[Fan Fiction] In Remembrance I Relive [8/?]
Title: In Remembrance I Relive
Author/Artist: Sami-Fire (Me!)
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Prussia, Germany
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Clusters of foul language. Also, AAAAAAAAAAANNNNNGGGGSSSSTTT, mental breakdowns, and some odd concepts.
Summary: Prussia's past comes back to haunt him in an almost literal sense, causing him to take stock of his current life. He doesn't like what he sees.
Gilbert gets home even faster and in even more of a hurry than when he left it. Ludwig must have been at work for some time now, with a few hours left before he came home. The timing couldn't have been better. Now the Prussian has a few hours to himself to make his plans and recover from what just happened. He's not surprised that the door is locked, and is more than a little peeved that he doesn't have a key. Of course, he didn't take one because he didn't expect to come back.
Ludwig, however, had the foresight to put a spare key somewhere around here, anticipating Gilbert's bouts of irresponsibility with keys. His fear that someone might snatch the key prevented him from putting it under the doormat like every normal person who needed to put a spare key somewhere did, so it was always in some unorthodox location that changed every month. Gilbert's eye then wanders to a shoebox that wasn't outside last week. It's behind the garbage can, but it's just noticeable enough for him to catch it. He opens the box, finds the key (ta-daa!), and lets himself inside.
He makes a beeline for the basement, not checking anything else along the way. He throws himself on the bed, if only as a way to shake off his momentum. He hasn't slept in nearly a day and is feeling the fatigue, not even bothering to take his shoes off. He buries himself under the covers in a warm, dark shell, desperate to get at least a little sleep, for at the very least he'll have dreams to comfort him then. He feels someone tugging at the covers and making it difficult for him to relax. Finally, in groggy frustration, he throws the covers off to see what's going on.
Standing at the edge of the bed is young Ludwig, in his nightclothes and holding a stuffed rabbit. Gilbert finds himself wondering why he didn't keep that thing, if only just to tease his little brother about when he was all grown up. "You okay, West?" he murmurs, the crankiness draining from him. "What happened? Did you have a nightmare?" The boy nods. "Come on, climb in. There's not much room on here, but there's enough for you."
Ludwig climbs into Gilbert’s arms and buries his head in his chest. Gilbert switches into big brother mode with surprising speed, prepared to comfort the boy right away. "Don't worry. Whatever was scaring you can't get you here. I'll keep you safe. It's not like I ever fail in that, right?" With a drowsy laugh, he holds his little brother close, a bit like a stuffed animal of his own. "Your big brother's had a pretty long day, so I'm gonna sleep. You should sleep, too," he murmurs, and falls into a deep slumber.
Later, his eyes flutter open to the drab ceiling that he didn't anticipate having to see again. The sight of it fills him with loathing, because it means he has to spend another idle day in this cage of his. He can't think of anything to do to make his day a little more interesting that doesn't involve his brain turning to mush. He closes his eyes, deciding that he would be best off spending more time in the world of his dreams than anywhere else, but a voice jars him awake again.
"You came back."
He sits up slowly to find that his little brother is no longer huddling against him for comfort, having grown up apparently overnight. Then again, even he finds that notion silly, so he discards it. The phantoms are transient, as always. Ludwig has pulled up a chair and is now sitting directly to his left. Gilbert turns to his brother but is still too groggy to say much. "What're y'doing here?" he slurs sleepily, rubbing his eyes.
Ludwig, on the other hand, is fully awake. "What do you think I'm doing here?!" he hisses, his whole body tense, his face set in a nasty glare.
"Dunno. Are you gonna yell at me about being lazy and not picking up after myself again?" Normally, when Ludwig stomps into the basement with a head full of steam, it's to castigate him for his laziness and nag him to be just a little responsible for himself. Gilbert admits that, by this point, actually lifting a finger to do his own chores would be something to do, but he's not especially motivated to move at this point.
Ludwig ignores Gilbert's snide remark and thrusts a crumpled piece of paper in his face, making him pull away from it once he recognizes what it is. "This is what I'm doing down here."
