Don't throw out my Legos

Joe

I don't ever think of you, I got too much stuff to do. Should've left you back in school. Joseph, do you think I'm...

He hadn't left for two weeks. Something was weird about an unexpected, extended stay, and Alfred knew that this couldn't keep up. So, it was no surprise when he came back from his morning jog to find the other packed with printed out plane ticket in hand. The old man, he thought.

"Never thought you'd finally leave," he said, putting his jacket in the hall closet. "Gettin' tired of takin' care of you like some grandpa." Russia scoffed and shook his head, but opted for silence instead of some half comeback. America rubbed his hands together- a nervous habit. "I do appreciate you coming to visit," he said, in a small voice. "I don't really get visitors very often anymore."

"The others sometimes assume you'll be partying or hanging out with human friends that you so love to make."

"Yeah, well, there hasn't really been that much of that going on anywhere, has there?" It wasn't a question.

But, Russia answered anyway, "No."

Alfred shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor. "Well I gotta go take a shower, you'd better head out. Don't wanna miss your flight."

When he walked by, Russia stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. "Take care." It was a genuine gesture, he felt somewhere in his stomach, but didn't want to put too much merit into it. It was a temporary goodbye, he knew, and America also knew that he was being ridiculous, but having the other leave hurt something in him, so he didn't want to linger on it more than he had to.

"Yeah, whatever, old man," he said with half of a laugh, and retreated into the halls of his small urban house, leaving the other to see himself out.

The shower he took was unbearably hot, but it was easier to focus on the sensation than it was to focus on anything else. That, and it relaxed his muscles so that he wouldn't be any kind of sore the rest of the day. He got out, toweled himself off, and started getting dressed, when he heard his phone going off in the other room. It was probably something he didn't want to deal with, but he left to pick it up anyway. His contacts were out of date, so he didn't bother reading who was calling.

"Hey, Al, how are you?" It was his brother, sounding chipper.

"I'm doing fine," he replied, slowly and cautiously. "This is... out of the blue for you. It's awfully early."

"Well, I had to make sure your lazy ass was up, didn't I? You can't wake yourself up half the time."

America shifted the phone from one hand to the other. "I've been doing good about keeping a schedule recently. I go on runs in the morning and the evening."

"Yeah, sure you do. Runs to the liquor store, maybe."

"You know I don't drink anymore."

"Yeah, you 'don't drink anymore', you keep saying." The quotation marks were almost tangible, but he kept talking, not giving Alfred time to defend himself. "Anyway, I hear your boytoy has been over this month. What, can't find anyone willing to lower their standards enough to sleep with you domestically?"

Alfred felt his face get red. "It's not like that and you know it."

"Right," he said, drawn out and sarcastic, "I get it, you need money and he's the only one willing to deal with your dumb ass."

"I didn't ask for money," he said, less than half hearted. "I don't want to talk about this any more. What did you need?"

"Oh, just to make sure you hadn't blown yourself up from your own stupidity. And Francis was asking for you, said something about not being able to get ahold of someone else and wanted you to help. I told him you said he could stuff it where the sun don't shine, or somethin' stupid like that."

"I didn't say that," he mumbled, mostly to himself. "I'll call him after this and-"

"Alfred, do you really this he's going to believe a pathological liar over his favorite son." He didn't respond. "Well, anyway, if you're done wasting my time, unlike you, I have an in-tact country to run." The Canadian hung up, leaving him to stand silently with his phone in his hand and his pants unbuttoned in his bedroom doorway. The silence in the carpeted room was deafening, and he silently begged the heating system to kick on just so there would be something to break him out of this strange trance he found himself in.

A notification sound on his phone was jarring enough to let him break out of his frozen stupor, and he looked at his phone screen with vacant eyes for a moment, not really seeing it, before setting it on his dresser and sitting on the bed, back straight and hands on his knees. He rubbed his face, and tears threatened the corners of his eyes, so he took off his glasses and let them unfocus. Why this worked he wasn't sure, but after enough wet faced episodes you learn a thing or two.

"I know," he said to no one in particular, "How people talk about me when I'm not there. I'm stupid, but I'm not deaf." He looked around the room, at various pictures in frames, a piece of art or two, the titles of the books on his shelf that he hadn't read in decades. He looked at the handful of religious icons and symbols on the eastern wall, wondering which one would help him the most in this moment, not knowing which one to put his heart into. He couldn't help but think that there wasn't a god, at least not one for him.

Alfred took a deep breath and spread his hands out flat on the blanket underneath him. Destructive thoughts didn't warrant space in his mind, he reminded himself. Something about destructive spirals nagged at the back of his mind from some therapist or another that he'd seen throughout the years, and he slowly laid back, until he was touching as many things as possible. The first step was being physically present, he remembered.

"I am not inherently worth less than anyone else," he started, repeating the speech he had made for himself some years ago, "I am more than my perceived output. I am not made of the greater political schema. I am my own person, with merit and impact on more than just myself. My purpose is to make myself and my world better tomorrow than it was today, better today than it was yesterday." He repeated this a couple more times until he felt at least semi-normal again, and slid off of the bed and onto the floor. He looked around, eyesight still fuzzy without his glasses- long enough with them and he started needing real prescriptions.

He stood up, slowly, and put on his glasses, and a shirt, and grabbed something to chew on out of his bedside table drawer. The floors creaked quietly underneath him as he left the bedroom. There were puzzles in the closet, he remembered, that he hadn't worked on yet, so he made his way upstairs to grab one. "It's a real do-nothing day," he said weakly, but with the beginnings of a smile, then grabbed a thirteen-thousand piece puzzle from the bottom of the stack. This, at least, should keep him busy for a while.

"Then," he said, "Maybe I'll go visit a friend..."