Chapter Text
“War wasn’t always like this.”
The sigh Ludwig let out was all too familiar. Another new adult distinction that Gilbert would be forced to catalog; the sigh was a lot heavier than it should’ve been, laden with grievances that couldn’t easily be solved with a stern talking to and a new train set.
There was also Lud’s new height. The irritating fact that if Gil ran his hand across the lower half of Lud’s face right now, it would feel like sandpaper from the onset of his beard. (Ludwig usually shaved daily. Not a lot of options for self grooming in Bumfuck, Nowhere, France.)
“We don’t really have time for another one of your stories, brother.”
The snark was also new. Ludwig clutched at the map in his hands and starred at the the blank sky, increasingly vexxed.
“It’s pertinent. It means the old strategies I taught you won’t work here,” Gilbert gestured to tank-tracks in the damp grass, “The advanced weaponry makes the numbers so much worse. The death count so much worse. Poison gas. Even that shitty piece of glorified metal that you insist on lugging with you everywhere-”
“The German Mauser Gehwr 98 is the reason we’re around today. Put some respect on it’s name. And I’m not using your outdated tactics, I told you. The Schlieffen Plan is airtight. So long as we reach Paris and defeat it within the week.”
Gilbert bit his tongue. Reaching Paris, let alone capturing it in this time span would be a pipe dream. Almost.
But Ludwig had grown up in the twilight of a new age. Rapid industrialization had rendered Ludwig a force to be reckoned with as soon as he could walk. His economy. His military. Gilbert’s own, unconditional support. Europe’s eyes scrutinized him, sizing him up, and considering all the ways they could tear him down.
And Gilbert recognized the tightness in Ludwig’s jawn (a heart twinge). It was his own, distorted slightly by the lens. Gil understood the arrogance, the assuredness of a teenaged boy trying to prove himself, and so Gilbert would bite his own tongue, and stand steadfast at Ludwig’s back and march dutifully with him to Paris.
“We’ll have to go North. We’re somewhere a little too South East,” Ludwig’s shoes left prints in the snow. Gilbert stepped in them, like a metaphysical shadow.
He was letting Ludwig have his little leadership moment. It was natural, of course, for a nation to be bloodthirsty at this age. Back then, Gilbert had dragged a sword rusted around behind him, cutting down whoever got in his way in the name of God and Glory.
“This would’ve been easier if we hadn’t gotten separated from the trains and the rest of the troops.”
“Don’t blame me for that,” Ludwig scowled, “You’re the one that ran back at the last second to post that letter.”
The adolescent bloodlust now came with a side order of bitchiness, apparently. Lucky Gilbert.
“I never asked you to run after me, you know,” Gilbert snapped, “You did that of your own accord, Ludwig, you can’t blame all your decisions on me.”
Ludwig whipped around, “Oh and I was supposed to just leave you there? Because that would’ve ended so well, wouldn’t it? You couldn’t differentiate between Bonn and Cologne if i held a labelled map up to your face. But sure, you’d be able to get this far without me-”
“I have lived two thousand years without you, Ludw-”
Ludwig shoved a hand to Gil’s mouth so hard it was practically a punch, flinging his body on top of his brother’s. The rat-boy in Gilbert longed to bite it, both out of instinct and because he wanted to win the argument.
Near by, there were roughened murmurings, the sound of twigs snapping underfoot. A language that Gil could probably decipher if he was in the mood to torture himself. Adult, french men.
Not getting shot took precedence over proving Ludwig wrong. Slightly. So Gilbert did not end up biting.
The bushes offered them enough protection. Gilbert squeezed Ludwig’s hand, a valiant message between brother’s. It was fine. They could slink away quickly enough and reorient themselves when they were far enough away and-
And Ludwig was pointing the gun at them, a stone-cold look on his face that Gilbert could not recognize.
“They’re civilians-” Gilbert scrambled upwards in a half-hiss, his eyes wide, “What the fuck-”
Ludwig’s elbow pushed into Gil’s face. Hard enough to make Gil fall backwards, stumbling, incapable of preventing Ludwig from shooting.
BANG. BANG.
Gilbert stared at the sky as he laid on the grass. The tree’s partially obscuring his view of the grey, gormless sky. An endless nothing. (He’d dumped Lud in a forest like this before as a training lesson, once. Handed Lud’s 12-year-old body a battered old pocket knife and told him to keep himself alive for a week using it. Lud had come back with blood on his lips. Gil had been oh so proud.)
