Don't throw out my Legos

It was for the sixth night in a row Alfred found himself sitting on the floor of his living room, coffee table pushed to the side to make room for the extravagant build spread out on the wood floor. It wouldn't have taken him so long if he didn't have a "full-time job" to attend to during the day, and now he's hoping that he'll even be able to finish within the week.

He was prying two flat blocks apart with the lovely orange tool included in all of the new LEGO kits- thank god for those, he thought as he not-so-fondly remembered many a bent nail trying to pull stuck bricks apart by hand- when a voice behind him saying, "What are you doing?" make him shriek and sending both small pieces of plastic clattering across the hardwood. Some things he would own up to doing, like building with children's toys, but that god-awful sound was not one of them.

Alfred turned around slowly, not getting up from his cross legged spot on the floor. "Can I... help you?" He was greeted with platinum hair and more fabric than anyone should be legally allowed to wear and realized who was in his house- and how he must have got there. "You found the new key?"

"No, I broke the handle."

"Ah."

"You are constructing?"

He knew this conversation was about to go one of two ways, and his response here was vital to turning the tide- "I'm a Master Builder, cuckstain, what's it to you?"- and that wasn't the right answer.

"You're a master builder, eh? Like the children's movie?" Russia laughed, stepping back a few paces to get out of range of the other's swatting hands. "You wear those glasses to seem older but you're not fooling anyone."

"No, I'm just not fooling you," he grumbled in return, standing up from the floor and brushing himself off. He left his piles of beige rectangles woefully unorganized around the base of the model Colosseum to follow Ivan into the kitchen. Something about hospitality nagged at the back of his mind. "What are you doing here, anyway? Prostitutes in Russia gettin' too expensive?" He laughed and rapped his knuckles against the kitchen doorframe before walking in and getting out some of the fancy expensive coffee he saved for guests to set on, even though he didn't count on company actually staying to drink it.

"You shouldn't talk about yourself like that," Ivan replied, leaning back against the counter and folding his arms across his chest.

"Why do you care, you just made fun of me for being childish didn't you?"

"It is different, no? Because you are a child, but you are not promiscuous."

"How would you know?" It was at this point he realized almost everything he'd said up to this point was a question. "Doesn't matter, I don't care why you're here anyway." He pressed the button to start the coffee machine and turned around to face the other man in his kitchen, subconsciously mimicking his stance. "And I'm billing you for the door, bee tee dubs."

"If you don't really care why I am here, then why I am here does not matter."

"Good."

"Good."

Silence, uncomfortably.

"So I suppose you'll be staying here?" America asked to break the silence. He knew Ivan would have booked a pricy hotel room and would rather stay there, most likely, but something told him to ask.

"Is that an offer?" He quirked a brow.

"It can be."

-----

"But you don't know that there isn't a weird goop alien on the moon that can control your body like a puppet."

"Alfiya, I am certain that this is not possible."

Alfred threw a few pieces of popcorn at him. "You've never been to the moon so how do you know?"

"You have not either." He picked the pieces off of his shirt and popped them into his mouth. "I don't believe you would know what to do if you did find an alien." The self control required to not spill well protected national secrets in this moment was almost insurmountable. Almost.

Alfred checked the clock; it read 02:03. "It's awful late," he said, stretching out across the couch, "Which means we should probably head to bed soon, huh."

"I am still on my own time," he replied with a soft voice, "But if you are going to sleep I will retire to the guest room as well."

Alfred made a disappointed noise before he could stop himself, and his whole face immediately turned red, illuminated by the light coming from the TV (which he promptly turned off). Without a word to the further, he stood, and stiffly walked off, leaving Ivan to sit on the couch and figure out what exactly that meant.

Twenty minutes passed of Alfred staring, furious at himself, at the cieling, tucked tightly into his covers. "Did you have to sound so god damn desperate for interaction?" But the fury wore off, and eventually he started to doze, or come close to it, and he started to think about much more mundane things, like how he didn't have any milk so he would need to make a trip to the store early in the morning so he could make breakfast for-

Three knocks at his bedroom door. He shot up, fumbling for his glasses on the bedside table, before Ivan walked into the room. He said something softly but he was too far away for the American to hear it. He started to talk, but little came out, so he coughed to clear his throat and try again, "Can't hear ya, commie."

Instead of speaking up, he came to sit on the edge of the bed. "You sounded as though something were wrong earlier, and I... felt as though I could alleviate the situation or... something."

"I-I'm good, but thank you, I think?"

Russia sighed. "Look I know... well, my sisters keep to up to date on you, mostly." He said the next part quickly. "I know you've been having nightmares again and if you would like company for the night, you know, I could offer that to you, like we did when I..." he trailed off uncomfortably.

"A-actually," he mumbled, "I kinda would appreciate that I think."

-----

When he woke up in the morning, groggy and disoriented, in the arms of someone he hated to love, he smiled, and let himself fall back to sleep.