My sister is odd....[Belarus] [Flashback]

(Russification: a form of cultural assimilation process during which non-Russian communities, voluntarily or not, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian one.)

This time, she'd do it.

The blond-haired girl with blue eyes (always a little out of focus now and always a little bit icy cold, but the second part is nothing new) and a precious ribbon tied into her hair taps her fingers against her leg as she paces. Yes. She would do it this time, and nothing would stop her. Her brother just didn't know what was good for them anymore. He was getting nearly as paranoid as she was, and Ivan wasn't meant to be paranoid. He was meant to be wary, but not this strange paranoia. Her lovely brother would not run away this time in fear. This time, she was quite sure of it.

Her skin was an ashen white. It didn't look quite right under the light, but she could ignore it, and her brother could too. She had been with him for years and years; certainly to him it felt like a (mind-breakingly) powerful eternity that they'd been together? She could hardly remember being without him. She didn't want to be without him. He was hers. Everyone had to see that. He was hers, no matter what Ukraine or Lithuania or anyone else said, he was hers. He had to be hers. He simply had to be, because they'd been together for too long. They'd been together a long, long, long time.

(Natalya couldn't remember. She couldn't remember. Natalya wasn't certain what she couldn't remember but some days she'd wake up and she couldn't remember. There was something, something missing... And Natalya would hardly say her own name, anymore. Her name shouldn't matter. But Natalya couldn't remember something. It hadn't been so long that she should have forgotten at all. She knew there had been something before, and that it had been important. Some days, she saw it clearly. Some days, Natalya saw clearly. But most days, her eyes were out of focus most days these days, too far out of focus.)

She stepped to the door. Her brother was upset today. Ivan was upset today. She didn't think he should have to be upset any longer. Didn't he have the family he so very wanted? (Didn't he have the family under his wing, didn't he have a family of people forgetting and remembering and quietly falling apart- no. They weren't falling apart at all. That was a dirty lie, wasn't it? Yes, wasn't it?) Oh, and he had her. He didn't have to be upset, because she wouldn't let him be upset. She wouldn't let him be upset and she was quite certain all she had to do was visit him, and then they'd all be okay. He wouldn't be worrying anymore.

She crept quietly into his room. He searched. She wondered what Ivan was looking for (sometimes she fought through the fog and wondered what she was looking for, too). There was something dark and shadowy around the room. She grabbed a knife, but she didn't know exactly why she had. There was something dark and shadowy around the room and it wasn't the lighting, it wasn't the lighting at all. It was a presence, but only Ivan mattered, only his presence mattered, she knew it to be true.

Only Ivan. And it would be Ivan and Her, one day. And she could make things perfect. Wouldn't that be nice? Everything would be perfect and they'd be together and he wanted her, she knew he did, he had to, right, that could be the only reason why he kept on telling her to speak Russian, Russian only, he had such a lovely language and she'd speak it for him if it made Ivan really want her, he had to want her, they had to be together, they simply had to be. She could barely remember anything else, see?

"Ivan," she whispered. "Ivan. Are you looking for it? Are you going to finally do it today?" She looked at him with half-clouded eyes and half-desperate ones. "I promise, everything will be perfect. We will finally be perfect." Because that was all he wanted, right? For her to be perfect, right?

(Perfect and Russian, you mean.)

Shut up.

Ivan was tearing apart his room. Ivan was going to hurt himself. Ivan had already hurt his painting, crashing against the ground, tearing apart. She would get it restored one day while he wasn't looking. He would like that, wouldn't he? He would like if she fixed the things he'd broken, wouldn't he? And then perhaps he could get to the part where he fixed the most important broken things of all. Yes. They could be together and everything would be fixed, wouldn't it? That was how it worked, wasn't it?

She wasn't supposed to be here. It would be a nice surprise, wouldn't it? She'd find whoever set up their schedules and fix it. Silly schedulers. They should know better, yes? She and Ivan were meant to be together and they had better not get in between them or else she would have to show them a lesson they wouldn't forget. It was too bad that she didn't know who was doing it. Otherwise, she would have taught them what they were doing wrong long ago.

But it had worked out! She had finished her business early. He'd been such an easy mark, such an easy man to worm information out of. She certainly knew how to seduce her marks if she needed to, after all, and when she had decided that wasn't quite enough, well, she could be very persuasive when she needed to. Funny. He had been screaming, and then he had been screaming again, but this time for a very different reason? Who knew that he had such a fear of needles? Well, of course she had. She made it a habit to know exactly what her marks needed in order to push them just right.