Gilbert half-heartedly attempts to cover up what he did. "What about it? I just said I'd be going out for a walk and that I might not be back that night. What's the big deal?"
"I don't care about that. It's the rest of your addition to my note that concerns me. This is the kind of note left by someone who doesn't expect to come home. More specifically, a suicide note." He tries to sound calm and collected, but his voice falters upon reaching the "s-word."
"You're overreacting," Gilbert growls, pretending to be interested in something in the covers and trying to distract himself from the realization that he's in trouble.
His brother is completely onto him. "I'm not overreacting one bit," Ludwig says, still trying to keep a hold on his emotions. "In fact, I think I have evidence that my reaction is perfectly warranted. Ivan called me at work today."
"He WHAT?!" The Prussian jolts to attention at the mention of Ivan. Whatever that fat bastard had planned couldn't possibly be good for him.
"He called me to tell me that you had stopped by sometime last night." Ludwig hesitates, unsure how much of the conversation to divulge, deciding to get right to the point in the end. "He told me that you asked him to kill you. He refused, gave you a place to stay the night, and then you vanished."
Gilbert shudders as last night's chain of memories runs through him once more. "How do you know he's not lying to get you all riled up? You should know he's not above that."
"Ivan's claim seems plausible to me, especially with that note you left me," Ludwig replies, unable to disguise his distaste on the word "note." "He seemed quite concerned about you, actually. His voice didn't have that creepy lilt to it, so he must have been telling the truth."
"Ivan's 'concerned' act is probably just a load of bullshit. That guy would probably kill to see me crawling at his feet, sick and weak again. Fuck NO," Gilbert snarls, giving the wall a good punch for emphasis.
The younger German is quick to counter him. "I don't think so, Gilbert. I can tell he's a little different, or at least not as hostile. But I guess Ivan isn't really as much of a factor so much as the events surrounding him.” Ludwig’s rate of speech grows quicker as he reveals more evidence, to the point that he’s almost rambling. “There's no changing the fact that you left me a rather incriminating note and then ran off to Ivan's house in the middle of the night. Don't try to deny it. I'm pretty sure I would have seen you when I got ready for work this morning if you hadn't gone out. You're always in bed at that hour, and you weren't today."
Gilbert shrugs. "So what? Maybe I did decide to go out early for a change. What, do I really do so little that it's a shock when I actually do something?" If he really is that idle all the time, it's a convincing enough argument for him to try again later, for his situation is even worse than he thought.
"No, Gilbert! That's not it!" Ludwig's iron facade is crumbling, piece by piece. His voice gets more urgent with every word. "You don't seem to understand the magnitude of what you've done. You left me a suicide note and then asked someone to help you die!"
Unable to take the onslaught much longer, Gilbert thrusts himself forward into Ludwig’s face, his outburst sounding more alarmed and desperate than angry. "For the last time, that's not a suicide note!"
Ludwig takes advantage of the increased closeness to grab Gilbert's shoulders, an impulse brought on more by his heightened emotions than anything else. "Gilbert! Tell me the truth! What is going on with you?!"
For a moment, Gilbert swears he can hear a child's voice begging him to stay again, but it's too faint for him to care much. "Fine! It's all true! I went to Ivan's house last night, and I told him to finish what he started, because I can't fucking stand it down here!" He shoves his little brother away with a force that surprises both of them. "All I really have, other than memories and those... things, is this damn basement!”
He is the one who rants and raves now, occasionally making a flailing gesture towards some undefined point in the room. Gilbert is almost shouting, exercising no control over his volume or the sorrow in his voice. “And I can't... I can't take it anymore! I'm tired of just sitting around the house all day! The others always have something to do at some point, but me? No! I eat and I stare at walls. Sometimes, for variety, I stare at a screen. Other times, my past shows up to remind me that everything that made me great is gone! Does that sound like a happy life to you, West?! Does it?!"
His voice rises into a full shriek as his emotions build to a peak. He hides his face behind his hands because he can't let his little brother see him cry now, especially since Ludwig knows that he wants to die. Anything to lessen the pain on either end would help. He takes a deep breath to settle himself down. “It’s not like you need me around here anymore, West. You grew up and stopped needing me to take care of you. In fact, you haven’t needed me for nearly a century. Since I don’t have any country to watch over or anyone who needs me or even anything to do, I don’t see any reason for me to stick around.”
