Chapter Text
The drive from the hospital to the sea is a short one. Sparse traffic and the car seemingly having no objections gliding across the asphalt that weaves through the city. Between houses and gardens, flower boxes on windows where the flowers are long gone. Succumbing to winter in a slow and quiet sigh of air. No screaming. No crying.
Just a sleepy exhale, that suddenly isn't followed by another inhale.
Ludwig won't admit to it, now or ever, but the dead flower boxes are the ones that gets him. And as he hears the telltale exhale of his brother sitting in the passenger seat beside him, something possesses his bottom lip, and it quivers completely out of his control.
The road suddenly seems blurry, and he instinctively turns on the car's wipers. But the windshield is dry, and all the wipers do is a sad, uncomfortable brrr sound that nearly gives him a heart attack, as he's dragged from his reverie. He shakes his head. Subtly. And moves a hand lead by a stiff arm to his face, and none so discreetly wipes at his cheeks. If Gilbert notices the gross sniffling, he doesn't say anything. He keeps his gaze on the scenery. An eerie stillness around him that shouldn't be there - Hasn't ever been there. The first round he had with death, he laughed it in the face, even as it wore the faces of people he knew once as allies. As friends. He took it in stride. Bitterly watched as the very last drop of ink spelled out his signature, and ripped through him with violent screams of agony and curses that not even Gilbert himself understood.
But at least then it'd been right. It'd felt right. In a grotesque, nasty sort of way - it'd been Gilbert . It had been Prussia , to go out like that.
Throwing himself against restraints, spitting blood and gore everywhere, but facing it all with a stubborn sense of pride. For everything he'd fought for, lived for , and died for, it seemed right that his death would be a spectacular show of pain. Agony. Fury. Ludwig had watched it, sat through it, cried through it, not knowing much else than it shouldn't have ended like that. That he should've realized things were going sour sooner, because maybe then he wouldn't have had to watch his brother die right in front of his eyes.
But Gilbert hadn't died, then. Prussia had.
The car rumbles with the asphalt turning into gravel. The crunching and cracking steadying Ludwig's heartbeat slightly.
"We're here." He mutters, pulling the car into a small sectioned parking lot, and yanking the break a bit too harshly when coming to a stop. He relaxes his feet from the pedals, hand turning the keys before yanking them out and letting them sit in his palm. Fingers fiddling with a small pasta-keychain he begrudgingly let himself be coaxed into using by a certain, pasta-loving italian. But as much as he finds it embarrassing, it's a sort of comfort now.
A crow cries out in the trees in front of them. The trunks and naked crowns leaning over the car, peeking in through the windshield. Reflecting in the glass with the sky brightly obscuring the birdseye view into their little box of tense quiet.
Eventually, Ludwig looks over. The silence dragged out too long. But when he looks, Gilbert isn't asleep.
He's staring into the forest with a furrowed brow. Eyes not focused on anything in particular, but something about it seems so timeless and old. An old contemplativeness that… Well… He didn't know Gilbert's face could even do.
Ludwig swallows, clenching his keys in a moment of bravery and feeling the ragged edge of the cartoonish fork poke uncomfortably into his hand.
"Gilbert?"
A moment passes of nothing happening, until Gilbert blinks. Once, twice, then he takes a breath and let's it out, in a harsh sigh through his suspiciously stuffy sounding nose.
"Yup." His voice sounds strained but Ludwig doesn't comment on it. If Gilbert had ignored his own sniffling earlier, returning the favor is a matter of course.
Gilbert shuffles slightly, unfastens his seatbelt and then swings the car door open.
Ludwig wills himself to get out of the car as well, the cool air giving him shivers as it brushes against his pant leg in autumn waves.
Gilbert is already walking ahead, hands swinging by his sides as he strides towards the same old and worn path that hasn't changed much in the years since they found it a few decades ago.