And oh, there was her brother now. He had noticed her. He needed to notice her more often. She tried oh so very hard for him. She just wanted them to be perfect, after all. What did she need to do in order to be perfect for him, anyway? How much more perfect could they be? They could be together and they'd both be perfect, she tried, she tried so very hard (she was forgetting something, she was forgetting something oh so very important but she could never quite forget it, oh no, oh no- what was it that she was called?).

(Natalya, wake up. Natalya, your head is always clearer just a few yards, no, just out of the house from him, away from his ghosts. But you don't seem to see us so well, anymore, do you? You just hear us whispering, always whispering, always our voices, you used to shut us out so well-)

Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!

(We mean well, sweetheart. He doesn't.)

No. SHUT UP!

"You're so clumsy, Vanya," she said, watching as he fell backwards. He was so very excited to see her (right?)! "It's okay. You do not need to say what you are looking for. You are ready, aren't you?" She nodded assuredly to herself. Yes. He must be ready. She was always ready, so why couldn't he be? "I've worked so hard to make everything perfect for you, after all. You want us to be perfect, don't you?"

But then she frowns. "Hm? Today is not the best day?" She frowns, pauses, and for a moment, her eyes clear."What is hurting you, Ivan?" Her voice, for a moment, is genuine. But then again- "I shall tear it down completely for you, yes?"

-then again, perhaps not.

Her brother always acted so strange nowadays. She didn't understand. He didn't have to act strange around her, yes? She was his sister! This was important. Of that, she was almost completely certain. She was his sister and she could also be so much more than that if he just asked. Actually, no. She wasn't going to have to wait for him to ask, was she? She could be so much more and he would thank her, later, because whether he realized it or not this is what he wanted, wasn't it? She could make him so happy!

(Whether he realizes it or not, this is what he gets, Natalya. You aren't much of a Natalya anymore, though. It's really quite the tragedy. He just wants his sister, but he doesn't seem to realize the way that it destroys you.)

I don't have to listen to you, you know.

(But you know we're right, don't you?)

No. See, they weren't right. She was fairly certain they had at least something wrong, because this had to be what Ivan wanted. There was simply no other answer. He wanted her to be perfect, and so she was perfect. And if she would be a little bit more perfect if she could be with Ivan, if she could be a little bit more perfect if she could be with Ivan, well, that's what he'd been trying to say, wasn't it? But he acted so strangely, and it made her upset. Sometimes, they weren't like this.

Yes. Sometimes, Natalya and Ivan weren't like this. Sometimes, the two of them would stand side-by-side, and Natalya would hold his hand and he wouldn't run away. But he didn't want Natalya. He never seemed to want Natalya anymore. He wanted something else. She could do that! She could be- she could be whatever it was that he wanted her to be and they'd be perfect.

(She did still want to be Natalya sometimes, too, but she didn't dare let herself really think about that.)

"You don't have to do this alone, you know. I know that things can be hard, but I could help you make everything perfect. Can't you tell we're perfect?" Her voice is nearly desperate, and it doesn't quite fit. She really does want to protect him, and she could be everything for him. He never seems to see that, he never seems to see that-

(Of course he won't. Did he see it with us?)

Quiet.

He picked himself off the ground and she tried to chase away the noise in her head again (she couldn't bother with being Natalya for him, not even when it slipped through the seams, not when he never wanted that). He walked towards her and her eyes grew wider, more intense, bright, but covered in ice and dust and fog. He pet her head from a distance and then she swept across the room, grabbing him in a tight hug.

"It was a long trip, but I made it because I knew I needed to be home for you sooner. You should give me harder things." She buried her face in his coat and let that chase away the endless noise. Everything could be okay, of that she was certain, if she just waited. And they could be together. They had always been meant to be together, the two of them. Hadn't they?

Her brother was so strange sometimes, shaking oddly whenever she came in. She would say that he was just excited to see her, but that might not be quite right. She was normally so good at reading people, reading him, that she should be able to see exactly what he meant just with a glance, but lately, in his house, she hadn't been shutting them out like she was supposed to. She was supposed to be able to ignore their voices, it was something she'd practice, compartmentalizing them away and making it so they never talked much to her at all. They were clearly what were confounding her ability to read him, making her want to lock the door and trap him in when he clearly didn't want to run at all, no matter what instincts tried to tell her, or what silly voices did.

(...whatever you say, dear.)

