face, before he trained it on his vodka again, the corner of his mouth curling upwards. Belgium choked on the olive in her mouth.

"I'm an idiot. I'm literally blind."

"I've been telling you!" Monaco declared, gesturing wildly with her martini glass in hand. "He is well and truly smitten. My question is, like... how? How do they even interact?"

"Yeah, they're so different," Belgium mused, biting down pensively on the olive toothpick. Both turned their heads to look at France when she snorted.

"You two do not read enough," she pronounced, and took a long, satisfied sip of her drink. "That means those two are nothing less than soulmates. C'est comme ca."

— — —

a/n: guys i just realized NONE of my one shots pass the bechdel test wtf