Prompt: Finding out the other has an unexpected skill (needlepoint? sailing? anything!)

Recipient:  Piratecat 

A/N: I let this one get away from me a little, this year, but hopefully it’s still alright enough that you enjoy it! Happy Holiday, Hannah, and I wish you the best for the New Year! n.n~

The snow was coming down in sheets.

Lovino always hated being here at this time of year, when it was too cold and the roads were impossible to drive on. Loud trucks would roam outside at night and steal from him his beauty sleep with their bothersome lights flashing through the cracks of the blinds. He could live without it – How many years had he had to do so in his youth? - but it didn’t make him any less irritated at the horrible state of things. Even most of the residents of this place had no problem with agreeing whenever he expressed his disgust in the fluffy white flakes that covered the steel and glass buildings in which they lived their lives.

But still, every year without fail, Alfred invited Lovino back. Invited him home, as the American so cheerfully liked to refer to it as, even though he knew fully well that a proud Italian man like himself would sooner die than recognize foreign soil as his home. He can’t help thinking that the younger nation must be using some kind of slang when he says it, because when they spend summer days on the beaches of Capri it fluidly turns into sweet summer nights where Alfred would smile at him softly and suggest they go home, which never failed to make Lovino’s heart flutter a little.

It’s these memories that he holds onto now, as it’s the only thing keeping him sane in this frozen hell. He knew that his partner could be a little on the clueless side every now and again, but certainly even America can see the issue with inviting a Mediterranean to any place where the temperature frequently drops below fifty?

“Apparently not,” Lovino grumbled to himself, pulling the thick blanket around his frame a little tighter. His glare was trained on the window that he sat beside, sending his curses out to the weather beyond the glass barrier. He wondered when Alfred would be home, because whenever that ended up being was also when the idiot was about to get his ass kicked for making this man suffer so.

As if on cue, the front door opened and Lovino could just barely hear the wind whistling outside over the crackling of the fake fireplace Alfred had playing on his television in the other room. When Lovino had questioned him about such a useless practice, the American had quoted the necessity for ambiance and he really just hadn’t had the energy left to argue such a claim.

“Lovi! I’m home!” Alfred called, knocking his boots against the doorframe and loosening the snow stuck to them before stepping further into the house. He repeated the process again on the mat set out before the door, creating little piles of the white offenders in his very own house.

“Porca miseria! Close the door, Al! I haven’t lived this long to go by freezing to death!”

Alfred - instead of feeling any sort of sympathy for the poor Italian and his plight - simply laughed, but thankfully he had enough decency to do as asked and closed the door behind him before kneeling down in the front foyer to untie the laces on his thick, brown snow boots. He dusted the snow that had collected on the furry bit near the top before pulling his foot free of the shoe at last, only to repeat the process with the other. By this time, Lovino had emerged from his window perched to the doorframe connecting to the two rooms, leaning against it while still wrapped in his fuzzy cocoon. When his feet were finally free, Alfred set them aside on a mat filled with their various shoes and moved to hang up his coat.

“Is that the mail?” Lovino inquired, nodding towards a stack of boxes and envelopes sitting on the small table beside the door, nearly threatening to evict the key dish from it’s rightful place. Alfred dropped his own set into that very dish before retrieving the pile and moving across the room.

“Yep!” Alfred chirped, shuffling through the various letters. “Most of them seem to just be letters or bills… Oh! This one is from the Obamas! I hope they’re having a happy holiday.” The western most nation moved in for a kiss on the Italian’s cheek, which he was just a touch to slow to evade. The other’s freezing face touched the Italian’s skin and he let out a shriek of horror and frustration.

“Cazzo! Stronzo! Mi stai rompendo i coglioni!” Lovino hissed, loosening his enclosure just enough to land a punch on the nearest part of his partner that he could. Alfred had managed to turn his body to take the brute of it upon his shoulder. Again, no remorse was to be had; Only laughter. “You try that shit again I’m gonna make you sleep on the couch!”

“You’re gonna make me sleep on the couch in my own house?” Alfred countered, hiding his obvious amusement with a fist to his mouth. Nothing could be done for the clear emotion in his eyes.

“Absolutely I will! Don’t test me!”

“I’m not, Babe. I’m sorry.”

“You better be!”

“I am.”

“Good!”

There was a moment there were they just stared at each other, with Lovino giving his very best of a try me look and Alfred swallowing his laughter, but eventually the Italian simply folded his arms and turned his attention down to the other things in his partner’s hands.

“What about the box?” he asked, referring to a small box also in Alfred’s hands, which rattled every time it was moved and gave off a sort of metallic sound. Alfred flipped it around as he asked this, curiously.

