"GO GO GO GO GO!" Alfred shouted, yanking the controller as he and Kiku went headfirst against the boss alien in SKYSCRAPERZ!

It was almost noon and they had reached the final level, Kiku having stayed the night so they could stay up and get some headway into the game. They had woken up early this morning to ensure they finished it before Alfred had to leave to meet Ivan. Alfred wasn't exhausted, but he hadn't remembered making the game so long when he had designed it…

"To the left!" Kiku warned swiftly, and Alfred deftly dodged a pixelated swipe of the bugger's tentacles. He hadn't remembered making the boss a humongous space octopus, either.

"I'll distract it while you go in and—ah!" A hum emitted from the sound system as the boss edged closer. The final star was mere light-years away. It was all or nothing.

"Alfred, it is okay to not be a hero every once and awhile," Kiku warned as Alfred's character moved closer to the swinging tentacles. But he was succeeding.

"Oh, just get the star, wise man," Alfred advised, his health bar plummeting.

And so, smirking, Kiku did.

Within seconds, Alfred was saved from his noble sacrifice by the giant word "VICTORY" flashing across the screen. The octopus crumbled to space dust, sluggishly fading away into the nebulae.

"We won," Kiku stated as the finale music played. "We actually won."

Alfred threw his controller into the air. "That's right, beyotch. We rule the mother-effing galaxy."

Peace. That was the word. Ivan, sitting under a tree right off the edge of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, watching all the pedestrians, the obelisk...Ivan was at peace.

They didn't even have to say anything when Alfred arrived. Ivan sat up, smiled. Alfred sat down, sat his Starbucks down, and smiled. And then they were kissing and it was wonderful.

He let peacefulness overcome him, every other thought in his mind dissolving, his head tilting back, his hands going to Alfred's hair...his cheeks growing warmer with every long second that passed. He began to feel all bubbly in his stomach, giddiness that fizzed up into his head and made him sigh when it was over. This was good. This was very good. He reminded himself to kiss Alfred as much as possible before…

"So, what did you have to tell me?" Alfred asked, adjusting his glasses, his voice low and soft, though they were no longer paying any more attention to their surroundings.

Ivan sighed again, not wanting to say it. He fell onto his back, lying in the grass. Alfred followed suit.

"Did you hear?" he asked quietly after a second, his voice easily lost on the slight breeze.

Alfred turned to look at him, his face piqued with curiosity. "I haven't heard anything so far. What?"

Ivan made direct eye contact. "They did surgery on a grape."

They had to be six inches apart. All within the space of a second Alfred grinned, then tried to hold it back, then poked Ivan in the stomach. "Now that is old news."

Laughing deviously, Ivan kissed him on the tip of his scrunched up nose. Alfred gladly returned the favor, ripping off his glasses. Though they were in the shade, neither of them were shivering any longer. Ivan knew instantly that this moment was the happiest he had ever been, and that meant he couldn't hold back any longer.

"My sisters and I decided something," he told Alfred, trying to be as gentle about this as possible. Alfred only gave a little nod and waited patiently, watching him—not analyzing again, just waiting. "Natalya and Katya are already here for too long, so soon they will go back home. And...I will be going with them."

"Back to Russia?" Alfred asked.

"Yes." Ivan restrained himself from reaching for his neck, for the place where his scarf would have been. Katya had kept it on so long she had slept in it last night, and he hadn't had the want to take it from her this morning. "We decided it is best. Their vacation was ruined, see, and I—I need more time to spend with them. To say sorry. To explain. Especially because I do not have a job here anymore. And we think that...to take some time away from DC would also be more…safe."

If there was frustration or sadness in Alfred's eyes, Ivan couldn't detect it. He just took in a heavy breath and exhaled with a quiet, reflective, "Dude."

"I'm sorry," Ivan said.

"No—but you're right. It's the right thing to do, I mean. I should have seen it coming. I just...if you're okay with...if it makes you feel...yeah. I get it. I do. Yeah." Uncertainty melded with resignation in his voice, and he started blinking rapidly, like he was trying not to look down.

Burning began to creep up Ivan's throat as the reality finally hit him. He inched closer and pressed his lips to Alfred's forehead. "I love you still," he said. "And I am going to keep loving you still. And never stop. We still have time."

