Don't watch me.
He wills those green eyes to look away but they don't. Ivan sips his coffee and in doing so silently agrees to another duel, like the next of so many gloves tossed to the ground. He hates being watched but Arthur will not stop, perhaps because he knows this.
Across the table from the great Russian bear there is a lion who is quite unwilling to give up his territory. He's watching Ivan with green eyes and he just won't stop. The territory in question, meanwhile, is oblivious. He sits across the room from them fiddling with the radio in the corner while other nations, all of whom are late, shuffle in quietly.
"If you hurt him," Those eyes say, forceful, Ivan always pictures them with snowflakes falling around them for some reason - the irony of grass-green eyes surrounded by ice falling from the sky is too ironic for his author's heart to pass up, perhaps - "If you hurt him, I will end you." Ivan knows he wants to say this because he has said it before, with his voice and not his eyes.
"What can you do," Ivan wanted to say back. "If my boss pulls his trigger one day only God could stop the destruction that would come after. You know that."
Kings were always so arrogant. They insisted on their positions as the partners of God himself but they always held themselves like he was the one tottering around after them in their vast palaces, taking the whips that were rightfully theirs. Perhaps Arthur still thinks he can do as he likes. He would be a fool to think that, but Arthur is nothing if not a fool.
Tick. Tock. Static echoes in the vastness of the room. Arthur's eyes narrow. Did he blink? Ivan doesn't think so.
"I am God," Arthur said with a scoff. Ivan's mind's eye dilated. He remembers nights a long time ago when the air was different and apocalypse wasn't a part of every day conversation. He remembers nights when small hands grabbed him and Arthur smiled and never frowned. But those eyes never stopped watching, not accusing, not angry, simply amused. Like God watched men's folly from Heaven. But Ivan was atheist now, as per order of the state. He was not legally allowed to believe in a God, even if that God had kissed him in the snow once and he'd found himself breathless for a week.
Ivan misses those times a little, he thinks with a sigh. Even though all of his bosses hail these times as the peak of civilization, as the height of technological advances, there is a part of him that aches to hold a sword again, as a weapon and not as a relic. There's that same old man in Arthur too - maybe that is why they have always fought, a lion and a bear sizing one another up, taking a swipe occasionally. Each knows they could go for the other's throat but they refrain, instead choosing play. They must preserve those most similar to themselves after all.
At least, it was that way, but then Alfred came along and Arthur's allegiance changed. Ivan was not a parent. He could never understand but he was still a little fascinated by the way Arthur watched Alfred, so different from the way he watched him. Still amused, still distant, but cautious. He chose his words with care, hesitated before moving, and whenever anyone crossed the boy (or God or Arthur forbid, make him cry) they could not expect to have peace for any time at all. Maybe it was for this reason that Arthur always worried with his hands and fumbled with his rings when Alfred was around. Ivan shifted. It would probably be cute, if Alfred had not completely outgrown his father and now, completely outshined him. Ivan made the mistake in thinking Arthur would resign to his proper place, the back wing of the castle where he could watch his son proudly.
Watching indifferently wasn't like Arthur at all. He had to play a part.
He still wanted to fight Alfred's battles for him. He still wanted to meet old enemies and cause trouble and be a snotty brat like he'd always been. "This isn't the 16th century Arthur," Ivan scolded. "You're not a young man."
"I wasn't a young man in the 16th century but I still beat you at every opportunity didn't I?"
Ivan is all out of coffee. Arthur stands with an old man's grunt and shuffles to get the pot. Ivan finds himself glancing over at the little lion cub by the window, still fiddling noisily with the radio, still the subject of two separate, silent conversations. He probably has no idea how much he consumed them both, with frustration, with anxiety, with regret.
Arthur is beside him, a quiet nod, courteous. Ivan offers his cup and steals a glance back at the windowside. Arthur doesn't drop the coffee pot, he hits it on the wood of the table, wielding the sharp glass edges as they drip molten red-hot fury all over Ivan's clothes.
"Terribly sorry," He says with a straight face. The lion's teeth are bared. "It was an accident."