Since I was away for the weekend, I decided to post a oneshot that had been sitting mostly finished in my piles of unfinished work. I'm hoping to have the next chapter of Not Every Dynasty out later this week, but here's a little Russia/America piece inspired by something I read on textfromlastnight . net

Warnings: graphic, implied sexual situations, alcohol, mxm. If any of this offends you, then don' read. If not, then please review :)

Thinking Through The Heart

The first thing Alfred noticed upon gaining consciousness was that his head hurt...really fucking bad. The second thing, upon opening his eyes, was that he was on the floor of a living-room he didn't recognize and he was naked. Screwing his eyes shut to in an attempt to block out both the pain and what seemed to be the beginning of a bad situation, Alfred tried to remember anything from the night before.

I can't remember a God damned thing...except...I think a...a bar? Yeah. And France.

Suppressing a groan, for a half forgotten night that starts with France is never good, Alfred pushed up off the carpet and opened his eyes again. The American froze halfway into a sitting position when he felt something warm slide off his waist and hit the floor with a carpet-muffled thud. With apprehension building in his gut, Alfred glanced at the floor next to him.

It was an arm. An arm attached to a large and very naked Russia. Staring at the man laying asleep on the floor beside him, vague memories started to filter through the panicking American. He remembered France offering to take the tab for the night, then a lot of drinking. He also recalled changing bars at least once and running into both Spain and Prussia at one point. However, Alfred still had no clue as to when the Russian had come into the picture.

His body finally catching up to his brain, Alfred let out a startled yelp and attempted to scuttle backwards across the floor. His awkward scramble lasted only a few seconds, mostly because he'd pushed back into the edge of a coffee table, hard. But also because of the sharp pain that shot up his spine when he tried to move his legs.

As he sat motionless, pressed up to the coffee table, only one thought managed to form in his mind.

Shit.

Alfred had a pretty good notion of what had happened between himself and the larger, silver-haired nation, memories or no memories. And from the feel of things, he had definitely not been on top of the situation, to say the least. Groaning and letting his head fall back onto the surface of the small table, Alfred paused at the sound of glass rattling. Glancing over, he noticed two shot glasses, both full of a dark amber liquid, and a small piece of folded paper. Grabbing the paper, Alfred pulled it into his lap and unfolded it to find a short message written across it.

'I left two shots of jager for you guys when you wake up from your death. Do with it as you wish.'

France

Alfred felt a hysterical giggled build in his throat and spill shrilly from his lips. He looked back over to the jager shots and considered his headache and growing nausea before...

"Fuck it."

Alfred tossed the paper onto the floor and grabbed a shot in each hand, downing them both one after the other. He felt marginally better for all of two seconds before the alcohol hit his stomach. Forgetting his pain momentarily, Alfred bolted down a hall, thanking God when the first door he encountered was the bathroom. After vomiting what seemed to be pure alcohol, America collapsed sideways to curl up on the tiled floor, the pain in his rear returning tenfold. Reaching back cautiously, Alfred poked the abused area gently, making a face when his finger came away with flakes of cum, blood and half-dried lube.

Didn't even use protection, he thought miserably, feeling faintly disturbed by the thought that he had Russia's dry cum in his ass.

When he was fairly certain he wouldn't puke again, Alfred pushed up off the bathroom floor and made his way back to the living-room only to find that his partner from last night was awake and holding France's note while staring blankly at the two empty shot glasses lying on the carpet. Once Russia saw him standing naked in one of the doorways to the room, the man's eyes widened almost comically. Alfred shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, then spotted his boxers lying in a heap of clothing across the room and proceeded to limp his way over to them. He felt much better once he had them securely around his hips, hiding the evidence of last night's activities that was dried to his thighs.

Ivan remained completely silent, just watching the American move about the room, collecting his clothes piece by piece. Even as Alfred found his jacket, tugged it on, and opened the front door, the man never made a sound. Throwing one last glance at the taller man, Alfred bit his lip.

"Bye," he whispered, feeling awkward for even having said it, then shut the door behind him.

Alfred paused as he entered the conference room for today's G20 meeting. For once, he was the first to arrive, the room silent and the lights still off. Reaching to the wall beside him, Alfred pressed the button that would turn on the lights and walked toward the tables.

