65 - Nothing To Fear
Title: Nothing To Fear
Characters: Russia/America, brief appearances by Poland and Prussia.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: 1983 - The United States and the Soviet Union have their closest brush with nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis. America notices after the fact.
TCE is co-written by wizzard890 and pyrrhiccomedy.
---
Moscow. November 7, 1983.
Russia felt his gun through the cloth as he buffed it. He ran his thumb into the sharp curve of the trigger, the harder square of the guard. It was clean. He had taken it apart into puzzle pieces and fit them all together again, over and over, all afternoon, until the sunlight began to fade through his office window. He went on shining it. He wanted to be able to see his reflection--distorted as it would be--in the metal when he took aim at America.
Would the impact shatter his glasses?
A trickle of ice water filled Russia's throat.
He took a hard breath, placed his gun before him on his desk, and pressed his spine into his chair. Shuddered, unseen by the others in the room. A creak, a click from the table by the window: Prussia and Poland cleaned their pistols by the fading light.
"He's paranoid," Poland whispered for the fifth time.
"No shit he's paranoid, just get your goddamned gun ready and do what he says." Prussia reached over Poland and seized a fresh rag. He snapped it in Poland's face.
They had been cloistered in Russia's office for hours, shut up with the stink of polish and the rattle of bullets and the shift and and snick of barrels and racked slides. Ugly burning cold beat down through the portrait window and made everyone's fingers ache. Russia could not bring himself to order them to stop talking. Silence gave him too much space to think.
America crept and skulked and crawled across Europe, and called it a drill. But (Russia rubbed his fingers into the grip of his gun, though he couldn't bring himself pick it up) Russia would be ready for him. Ready to--to...prove this wasn't happening.
To ask for an explanation.
To unholster his gun and sight along the barrel and--
He grit his teeth.
Poland and Prussia lapsed into tense bickering for a few minutes, then: "America says it's just a military exercise practice kind of thing."
Prussia rubbed his forehead with the side of his fist. A slick of gun oil smeared across his skin. "Your voice is so goddamned annoying."
"He's not gonna nuke us," Poland whispered. "You don't really think he's gonna nuke us?"
"How the fuck should I know? --You're doing it wrong, you're supposed to rack the slide before you do that--" Prussia reached for Poland's pistol.
Poland snatched it away. Bullets spun off the edge of the table and clattered across the floor. "Oh my God Prussia look what you did--You really think he's gonna nuke us?"
"You knocked the bullets off the--Jesus Christ, Poland, look, I don't know, but if I was gonna nuke us? I'd do it exactly like this." Prussia gestured around Russia's office with the grip of his gun. "I'd say it was just an exercise, nothing to worry about, don't anybody panic while I get everything into position and then wham, knock our teeth out before we get our guard up--"
"Yeah, I think by now I know how you would start an invasion--"
"He is planning to kill every one of us," Russia cut in. He raised his eyes, not his voice, and looked at his satellite states for the first time in hours. His office had gone dim. "That is what I've told you, and that is what you will tell yourselves. It is what we will be prepared for."
Poland pried himself half-around at the table and braced his elbow on the back of his chair. "Yeah, but you don't really think he will?"
Russia's lips tightened. His palms felt slick.
"I don't know," he said at last.
---
Moscow. November 25th, 1983.
It was November, and America stood on Russia's porch with his hands in his pockets, and he felt like an asshole. Again.
Poland opened the door, flinched against the cold, glanced America over, scowled, and slapped him across the face.
His ears rung. "Okay," America managed numbly.
"You scared the shit out of us!" Poland gripped the door until his knuckles went white. "You and your fucking exercises, Latvia has been like under the bed for a week and a half, and Liet's had to go back to a soft food diet 'cause of his stomach ulcers, and Prussia started putting on his goddamned opera at four in the morning again and Hungary tried to--"
"Yeah, um, sorry about that..." America nudged at his cheek with the back of his hand and peered over Poland's shoulder. "Can I, uh. I wanted to see Russia."