Ludwig's hands squeeze Gilbert's shoulders as tight as possible. He clenches his teeth, trying to hold back his tears. "What in the world are you talking about? You are needed around here!”
Gilbert lowers his hands to shoot Ludwig a mean look. “Really? Give me an example of something important I can do that you can’t.”
Surprisingly, Ludwig has an answer prepared. “Only you have a clear picture of what’s going on in East Germany.”
That came out of left field. “I what?” Gilbert cocks his head, utterly confused. “What the hell are you talking about, West? I have nothing to do with East Germany. Not anymore, anyway.”
“You’re wrong! When I try to feel something in your region of the country, I can’t sense it very strongly. Since there’s no one else who could possibly be connected to that region, you have to be the one who’s capable of keeping tabs on it.” Ludwig punctuates the “you” with another squeeze of his brother’s shoulders. “This is our country, brother. Do you understand that now?”
The resulting silence gives no indication as to the effect of Ludwig’s words. However, an answer comes, stabbing through the quiet. “Prove it,” Gilbert says, the growl still in his voice. The command places an unfair burden on Ludwig as he struggles to come up with a suitable proof, and his brother latches onto the gap in his response. “You can’t do it, can you?” A noise that is either a harsh cackle or a bizarrely disguised sob escapes from Gilbert’s mouth. He is only able to recover long enough to say, “All you’ve done is prove me right. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve still got nothing,” and then the noise continues.
Ludwig readies a desperate counter. “That’s not true! There are things to do and ways for you to be happy now! You just won't open your eyes to see them because you're too busy looking into the past! Please, brother-" his words are abruptly choked off, and it’s his turn to hide his face as the dam totally breaks.
He feels ashamed, letting the brother he wants to help see him so weak like this, the streams of tears small but steady. He hasn't cried like this since the worst of his childhood illnesses. The old aches even seem to be coming back, as if he has contracted Gilbert's strange condition too, and will remove his hand from his eyes to see his big brother standing over him instead of slightly under him. "I-I don't want you to die, and not just because you’re responsible for a large chunk of my country," he coughs out.
Gilbert stares at Ludwig in utter shock, and he definitely hears a child bawling away, too. He wonders if he's a bad person for looking over his brother's broad shoulders to see where the child is instead of comforting the one in front of him. It doesn't matter that Ludwig doesn't want him to die, since he still wants out, particularly after a breakdown like this. What does matter is that he is the source of Ludwig's distress, and that's the last thing he wants. He wasn’t the least bit concerned about lifting his burden on others before, but after seeing his strong brother break like the sickly little boy he once was, he has every reason to care.
Furthermore, he has a powerful new reason to leave as he planned. He doesn't want to stress his brother out further. The poor man puts enough pressure on himself already. He doesn't need anymore. Gilbert gives himself a new mission: calm his dear little brother down, then remove himself from the picture once the situation was stable. As he sees it, it would probably be a gift. One less thing for the worrywart to fuss over.
Slowly, he reaches out and puts his hand on Ludwig's shoulder. "I'm sorry, West. I'm so, so, sorry. M-maybe you're right. Maybe I am just missing the good things. I'll... I'll try to look for them, I swear." His voice wavers with emotional exhaustion, and he's lying through his teeth. He has no desire to look for anything "good" now; only to make himself a non-factor in his brother's woes.
"Please, Gilbert... please open your eyes to the world around you." Ludwig will never admit what a loss Gilbert's death would be to him. He's still trying to stay strong despite having crumbled to dust already. “You need to, because you are tied to a country. If you try to kill yourself, you’ll just heal up like nothing happened. I want you to realize this.”
Gilbert willfully ignores Ludwig’s last few sentences. "I will, West, I will." He feels terrible about having to lie to his brother, but anything is better than seeing him broken like this. Anything.
Ludwig won't be in despair for much longer. Not if Gilbert can help it. No matter what his little brother tries to tell him, he won’t be leaving anything behind that he shouldn't. He will go peacefully.