She gripped him tightly. He wouldn't be running (he could tear her apart if he wanted, she'd never be strong enough to pin him in place, but he wouldn't, he wouldn't!) from her. This way, there would be no absurd locked doors or face-reading abilities that suggested he only wanted to escape her. He clearly wanted her closer. Everything that he did said that he wanted her closer! That simply had to be the answer. There was no other logical response to (she's forgetting something) and (she's forgetting something very important) and (what is it that she should be remembering...?)

Still, her response to his question- that alone should have been warning enough for the both of them. "...I'm... not?" For a moment, she's very vulnerable, and she holds him even closer. "No. What am I saying? Of course I'm not, I certainly try hard enough for you. You do know that I do all of this for you, don't you?" She fingers a small blade hidden in her gloves. Her brother has been paranoid lately. So has she. She does not want to leave her brother (but then there's that horrifying cloudy fog of something she should very much know and the voices and she does not want to leave Ivan, not leave Ivan, but she doesn't really want to lose Natalya, either, but she has to, don't you see?)

Her eyes suddenly light up with an unholy gleam a moment later. Whatever self-doubt had briefly swallowed her-

(Briefly? Natalya, darling, I don't think it's stopped...)

-whatever self-doubt had briefly swallowed her-! She would not listen! Besides, Ivan had just made his intentions very clear to her-

(Natalya. No. He's just a paranoid bastard.)

-VERY CLEAR INDEED, and that gleam shone in her slightly cloudy eyes more brightly than it had any right to be shining. She looked Ivan in the eyes with that gleam, stepped back, and quirked an eyebrow. "Another room? Oh, certainly, Ivan dear~!" Because that had to be what he meant, no matter what else it could be. And she was so very ready. (Maybe she'd stop feeling so confused at last and remember, because he was trying to help her, make her better, and certainly he'd want her to remember, certainly he would.)

Only try? She frowned internally. He seemed to only want to acknowledge that she tried, but at least Ivan had seen that much. She must try harder. He would have to notice her more then, instead of glancing around the room like a small rat placed into a room of many cats. Although, "small rat" was wrong. Her brother was no small rat. Perhaps he was a dog, easily pretending to be frightened of the many cats before lunging? But no, many dogs were afraid of cats, so that was an especially poor metaphor... ah, no matter. Whatever he was looking for, she would help him find it.

She happily followed her brother out of the room. Yes, to another room, where they could do these things properly, be properly married, married, married (and there were certain things that had to be done when one was like that). He continued to walk oddly, to act oddly, but for Natalya, following a few paces behind her brother but refusing to let him escape, that would be okay. Everything would be completely and totally perfect, so very soon (even as she misses one of them shake her head with a disappointed, sad expression, and turn away).

And then suddenly, her brother's grip was on her arm, and it hurt, and her wild eyes narrowed, and her forearm would likely bruise later, and her eyes were suddenly quite narrow and cold because no matter what she tried to say sometimes she dropped a thousand degrees; Natalya refused to be hurt by the people closest to her. Her eyes narrowed and her expression dropped from whatever weird, intense, nearly flirtatious thing it had been before to a dark intensity, a narrow, unreadable, shut-off thing of mystery.

The ghosts are silent.

Acerbic and suddenly quite, quite angry, she turned her own narrow eyes straight up into her older brothers. They were a startlingly clear blue. A knife, one that might have already been there as a toy, a safety mechanism, is dropped into her hand. The black handle is held in a tight but ready grip, ready to throw it or to lunge with it. The latter is what she does, as suddenly, barely moving but a flicker, the tip of her knife is pressed right up against her brother's chest, a mere few inches from his throat. It's a knee-jerk reaction from Natalya but one she holds in place with a quiet snarl, refusing to back down.

"Oh, do tell," she whispers, and for that moment, her voice is all Natalya's. "'It's me?' You are implying that I even go near the little boy you play your games with? Or do you doubt my tendency for unflinching loyalty? Dearest brother, don't you know? I am only exactly what you made me into." She stands there for a moment, pure and bright and ever-so-dark and furious. For a moment, her eyes, icy-blue and icy-clear, flash in snippets of what's remembered, warnings and impressions and a great deal of pain and a name, not only a name but a language. "Я толькі тое, што вы зрабілі мяне," Natalya repeats in those syllables, everything in her stance glinting like hard edges and broken shards of glass.

