War.
War was…fun. It was supposed to be horrible, and Alfred liked to try to change his mind and say that it was 100 percent horrible, but he loved it. He loved proving to those pieces of shit that he knew what the hell he was doing, he was not an idiot, and he wasn't who he acted to be. Some would tell stories that his eyes changed color when he was in a war. But that wasn't true, they just had never seen what he was truly like.
Alfred prided himself in his acting skills, but hell, that was Hollywood. He prided himself in not once cracking at all the insults thrown at him, begging him to just act himself. His real self. Not the idiot who thought robots could, no would fix global warming. And he prided himself in winning close to all the wars he was in. But that wasn't something to be too proud about, or at least Arthur had taught him that when he was younger.
But who gave a flying fuck what Arthur of all people thought now. Who cared what they all thought? He had beaten most of them at one time or another, no matter why he had done it. But this was probably the best war he had been in. One that he could be who he really was, because he had already come to terms that if he wasn't he would be killed in an instant.
Ivan.
Ivan was the one who decided to fuck with him this time around, to dig his own grave for himself. The man, who admittedly was older than Alfred, was in hell already. But he didn't quite know it yet. He thought he was playing Russian Roulette with a gullible American, when really he was playing it with an American that already had a gun at his temple before they even started.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Four clicks. Five blanks. One actual bullet, lying harmlessly at the moment. Alfred wouldn't let Ivan know the shit he was in, what was the fun with that? Let them know they were going to die by his own idiotic hands? He wasn't stupid enough to do that. Attack and Counter; that was all that mattered to the American. It didn't matter that he was frightening people around him. It mattered that there was one more blank in the gun, and he sure as hell would be firing that real bullet at Ivan.
Both of the two nations sat across from each other in dead silence, the gun laying in the middle of the two of them. All he had to do was wait. Wait for the next click to happen, which would be pointed at him. As soon as that blank went off he would surly laugh, there wasn't a doubt about it. He was winning, and winning was all that he needed. Eventually it happened, and all Alfred could do was grin when the noise hit the air.
Click.
Both of them had that large terrifying grin on their face. Both of them thought they were winning, but only one knew the true answer. Only one of them was going to have the satisfaction of shooting the other in the head with a real bullet. Of course it wouldn't kill the nation, you couldn't actually kill the nation, but they would be asleep, or in limbo, for about a week. A week to get stared at in silence when you walked in the room. A week was enough for Alfred.
The murderous aura that melted off of him was terrifying, even a bit for the Russian sitting across from him. The 'kid' looked like he would kill with his bare hands if he was allowed to. But this was what they had decided, a gun with one bullet. Alfred's smile grew larger when the final event happened, when that final click had to be heard. He picked the silver gun up in large tan hands, looking it over with the same smile staying on his face.
Click. The safety was off now.
Click. The gun was prepped to shoot.
Clic- Boom.
Ivan's body slumped on the table, blood seeping out around the 'sleeping' nations head. Alfred did start laughing like he thought he would, leaning back in his chair as the laughter shook his body to its core. He ended up falling out of his chair, but that didn't stop him from laughing. It wasn't his boisterous laugh that he truthfully hated, it was filled with light heartedness and yet…pure rage.
The next time Alfred walked into that meeting Ivan was present again, his smile ever present on his face. And for once, Alfred smiled back at him; a mimic of what Ivan was presenting. His smile slipped into a friendlier one when Arthur started talking to him, going back to his idiotic self for the sake of not showing everyone his cards, his ways of winning.
The only ones who saw the real Alfred would eventually die, at least for the time they were stuck in limbo. And when they came back, they wouldn't remember what it was like sitting across from the American with the insane smile plastered to his face. No one ever did. And truthfully, Alfred didn't mind it that way.
So as he sat and talked with Arthur about whatever he thought a dip shit would, he couldn't help but analyze what it would take to get someone else in a war with him. Maybe he would do Russian Roulette again…he always won that game. And as he thought about what pain he could inflict on the person who would be in war with him, he didn't realize the friendly smile disappearing and being replaced with the real one until a shell-shocked Arthur asked if anything was wrong.
Alfred shook himself out of it, raising an eyebrow at the British man. "Of course not bro! Are you on drugs 'er something man? Can you get me some?!" And when Arthur reacted how he wanted to the question, he smiled internally and listened to him as he got scolded for even thinking Arthur was on drugs. The American nation tuned Arthur out again, a job well done on his half since he had planted the seed of normalness back into its place.
It was only a matter of time before he got to play again, he supposed he could wait for it to happen naturally. After all, what fun was war when you were the one at fault?