Author/Artist: Sami-Fire (Me!)
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Prussia, Germany
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Clusters of foul language. Also, AAAAAAAAAAANNNNNGGGGSSSSTTT, mental breakdowns, and some odd concepts.
Summary: Prussia's past comes back to haunt him in an almost literal sense, causing him to take stock of his current life. He doesn't like what he sees.
Gilbert gets home even faster and in even more of a hurry than when he left it. Ludwig must have been at work for some time now, with a few hours left before he came home. The timing couldn't have been better. Now the Prussian has a few hours to himself to make his plans and recover from what just happened. He's not surprised that the door is locked, and is more than a little peeved that he doesn't have a key. Of course, he didn't take one because he didn't expect to come back.
Ludwig, however, had the foresight to put a spare key somewhere around here, anticipating Gilbert's bouts of irresponsibility with keys. His fear that someone might snatch the key prevented him from putting it under the doormat like every normal person who needed to put a spare key somewhere did, so it was always in some unorthodox location that changed every month. Gilbert's eye then wanders to a shoebox that wasn't outside last week. It's behind the garbage can, but it's just noticeable enough for him to catch it. He opens the box, finds the key (ta-daa!), and lets himself inside.
He makes a beeline for the basement, not checking anything else along the way. He throws himself on the bed, if only as a way to shake off his momentum. He hasn't slept in nearly a day and is feeling the fatigue, not even bothering to take his shoes off. He buries himself under the covers in a warm, dark shell, desperate to get at least a little sleep, for at the very least he'll have dreams to comfort him then. He feels someone tugging at the covers and making it difficult for him to relax. Finally, in groggy frustration, he throws the covers off to see what's going on.
Standing at the edge of the bed is young Ludwig, in his nightclothes and holding a stuffed rabbit. Gilbert finds himself wondering why he didn't keep that thing, if only just to tease his little brother about when he was all grown up. "You okay, West?" he murmurs, the crankiness draining from him. "What happened? Did you have a nightmare?" The boy nods. "Come on, climb in. There's not much room on here, but there's enough for you."
Ludwig climbs into Gilbert’s arms and buries his head in his chest. Gilbert switches into big brother mode with surprising speed, prepared to comfort the boy right away. "Don't worry. Whatever was scaring you can't get you here. I'll keep you safe. It's not like I ever fail in that, right?" With a drowsy laugh, he holds his little brother close, a bit like a stuffed animal of his own. "Your big brother's had a pretty long day, so I'm gonna sleep. You should sleep, too," he murmurs, and falls into a deep slumber.
Later, his eyes flutter open to the drab ceiling that he didn't anticipate having to see again. The sight of it fills him with loathing, because it means he has to spend another idle day in this cage of his. He can't think of anything to do to make his day a little more interesting that doesn't involve his brain turning to mush. He closes his eyes, deciding that he would be best off spending more time in the world of his dreams than anywhere else, but a voice jars him awake again.
"You came back."
He sits up slowly to find that his little brother is no longer huddling against him for comfort, having grown up apparently overnight. Then again, even he finds that notion silly, so he discards it. The phantoms are transient, as always. Ludwig has pulled up a chair and is now sitting directly to his left. Gilbert turns to his brother but is still too groggy to say much. "What're y'doing here?" he slurs sleepily, rubbing his eyes.
Ludwig, on the other hand, is fully awake. "What do you think I'm doing here?!" he hisses, his whole body tense, his face set in a nasty glare.
"Dunno. Are you gonna yell at me about being lazy and not picking up after myself again?" Normally, when Ludwig stomps into the basement with a head full of steam, it's to castigate him for his laziness and nag him to be just a little responsible for himself. Gilbert admits that, by this point, actually lifting a finger to do his own chores would be something to do, but he's not especially motivated to move at this point.
Ludwig ignores Gilbert's snide remark and thrusts a crumpled piece of paper in his face, making him pull away from it once he recognizes what it is. "This is what I'm doing down here."
Gilbert half-heartedly attempts to cover up what he did. "What about it? I just said I'd be going out for a walk and that I might not be back that night. What's the big deal?"
