Ex's to Lovers

Chapter 55

In Which Gilbert thinks Alfred Has Wierd Kinks - And A Quick PSA

Personally, Gilbert thought Ivan's behavior was kind of toxic and creepy, but since Alfred was surprisingly okay with it, he just mentally labeled it under "Alfred and Ivan's Wierd lover stuff" and decided to ignore it. Besides, Gilbert thought most things Ivan did was creepy or negative in some way, so he figured it was probably just him.

A quick PSA: This is in fact very toxic and creepy behavior. No one has the right to demand that of you, and you don't need to comply unless you feel safe and comfortable with it. Screw that asshole. However, in this Case, both the asshole and Alfred were missing key parts of their brains, which meant neither of them saw an issue. Rather, Alfred's biggest concern was how to face Ivan next, and what sort of nasty prank Ivan might play on him in revenge.

Most of Ivan's pranks were harmless, though annoying, though Alfred was still a little wary after that time Ivan tried to get him to eat blood soup which Ivan called "Borscht" and insisted was a popular dish back in his hometown in Russia, which Alfred wasn't buying.

Currently, Alfred was dealing with a strange arise of emotions which he either couldn't identify, or simply refused to. Unfortunately for him, these emotions tended to arise whenever he saw Ivan, which happened a lot since they shared several of the same classes. Ivan, for his part, was still icy cold towards Alfred, which was only unusual in that it was because of anger, and not annoyance like usual. Another unfortunate point for Alfred was that the majority of his schoolmates seemed to believe it was a lovers spat, which meant he kept getting unsolicited advice that he didn't want nor ask for, though he probably needed it.

"I'm sure he's just stressed because of the whole kidnapping thing," Toris tried to encourage Alfred, " He probably didn't mean to take it out on you."

"Whatever it was, it was probably your fault, so just apologize." Michelle wisely advised.

"You still owe me like fifty bucks," Yao added, which wasn't really advice in any way, "But if you test-run this new herbal medicine I made, I'll forget ten of it. Full disclosure: I'm not sure what the side-effects are." 

Alfred responded to the first two with a groan, and was stopped from accepting Yao's suspicious offer by the sudden appearance of Mathew, once again needless interfering (according to Alfred, at least). 

" Hey, Al, can we talk?"

At this point Alfred remembered his brother's supposed upcoming marriage he'd forgotten about in the midst of his recent chaos, and readily accepted Matthew's request in both apprehension and excitement, already preparing his caring speach and scolding for not talking to him about it in his head. He was sorely disappointed to find Matthew's topic of conversation was Alfred, not himself. 

"What's going on with you and Ivan this time? " 

Mathew got straight to the point with his brother. Alfred stopped wiping his sweaty palms on his pants and rehearsing his lines - "'I'd love to be your best man! I can't believe you didn't tell me sooner though! How could you? - and stared at Mathew rather like a deer in headlights. 

"I'd- what?" 

Mathew knew Alfred more than enough to tell that Alfred and Ivan hadn't just had an argument, but something more complicated. 

"You guys are being Wierd," Mathew insisted, "So tell me what's going on." 

If Alfred was smarter, he probably would have phrased things better. But as always, he didn't. 

"It's not me! It's Ivan who's being Wierd!"