"Yeah," Alfred breathed, closing his eyes, his eyebrows pressed together in concentration. "Yeah." He took a slow sip of his coffee.

A gust of wind sent the sunlight scattering through the shadows of the leaves on the ground; ripples traversed the reflecting pool yonder.

"I guess...if we could get by over the Internet with powerful warring secret organizations riding our backs and threatening us the whole way, getting by over the satellites with the world between us should be a piece of cake," Alfred concluded.

"Not a world. Remember Alaska," Ivan teased, glad to smile. "And I do not mean that I will never come back. I do want to come back."

"Or I could come to you," Alfred commented.

"That is right." Ivan slowly sat up, propping himself with his hands. "You have not yet told me what you are going to do now that you have no work."

"Oh." A sly smile crept onto Alfred's face, and he too sat up. "Well...nothing yet. I have this one idea, but it's only an idea, and the chances of it actually working out are, like, point-zero-zero-zero-repeating."

Ivan inclined his head. "Please tell me."

"I'm gonna apply to NASA." A beat. "Again."

That roused an exclamation out of Ivan, and curiosity twinged through him. "Really? Again?"

Alfred snorted. "Oh, it's never gonna happen."

"...What if it does?"

"Then you gotta do the same thing for whatever they have in Russia, and we'll go to space together."

"Deal." Ivan grinned. "Even though SpaceX is closer."

"Hey." Alfred stuck a finger at him. "Don't you talk to me about Elon Musk. That man's an alien robot and we been known."

Ivan nodded along. Then he reached forward to kiss Alfred again, just because he could.

"You Russians are almost too interesting," Alfred sang as they parted, but didn't stop holding each other.

"A politician would say that," Ivan teased back, realizing they were quoting some of their first conversations back to each other. Sitting in the park on a semi-picnic date… They had really come full circle.

Alfred shifted. "Hey, it's lunch. Are you hungry? Where's Yao Wang when we need him?" He glanced around, but the tree-lined curb was devoid of food trucks.

"Always thinking of food," Ivan commented, but then bit his lip. "So you didn't hear?"

Alfred paused, and the hands that were holding Ivan's squeezed them. "What? Is this again about the—Ivan, I do try my best not to be a local."

Laughter escaped Ivan as he confirmed, "No, no, about Yao! Because of all his bribe money, he got very rich very fast overnight. He closed down his Wok & Roll business and used it to start up a fancy gourmet restaurant on the nice side of the city."

Alfred's mouth hung open. "You're kidding. Overnight? Does the man not quit?"

Ivan had to agree. "It is...the right word in English is 'formidable,' I think."

"Well, how's about that." Alfred shuddered. "You know, I'm proud of him. For actually managing to profit from all of that and come out on top."

"He probably deserves it," Ivan admitted, stretching languidly. "We should eat there sometime, though it is a loss for him to not travel around."

"I'll tell you what's a loss, all right," Alfred snickered.

Ivan smiled at him. He didn't know how he had survived without Alfred. There was next to nothing in his life brighter or happier. He lightly touched Alfred's tan skin, wanting to memorize the feel before they had to part.

"I like how you talk and laugh so loud, but inside you are so soft," he said, and both of them quieted. "And I am going to miss how you always smell much too strong of deodorant."

"It's the teen spirit," Alfred informed. "...And—aw, thank you."

"Thank you for what?" Ivan pondered. "Thank you, next?"

"Thank you for...liking...me?" Alfred went cherry-red. "I like—I love when you can be both assertive and gentle, and you're super good at thinking things through. You're great at staying stable, but even when—well, I'll be honest—when you get all fired up and passionate and everything it kinda turns me on."

Warmth bloomed in Ivan's chest and he edged closer. "You think that me trying to be a better hacker than you is...hot?"

Alfred's blushing face faltered. "I mean—I mean there's no question that I'm the better hacker out of us…"

Ivan tilted his head. "Oh? No, I am sorry, but you are very wrong in that statement. Your hacking is good, but mine is great. That is the facts."

Alfred stared at him and inhaled slowly. His voice dropped an octave. "Oh, yeah. It's hot."

Ivan swatted at him, but Alfred rolled away and burst into his beautiful loud laughter, getting grass in his hair and nearly smashing his glasses. Ivan snatched up his Starbucks and took a sip of it out of a pleased sort of spite. A pedestrian looked over from the Reflecting Pool; while Alfred caught his breath, Ivan gave them a friendly wave. "Ignore my silly boyfriend," he wanted to call. He was surprised when the onlooker smiled and waved back. Full circle indeed.

