Ivan knew he was trapping himself into a false sense of security. He knew just how dangerous that was, considering just who he was guarding. But…he couldn't help it. For an entire week, when he went to work, which was every day, he talked with Alfred, swapping stories with each other. Ivan talked about his family, Alfred talked about how early his parents died and how he had been an only child. Ivan talked about his studies and Alfred talked about how interested he was in all of the history he'd missed. Ivan talked about his friends, Alfred talked about his favorite comrades in arms, never their names, though. But they never got serious. Ivan had noticed once, when Alfred talked about his comrades, how his eyes seemed to get darker, almost sad. Only for a fraction of a second. But he could tell that something was painful for Alfred.
Ivan hummed as he stared at his lunch in front of him. His friends were talking amicably on their own while he was lost to his own thoughts. He couldn't help it, Alfred was just so interesting. Ivan wanted to know more, but he knew this was dangerous. He couldn't possibly allow himself to grow soft on him. Who knew, maybe that was Alfred's new plan to get out of his prison. Ivan sighed heavily. If it was his fault that Alfred broke out and continued his reign of terror, Ivan wasn't sure what he would do. His studies would certainly go out the window…
"Ivan?" Toris asked and Ivan blinked, looking up at his friend. Toris seemed concerned, but Ivan just smiled and shook his head. "Are you alright?"
"Of course," Ivan nodded. "I'm fine."
"You've been thinkin' a lot since you got that new job," Feliks smirked. "What's up, you got the hots for the frozen Dictator?"
"What? No," Ivan flushed, shaking his head quickly.
"Ah! I recognize that look!" Feliks shouted triumphantly and Ivan felt a blush swarm his face. "You're lying~!"
"I am not," Ivan shook his head. There was no possible way for him to have a crush on the man that almost single-handedly took over the world, the man that killed thousands with his own hands, the man that fell into Dark Magic…But what about the Alfred that hadn't been controlled by Dark Magic?
"Oh, yeah, sure," Feliks snorted.
"Quit teasing," Eduard rolled his eyes after finishing his food. "Ivan, you should eat. Don't you have a mid-term today?"
"Yes," Ivan sighed. He wasn't sure if he wanted to eat.
"Too busy thinking about your dreamboat to eat?" Feliks smirked.
"Feliks!" Toris scolded.
"Dreamboat?" Natalia's voice asked and Ivan flinched. Perfect. He looked up at smiled at his sister.
"Hello, Natalia," Ivan offered.
"Dreamboat?" Natalia asked again. "Who is this dreamboat? Do I need to talk with them? If they're making it so that you don't eat, perhaps I should have a little more than a talk with them…"
"No, that's not…" Ivan groaned, running a hand through is hair. "There is no dreamboat."
"Is The Dictator more than a dreamboat?" Feliks teased and Ivan flinched when he saw Natalia's face contort into what looked a little closer to anger.
"The Dictator?" Natalia asked.
"H-h-he's just t-teasing," Ravis spoke up and Ivan prayed he would be able to make it through today. Then again, his sister would never hurt him, but pretty much anyone else.
"I didn't know you went for older men, Ivan," Feliks snickered and Ivan rolled his eyes.
"Would you like me to show you my own teasing?" Natalia asked Feliks, who immediately flushed and closed his mouth. Ivan sighed with relief. "Brother, you should eat."
"You all need to relax," Ivan shook his head. "I'm fine."
"Don't you have class soon, Natalia?" Toris asked. "If you want, I have a class soon in that direction. We could walk together."
"Sure, whatever," Natalia rolled her eyes. "I just wanted to check on my brother."
"I'm fine," Ivan assured her. "Don't worry about me."
Toris swiftly got up from his seat and scooped together his trash before walking with Natalia out of the building.
"God, I wish that poor soul luck," Feliks sighed heavily. "He's got, like, zero chance with her, right?"
"I think Toris would be a fairly good influence on her," Ivan shrugged. Toris was calm, thought through all of his actions long before he did them, and was perfectly willing to deal with Natalia when she got even angrier. Ivan honestly didn't mind a man like that going after his sister. Worse people could be trying, after all.
"Too bad she doesn't look at anyone but you," Feliks snorted.
"H-How is work going for you, Ivan?" Ravis asked, changing the subject, which Ivan was grateful for. Then again, this change of subject wasn't necessarily good.
"Not a lot happens," Ivan shrugged. "There was that explosion last week, but that was the first time that's ever happened. It's not like The Dictator moves, after all. It's fairly…boring."
"Please, you're alone in a room with a man as impressive as that," Feliks rolled his eyes. "I bet you do a lot in that time alone."