A salty, metallic taste singed on the back of his tongue. Ludwig must’ve given him a nose bleed.
So. Bloodlust, bitchiness and the sort of arm-strength that could theoretically be used to bench press a horse, which would be great if that strength hadn’t been aimed at shoving Gil to the ground in various embarrassing positions twice in two hours.
When Gilbert was in a stance that could technically pass as ‘on his feet’, his gaze caught on the clots of blood in the grass. Neural matter, smushed up brains. Two headshots. Ludwig had been lethal on purpose, hadn’t even considered a disarmin method.
Ludwig was already crouched over the dead men, clinically wiping them down to gather information and anything of value, “We’ll steal their clothes and wallets and string their bodies up somewhere. If we blend in, making our way to Paris will be much easier.”
“Okay.” Lead deep in Gil’s chest.
Silence blanked them for a few minutes as Ludwig stripped them down and Gilbert watched from afar, eerily distant. Maybe it was disappointment. Maybe it was awe, that Ludwig had been able to react so quickly, so ruthlessly. Maybe it was jealousy.
“That letter you were writing. Was it to Austria?” his voice was a knife, a threat, a sudden sentence cutting through the quiet like butter. Ludwig’s hands paused above the men’s bodies.
Gilbert blinked at him, confused by the tonal whiplash, “Uh, no.”
Ludwig’s hands resumed, and the world started up back in motion again. Snow fell.
There’d been other inconsistencies with Ludwig’s behaviour ever since Roderich had dropped in. He’d been eavesdropping, hanging around closed doors, occasionally glanced at them both with a pointed venom that amused Gil. He’d been especially good at his training that week, he’d even broken his previous record when it came to axe-usage.
When Ludwig stood, he looked at Gil as if he didn’t truly believe him. The face of his little brother shed and replaced with a caustic stranger. Mouth curved cruelly.
“You know, you’re extremely critical about this war for someone who put us in in this position in the first place.”
“Watch your mouth, Lutz,” Gilbert raised his eyebrows, bringing his fist upwards, “Just because Bismark handed you a fancy new title doesn’t mean I still can’t knock you around when I need to. You know that’s not what happened.”
“I’m sure Austria coming to our door and pleading on his knees certainly didn’t influence the decision. And neither did whatever he did in your bedroom afterwards. Your emperor’s decision-”
“Our emperor,” Gil corrected, his anger rising out of him like steam, “we had an alliance. What kind of men would we be if we didn’t honour our promises.”
“Men that aren’t stranded in northern France evidently,” Ludwig told him bluntly. The response was restrained enough, but Gilbert could tell from Ludwig’s muscle twitch that he was holding himself back. A hatred was looping in him, and it was aimed at Gilbert for whatever reason.
“I don’t see why you’re so pissy-” Gilbert hissed, “You practically ran towards this war. You never objected. I thought this was what you wanted.” And Gilbert had. He’d been pleased, that first week after the announcement; Ludwig’s bloodlust, his determination was all a product of Gil’s own handiwork. Gilbert had built the monster.
“I wanted it for us. Glory- no, more than glory, security, for us. There’s no defense better than a good offense.” Gil’s own words thrown back at his feet.
“I-“
But Ludwig was already done with this conversation. Gilbert had to run to catch up with his retreating back, pacing a few steps behind when he did to give lud time to cool off.
“It’ll be faster if we can find a village for directions. Maybe we can take a train, or pay someone to take us,” Ludwig grunted. He counted the money in the wallet. It was a lot. Probably amounted to some French family’s entire monthly income. And now it was in german hands, being used against them.
Gilbert glanced back at the bodies briefly, but Ludwig’s hand touched his cheek, forcing Gilbert to look forward.
“Your guilt is showing,” Ludwig smiled at him. It was his first smile in a long time. It unsettled Gil more than he cared to admit, “You’re a soldier now, not a priest. Not anymore.”
“Y-yeah-,” as soon as the fingers were gone, Gilbert missed them. They’d changed too. Becoming longer, sturdier. Stronger. More manly. It embarrassed Gil that he yearned so badly for Lud to touch him again. It was a side-effect of their unification, probably. Growing pains. Symptoms of erased boundaries, a mingling people and culture.
