Love The Stars Too Fondly

I owe replies to: 

@cupcakes-and-british-tea (won’t let me @ you for some reason?)

@lilyintheashes 

I owe starters for:

@gildedscripture

​@bellasognatrice

The pause stretches out and Alfred’s smile ever so slowly shifts into a mild frown, his brow furrowing.  His fingers twitch in irritation, rapping slightly out of sync for the tune he’d been tapping originally.  

Finally, he sighs.  The paranoia is rampant, scratching through his head while everything screams to never admit that he needs or wants anything like that.  It’s so easy to satisfy the material needs, to be greedy for food and clothes and games--

Because he didn’t want the rejection.  

Alfred sighs again.  

He’d been staring for a little too long, probably.  His curiosity had a tendency to slide into the unintentionally rude category with that persistent gaze.  All because of a simple question he mulled over whether he should ask or not.

It’s not like he hadn’t been so busy he’d been ditching speaking to anyone outside of meetings for a long while.  It’s not like randomly talking to someone was unlike him.  There really wasn’t any reason to hesitate and prolonging this before he’d made a decision could turn into a flash of older days, more suspicious gazes across crowds in a dance he’d experienced too many times with various countries and their city-states--

No, now he had to say something.  With a wide smile and his overly friendly wave, he closed the distance.

Alfred proceeds to crush this ask, rip it into a million pieces and then throws it into the trash.

Reply if you have a specific thing you wanna thread, historically-based, hijinks or otherwise

“I am in abundant pain, America. Thank you for asking! Please say, ‘fine, thank you!’“

“Fine, thank you!”   Alfred paused for a time before arching a brow.  Without moving, he was clearly about to ask what neither of them really wanted - Alfred probably didn’t want to know that much and Ivan probably (not that Alfred had a clue for sure what his view was at all) didn’t want him to ask.  

“Is always winter somewhere, America!”