Three months later…
"Hey, Ivan!" From the door of the office, Alfred waved an envelope at the platinum blond. "This came in the mail today. It's on really fancy stationery. From Francis, I think." The angel squinted at the elaborate cursive. Francis sure liked his loops and flourishes.
Striding over with letter opener in hand, Ivan plucked the envelope from his consort's hand and neatly slit it open. He unfolded the crisp parchment as he settled in his chair. Yes, it was from the king, and—"Oh? Next week, King Bonnefoy is hosting a gala to celebrate the end of the war. We are invited. All of the generals are."
Alfred clambered into Ivan's lap and poked his head up between the demon's arms to read the letter for himself. "This looks fun! We should go! I haven't seen Mattie since he left with Gil. I wonder how he's doing. And Arthur. Gods, I haven't seen Arthur in forever."
"Full dress uniform requested…" Ivan absently petted the golden blond's downy feathers. "Does your military uniform from Heaven still fit, lapochka?"
"Mm, probably not. I haven't tried that on in a while."
"We will have to call the tailor, then," Ivan decided, skimming the contents again. "And we will have to prepare a partner dance."
"A partner dance?" Alfred shot up, knocking his head against the underside of Ivan's jaw.
"Ouch. Sorry, Ivan. Dude, I know what we should do!" Alfred made grabby hands at the demon. "Pipe! Give me your pipe."
Frowning and rubbing at his jaw, Ivan fished the metal object out of his coat. "Why…?"
Alfred wasn't listening; he was scrolling through his smartphone. With a tap on the screen, pop music blared through the room. Alfred threw his phone onto a nearby table and snagged the pipe from Ivan's hand.
"It's Britney, bitch."
Ivan stared, eyes as big as saucers, as Alfred gyrated his hips, plush lips mouthing the words to the song. Twisting and writhing around the pipe, the angel somehow managed to maintain his balance and keep the pipe upright as he hooked a leg around it and spun, and, oh, that was nice, very nice—
All coherent thought fled Ivan's mind.
Alfred sank into a deep split as he finished his lip-sync. "There! What do you think?" He panted, rising to his feet and strutting over, leaving the pipe on the ground. "It'd be a hit with Francis and the others, right?" The angel straddled Ivan's lap.
A hand immediately settled on his ass. It wasn't the only thing bumping against him.
Alfred smirked. Ivan was hard as a rock. "Is that for me, big guy?"
Ivan grimaced. "If anyone else sees you like that, I will gouge out their eyes and feed them to the fish. You will not dance like that at the gala." Ivan gave a firm squeeze to his consort's pert butt for emphasis.
"It was just a dance." Alfred cocked his head. "Did I mess it up? I was following this choreography I saw online." Ivan, while clearly aroused, also looked about a half-step away from committing murder.
"That was not a partner dance," Ivan growled. "I will teach you to waltz."
Alfred pouted. "Waltzes are boring. Why don't you want me to do that dance I just did? It took a while to get all the moves right, too."
Ivan brushed back Alfred's bangs. "I don't want anyone getting any ideas." A note of concern crept into his voice. "I don't want anyone to take advantage of you."As host, the king was mandated to provide a companion for every honored guest, and the designated companion—well, before, it had been Alfred. Had Francis found another hapless angel as a replacement for the role? What if Francis expected Alfred to serve his former function?
But Alfred's body—his heart?—was Ivan's. Alfred wouldn't want to be shared amongst the other demon generals. Alfred belonged to Ivan and Ivan only.
…What if the king experienced a sudden change of heart?
Ivan's grip on the angel tightened, and Alfred yelped at the sudden pressure. "V-Vanya, baby, calm down. No one'll take advantage of me."
The golden blond wriggled out of the hold.
"You know how Gil is, he's a total sweetheart. And his brother is kind of really kinky, yeah, but he'd never really hurt anyone. Ludwig only wants submission and obedience. Francis is… Francis. He just wants people to feel good and be sensual and in tune with their bodies and shit. I guess Toni is kind of freaky 'cause he likes to bite and draw blood. He's super passionate, though, it's actually kind of hot—"
Ivan clapped his hand over the angel's mouth, interrupting Alfred's detailed recounting of his previous sexual partners. "Thank you, Alfred," he ground out between gritted teeth. "That's enough."
