Wherever

Horrors and New Things

Alfred woke up late. By late he means at literally 1:30 in the afternoon. He sighed, he was never allowed to stay in bed this late. Damn Mattie had it good sometimes. He stretched out and cracked his back. He pulled on a shirt from Mattew's drawer and pulled on his combat boots.

It had been about a week since the whole Antonio incident and six days since their dinner with Ivan and his family. To keep away from Antonio Alfred has been spending the time when Antonio was around at Ivan's place.

Honestly, it helped him relax. It let Alfred be Alfred. He always felt stressed when he was talking or even sitting, like he was doing it wrong. But Ivan didn't know Matthew, he knew the Alfred version of Matthew who wasn't anything like him. He was literally just himself but with a different name. Ivan became his stress reliever, and it was vice verse.

Apparently Ivan was stressed from the move. After all he had to learn a new language as well as getting used to a brand new culture. Alfred couldn't imagine the stress he was under, he didn't have his parents and now he was in a new strange country. Honestly, Alfred was doing the same thing. He had to learn french and now he was in Canada. Although it wasn't much different from America. At least, what he had seen. But he was here by choice, Ivan was here because things at home were rocky and Kat had gotten a better job offer in Canada.

Alfred was over a lot. Not that Kat nor Ivan minded. Kat was just happy to see Ivan making friends. Even back at home he had difficulty making them. Ivan was happy to have a friend. They got along great actually, both were competitive and shared the love of stars and space. Alfred actually had plans to become an astrophysicist, maybe even become an astronaut one day. Ivan shared his love of space, but like more of the technical aspects. He would rather build a spaceship than actually fly in one. Alfred joked about him being the one to build the ship he was going to fly to space in. Ivan simply rolled his eyes and called Alfred too ambitious. Or even silly Canadian a few times. Honestly that was more of an insult than the silly part. Kidding.

But in all honesty, Alfred was falling. Hard and fast. Which was stupid because he would have eventually go back to America. There was no way for something like that to work. Besides, he didn't even know if Ivan felt the same way. And furthermore he had just met him and he shouldn't fall for someone barely knew. Especially not someone he had been lying to from the start. Right now that didn't matter much. It was dinner time and Gilbert had told him to be home by seven.

Alfred inside the house and paused as he heard Antonio on the phone. He hid behind the wall and listened in.

"Yeah no... I mean yeah he has a kid, Matthew.... Don't worry about it, as soon as we're married I'm shipping that boy off to Europe... Boarding school is good for boys his age... please I just don't want to deal with him. All children are brats... can't stand them." He heard Antonio say. Alfred's eyes widened and he held a gasp as he covered his mouth. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Breath. He reminded himself, sounding suspiciously like his father. He said when they get married, when they get married. They weren't getting married. Not yet anyway, he still had time to break them up. Something had to work. Something was awful that would make his dad break up with him. Alfred would think of something. But first he had to get through dinner.

"Matthew, is something wrong?" His dad asked him. Alfred shrugged. "What's wrong, you've barely touched your food?"

"Not hungry." Alfred muttered. Truly he wasn't hungry, not after what he heard. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach. He couldn't eat.

"Do you not like my awesome cooking?!" Gilbert asked, offended. He saw Antonio roll his eyes and suppress an urge to glare. Gilbert was awesome and had the right to brag.