"I don't care about that. It's the rest of your addition to my note that concerns me. This is the kind of note left by someone who doesn't expect to come home. More specifically, a suicide note." He tries to sound calm and collected, but his voice falters upon reaching the "s-word."
"You're overreacting," Gilbert growls, pretending to be interested in something in the covers and trying to distract himself from the realization that he's in trouble.
His brother is completely onto him. "I'm not overreacting one bit," Ludwig says, still trying to keep a hold on his emotions. "In fact, I think I have evidence that my reaction is perfectly warranted. Ivan called me at work today."
"He WHAT?!" The Prussian jolts to attention at the mention of Ivan. Whatever that fat bastard had planned couldn't possibly be good for him.
"He called me to tell me that you had stopped by sometime last night." Ludwig hesitates, unsure how much of the conversation to divulge, deciding to get right to the point in the end. "He told me that you asked him to kill you. He refused, gave you a place to stay the night, and then you vanished."
Gilbert shudders as last night's chain of memories runs through him once more. "How do you know he's not lying to get you all riled up? You should know he's not above that."
"Ivan's claim seems plausible to me, especially with that note you left me," Ludwig replies, unable to disguise his distaste on the word "note." "He seemed quite concerned about you, actually. His voice didn't have that creepy lilt to it, so he must have been telling the truth."
"Ivan's 'concerned' act is probably just a load of bullshit. That guy would probably kill to see me crawling at his feet, sick and weak again. Fuck NO," Gilbert snarls, giving the wall a good punch for emphasis.
The younger German is quick to counter him. "I don't think so, Gilbert. I can tell he's a little different, or at least not as hostile. But I guess Ivan isn't really as much of a factor so much as the events surrounding him.” Ludwig’s rate of speech grows quicker as he reveals more evidence, to the point that he’s almost rambling. “There's no changing the fact that you left me a rather incriminating note and then ran off to Ivan's house in the middle of the night. Don't try to deny it. I'm pretty sure I would have seen you when I got ready for work this morning if you hadn't gone out. You're always in bed at that hour, and you weren't today."
Gilbert shrugs. "So what? Maybe I did decide to go out early for a change. What, do I really do so little that it's a shock when I actually do something?" If he really is that idle all the time, it's a convincing enough argument for him to try again later, for his situation is even worse than he thought.
"No, Gilbert! That's not it!" Ludwig's iron facade is crumbling, piece by piece. His voice gets more urgent with every word. "You don't seem to understand the magnitude of what you've done. You left me a suicide note and then asked someone to help you die!"
Unable to take the onslaught much longer, Gilbert thrusts himself forward into Ludwig’s face, his outburst sounding more alarmed and desperate than angry. "For the last time, that's not a suicide note!"
Ludwig takes advantage of the increased closeness to grab Gilbert's shoulders, an impulse brought on more by his heightened emotions than anything else. "Gilbert! Tell me the truth! What is going on with you?!"
For a moment, Gilbert swears he can hear a child's voice begging him to stay again, but it's too faint for him to care much. "Fine! It's all true! I went to Ivan's house last night, and I told him to finish what he started, because I can't fucking stand it down here!" He shoves his little brother away with a force that surprises both of them. "All I really have, other than memories and those... things, is this damn basement!”
He is the one who rants and raves now, occasionally making a flailing gesture towards some undefined point in the room. Gilbert is almost shouting, exercising no control over his volume or the sorrow in his voice. “And I can't... I can't take it anymore! I'm tired of just sitting around the house all day! The others always have something to do at some point, but me? No! I eat and I stare at walls. Sometimes, for variety, I stare at a screen. Other times, my past shows up to remind me that everything that made me great is gone! Does that sound like a happy life to you, West?! Does it?!"
His voice rises into a full shriek as his emotions build to a peak. He hides his face behind his hands because he can't let his little brother see him cry now, especially since Ludwig knows that he wants to die. Anything to lessen the pain on either end would help. He takes a deep breath to settle himself down. “It’s not like you need me around here anymore, West. You grew up and stopped needing me to take care of you. In fact, you haven’t needed me for nearly a century. Since I don’t have any country to watch over or anyone who needs me or even anything to do, I don’t see any reason for me to stick around.”