Poland didn't hit him again, which was nice. And he let him in, which was nicer, even though there were a few more bitchy comments, but America was getting used to those.
Inside, the house was dark and cold and quiet.
Poland put on a coat and left as soon as he'd deposited America in the living room hallway, "So you two complete downers, like, try not to break any of my shit."
America bit his lip and went into the living room. No lights were on. The furniture was empty. Russia sat on the floor in the dark in front of his empty fireplace, his head cradled between his hands.
America's heart went thump. "Hi," he offered.
An ugly shock rippled up Russia's back. His fingertips twitched and dug deeper against his hairline. "Go away."
America eased into the room. The carpet muffled the creak of the floorboards. "Look, I wanted to...um...apologize, I guess. I really didn't know you'd take that whole drill--take it seriously..."
Russia's head whipped up and around; he looked pale and drawn and raw with exhaustion. "What did you think I would do? Wait?" His voice was rough and shredded down the middle. "Pretend nothing was happening? While you were--you were--"
"Russia--" America dashed across the room and dropped to his knees at Russia's side. "It was just a practice exercise, I'm sorry I scared you, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean anything by it, honest--"
"You didn't mean anything by it?" Russia's eyes met America's, swimming and unfocused. "You were coming to kill me!"
"I wasn't, it was..." America got his arms around Russia's shoulders and squeezed. "It was just...practice..."
Russia's body bent in on itself. "Practice to kill me."
A long quiet. Russia's fingers crept up, hooked around America's chin, and tipped their gazes together. "I almost stopped you. Would it have still ben an exercise if I had?"
America touched his forehead against Russia's. His glasses chilled Russia's cheek. "I'm sorry. I know. I scared you. I didn't mean to. I didn't think--I really never even thought for a second that you'd believe that was for real."
Russia took a shallow breath. It came out soft, scattered across America's skin. "Why wouldn't I?"
A hesitation. "Don't I love you, beautiful?"
Russia flinched, in the corners of his eyes. "France was my best friend," he mumbled. "And I burned my land to ashes to keep it out of his hands."
Yeah but France is a prick--America stopped himself. Examined the dark grey buzz under his heart. He took a deep breath and looked down. "I know. You've got no reason to trust anybody."
Russia gripped the back of America's shirt, pulled the fabric taut between his shoulder blades. He anchored himself there. Breathed: "I saw you fire missiles at me. Last month."
America blinked. That grey buzz snapped into a whine. "What?"
"My early warning system picked up five separate launches." Russia's voice was strange; low and lost. It trembled around the edges. "In the middle of the night. And I didn't believe it. I could see them coming, and they were so fast, America..."
"You...you...wait..." America sat back on his heels and pushed his glasses up. "You saw missiles? You had a--an equipment malfunction or something..." He felt the blood drain out of his head so fast the floor jumped up at him. "Holy shit, that's a bad malfunction..."
Russia's head sank against America's shoulder. "I thought you were coming for me then, too."
America took his hand and knit their fingers together. "But you didn't fire back."
Russia's palm was freezing. He hitched it close to America's. "I couldn't."
"You didn't believe it was real?"
"...I couldn't."
America breathed out. "And...this time? If...you believed this time was real, I'd probably be dead..."
Russia sighed, soft and blue. "I hadn't decided yet." His fingers curled against America's back.
America nodded, and listened to the clock tick on the wall. It felt cold inside his skull.
Russia stirred after a few minutes. "You do."
America grazed his fingers across Russia's hair and settled in closer. Russia rested heavy and cool against his side. "I do what?"
"Love me," Russia mumbled. "You asked, before."
The chill in his brain was displaced by a hot, sharp glow. America drew a staggered breath and nuzzled in against Russia's cheek until his heart stopped pounding.
"I'm never going to hurt you like that, okay?"
"...All right." It wasn't an I believe you. But Russia's lips touched the side of America's neck.
America tugged off his glasses and nudged his cheek against Russia's. The left side of his teeth still hurt. He touched a kiss to the seam of Russia's hair and breathed out, "All right."