Around them, the war was becoming more apparent. More tank tracks that hadn’t yet been skillfully hidden away by nature, small craters in the ground where shells had strayed from the battle ground. Trees with broken arms. Gilbert could’ve sworn he’d seen a tooth somewhere in the dirt as they walked.
“Any village we see is going to be an unlucky one,” Gil commented, eyes catching on a farmhouse on the distance. Crops ruined by the bombs.
Gil had known destruction, sure. In his days, the landscapes were grimmer. Rivers of blood. Burnt down houses. Desecrated bodies. At least now the women and children were left out. Sort of.
It was the widened diameter of it all. The fact that a battlefield so far away could do this. A village plundered was one thing. This was entire countrysides sucked of their flesh and blood, their bones left out to rot like a corpse.
Ludwig was unaffected.
“We should stop at that farm house. There’s smoke coming out from the chimney so there must be somewhere there.”
“Hm?” Gilbert glanced up at him, and Ludwig pointed to Gil’s foot.
“You’re limping. Must’ve twisted your ankle when I pushed you.”
“Ah,” Gilbert glanced down at the purple patch peeking up over his sock, practically taunting him, “Didn’t even feel it. Weird. I guess my regeneration is a bit weak.”
Scraps like this were healed in a few minutes. Bullets, sure, those could take a few hours. Nothing like a beheading that could give you a migraine for weeks.
Ludwig crouched down, peeling down the fabric carefully. There was a gentleness to his fingers. He touched the bump so softly, Gil knew it was a type of an apology (even though, really, he’d only been trying to save Gilbert’s ass when he’d pushed him). Their own, brother-only morose code.
“Lateral ligament tear. It hasn’t healed because of the war, I’d suppose. The economy must be worse than I thought. It’ll heal though. After Paris. After we win.”
“What if we don’t win?”
That anxiety had been slowly biting at him this entire time. What if Francis held out. What then. What if they had to split up- the two of them, on opposite fronts? Ludwig had never been away from him for very long, especially not during war. He wouldn’t be able to handle himself without Gilbert, big brother, the stronghold.
“Don’t be stupid. Of course we’ll win,” Ludwig straightened up, eyes on the farm house, “I’ll have France’s pitiful detached head beneath the heel of my boot before the month is up. Now, come on.”
Gilbert followed, comforted by his words even though they’d been a bit gore-y.
The farmhouse was a windswept thing. Old, with walls that had probably weathered a century or two, and a roof that looked like it’d been repatched every few months because of the rain. They were hit with the scent of baked apple pie as soon as they’d stepped through the doors.
There was an old woman wearing a chintz apron in the kitchen. Grey hair, puffy wrinkled cheeks, thick-cut, big circled-glasses. Completely defenseless. Fuck.
“Hello?”
Gilbert reached out to Lud, ready to leave, but he’d moved forward and was already out of Gil’s grasp.
“Hello. We’re French soldiers. My brother got injured during one of the shellings and we seemed to have separated from the main battalion.”
Gilbert was surprised at the fluid French flowing out of Lud’s mouth. Maybe those culture and etiquette lessons Bismark had insisted on had paid off…
“Oh my-! But, of course, you poor dears, please come inside, you must be freezing!”
A stew, a pie, and two cups of tea later, Gilbert began observing the place. It was well furnished, though not expensive. While clean, the table showed obvious signs of being well used, a notch that could’ve been two decades old. Two portraits of two boys, just barely adults, on the mantelpiece. Probably her grandsons. It was likely that they were in paris right now. Two young french boys, shoved into their stiff uniforms, ordered to defend against the encroaching, evil German army.
“Your brother doesn’t speak much, does he?” The old lady- Mrs Boucher, as she’d introduced herself- smiled at him.
Ludwig had been carrying the conversation the entire time, somehow falling into the caricature of slightly dazed, perfectly charming young man like it was a second nature.
“Oh, my younger brother is-”
Gilbert kicked Lud under the table. Ludwig’s smile widened, but otherwise did not react.
“- from an English boarding school, I’m afraid, so his French is still fairly infantile- he’s always been bad with other languages, any kind of etiquette really, (another kick)- Our mother was English and wanted to send him there, but he’s since graduated and wants to work hard to defend our father’s homeland. So you’ll have to excuse his mannerisms.”
