RUSAME - one shots

shashlyki [II]

The smoke having died to a manageable amount, Russia squatted to dig a haunch of raw beef out of the ice cooler, his brisk movements halting when he glimpsed the slack-jawed, wrinkled-nosed look of pure and utter shock and horror on America's face. Crickets sawed out a morose chorus in the awkward moment of eye contact; silence that it fell to Russia, once again, to break.

"Okay." He threw the meat back down onto the ice. "What is it?"

"Is that... what. Is that? Why did you bring that? You never told me you were a cannibal."

"Christ Almighty." He pinched the bridge of his nose against the ominous stirrings of a headache. "This is a cow."

America shuddered visibly. "Why EVER did you bring him?" Russia looked down at the meat, and then back at Ame.

"My plus one, of course. America, Saint's sake. To eat."

"RAW?!"

Nostrils flaring, Russia dragged the back of his hand over his face and turned back to the cooler. "I have this great idea where you become quiet and let me do what I have to."

"Pffft. Okay." To his mild surprise, Ame flopped down onto the matted grass on his back to observe the handful of enterprising stars in the dusky, pale blue sky. As Russia began to carve the meat into cubes, a rare and companionable silence settled between them for a record high of probably forty-five seconds before America opened his mouth. "I'm sorry I always piss you off all the time, Russki." He squinted, studiously, at the moon, and Russia looked to him, eyes wide, knife limp in his fingers. "It's my most horrid habit. How about you slap me really hard on the wrist every time I be annoying and then we can kinda Pavlov it out from there."

"Tch." America looked up, cross-eyed, at the iron skewer, meticulously lined with cubes of beef, that Rus proffered him, handle-first. "I am not doing that." He pulled America to his feet, and his hand lingered there for just a moment, a reluctant softness in his eyes. "Your constant pathological need for attention cannot possibly be solved by something that simple." Briefly, he spread a palm over the top of America's head like it was a basketball. "Lobotomy, maybe."

"Heeeyyy," America protested, scowling, and fended off Russia's arm with the skewer with the grace of a fencer before he stopped long enough to observe what was on it with widening eyes. "Oh, dude. These look pretty nice and cool, Rus. Can we sword fight?"

"You can sword fight." Russia sat down by the fire, turning away so America wouldn't see his lopsided smile. "Be my guest. Your loss, though. They are delicious."

"Okay. Okay, I'll try it."

"Good," Rus said absently, and in the lull that followed, rotated his skewer two and a half times before the silence grew abnormal, and then suspicious. He whirled to see Ame, one eye twitching, cheeks puffed out, and a significant absence at the tip of his skewer. Russia leapt to his feet. "Tell me you did not just put one of those in your mouth."

"Mmfhgh." Giving a weak thumbs-up, America nodded.

"What in heaven's name is wrong with you?! Spit that out RIGHT now."

America did so at once, watery blood dribbling from the tip of his tongue into the bushes, and Russia spread his white-knuckled hand over one side of his face. "Why the HELL—"

"I THOUGHT YOU SAID—"

"NO! I DID NOT SAY EAT RAW BEEF!"

"Okay, my bad, I thought it was like— you know?!"

"Nyet, America, I do not!"

Ame gestured frantically with his hands. "Like— something fancy and gourmet like raw sushi or something from where you live I don't know!!"

"What the hell did you think fire was for?"

"Camping ambience?"

"ACH. No, luchik. I must show you everything? Fine. Come, see." He took America by the elbow, sitting them both by the fire in an attitude of slow, wide-eyed demonstration. "Stick over fire, see? To make it hot. Then you turn—"

America slapped his free hand to his forehead, hard. "KEBABS." Spitting the last of the meat juice wrathfully into the nearby underbrush, he turned heartbroken eyes on Russia. "Why oh why didn't you just say they were kebabs?!"

"They are called shashlyki," Russia replied, oddly unable to return his eyes to the fire.

"Well that's just confusing, then," America pronounced, wrinkling his nose, before he lit up. "Oh! If we're roasting stuff then I brought some too! Hold that." Without waiting for an answer, he shoved the skewer into the crook of Russia's arm and raced off into the growing blue dark. Following a long period of distant and alarming crashes, he raced back to the fireside with a bag of marshmallows, a sleeve of graham crackers, and, to Rus's utter, utter disbelief, a silver-wrapped Hershey's kiss bigger than America's head.

"I am dreaming," he muttered, when America threw his load down at the both of their feet and sat down once more. "Of the nightmare variety."

"Yeah," Ame said ruefully, scratching the back of his neck. "Canada gave me that and I really don't know what to do with it. I was trying to kinda gnaw a piece of the top when I was really sad but I felt too much like a rat."

Russia coughed to hide his laughter. "You are... putting that over the fire?"

"Heck no! I'm gonna make s'mores. The part you roast is the marshmallow."

Russia must have looked a bit too blank when America dangled the bag triumphantly in front of his face, because Ame's eyes went huge.

"Do NOT tell me you guys don't have marshmallows back home."

"We have those, sure," Rus said, nonplussed, running a hand across the back of his neck. "Why you would put them over fire I do not understand. It is... soft like chewing gum, no?"

"I mean... I guess?"

"Would you cook your chewing gum over fire? I think not."

"That actually sounds kinda good," America muttered, putting two fingertips to his lips in an attitude of deep thought, before shaking it off. "But marshmallows are way different though cause you roast them, and then the outside gets all crispy and brown and the inside is goopy and sooo good, I'm going to pass out. It's delicious. And then you put it in one of these graham crackers with chocolate and then it gets in your hands and your hair and it's worth it."

"Mm." Russia watched America plunge two of the enormous marshmallows onto a roasting stick and thrust them merrily into the flames. "That has got to be the most diabetic thing I have ever heard. You pick three random desserts and shake them together, no order, no reason? They were not good enough on their own?"

"Yeahh, you get it," Ame said approvingly, and blew out the flames engulfing his blackened marshmallows.

"Right. God bless America." Russia turned back to his shashlyk, which was beginning to hiss and pop.

"Thanks!"

— — —

translations

 stoludovo - kinda like a Hell Yeah vibe

shashlyki - its just kebabs

part 3 probably up soon just bc I wrote it already and I want u to see it