“Oh!” he exclaimed, excitement written across his face, “It’s from Arthur! It must be those cookies he promised me!” Reaching into his pocket, Alfred pulled out his pocket knife and started tearing into the box with all the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas morning. Lovino was less thrilled, his nose crinkled in disgust.

“What am I, your mother? You should know better than to be eating anything that man gives you!” Lovino scolded, reaching out and swiping the box out of the American’s hands as soon as he’d managed to pry the top open.

“Lovi! Wait! They’re really not that bad! Lemme show you?” Alfred held out his hands for the box. The other would not be so easily tempted away from them.

“Alfred,” he began, gently so that he was certain the clearly idiotic nation would understand him. “You know I love you, but so help me if you try and get me to eat one of these I promise you I’m going to-“

“Hon, it’s really not-”

“Alfred! Do I have to pull them out and show you how bad they are? Because I can do that! I can absolutely do that!”

“If you’d just-“

“Here I go! I’m opening them!” The Italian reached into the box and pried off the lid of the metal tin waiting inside. He expected to see burnt charcoal within but was surprised what he found instead. “See? They’re pitch… Huh?”

“I tried to tell you,” Alfred replied, taking Lovino’s flabbergasted pause to reach in and grab himself a cookie, which he then proceeded to shove into his mouth. “Arthur is actually surprisingly good at baking.”

The American reached for a second, but Lovino had recovered enough by this point to smack his hand away, earning himself a pout from the nation. “Just because they don’t look like shit doesn’t suddenly mean they are edible. You’re gonna die if you go eating strange things.”

“I haven’t died eating his food thus far, I highly doubt that I’m suddenly gonna start showing symptoms, now.” He made another move to snatch the desserts and this time Lovino evaded him by shifting to the left to bodily block any further attempts.

“When you suddenly develop a heart condition and go blind, you better not expect me to sit at your bedside and give you any sympathy,” Lovino returned with a huff.

“That is not gonna happen because I’m gonna be young and powerful forever,” Alfred snarked back. Lovino simply gave this a judgemental glance and the American sighed. “Lovi… Just try one? You’re gonna be surprised.”

“I’m gonna be dead is what I’m gonna be,” he grumbled, but Alfred just shot the nation a pleading look and Lovino groaned in defeat. “Fine… One! But then you have to cover all the medical bills.”

“Fair,” the American agreed. Lovino hesitantly took one of the cookies out of the tin and inspected it for any flaws. Unable to find any sizable enough to bring attention to, he took a small bite of the offending dessert. Alfred watched on with curious interest. “Well?”

The first bite was surprisingly good and so Lovino went for a second… And a third… And then he was reaching into the tin for another one of the cookies with determination. “Like I said; Absolute shit. I better hold onto these just so you don’t hurt yourself trying to eat them.”

“What? No fair!”

“I’ve officially confiscated them!”

“Hey! It’s Christmas! You have to share!”

—

The tin sat empty in the middle of the living room coffee table, resting beside two empty mugs of what had once been coffee. Two nations sat curled up on the couch, staring longingly at it while the credits for some cheesy Christmas classic that Alfred had insisted on played in the background.

“I hate to admit it,” Lovino said, turning the tin over and finding not even crumbs falling out of it; Alfred’s cat had come by and relieved them of those some time ago. “But I’m kinda disappointed that they’re gone. Maybe we should suck up to the eyebrow bastard so he’ll send us more of them.”

“I guess,” Alfred shrugged. “Or we could just make them ourselves… Your plan sounds easier, though.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t know the recipe for these things,” Lovino insisted. “You think I would have eaten any of them if I could just have made them myself?”

Alfred gave him a funny look. “Maybe not, but I do.”

“What?”

“Arthur taught me.”

“What!?”

“Yeah. He showed me how a couple decades ago; Said something about passing on the family secrets to his little brother or whatever that means.”

“WHAT?!”

Alfred gave the other a confused look, his brow furrowing. “I don’t see why this is such a surprise to you, Lovi. We both know he’s a sentimental old geezer.”

“No! Not that! I can’t believe you’ve known how to make these things this entire time and not once did you give me any!”

“Oh. Uh… Sorry? I can make them for you now if you want?”

Lovino held up the empty tin, with a very pointed look in his eye. “I want.”

Alfred laughed, taking the Italians hand and pulling him to his feet. “Come on… Just don’t tell Arthur I told you the recipe after we’re done here, alright? He told me if I started telling his secrets to other people he was gonna hex me or something and I really don’t wanna know what that means.”

“I won’t,” Lovino promised, allowing himself to be dragged towards the kitchen, sparing only a moment’s glance back towards the window where the world still was encased in a flurry of white.