The room had obviously been set up the previous day, as shiny plaques sat on the tables in front of each chair, the name of the country who would be in the seat printed across its surface. America wandered the length of the closest table, scanning for his name, finally locating it halfway down, between the plaques for Canada and England. Alfred dropped the files he had been carrying onto the table with a loud thwap and hiss as they slapped down and some papers escaped and skidded across the polished surface. Pulling out the chair, he made to sit down, but paused as something caught his eye, standing out sharply from the black seat.

Alfred stared in confusion at the yellow petal on his seat. There were no flowers in the room that it could have come from, it was a conference room after all and there was no need for fancy potted plants of other such décor. He picked up the petal carefully and turned it over a few times on his palm, trying to figure out what type of flower it belonged. He was still mulling it over, brow furrowed slightly, as he took his seat. Instead of the feeling of cool, soft leather, America felt a slight prick and stood back up.

There on the seat, barely visible against the black leather, was a small seedpod. Placing the seed in his hand alongside the petal, Alfred felt a few pieces of the metaphorical puzzle click into place. Both the seed and the petal came from a sunflower. Alfred knew of only one person who would have had access to this room and who had a thing for sunflowers. He felt a low flush rise to his cheeks as he thought of the taller nation. His memories from the night that had ended with him sleeping with Russia were much clearer now, a few weeks later, than when he'd first woken up the morning after. He remembered wandering the streets with France, each hanging drunkenly off each other and France too drunk to even manage a few gropes. The night was still fuzzy after that and he still didn't know when Russia had shown up, but he remembered flashes with the three of them, one of which was France offering both America and Russia couches for the night. He could easily guess at how things progressed from there.

Just as he had sat back down, America heard voices outside the door. The room slowly filled up, nations filing in either alone or in small groups of two or three, depending who was on good terms with each other these days.

All through the meeting, the American found himself unable to focus on the speeches delivered by other nations. He also didn't notice all the furtive glances he received from the numerous nations that were unnerved by his unusual silence. Always his eyes were drawn over to a certain silver-haired, violet-eyed nation.

Never once throughout the entire meeting did violet eyes meet his or even glance in his direction.

Alfred returned to his hotel room at the end of the day exhausted. The meeting had gone much the same way as all the meetings did. Things had started out smoothly enough with presentations from various countries and everyone else taking notes, asking questions. However, as soon as England started his presentation for the day, France's mouth had opened. No matter that the two countries' relations had been relatively peaceful for however many years now, they could never resist goading each other. The meeting had ended in an all out shouting match between England and France (over something that had nothing to do with any of the topics they'd planned to cover during said meeting), with America and Canada attempting to separate the two and most other nations giving up on the meeting as a whole and filing out of the room one by one.

After the door to his room had clicked shut behind him, Alfred tore the tie from his neck, tossed his suit jacket off into a corner of the room, and collapsed face first onto the bed. He probably would have just gone to sleep like that, if not for the discomfort of his belt digging into his stomach and his glasses pressing back onto his nose.

Sighing, Alfred rolled over onto his back, only to feel something other than sheets pressing into his back.

"What the…" he mumbled, pushing up into a sitting position.

On the bed was a whole sunflower, stalk neatly trimmed and wrapped in a baby blue ribbon. Smiling slightly and feeling his mood lighten considerably, Alfred picked up the flower and stood up. He took the ice bucket into the bathroom and filled it with water, then placed the sunflower within it and set the entire thing on the hotel room desk. He finished shucking the rest of his clothing and scooted under the covers, falling asleep almost instantly.

It was only a couple hours later that the door unlocked with a quiet click, the sound not enough to garner so much as a twitch from the room's sleeping occupant. The door opened to allow a sliver of light from the hall into the room. Curious violet eyes peered through the cracked door, a smile twitching at lips as the eyes took in the sprawled figure on the bed and the sunflower leaning in its make-shift vase. The door closed and latched again with a soft click and the room was left in darkness with no sign that the late night visit had even occurred.