Alfred blinked, then shook his head to get the light dusting of snow out of his hair. Oh. "Sorry, Ivan," he laughed nervously. "You're the hottest of them all, babe!" He kissed the demon on the cheek and made to slide off of Ivan's lap.
A hand closed around his wrist.
"Maybe you need a reminder of whom you belong to, Fredka." Effortlessly slinging the angel over a shoulder, Ivan carried his consort to the bedroom.
"Mas—Vanya?"
"Yes, Fredka?" Ivan smiled lovingly at the cardamom-and-apricot-scented puddle by his side. The demon's mood—and self-esteem—had been considerably bolstered after several passionate rounds of love-making. Alfred's delicious noises had been very effective in mollifying Ivan's earlier dismay. He would savor his consort's enthusiastic moans and unbridled cries of pleasure, the memories of Alfred's desperate need for him, for days to come.
"Um, when I was living at the palace, I used to spend a lot of time with the maids. They were really nice to me. I didn't want to sleep in the barracks, so Emma and Lucille let me sleep in their beds." Enormous sapphire eyes peered up at Ivan. "Do you mind if….?"
Ah. The dreaded puppy eyes. Alfred had been fine-tuning them for the past few years, and now he could do an admirable impression of a baby seal. In the near future, the resemblance would be bordering on uncanny.
Well, Ivan could not make a baby seal sad.
"Da, da, Fedya," Ivan acquiesced. "So long as your services are not required after the gala, you may stay with them for the evening."
"Oh, thank you!" Alfred tried to lean up to nuzzle the demon's jaw, but immediately collapsed back on the bed, body slack. "Ow…"
Ivan gently massaged at the small of the angel's back. "Settle down, lapochka. You should not overexert yourself."
Alfred hummed as Ivan's strong fingers soothed his aching muscles. "Yeah, yeah. It wasn't me doing the overexerting, big guy. Don't stop," he slurred, eyelids drooping. "Maybe Emma and Lucille will have new skincare stuff for me. Or some new creams and ampoules... Mmm, that'd be nice…"
Relaxing under Ivan's touch, the angel slipped into a deep, restorative sleep.
"Yes! Well, no—like, he does this thing where he pulls a little at my feathers right before I orgasm, but he's also packing." Alfred gesticulated in the air to demonstrate the approximate dimensions. "So, yeah, it's about how you use it, but size definitely matters—"
Feliciano and Lovino stared at him, wearing identical horrified expressions.
"Che cazzo," Lovino swore as a low whimper of pure terror left Feliciano's throat. "I knew you were more repressed than a Catholic convent, but what the fuck? How does that horse dick fit in your ass?"
"I always have to stretch with at least four fingers, and use lots of oil, or else it hurts like—"
"That was a rhetorical question, motherfucker."
Feliciano grabbed his brother's arm before Lovino could chuck his wine glass at the blond angel. "Ve, Alfred, sorry! Lovino's just upset. We try so hard not to sexualize you, you know. Because you're so young, just a bambino—"
"Yeah, that turned out great," Lovino snorted at the same time that Alfred opened his mouth to protest: "I'm not a child, Feli! Of course I know about this kind of stuff, I've skimmed the dictionary before, and Mattie's pretty much the same age as me. And I know you guys talk about sex with him, I heard y'all through the door during that one war meeting—"
"Mentally, he means. You have the emotional maturity of a soggy cannoli. No—I cannot insult the noble cannoli in such a way. You are about as emotionally constipated as that potato head over there, bastard." Lovino pointed an accusatory finger across the room. "And just as much of a dumbass."
Feliciano gasped, scandalized. "Fratello, you can't talk about Luddy like that! You know how hard it was for me to get captured!"