And then the clouds return. They aren't all quite there. "Isn't this what you wanted with me? I can be something else, if you need me to." It's as though the words she'd spoken a moment ago would be knives against her tongue, the words of some foreign speaker; the Russian is flawless, and there's not even the slight accent Natalya would have once spoken with. "Just ask. I am always loyal, though, and do not imply otherwise." But there's something there, an edge to the way she speaks. An edge, a tottering edge. Her voice is hard and commanding, and there's something briefly missing. Natalya could not let those closest to her hurt her too badly (so she could not, either). Her eyes widen, and refill with the dark adoration from before (but to remember...)

The knife still lingers. The ghosts are silent. 

She was frustrated now, frustrated and angry. She loved her brother, but even when everything was at her foggiest, she hated this. His constant fear, his constant paranoia, it didn't become him well. It twisted the normally large, friendly features on his face into something that didn't seem to belong on the bear of a man. She fought not to take a step back, though even if she had tried to she was already against the wall. She fought not to pull the knife away that she still held there in some tiny hope that it would stop him from getting closer, because all of a sudden she very, very much didn't want him getting closer.

Ivan's eyes alone should have wondered, and she visibly winced in pain, not bothering to hide it, when his fingers dug deeper into her arm. Beneath him, it felt a little too long and a little too thin to stand up against his grip, practically cracking as she started to panic ever-so-slightly. But this was Ivan. She loved Ivan. He had to love her back, right? She was trying, why couldn't he ever seem to see that? He was always so paranoid, so worried, so she tried to be better, tried not to hurt him more, so why did it always seem to come back up to this? 

The defiant part of her wanted to protect herself now, reminded her that this wasn't normal. But the expression in his eyes and the air in the room suddenly made her feel weaker for that. She felt rather like she couldn't move. Just as she was about to say something else, she was suddenly slammed against the wall. He just kept talking, shouting at her- well, not shouting. It was worse. He was telling her that she was a disappointment, that she had somehow failed again, and even as she desperately shook her head as well as she could, gasping for air as his hand gripped around her throat, she couldn't quite get out what she was trying to say.

"Of course not," she gasped out, and it's Russian and it's pained and it's very much not-right. "Don't- I'm sorry-" she says, trying to get something out, but he's furious and it's not working.

Funnily enough, though, that's not what makes her snap.

What does make her snap is actually when her brother starts acting like she's always wanted him to except it's so very wrong that she breaks almost immediately out of the fog and stares at him and something twists. Her brother, he should know better. Because if there's anything that most people wouldn't guess but know to be true, something extremely ironic given the sort of reconnaissance mission she had been on hours before, something that should be obvious given what she does to Lithuania...

Natalya hated to be touched without permission, without her being in some degree of control. Even if it was innocent, she'd fight it. This wasn't innocent. It was practically painful to her. So when it happened, she reacted on instinct, and suddenly her knife had slashed against the wrist of the hand against her cheek and then jabbed into his palm and then very nearly slashed across his neck. And then she stopped, holding it there for just a second, just centimeters from his throat.

Her eyes widened. She dropped the knife. It clatters against the floor. Her fingers have blood on them. She completely freezes before starting to shake her head more violently than before, as if trying to deny what she just did, because no, wasn't this what she wanted? What had she just done? She still can't move properly, she's pressed against the wall, and she almost feels like she's having significantly more trouble breathing than before. Her eyes are wide and she's shaking her head, but she's nearly completely silent. 

What is she supposed to say after that...? 

She dropped to the ground like the knife she'd hurt her brother with, and although all she wants to feel is numb, her lungs burn as she draws in long, rasping, desperate, deep breaths. She still didn't understand what her brother was doing. She didn't even remember America's human name! What was she doing wrong? No, she knew exactly what she did wrong. She'd just stabbed her brother. What was she doing? What had she been thinking? She knew better, she wouldn't do that again, she shouldn't do that, she can't do that, not to him.

Sometimes, when people touched her, it felt like needles burning into her skin, and she reacted without thinking. She couldn't afford to be like that anymore, though. Not if it meant she'd hurt Ivan. She'd train it out of herself. She'd do it again and again until it was completely gone and then maybe everything would be okay again and she wouldn't have to worry anymore. She'd get rid of it. She wasn't sure how but she'd get rid of it, she'd get rid of it, she didn't want it if Ivan didn't like it.

She was crumpled against the ground, no longer pressed up against the wall as she looked at the blood on her hands with an expression of complete shock. She couldn't seem to roll quite out of it, the state of shock, the want to feel numb, and yet one of those bloody hands still automatically went up to her throat, touching it lightly to check for bruising, leaving little fingerprints each time she winced. Her mouth opened and closed several times, but she was so upset that no words would come out, no matter how much she choked for them. She couldn't remember Russian. She couldn't remember how to speak.