+++
--Able Archer 83 was a widescale, high level NATO command post exercise intended to simulate a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. It was so convincing that the Soviet leadership (particularly General Secretary Yuri Andropov) believed the exercise might be a smokescreen for an actual attack. The Soviet military was put on high alert, and nuclear-capable aircraft in Poland and the GDR were made ready for a potential preemptive strike. The threat abruptly dissipated when the exercise ended on November 12th. While less famous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, Able Archer 83 was as close as the Cold War superpowers ever came to an actual nuclear exchange.
--When he learned how the Soviets had reacted to the exercise, President Ronald Reagan was surprised and dismayed. He is quoted as saying:
"Three years had taught me something surprising about the Russians: Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of America and Americans. Perhaps this shouldn't have surprised me, but it did… During my first years in Washington, I think many of us in the administration took it for granted that the Russians, like ourselves, considered it unthinkable that the United States would launch a first strike against them. But the more experience I had with Soviet leaders and other heads of state who knew them, the more I began to realize that many Soviet officials feared us not only as adversaries but as potential aggressors who might hurl nuclear weapons at them in a first strike… Well, if that was the case, I was even more anxious to get a top Soviet leader in a room alone and try to convince him we had no designs on the Soviet Union and Russians had nothing to fear from us."
Cold War historians suspect that the near-miss of Able Archer 83 prompted Reagan to shift from a policy of confrontation with the USSR, to a policy of rapprochment.
--"Just three weeks ago, I saw you fire missiles at me." The Stanislav Petrov Incident was another nuclear near-miss. On September 26, 1983, Soviet early warning systems detected the launch of several American nuclear missiles. Petrov correctly ignored the warning as an equipment malfunction instead of reporting it to his superiors. His decision may have prevented an erroneous retaliatory attack on the United States and its allies.
+++
Please read our Rules & FAQ before posting. / Пожалуйста, прочтите Правила и FAQ прежде чем комментировать.
This is a chapter from The Chosen End, a Russia/America collaboration spanning from 1780 to the present day. You can read all of the fics in this story at the Index.
Characters: Russia/America, brief appearances by Poland and Prussia.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: 1983 - The United States and the Soviet Union have their closest brush with nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis. America notices after the fact.
TCE is co-written by wizzard890 and pyrrhiccomedy.
---
Moscow. November 7, 1983.
Russia felt his gun through the cloth as he buffed it. He ran his thumb into the sharp curve of the trigger, the harder square of the guard. It was clean. He had taken it apart into puzzle pieces and fit them all together again, over and over, all afternoon, until the sunlight began to fade through his office window. He went on shining it. He wanted to be able to see his reflection--distorted as it would be--in the metal when he took aim at America.
Would the impact shatter his glasses?
A trickle of ice water filled Russia's throat.
He took a hard breath, placed his gun before him on his desk, and pressed his spine into his chair. Shuddered, unseen by the others in the room. A creak, a click from the table by the window: Prussia and Poland cleaned their pistols by the fading light.
"He's paranoid," Poland whispered for the fifth time.
"No shit he's paranoid, just get your goddamned gun ready and do what he says." Prussia reached over Poland and seized a fresh rag. He snapped it in Poland's face.
They had been cloistered in Russia's office for hours, shut up with the stink of polish and the rattle of bullets and the shift and and snick of barrels and racked slides. Ugly burning cold beat down through the portrait window and made everyone's fingers ache. Russia could not bring himself to order them to stop talking. Silence gave him too much space to think.
America crept and skulked and crawled across Europe, and called it a drill. But (Russia rubbed his fingers into the grip of his gun, though he couldn't bring himself pick it up) Russia would be ready for him. Ready to--to...prove this wasn't happening.
To ask for an explanation.
To unholster his gun and sight along the barrel and--
He grit his teeth.
Poland and Prussia lapsed into tense bickering for a few minutes, then: "America says it's just a military exercise practice kind of thing."
Prussia rubbed his forehead with the side of his fist. A slick of gun oil smeared across his skin. "Your voice is so goddamned annoying."