Ludwig isn't about to try and catch up. So he takes his time. With one leg out of the door, one foot on the cold gravel, he falls back in the car seat and covers his face. He lets his shoulders start shaking as his eyes sting and water. Let it stain his cheeks and his hands. He allows himself to be pathetic, just for a moment in his car in an old gravel parking lot surrounded by dead and spindly trees.
He doesn't know how long he sits there listening to himself cry. Letting his hands cover his face, so he can try and convince himself that it isn't himself crying, but someone else. Someone with a different face, and different features than him. Someone weaker and more suited for tears than he is.
He only removes his hands when the faint sound of the ocean breaks through his pity party. The wind bringing the smell of seaweed and freshwater through the trees and into the car with him.
It's refreshing. If not a bit gross.
He gets out and locks the car a moment later. arms, much like his brother's, swinging by his sides when he starts towards the trail.
Whatever he was expecting to be waiting for him at the beach, it's not his brother squat down smack middle in the sand, with his face hidden in his arms and his posture so small, he almost thinks it's a rock. Maybe a piece of driftwood or a boat .
But no, it's his brother, curled up in the sand, the wind whisking at his hair. Ruffling it into even more of a mess than it already was.
It takes the breath out of him, and leaves him frozen to the spot. Because he wasn't ready for that. Wasn't ready for that display of vulnerability, that show of emotion that he's never actually seen Gilbert be in. It's foreign, and he doesn't like it.
But as like everything else with Gilbert, vague assumptions such as that one is doomed to be proven wrong, as his brother rises from his position as a piece of driftwood, and faces the ocean straight on. His hands curling into fists and his back straight, Gilbert takes a breath. So big that Ludwig is afraid his lungs might burst, and he is almost, almost taken by surprise, as a warcry rips through the serene afternoon and Gilbert is sprinting towards a colony of gulls, sitting idly nearer to the water.
Ludwig watches his brother wave his arms around, screaming like a madman, chasing a bunch of seabirds.
The gulls take flight, swarming around his brother like a whirlwind of feathers and noise, and in the middle of it Gilbert stops. Shoulders rising and falling with his breathing, until he throws his arms up, hands still curled into fists, looking like the smallest, tallest man the world has seen. And then, a loud 'whoop' pierces the air. Much like the sudden warcry from earlier had.
And it sounds so ridiculously clean.
So free, so purely chaotic, that Ludwig's bottom lip comes alive once again. Out of his control, it wobbles dangerously. His eyes stinging anew. Of course Gilbert wasn't going to wilt away. He's not a flower - He's a man. A soldier. A war criminal, he's done unmentionable things, lived a thousand lifetimes - Of course he's not going down quietly. Of course he's not going to sit back and let life steer him off a cliff. If he's going to fly off of a cliff, anyway, then make it show. He'll make life take a backseat to his performance, he'll grip the steering wheel in a white knuckled grip, step on the gas, and laugh with everything he's ever had to put forth and he'll barrel through the road railing and he went regret a single thing as he, for just a breathless moment, is suspended in mid air. No seatbelt. No airbags. Just him, his life, and a banging good time.
"YOU AIN'T BESTED ME YET, GOD!"
Ludwig snaps his head up, the words echoing around the trees behind him.
Gilbert's hands are still highly elevated in the air, in his absurd form of power pose, he takes another breath.
"I MIGHT BE DYING, BUT I'M NOT DEAD
YET
- SO SUCK IT! IF I CAN'T BEAT DEATH, WELL FINE! WHATEVER."
Gilbert's arms falls to his sides heavily. The gulls have migrated to a more desolate part of the beach somewhere, but Ludwig doesn't have the mind to check. Gilbert turns, and Ludwig's breath hitches.
He's grinning. Wide and defiant as ever, he's grinning. Cheeks shining with unmistakeable tears, but they don't seem to matter. Doesn't even seem to be real. Gilbert sucks in another breath, charging his entire body up for another exclamation. He leans back, opens his chest.
Then he turns back to the ocean, and Ludwig chest contracts in an involuntary sob.
"I'LL JUST HAVE TO BE THE FUCKING BEST AT DYING THAT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN! MARK MY WORDS, IT'S NOT OVER YET!"