(...Natalya- Natalya? Oh, oh shit-)

She slowly curled into herself while her brother shook, and suddenly the lights were a little too bright and the floor was a little too cold and the fabric of her clothes was just a little too rough and the room presses against her, like a shadow. Shattered paint and canvas still seems to press into her back. It isn't there. The room is too dark and too bright, the colors are too many and too few, and she wants her own plain room full of sharp things where she can reach them and soft things that won't scratch against her skin. She looks up at her brother. She rubs her hands. She needs to get the blood off. It drips between her fingers and makes her shudder. It doesn't feel right. Nothing feels right.

She rubs her hands and looks at his judging eyes and shrinks. Her bravado is gone, and she wants to go somewhere no people are. There are people everywhere, here. They surround her and they whisper and no one else can see them, no one but her. She wonders if her brother knows. Her brother doesn't know. He gets taller instead, covering her eyes from the light but so covered in emotion and the lack of emotion that she feels like crying, she is actually crying, quietly, and the tears nearly burn her face as well. Her hands, they have blood on them, and it's slimy, disgusting, painful. It doesn't feel right. Nothing feels right.

He speaks and every word is distorted and presses, bursts against her ears. Everything is in the shadows. Nothing fits. There are too many voices, and he's shouting to be heard over them, even though he can't hear them, too. There are too many voices and too many people and he gets lost behind them and she cries out for him, though nothing comes out. She can't remember Belarusian. She can't remember how to speak. Her lips open and close and all she can make is incoherent noise, and she can't even hear it over everything else.

(NATALYA! You're in danger! Snap out of it!)

He reaches down and he grabs her hair and it hurts, everything hurts, even her sense of smell smells blood over and over again, everything hurts, and this time she screams out loud and it's incoherent and trying to say 'sorry, stop, stop, I'm sorry,' but she can't make the words, her lips can't seem to move and she can't remember how to say them, can't remember the right words to tell him how she didn't mean to, can't remember the right words and she doesn't understand why he seems to know the right words when nothing comes out straight and everything is shouting and it hurts and she's scared.

Sometimes, when people touched her, it felt like knives. Sometimes, though, when everything broke down, she broke down right with it, and the world turned into a painful place, and she wanted somewhere a little cold and a little empty where she didn't have to see and feel and taste and touch and smell everything that kept on hurting. It had been a long time. She'd worked very hard never to do so. Her brother had that effect on her, though. It was rare and it was hard to do, but he could have that effect on her because she'd built him to be her entire world. He was stability for her. He was a rock. He, she knew, would never really hurt her, even if how he acted seemed to. So this can't be right, and it hurts, and the whole world burns into her along the way, and she screams at him in syllables that mean nothing.

But somewhere along the way as he drags her onto the stairs, her body freezes.

(...sorry.)

Her body freezes and twitches in a way and she's suddenly completely silent, completely still, even as her brother drags her. And then her nails scratch into the ground with a terrible screeching and her feet slide against it with a terrible growling and she latches onto nothing at all in a way that she shouldn't be able to. She twists around and her expression, it's dark. It's like every shadow in the room has clung to her, making her glow with darkness. Mostly, though, it's her eyes. They aren't purple, and they aren't blue. 

They're red.

Her mouth opens and out spills a voice voice that, well, it comes from her and it's hers but it's not Natalya's at all. It doesn't belong. It sounds like needles against concrete, sliding metal, and a touch of whatever she's supposed to sound like anyway, all in her voice, but it's not. A voice slides out and she speaks:

"D͏̣̗͚̦̙̝o ̣̗̘̭͎̤͢y͡o̫̺̣̻̟u̻͖̗ͅ ̫̼k̠͓̦͕̩̬n͈ͅo͎̰̫̤͙̭̯w̤ ̩͖̤w̧h̦̰̫a̱̩̣̥͟t̟̱ ̺͓̯̝̣̟y̰͜o̻͓̯̱̞̗͝u̜̤̤̬͈͈'̗̩v̹̹̱e͚͙ ҉͎̜̜͕ḓ͡o̵n̡̲̥̪͕̥̳ͅe͇̪͖̠͞ ̵t̴̪̥͕̮͕̺̬o̫͜ ͠h͉̞͇͕͉̘̀e̱̳̩͖̺͠r̤̹̜ ̢m̮̝̟͇̤̣i̠͢n͚͇̱̺͍̳̘͡d͏̠̝͖?̸͖̗̰̺"