"He's not gonna nuke us," Poland whispered. "You don't really think he's gonna nuke us?"
"How the fuck should I know? --You're doing it wrong, you're supposed to rack the slide before you do that--" Prussia reached for Poland's pistol.
Poland snatched it away. Bullets spun off the edge of the table and clattered across the floor. "Oh my God Prussia look what you did--You really think he's gonna nuke us?"
"You knocked the bullets off the--Jesus Christ, Poland, look, I don't know, but if I was gonna nuke us? I'd do it exactly like this." Prussia gestured around Russia's office with the grip of his gun. "I'd say it was just an exercise, nothing to worry about, don't anybody panic while I get everything into position and then wham, knock our teeth out before we get our guard up--"
"Yeah, I think by now I know how you would start an invasion--"
"He is planning to kill every one of us," Russia cut in. He raised his eyes, not his voice, and looked at his satellite states for the first time in hours. His office had gone dim. "That is what I've told you, and that is what you will tell yourselves. It is what we will be prepared for."
Poland pried himself half-around at the table and braced his elbow on the back of his chair. "Yeah, but you don't really think he will?"
Russia's lips tightened. His palms felt slick.
"I don't know," he said at last.
---
Moscow. November 25th, 1983.
It was November, and America stood on Russia's porch with his hands in his pockets, and he felt like an asshole. Again.
Poland opened the door, flinched against the cold, glanced America over, scowled, and slapped him across the face.
His ears rung. "Okay," America managed numbly.
"You scared the shit out of us!" Poland gripped the door until his knuckles went white. "You and your fucking exercises, Latvia has been like under the bed for a week and a half, and Liet's had to go back to a soft food diet 'cause of his stomach ulcers, and Prussia started putting on his goddamned opera at four in the morning again and Hungary tried to--"
"Yeah, um, sorry about that..." America nudged at his cheek with the back of his hand and peered over Poland's shoulder. "Can I, uh. I wanted to see Russia."
Poland didn't hit him again, which was nice. And he let him in, which was nicer, even though there were a few more bitchy comments, but America was getting used to those.
Inside, the house was dark and cold and quiet.
Poland put on a coat and left as soon as he'd deposited America in the living room hallway, "So you two complete downers, like, try not to break any of my shit."
America bit his lip and went into the living room. No lights were on. The furniture was empty. Russia sat on the floor in the dark in front of his empty fireplace, his head cradled between his hands.
America's heart went thump. "Hi," he offered.
An ugly shock rippled up Russia's back. His fingertips twitched and dug deeper against his hairline. "Go away."
America eased into the room. The carpet muffled the creak of the floorboards. "Look, I wanted to...um...apologize, I guess. I really didn't know you'd take that whole drill--take it seriously..."
Russia's head whipped up and around; he looked pale and drawn and raw with exhaustion. "What did you think I would do? Wait?" His voice was rough and shredded down the middle. "Pretend nothing was happening? While you were--you were--"
"Russia--" America dashed across the room and dropped to his knees at Russia's side. "It was just a practice exercise, I'm sorry I scared you, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean anything by it, honest--"
"You didn't mean anything by it?" Russia's eyes met America's, swimming and unfocused. "You were coming to kill me!"
"I wasn't, it was..." America got his arms around Russia's shoulders and squeezed. "It was just...practice..."
Russia's body bent in on itself. "Practice to kill me."
A long quiet. Russia's fingers crept up, hooked around America's chin, and tipped their gazes together. "I almost stopped you. Would it have still ben an exercise if I had?"
America touched his forehead against Russia's. His glasses chilled Russia's cheek. "I'm sorry. I know. I scared you. I didn't mean to. I didn't think--I really never even thought for a second that you'd believe that was for real."
Russia took a shallow breath. It came out soft, scattered across America's skin. "Why wouldn't I?"
A hesitation. "Don't I love you, beautiful?"
Russia flinched, in the corners of his eyes. "France was my best friend," he mumbled. "And I burned my land to ashes to keep it out of his hands."