Mrs Boucher clapped her hands, “It’s wonderful to see the youth so motivated. I’m sure your both very brave soldiers. My own grandchildren were very insistent on going despite my hesitence, but I realize how selfish I’ve been. There’s no greater honour than fighting for one’s country.”
Gilbert winced. The woman’s blind devotion reminded him of the more pathologically reverent priests during the crusades. The country she worshiped was a chronic womanizer, a flirt and a vain little aristocrat that spent his time languishing in a rose covered balcony over men that wouldn’t fuck him.
The boys’ whose portraits she so lovingly kept would return in caskets.
That was the bare bones of war.
But Ludwig nodded at her enthusiasm, his face not showing a hint of disagreement, as deluded as the priests had been, “I agree. Sometimes we must fight for an ideology bigger than ourselves.”
Gilbert was growing uncomfortable. He nudged Ludwig, hissing, “Paris.”
Ludwig reached into his pocket, and for a terrifying second Gilbert assumed he was taking out his gun.
Gilbert saw the images unfold; he’d shoot her, and then her frail, fragile, wrinkled body would be on the floor, brain splattered across the green, flower print wallpaper, and this was how her grandsons would find her when they returned, only she’d be impossibly more decayed, because there’d be worms, bacteria, rot, and maybe the cat had been at her, and Ludwig would say they should steal her car and-
From Lud’s pocket emerged a folded piece of thin paper, their map.
Christ.
Ludwig and her discussed directions at length. Potential pitfalls, what the weather would look like the coming hours and whether there could be any chance of a flash flood or rock-slide from the neighbouring hills.
Gilbert deflated in his chair, bored. Talk of geography worked on him faster than medical anesthesia ever had.
Eventully, Ludwig got up, gave her a warm smile and promised to write one day. His ability to lie was uncanny.
Instead of walking onto the road, however, Ludwig took a detour towards the side of the house.
Gilbert blinked as he trailed after him, suddenly confused, “So… you are going to evil-y steal her car? My daydream had been, like, partially correct?”
“She doesn’t have a car, idiot. She’s a farmer and this is the early 1900s. That would be historically incongruent. Try to keep character.”
Ludwig opened the barn doors.
“So. We’re the horses-stealing-kind-of-evil instead, huh.”
Ludwig began tying the saddle, “I left the wallet on the countertop. It should be more than enough, but we’ll only take one horse just in case. I don’t want her to be more frazzled than she needs to be.”
“Why am I not the one in front?” Gilbert demanded, folding his arms, “I taught you how to ride a horse.”
“Because I don’t want us to ride off a cliff when we’re so close to Paris.” Ludwig was smiling though, the words not meant to be unkind, or at least not the sort of unkind that would constitute hurt between them.
Pushing down his residual grumbling, Gilbert clambered on, leaning his head between Lud’s shoulder blades. Lud’s back was much broader now, a comforting and solid force.
“I hope her grandson’s come back safe.”
“Stop wishing an enemy soldier well. For every Mrs Bocher, there is an old lady on our side of the boarder, an old lady in Berlin, in Frankhurt, Hamburg, that is waiting for her grandson. A wife is waiting for their husband, a child is waiting for their father. One side has to end up unhappy, and it can’t be ours. So Paris must fall.”
And so they took the horse, riding off into the charcoal smudge of the horizon. They were well-fed, sedated by the momentary comfort’s of that old woman’s house.
Eventually Ludwig spoke. Quiet. Soft. Almost unsure.
“You know, you were never this sentimental before. I thought you’d have been proud of my apathy,” there were plenty of memories to choose from. Gilbert had been vehemently opposed to music, poetry, all those horribly human things he could never hope to understand. Lonely king on the throne, bashing Lud’s head in whenever he’d shone even an ounce of weakness.
Gilbert didn’t understand it either. It wasn’t old age. Couldn’t be old age. Maybe it was Ludwig’s metamorphosis that scared him, and Gilbert was desperately trying to fill in the hole the younger Ludwig had left behind. They’d been so unfortunately co-dependant these last few decades, and Ludwig without his kindness scarcely felt like a Ludwig at all.
The annoying blonde kid that would crouch in the dirt to obsessively study the wheels of different vehicles. Gilbert wanted him back.
“I am proud,” Gilbert said slowly, swallowing, “I’m just… not sure all of this is efficient. Besides, there are rules. Even in war.”