"You Americans are, as they say, 'something else,'" Ivan noted. "Are you hurt from that ground, or did you just disperse your energy?"

He felt bubbles again as Alfred's eyes re-met his. "Oh, oh, shoot! That reminds me! You'll never guess what's gonna be going through Congress soon."

Ivan was mildly confused, but humored him. "What?"

"A bill." Alfred grinned. "A bill over environmental protection, drafted by SAVE THE WHALES."

Ivan set down the Starbucks and near gasped. Raivis! "The whale people finally did it! That is so good! Ah, I am so proud! Does this mean they will stop stopping traffic?"

"Probably not. Congress takes forever, and when the roads are clear Washington has no one to be mad at so nothing ever gets done, but hey. I'm happy, too. I hope their...extraneous activities are overlooked."

Ivan covered his giggle. "I bet there are too many secrets to keep track of already."

"Tell me about it," Alfred sighed, putting his hands behind his head.

"Truth is not real, but it does feel good," Ivan pondered, partly to himself. Relaxed, he nestled up against Alfred and closed his eyes. They stayed that way for a long moment, birds fluttering above them, the first leaves of autumn in their hair. Ivan loved Alfred when he was loud and funny and obnoxious, but there were wonderful emotions about him when they were silent and comfortable. He could imagine the worries drifting away, the sadness subsiding. He felt so at peace that he began to fall asleep, the city sounds a dull lull in the back of his head. He sure as well might miss Washington, D.C.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed before he was coming back around. He registered Alfred playing with his hair, saying something, and turned over to listen.

"They should make a movie out of us, don't you think? 'The Russian spy and the FBI agent fall in love.' A thriller drama. I'd watch it."

Ivan couldn't help but kiss him again. Alfred smiled against his lips, soft and easy. "I would illegally download it," he said.

"Mm. Sexy."

"Wow," Ivan retorted. "Spasibo. What are you doing tonight?"

Alfred's starry eyes went very wide for a fraction of a second, and then settled. "Uh. I gotta clean my apartment and return all my old work junk so they can destroy it. How...about...you?"

"Same. But if you have time you should come over for dinner. I want you to meet my sisters for real before we leave."

"Oh, golly." Alfred scratched his head. "Should I be scared? I'm scared."

Ivan lightly poked him in the stomach. "I will ask Katya to make her borscht. Remember? The cold soup? Another very good bribe. And I will tell Natalya no hitting."

"Then I accept."

"Good."

The world was a big place, full of many things, good and bad. In life, chaos was constant, and nothing ever turned out the way one predicted it. Ivan knew this. He had learned time and time again that the road to home was twisted, bumpy, and dangerous—there were hidden valleys and noisy cities—and sometimes, when he reached the end, he found that home had moved. The world terrified him and made him laugh. It loved him and tortured him. He had been mixed up so many times, discarded and stirred into the mess, that it was hard to see where his coordinates connected, but this feeling right here—right now—was one of harmony.

Things would change, he knew. The world would be chaotic time and time again. He had to remember this now as it was, or at least remember how happy it made him feel.

"Hey," Alfred said, his voice a whisper on the breeze. "I can follow you online now. How's your account doing?"

Ivan hadn't thought about his account in a while. He had all but abandoned it. "Do you mean the knitting one or the meme one?"

Alfred nudged his shoulder. "You know which one I mean!"

Ivan dug into his pocket for his phone. As he opened up the page, he watched Alfred watch him in the reflection. This was how they had met. It was absolutely insane. What was more insane, however, was what waited for Ivan when he checked his follower count.

"I can't believe it!" he gasped. "It was low! I had stopped posting for a long time and I lost a lot of followers! But now, I…"

"How the heck did that happen?" Alfred wondered, seeing the number for himself.

Ivan clutched the phone to his chest and laughed out of disbelief. "One million again!"

As Alfred hoisted himself up into the Ford, he saluted his brother. Matt caught his wink in the mirror and smiled. "Your second date went well, I presume?"

"Yeehaw," Alfred answered. "Things are good, my man. Things are very, very good."

The engine roared as they drove off down the street. "I'm glad to hear."

truth - gwen stefani