"Feliks," Eduard raised a brow and Feliks put his hands up in surrender. Ivan sighed, resting his chin in his hand.
"Don't worry, I don't do anything in that room," Ivan sighed.
Ivan tucked his hands securely in his pockets as he walked into the Detainment Center. The halls were starting to look familiar, though Ivan had hardly explored further than where he'd already been. This job required all guards to work every day, sometimes at different times. What surprised Ivan, however, was that Gilbert was waiting, alone, at the front desk. He seemed…irritated.
"Hello, Gilbert," Ivan offered as he walked up to the man. Gilbert looked at him before sighing.
"Hey," Gilbert nodded. He sounded very irritable. "Do me a favor and help me down?"
"Sure," Ivan nodded. "Why, is there something you need to do?"
"No, I just…wanna check something," Gilbert grumbled before walking towards the elevator. Ivan raised a brow, but followed him. Once they reached the elevator, Ivan did his spell on the scanner and he didn't miss Gilbert's scoff. This was…strange.
They were silent as the elevator went down and as they walked down the hallway. Ivan placed his hand on the wall and the door hissed open as usual. When Ivan walked inside, he certainly didn't miss the excitable Alfred appearing.
"Oh, Gilbert, how are you doing?" Feliciano chimed, meeting Gilbert and Ivan at the scanner.
"Fine," Gilbert said simply and Ivan noticed Alfred's face fall as he looked at Gilbert intently. This was very strange.
"Uh, what are you doing?" Feliciano asked curiously as Gilbert placed his hand on the little platform with a slight scowl. It was almost violent…
Alfred's frown deepened as he watched Gilbert carefully. When nothing happened, Gilbert growled.
"Forget it," Gilbert scoffed under his breath and turned to leave the room quickly.
"I should go help him back upstairs," Feliciano sighed heavily. Ivan nodded, still immensely curious, and placed his hand on the scanner. It reacted as normal and Feliciano left the room quickly.
"He concerns me," Alfred said simply when the door closed.
"Who? Gilbert?" Ivan asked curiously.
"Yeah…" Alfred hummed. He was still looking where Gilbert had disappeared through the door, which had already vanished from sight.
"Why?" Ivan asked. He was sort of concerned for Gilbert, mostly due to this odd behavior, but nothing to constitute Alfred being concerned.
"He reminds me a little of me," Alfred mused. "Does he have any magic?"
"No," Ivan shook his head. "At least, not that I know of. Why?"
"Then that doesn't look good," Alfred sighed, turning to Ivan. "Keep an eye on him."
"Why?" Ivan asked carefully.
"Me reminds me of me," Alfred pressed. "I barely had any magic, I wanted some. What did I do?"
"Gilbert wouldn't-"
"Oh, no, he would," Alfred shook his head. "I know exactly what that feels like."
"He wouldn't use Dark Magic," Ivan shook his head. Gilbert was a director of the Detainment Center, he knew better than most people the dangers of Dark Magic. Everyone knew the ban clearly. He wouldn't dream of using it.
"I didn't think I would, either," Alfred pressed.
"Why are you so concerned about it?" Ivan asked.
"Because I know better than anyone why it's banned," Alfred narrowed his eyes. "You can't let him get to using it, there's no going back."
"He won't," Ivan shook his head.
"Don't treat it so lightly," Alfred scoffed.
Ivan hesitated for a second. They were on this topic of conversation, anyway so he might as well… "What did make you decide to use Dark Magic?"
"Why do you care?" Alfred scoffed.
"I'm an interested historian?" Ivan offered.
"I needed power, simple as that," Alfred shrugged, walking in front of his floating body and staring at it intently. Ivan rarely got to see the man so serious… "The world was shit, I was gonna fix it, but I needed that power. I thought I could handle it, I thought I was strong. I wasn't."
"What's it like?" Ivan chanced asking.
Alfred paused, not looking back at Ivan as he stared at his own body.
"It hurts."
They filtered into quiet after that. Ivan wasn't sure how to respond to something like that. He hadn't expected that answer. He hadn't expected this entire conversation in the first place. From what Ivan had heard of Dark Magic, it caused the user to completely lose their mind, fall into anger and despair. But Alfred seemed to have a conscience at least. And he didn't want others to use it…
And his response…Ivan had expected something akin to how great it felt, how powerful he was, what immortality felt like. Not…pain. But the infliction in Alfred's voice nearly sent Ivan aback. He sounded like a man that knew real pain. Ivan didn't know what he meant, if using the magic itself hurt him or…whatever…He simply didn't know.