Ludwig scoffed, “Rules made by whom, for whom? The whole system is imbecilic… I remember when things were more straightforward, and you’d win and sit on your throne, and the loser would be dragged before you like a half-corpse, leaving a blood trail on their way in. Victory was a blank check. You could torture them, humiliate them, as much as you’d like.”
Gil did remember. He remembered Ludwig in his lap everytime, because he’d wanted to show him the dichotomy; if you didn’t train hard enough you’d end up bleeding out on someone else’s floor, begging for mercy that you didn’t deserve. And Ludwig had been curiously sadistic, even then. His boyish voice asking what would happen if you thusted a sword this way through the sternum, or what the cross section of a leg looked like.
Gilbert had always allowed it. Maybe he’d been trying to impress Ludwig in his own backhanded way.
“That was a hundred years ago, war has changed.”
“Its optics. A smokescreen. The core of it is always going to be the same,” Ludwig insisted, “Which is why we need to set fire to the barracks of that village over there.”
“I- what? What village?”
“The one the lady told us about. She’d sell her vegetables there, back when her farm was viable. It’s got a sizeable population; a sizeable adult male population. Dangerous for when they need to quickly bring in reinforcements.”
Gilbert breathed, “And if the fire spreads?” Women and children, an entire settlement turned to ash. Soldiers with no home to return to.
“It won’t if their men are smart enough. And if they aren’t… well.” Ludwig shrugged, “They should be grateful we have no plan to torch the whole thing. They’re the enemy. No mercy, remember?”
“Yes… you’re right. No mercy,” Gil leaned into Lud’s back, shutting his eyes and fingering the knife in his right pocket. This wasn’t Ludwig, because his Ludwig didn’t do things like commit arson or shoot civilians.
Gil wondered then, absently, just whose blood had been on Ludwig’s lips all those years ago when Gil had abandoned him to the treacherous womb of the forest?
Who had Ludwig eaten to survive.
The village was smaller than Ludwig had implied, with all the characteristic squallor Gil associated with rural Bumfucks in Europe. The children wore ragged clothes, the roads were dirt instead of concrete and proper cobblestone.
It couldn’t make a huge difference to Paris, Gilbert told himself, as Ludwig dismounted. What was a few hundred soldiers?
“This’ll be quick,” Ludwig told him, trying, struggling to be kind. He gave Gilbert a tired smile, “You can wait at the gate if you want to, you don’t have to look. I can do it on my own.”
“No. I want to help. Just because you’re older now doesn’t mean you don’t need my help. Kids today are so arrogant…” Gilbert tried to joke, his grin twisting his face into something that tried to be playful, but bordered on uneasy.
“Right, of course, anyways..” Ludwig glanced up at the structure. Western european structures of this size were usually wooden, easy to go up in ash. The rest of the houses too. Both of them could see it; a town of dead bodies and soot. Flesh striped and burnt, leaving nothing but bone, erasing the desperation from the faces of the victims as the ligaments melted.
“I’m sure they’ll realize in time,” Ludwig added.
Gilbert put a hand to Lud’s back, as if encouraging him to move forward, “Of course, Lutz. We all need to do what we must. To preserve what’s important to us.”
“Thank you.” There was an intimacy to this moment. Ludwig’s back was so warm and broad, and Gilbert could remember when Ludwig’s ribcage had been fragile, when Gilbert had been worried he’d accidentally break it if he’d pushed Ludwig too hard.
“I’ll stand with you,” Gil murmured, pulling out the knife, “Through everything. I’ll make sure we get to paris..”
The blade sunk into Luds back, Luds flesh yielding to Gil’s knife with almost erotic ease. Gil had slid it inbetween the vertebrae, bypassing the ribs- he’d never want Lud to hurt more than necessary. And violence between brothers was always tender, despite the dirt and blood, guts of it all.
This had been a loving murder- it’d barely last a few hours. Enough time for Gil to get Ludwig to Paris. Enough time to find a way to explain that he’d knew Ludwig would regret it later, that Ludwig wasn’t this person, that Gilbert was supposed to be the one steeped in blood and remorse.
It had nothing to do, at all, with Gilbert desperately trying to preserve the boy Ludwig had once been, that Gil needed Lud to be.
Gil’s finger’s stroke Lud’s hair tenderly.
Nothing to do at all with that.