By the time the next meeting had rolled around, Alfred was in a near perpetual state of frustration. He had received a sunflower one a week for the past few months, sometimes sitting on his kitchen window sill in the morning, other times delivered to his office. Yet every time he tried to call the nation he knew was responsible for the flowers, he was thwarted at every turn. Russia was always away from the office, away from home, or just plain wasn't answering his cell. The first few times it happened, America had written it off as bad timing. After more than four months of this occurring, America knew that the man was purposefully avoiding talking to him. Which just didn't make sense. Why go to the trouble of buying and delivering flowers to someone you didn't want to talk to?

Alfred was determined to corner Ivan at the meeting and find out what the deal with the flowers was. Deep down, though he'd never admit it in the daylight, Alfred hoped that it wasn't some Russian scheme to mess with his head and heart and that Ivan was actually sending the flowers for the usual reason people send flowers. Because Alfred might have...maybe...been slightly affected by them.

Like the last conference, Alfred was the first to arrive, though this time his early arrival was on purpose. Instead of heading straight to the meeting room, the American found a decently secluded area just off the main hall and waited, watching eagerly from around a corner as other nations filed past. With each passerby that wasn't the tall platinum blonde he was looking for, he felt a sliver of impatience. He wasn't used to this sneak approach, he was used to charging in with guns blazing. Hiding in shadows and lying in wait was not hero behaviour. But sometimes in order to get someone, you have to use their own tactics against them.

However, as the meeting time grew closer and closer, America's impatience started to turn to disappointment. Russia was never late and it was now five minutes past the scheduled start time. America sighed and stepped out from his hiding place, looking back down the hall toward the lobby one last time, searching for the flutter of a scarf or the flash of pale hair bobbing above the crowd. There was nothing. Just as he was about to turn around and enter the conference room (loudly, so no one would miss his arrival), a cold breath huffed down the back of his neck.

"Looking for someone?" asked an amused Russian voice.

Alfred flinched and let out a strangled yelp, spinning to face the smirking nation behind him. He had no idea how long the other had been standing there, but the underlying smugness in the man's smirk suggested that it had been some time. America scowled and rocked forward on his feet, tilting his nose up slightly in an attempt to look taller. It was irritating how the man could be looking down at him with that smug grin, especially when Russia was standing so close; it emphasized just how much taller the other was.

"Maybe," Alfred replied with a slight shrug. He wasn't about to admit that he'd been looking for Russia, not since the man had ruined his original plans for confronting him about the flowers.

Russia's response was to raise a pale brow, his smile stretching wider.

"Really," Ivan replied with mocking cheer. "If you are not looking for someone, then you should be in the meeting, da?"

Again, Alfred gave a light shrug, barely bothering to even lift his shoulders. He glanced away down the hall toward the meeting room doors.

"Perhaps, if Amerika is not attending the meeting, he will accompany me o breakfast?"

Alfred couldn't stop his surprise from reaching his expression at the request, unable to do anything but stare with wide eyes and open mouth as the Russian offered his arm. It took a quiet cough to break America from his stupor and he nodded silently, looping his arm through Ivan's. They started walking back out of the conference centre.

He twitched as the other nation reached into his coat, watching warily for whatever it was that Ivan was pulling out. When a slender sunflower was presented to him, Alfred couldn't help the exclamation that fell from his mouth.

"I knew it!" he blurted loudly, blushing directly afterward and accepting the flower as they continued to walk. "I knew you were sending the flowers," he continued at a much lower volume.

Ivan smiled happily as Alfred took the flower, holding it gently in the hand that wasn't looped around Ivan's arm.

"Yes," Ivan stated, with a small smile, one much more natural compared to his usual child-like grin. "And perhaps, since you do not seem to mind them, you would consider also joining me for lunch...and for dinner?"

Alfred stared at the bright flower in his hand for a long moment, then grinned up at the man beside him and nodded. Maybe they had started things a little backwards, but he had a good feeling about this. And Alfred always though more with his heart than with his head.

- *sigh* I didn't mean for this to end up so fluffy, but I guess with everything else that happened at the beginning, plus the (implied) months spent semi-courting that I couldn't quite see them just hopping back in bed :P I'm a fluff monster at heart.