Another 'whoop' escapes him, but it's more hoarse this time, more uneven, but louder.
And Ludwig finds himself itching forward, hands clenched at his sides, he takes a breath.
Beside him brother, facing the ocean with cold winds biting at his cheeks. His nose. His hands, he nearly knocks himself over, letting out a loud, boisterous scream - Gilbert's surprised laugh that erupts from him before he joins in; Somehow it eases the knot in his chest. Loosens the string slightly.
Any other time, he would've scoffed at his brother for pulling him along towards the relocation of the gull colony. Would've brushed him off and told him to go by himself, to entertain his own crazy desires- But right now, with Gilbert laughing and sprinting towards a pack of birds, waving his arms wildly right beside him, he can't imagine a time where he wouldn't have joined.
Can't imagine a time, where he would've turned down racing his brother for who could reach the birds' next settlement fastest. Laughing, watching, as Gilbert trips over his own feet and face plants into the sand. Having to haul him back to his feet, and feel the cold dusting the old Jean jacket his brother insists on wearing year round.
He's never cared to ask why.
But maybe now isn't the time for that, either.
It's a good while before they're both sitting in the sand, panting, watching the waves roll inland.
They don't talk, just sit. Enjoying the sounds. Each other's presence.
Try not to think too hard about anything.
"Do you miss it?" Ludwig asks suddenly, voice quiet, almost inaudible over the waves.
Gilbert hums. "Miss what?"
Ludwig looks down at his hands, fiddling with a stick he found buried in the sand. It's small. Reminds him of when he was little, and used to collect sticks as trophies - Back when trips to the forest was the best part of his week.
Now that he's thinking about it, maybe he shouldn't have asked. But alas, he's in it now, isn't he?
"Being Prussia."
Gilbert's breath catches in his throat, and Ludwig sits through a long coughing fit, induced solely on his own curiosity at the worst moment possible.
But Gilbert doesn't seem angry. Doesn't seem terribly upset, like he did just a decade or two ago.
He sighs, leaning back on his hands when his breathing evens out, and looks out across the sea.
"I mean, if you lost both your legs and your arms, you'd miss them, even if you found some new way to cope, right?"
Ludwig looks up, glancing to his brother, who turns to do the same. Red eyes meets his own, and there's something oddly resolute in them. Something that Ludwig only remembers from his time as a nation.
"I guess." He says finally.
Gilbert smirks, turning his attention back towards the water.
"Of course I miss it, but that won't do me any good, does it? We might be immortal creatures of fables and fairytales, but we aren't gods. And we're sadly bound by the same stupid rules of physics as everything else. No matter how awesome it would've been if we weren't."
Ludwig's little stick break between his thumb and forefinger, and he flicks it away in front of him.
"Well, it's unfair you've lived this long just to die of a stupid disease. It's you , you aren't supposed to just end. " Beside him, Gilbert shuffles, until Ludwig is looking up at him, standing over him like a saint, with the sky behind him, looking like he owns it.
"Yeah, well, everything ends, little brother! Even someone as awesome and amazing as me. And I'm not just saying that to make you feel better, because I know that shit doesn't help."
With a strong and confident sniff, Gilbert proudly places his hands on his hips. A wide grin spreading across his face, making his eyes crinkle at the corners. He bends at the waist, leaning down to get a closer look at Ludwig. His tone quiets ever so slightly, and Ludwig feels like he's 30 again.
"I'm saying it so you'll get your head out of your ass and face reality. I have one month to live out the last of my awesome days, and don't you dare make it super depressing with all your moaning about it being unfair- of course it's unfair. It's life, when has life ever been fair?"
A hand comes to firmly clasp the nape of his neck, Gilbert's fingers icy cold, but the grip just as secure as it's always been, and Ludwig bites the inside of his cheek not to start crying again.
"You can be sad later - Right now, I have a bucket list to finish. So suck it up loser, first stop is the airport. We're paying Arthur a visit."