"Well," Alfred stretched, his voice filling up the silence after who knew how long. "I shared some touchy feely stuff. As per our agreement, you have to do the same, isn't that right?"
"What?" Ivan asked. Alfred turned back with his usual, playful smirk.
"We made a deal, right?" Alfred raised a brow. "Unless you're going back on our promise? Who would've thought that The Dictator was more likely to stay cordial than a student nowadays?"
"What do you want to know?" Ivan sighed heavily. It was only fair. He was sure that neither of them had expected their conversation to take that turn that soon. Alfred didn't seem like the kind of person to open up very easily or often.
"Your magic," Alfred said simply, his eyes skimming over Ivan's body. "What's it like?"
"I-I don't understand," Ivan frowned.
"What's it like to use your magic?" Alfred asked. "That's all I wanna know. You've got a shit ton, might as well tell me."
Ivan thought for a moment. He'd used it so much that he didn't really feel anything anymore. But he thought back to when he was just a kid, trying to figure out how to use it. The way his parents and his older sister talked about it and described it. The way he felt when he first used a complex spell…The faces of his classmates when he was already better at magic than all of his teachers.
"It feels…" Ivan mused, "like warmth. Like a sense of accomplishment and happiness. It has the ability to bring together so many people in countless ways. When I was a child, it was all I could do, I only wanted to feel that warmth again. But as I grew up and kept using it…I guess the warmth is gone now."
"Shame," Alfred sighed. "If I could use as much magic as you can…I swear I'd never let that feeling go away."
"I wish I could do the same," Ivan smiled sadly. "Are we even?"
"Yeah," Alfred nodded with a smile. "You got any other questions for me, big guy?"
"Do you?" Ivan asked.
"Any new news on what I asked of you last week?" Alfred raised a brow.
"I've had mid-terms, I've been busy studying," Ivan said with a wave of his hand. That was…mostly true. Part of it was deciding if he should really look into this person. Alfred had proven recently, though, that he was keeping all of the promises he was making with Ivan. So Ivan could at least do what he promised… "I'll look into it tonight, I promise."
"Thanks," Alfred nodded with a smile. "It, uh, means a lot to me."
"Not a problem," Ivan nodded.
When Ivan finally got home to his apartment, he slumped on his couch for a few minutes. After the first couple minutes of his shift, Alfred returned to normal. Teasing him and laughing and acting like nothing was wrong. Ivan was getting immensely curious about this Amelia Jones person. With a small sigh, Ivan got up and retrieved his laptop. He usually kept it at home, considering it was expensive and he could just use the school computers if he ever needed them on campus. He retrieved it from his room and set it down on his kitchen table, opening up the internet.
Just typing in 'Amelia Jones' obviously didn't get him very far. Ivan thought for a moment, drumming his fingers against the table. Alfred talked about her like he might have known her, for real. So… Ivan tried putting in the year Alfred was frozen next to her name. Maybe that would offer something. Almost nothing showed up in the results and Ivan groaned slightly. It was a thousand years ago, so it wasn't likely there would be much. He was just hoping…
After all, the names of the people that froze Alfred were very well known. Hell, even praised during the international holiday. Ivan glanced at the date on his computer. The day celebrating Alfred's imprisonment would come soon, and this year was special. This year was exactly 1,000 years without The Dictator.
Ivan huffed, going back to his searching. He looked through what sources had popped up, but two of them were just written by someone a hundred years ago. It was an incredibly common name, after all. The others just had some character in a book written four hundred years ago. Ivan sighed heavily, leaning back in his chair. He had actually gotten interested in this topic, too. And Alfred had gotten interested in it as well.
Ivan hummed, sitting upright. It could be possible to try to trace back through his family, see who was involved that way, but it would take far too long. Would it be worth it? Ivan hadn't ever really gotten very involved with the Williams family. Hell, not even all family members were known to the public. If they could hide, they damn well did. So maybe tracing the family wouldn't really get him anywhere…
Ivan sighed, staring at the search engine staring at him. Well, he did have all night to try to think up some kind of clever solution. He stood up, ready to make himself dinner. After that, he could study a bit, work on the homework he'd already mostly finished during the day…and he'd stay thinking about that Amelia Jones.
Why did she even matter so much?
Okay, so a little more. Alfred is getting nervous for Gilbert, how interesting. It also looks like Alfred isn't actually getting any stronger with his magic, which is also interesting in itself. We also got a tiny, tiny glimpse into what it's really like to use Dark Magic. More on that to come later.
Also, just a teeny tiny side note. I'm 19 today!
See you next time!