Ludwig's hands squeeze Gilbert's shoulders as tight as possible. He clenches his teeth, trying to hold back his tears. "What in the world are you talking about? You are needed around here!”
Gilbert lowers his hands to shoot Ludwig a mean look. “Really? Give me an example of something important I can do that you can’t.”
Surprisingly, Ludwig has an answer prepared. “Only you have a clear picture of what’s going on in East Germany.”
That came out of left field. “I what?” Gilbert cocks his head, utterly confused. “What the hell are you talking about, West? I have nothing to do with East Germany. Not anymore, anyway.”
“You’re wrong! When I try to feel something in your region of the country, I can’t sense it very strongly. Since there’s no one else who could possibly be connected to that region, you have to be the one who’s capable of keeping tabs on it.” Ludwig punctuates the “you” with another squeeze of his brother’s shoulders. “This is our country, brother. Do you understand that now?”
The resulting silence gives no indication as to the effect of Ludwig’s words. However, an answer comes, stabbing through the quiet. “Prove it,” Gilbert says, the growl still in his voice. The command places an unfair burden on Ludwig as he struggles to come up with a suitable proof, and his brother latches onto the gap in his response. “You can’t do it, can you?” A noise that is either a harsh cackle or a bizarrely disguised sob escapes from Gilbert’s mouth. He is only able to recover long enough to say, “All you’ve done is prove me right. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve still got nothing,” and then the noise continues.
Ludwig readies a desperate counter. “That’s not true! There are things to do and ways for you to be happy now! You just won't open your eyes to see them because you're too busy looking into the past! Please, brother-" his words are abruptly choked off, and it’s his turn to hide his face as the dam totally breaks.
He feels ashamed, letting the brother he wants to help see him so weak like this, the streams of tears small but steady. He hasn't cried like this since the worst of his childhood illnesses. The old aches even seem to be coming back, as if he has contracted Gilbert's strange condition too, and will remove his hand from his eyes to see his big brother standing over him instead of slightly under him. "I-I don't want you to die, and not just because you’re responsible for a large chunk of my country," he coughs out.
Gilbert stares at Ludwig in utter shock, and he definitely hears a child bawling away, too. He wonders if he's a bad person for looking over his brother's broad shoulders to see where the child is instead of comforting the one in front of him. It doesn't matter that Ludwig doesn't want him to die, since he still wants out, particularly after a breakdown like this. What does matter is that he is the source of Ludwig's distress, and that's the last thing he wants. He wasn’t the least bit concerned about lifting his burden on others before, but after seeing his strong brother break like the sickly little boy he once was, he has every reason to care.
Furthermore, he has a powerful new reason to leave as he planned. He doesn't want to stress his brother out further. The poor man puts enough pressure on himself already. He doesn't need anymore. Gilbert gives himself a new mission: calm his dear little brother down, then remove himself from the picture once the situation was stable. As he sees it, it would probably be a gift. One less thing for the worrywart to fuss over.
Slowly, he reaches out and puts his hand on Ludwig's shoulder. "I'm sorry, West. I'm so, so, sorry. M-maybe you're right. Maybe I am just missing the good things. I'll... I'll try to look for them, I swear." His voice wavers with emotional exhaustion, and he's lying through his teeth. He has no desire to look for anything "good" now; only to make himself a non-factor in his brother's woes.
"Please, Gilbert... please open your eyes to the world around you." Ludwig will never admit what a loss Gilbert's death would be to him. He's still trying to stay strong despite having crumbled to dust already. “You need to, because you are tied to a country. If you try to kill yourself, you’ll just heal up like nothing happened. I want you to realize this.”
Gilbert willfully ignores Ludwig’s last few sentences. "I will, West, I will." He feels terrible about having to lie to his brother, but anything is better than seeing him broken like this. Anything.
Ludwig won't be in despair for much longer. Not if Gilbert can help it. No matter what his little brother tries to tell him, he won’t be leaving anything behind that he shouldn't. He will go peacefully.