Alfred nodded proudly. Damn right, Feliciano was Heaven's best when it came to evasion, no one knew more about escaping, not even Arthur. Ludwig must have pulled all sorts of wily, cunning tricks to catch Feliciano—
"I had to get Arthur to mail me to his tent in a cardboard box labeled 'FUCK' before he finally agreed to take me prisoner! And you know how scary Arthur gets, ve. I didn't want to ask but I had no choice, Luddy walked away when I hid in a crate and surrendered as the tomato box fairy, and he just sighed and told me to go home when I snuck into his tent and stole his pants and then took a naked siesta in his bed—"
Alfred's grin slipped off his lips. "Wait, uh, what? You tried to get yourself captured?"
The brunet squeaked. "Uh, Ludwig has really strong and manly arms?" he offered with a weak grin.
Alfred glowered.
"O-oh, what's that, Luddy?" Feliciano cupped a hand around his ear and pretended to listen, forehead creased in concentration. "My shoelaces are untied and you want me to double-check your horoscope for the week? Okay, be right there, cucciolone!" The former general beat a hasty retreat.
"Lovino…" Alfred dragged a hand down his face. "Please tell me Feliciano was joking. He did not willingly surrender to our enemy."
"You know how many white flags my dumb brother made, Al? The asshole ripped apart my bedsheets because he wanted to be 'extra super sure' that the potato head got his message loud and clear. That shit was 800-thread-count, dammit. Good stuff. Cost me a month's worth of wages."
"Gods," Alfred groaned. "Did you let yourself be captured, too?"
"Of course not," Lovino scoffed. Alfred sagged in relief. "I'm not stupid. I demanded three meals and a nap with pasta first. It wasn't a surrender, it was a negotiation."
"Why would you— Dude, don't you love tomatoes? You were okay with giving up tomatoes to live with Antonio? The only thing you can eat down here is fruit, so—"
"Shut up before I shove your nuts down your throat," Lovino hissed. "Tomatoes are technically fruits. Life in Heaven was shit. Being a general sucked ass. Who the fuck actually wants to be celibate for thousands of years? Don't answer that," he waved his empty glass at Alfred. "You think we weren't getting tired of sneaking to the human world for a date with a nice bella every now and then? You think we liked always looking over our shoulders in case one of the nosy fuckers was trailing us? And the pay was crap. We worked ten hours a day, minimum, and for what? Pennies an hour?"
The golden-eyed angel snagged a fresh glass of wine from a passing waiter and drained it in a long gulp. "Bullshit, all of it. All those ridiculous laws about staying prudes were just to keep us working harder, anyway. Can't take time off if you've got nothing to take time off for. Not that I let that stop me, or anything. Rome gets fucking hot, but those pretty ladies need a reliable tour guide in the summer…"
"Yeah, well, not everyone's like you! Some of us actually care about our work—"
"And no one's like you, idiota! Matthew was also sick of it, even though he didn't want to be in on it, and, shit, Kirkland was the one who suggested that we throw our hands up in the air when the demons invaded in the first place—"
Alfred doubled over, coughing. The passing demon Alfred spat his champagne on gave the angel a condescending look of disgust before stomping away.
The blond didn't notice. "Arthur?" He choked out. "Arthur planned this?"
Lovino raised an eyebrow. "Bitch, did I fucking stutter? He and Bonnefoy already had some history, if you know what I mean, so when the opportunity came, Eyebrows sprung for it." The brunet chortled. "Sly old fox. Gotta say, though, he knew what he was doing. Being a goomah ain't half bad.
"Sure, Antonio doesn't have two brain cells in that empty head—I came back to find the house covered in fucking turtles once, did you know?—but it still beats how I was treated before. My resentment at having to work so hard changed me. Shame about what happened to you, but sounds like Braginsky's been good to you…"
He noticed Alfred's face. "Yo, bastardo, you all right? You look like you're gonna hurl. If you're gonna vomit, just do it away from me. Hey, I think my stupid little brother is coming over with the potato bastard. Think you can aim for his shoes? I'll give you a twenty if it hits."
"I—" Alfred clutched at his head. The partially-full champagne flute forgotten in his other hand dripped a small, fizzing pool onto the marble floor. "I just need a moment to process this," he mumbled. "And to talk to Arthur. Is he done dancing with Francis yet?"
