Walk, Watch, Talk

"Alfred, you coward!"

He was, was he not? A real hero would not have run away from this, would not have avoided this for days, would have turned around right now. But they had thirty minutes and that was not long enough. Alfred did not know what amount of time would be long enough to talk, but he did not think now was the right time. Also, he knew he was using all of this as an excuse to run again.

Then again, those goddamn heroes in his comic books always got the girls. The girls did not always stick around, but they almost always got them.

Kiku was not a girl.

Well, Alfred was not really a hero. Did that count for anything?

"I'm a terrible person," he said out loud to no one. He felt even more terrible that saying it out loud did not make him want to turn around and fix everything. He nearly punched the wall, thought better of it, and simply tapped his knuckles against it a few times before he continued to walk.

Only then did he realize he was subconsciously following the smell of cigarette smoke. One person came to mind, the only person who would be back here and doing that. Alfred let Gilbert get away with this usually, because he could not force the man to stop even if he wanted to.

Still, he could dictate some times. Like now. It was totally not appropriate. So when he turned the corner to see Gilbert standing there, he reached forward and grabbed the cigarette out of his mouth, crushing it in his hands.

Ow. It burned his palm, but he simply turned to throw it away. "Hey! Vhat vas..." Gilbert exclaimed, staring at him with wide red eyes, right before he pulled out another. Alfred stopped and took the entire pack, crushing that in his hands. "Vhat de fuck?"

"Come on, you owe Antonio not to smell like cigarette smoke while you are talking about the sanctity of marriage or whatever you're going to say," Alfred retorted, poking a finger between his eyes before he tossed both once lit cigarette and crushed cigarette pack into a trash can. He did not usually do that, it was not his place. He would just take it away, not destroy anything. Then again, Gilbert really needed to stop this. Alfred was surprised that he did not have cancer right now, but it would be coming fast at this rate. He would hate to have to tell Gilbert he had to go into the city to be diagnosed with cancer.

Just no.

"I can't help it!" Gilbert exclaimed, throwing his hands up. A card fell from his hand and Alfred snatched it out of the air before it hit the ground. It appeared to be his speech. Alfred handed it back over as Gilbert kept rambling. "At first I dought I vas going to mess it up, but den Ludwig just said he hopes that I efen hafe de chance to say it at all! I'm not dat bad! He von't mind, as long as I'm calm up dere, right? I'm good vith speeches, I'm good vith crowds, so vhy is dis a problem?"

And I'm good with confrontations, man. Yeah. "Because it's really important?" Alfred suggested. That tended to have a correspondence with stuff.

"Oh yeah, dat's my only problem here," Gilbert drawled sarcastically, glaring at him.

"Hey, I wasn't going to bring up your other problems," Alfred put his hands up in surrender. Gilbert probably would have glared at him longer, but he suddenly seemed distracted by something behind Alfred. Alfred turned around to see Antonio.

There was nothing in his current store of background knowledge that even compared to what he was seeing now. Antonio's reaction during the error with him and Matthew about his wedding ring was mere irritation compared to what he appeared to be experiencing now.

Alfred tried not to take a step backwards as Antonio walked up to them.

"Where's. Francis?" Antonio asked, words spaced as if he was trying to keep himself from shouting them.

"Vhat's vrong?" Gilbert asked.

"I haven't seen him," Alfred answered at the same time. Gilbert then shrugged.

Antonio nodded, turned and left them. "Antonio! Hey! Vhat–" Gilbert stopped as Antonio turned out of sight. Alfred looked over at him. "Vhat de hell vas dat about?"

"No idea," Alfred whistled. "Just as long as it's not me... I guess I should just be grateful."

But he was not, he was worried about Francis. Alfred decided he best look for Francis. Before Antonio caught up with him. Then he would figure out what was going on.


Notes:

So, out of town and all... I saw 'The Twelfth Night', since this is on the subject of Shakespeare and Hearth is sort of immured in that and all. It was most excellent, hilarious. Then again, toying around with people's sexualities has become a funnier genre for me over the years. It reminds me I have to decide what I should base my ideas for the sequel on and what the title should be. There are enough comedies to choose from!

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