Yeah but France is a prick--America stopped himself. Examined the dark grey buzz under his heart. He took a deep breath and looked down. "I know. You've got no reason to trust anybody."
Russia gripped the back of America's shirt, pulled the fabric taut between his shoulder blades. He anchored himself there. Breathed: "I saw you fire missiles at me. Last month."
America blinked. That grey buzz snapped into a whine. "What?"
"My early warning system picked up five separate launches." Russia's voice was strange; low and lost. It trembled around the edges. "In the middle of the night. And I didn't believe it. I could see them coming, and they were so fast, America..."
"You...you...wait..." America sat back on his heels and pushed his glasses up. "You saw missiles? You had a--an equipment malfunction or something..." He felt the blood drain out of his head so fast the floor jumped up at him. "Holy shit, that's a bad malfunction..."
Russia's head sank against America's shoulder. "I thought you were coming for me then, too."
America took his hand and knit their fingers together. "But you didn't fire back."
Russia's palm was freezing. He hitched it close to America's. "I couldn't."
"You didn't believe it was real?"
"...I couldn't."
America breathed out. "And...this time? If...you believed this time was real, I'd probably be dead..."
Russia sighed, soft and blue. "I hadn't decided yet." His fingers curled against America's back.
America nodded, and listened to the clock tick on the wall. It felt cold inside his skull.
Russia stirred after a few minutes. "You do."
America grazed his fingers across Russia's hair and settled in closer. Russia rested heavy and cool against his side. "I do what?"
"Love me," Russia mumbled. "You asked, before."
The chill in his brain was displaced by a hot, sharp glow. America drew a staggered breath and nuzzled in against Russia's cheek until his heart stopped pounding.
"I'm never going to hurt you like that, okay?"
"...All right." It wasn't an I believe you. But Russia's lips touched the side of America's neck.
America tugged off his glasses and nudged his cheek against Russia's. The left side of his teeth still hurt. He touched a kiss to the seam of Russia's hair and breathed out, "All right."
+++
--Able Archer 83 was a widescale, high level NATO command post exercise intended to simulate a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. It was so convincing that the Soviet leadership (particularly General Secretary Yuri Andropov) believed the exercise might be a smokescreen for an actual attack. The Soviet military was put on high alert, and nuclear-capable aircraft in Poland and the GDR were made ready for a potential preemptive strike. The threat abruptly dissipated when the exercise ended on November 12th. While less famous than the Cuban Missile Crisis, Able Archer 83 was as close as the Cold War superpowers ever came to an actual nuclear exchange.
--When he learned how the Soviets had reacted to the exercise, President Ronald Reagan was surprised and dismayed. He is quoted as saying:
"Three years had taught me something surprising about the Russians: Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of America and Americans. Perhaps this shouldn't have surprised me, but it did… During my first years in Washington, I think many of us in the administration took it for granted that the Russians, like ourselves, considered it unthinkable that the United States would launch a first strike against them. But the more experience I had with Soviet leaders and other heads of state who knew them, the more I began to realize that many Soviet officials feared us not only as adversaries but as potential aggressors who might hurl nuclear weapons at them in a first strike… Well, if that was the case, I was even more anxious to get a top Soviet leader in a room alone and try to convince him we had no designs on the Soviet Union and Russians had nothing to fear from us."
Cold War historians suspect that the near-miss of Able Archer 83 prompted Reagan to shift from a policy of confrontation with the USSR, to a policy of rapprochment.
--"Just three weeks ago, I saw you fire missiles at me." The Stanislav Petrov Incident was another nuclear near-miss. On September 26, 1983, Soviet early warning systems detected the launch of several American nuclear missiles. Petrov correctly ignored the warning as an equipment malfunction instead of reporting it to his superiors. His decision may have prevented an erroneous retaliatory attack on the United States and its allies.
+++
Please read our Rules & FAQ before posting. / Пожалуйста, прочтите Правила и FAQ прежде чем комментировать.
This is a chapter from The Chosen End, a Russia/America collaboration spanning from 1780 to the present day. You can read all of the fics in this story at the Index.