A Toast To You

Chapter Three

You felt bad for the sucker.

After a little chat, you pushed this man to the living room, getting a nose full of some smoked uniform while you're directing the man out. Then placed two hands on your hips from the hallway.

You're watching the German Empire look around without shame, touch things cautiously, servey things, mostly you notice him staring most peculiarly at the television. There's a circumspection in his body, especially when the telly's turned off. He's so out of place and so tall it's mirth instead of concern in your chest.

You want to help the man, maybe give him a jacket and a can of beans and send him on his way, but there's an uncomfortable stirring in your stomach, one that's keeping the doors locked and the windows closed. Like a gut feeling's telling you to keep the guy.

And you could imagine your mother's protest, 'Stop being soft, he's a stranger! What if he murders you.' The voice was just too lucid to get wrong. 'If you die I'm not bringing you back to life, you know?'

But your guts worms and turns so you can't help but ask the Empire, "You really don't got a place to crash for the night?"

The supposed country responded, honestly saying, and rather spitefully, too. "I don't underztand zat term." You hum, "i mean you don't have a place to stay for the night? Not even a little um... bungalow?"

What the hell is a bungalow, how did you come up with bungalow?

By his reaction he had the same thought.

The German Empire frowns, "Ein bungalow? Nein." Then he continues, "Vhat iz ein bungalow?" You wave him off, laughing a little in shame of yourself. "Nothing. You really don't have a house?"

He must've. This German Empire looked wealthy, real wealthy, like a haughty old money. But he shakes his head and so collectedly says, "Mein haus iz not here. I dont know vhere it could be so I kan't return home." There's a pause, "Und you've already promized me to ztay."

Your drunken self was really moved by this empire and you can see why. Even if he's got those unconcerned tones, you're feeling the air of insecurity and fib like it's some dense moisture in the atmosphere weighing you down.

You spy him some, really studying the body language of this pillar, then relent when he sighs out of his concentration and half-heartedly says, "Ich don't have anyvhere elze to go, Ich habe already checked zee windows outzide und kannot recognize anyvhere." And whatever's frozen in your heart's thawing away.

"You're making me feel really bad, you know." You groan and rub the space between your brows, then offer a little forcefully. "Do you want to stay? At least for a week. I mean I already told you yes but I was drunk." Even with apprehensions, the man had no where else to be. He was completely out of the ordinary, a whole albino peacock from the rest of the peacocks, if that analogy made sense.

After-all nobody had his height — you made him sit on the couch so his head wouldn't shoot through the ceiling into another apartment — or face, and and his face was real pretty, too. The German Empire had one of those chiseled faces, softly formed like a sculptor so gently smoothing out that jaw. A perfect nose, a perfect frown, he was too much for words.

And that hair had so much oil and spray but looked flawless, you were jealous also impressed, too. The Empire carried an air with him, a classy, old-timey air, like he'd been born in the wrong century type of style, and it radiated off of him.

"Ich vould be zo grateful, frau." The man was certainly a sight for sore eyes, you thought while trudging to the hallway closet, but you'd never say that out-loud, of course. You suppose you wouldn't mind him. His accent was nice, too. Real suave.