A/N: I wanted to see how well I work with PruCan. This is by far the longest fic I have ever posted.
I don't know if this is a breakthrough, or just sad.
Disclaimer: Do not own. Will not own. Have never owned.
Enjoy!
Mural
Gilbert's case was a strange one. A mixture of lies and confusion- a mess so indiscernible, that even he questioned what it had become.
He had a naturally brash personality, and his reputation boasted more than enough of it. He made sure that whoever had been bestowed upon the blessing of meeting him, even once, would never forget him, despite how much they wished they could. He forced his voice out of his mouth- loud, obnoxious, terribly ill-mannered. As long as they heard him, as long as they knew he was there, he was alright. As long as he did not lose his voice, he would be sure to keep his memory fresh in their minds, and he would be alright.
He could never find a group he stuck with. He would bother someone, then skip away and bother someone else. That was what he had always done. At some point, whilst all the skipping and bothering, he wondered whether he did it because he couldn't fit in, or simply because he didn't want to. He knew, somewhere down in his head, behind his ego, that the chances of him becoming normal was close to nothing. It rested in the pit of his subconscious, feeding him the thought that he couldn't stand commitment.
He listened, and thus, as an addition to bothering, he would abandon.
A couple of minutes by himself hit him with shock. He, once again whilst skipping and bothering, found that there was no one left for him to bother. Gilbert realized how terribly alone he felt, as the sickening feeling of loneliness left the nightmares in his head and sunk down to his chest.
But he was stubborn. So very, infuriatingly stubborn.
And he refused to be brought down by the prospect of loneliness.
This stubbornness didn't evaporate the fear he had begun to feel, however it may have lessened his ache. Frustration settled where the terror had been, and he didn't know why he was doing what he did, why he was thinking how he thought, why he was feeling this way. There was no reason to bother, and yet he did. There was no reason to abandon, and yet he had begun that as well.
Time away from others gave him time for himself, and when the room felt this quiet, he could almost swear he heard the sound of his conscience choking him.
The coming Monday brought him to a weak feeling of understanding, as he held an elegant, long, silver, incredibly pansy flute in his hands. Why was it that an instrument so delicate- in sound and in appearance –gave him so much comfort? He blamed his grandfather for playing the flute himself those many years ago. His heart clenched as he remembered that he was the one who used to play it for him, before an accident claimed his brilliantly long life. Gilbert's grip on the instrument tightened, and he had to remind himself that nobody would bother to criticize him, much less care, if he took this up as a hobby.
So, unsure of whether it was because of spite, or a choice of his own, he did.
The remnants of frustration inside his chest began to disappear. Whilst each note was played, each gentle melody raised up crescendos, he felt his anger ebb away. Opening his eyes, he realised the calmness of the room for the first time.
It didn't seem lonely anymore. It was comforting.
The sound of the flute had yet to cease echoing.
A solid month rolled by, as Gilbert found it easier to roam hallways with no one at his side. There was the occasional fussy younger brother, and sometimes even the occasional fussy younger brother's boyfriend, but it ended at that. Feliciano would always find Ludwig again, and drag him off as Gilbert would watch with a smile on his face. He surprised himself when he noticed that the smile was genuine, and despite the coldness he felt at his side, it warmed him to notice that he still had enough heart to feel happy for others.
Kindness was something Gilbert wasn't used to. The people around him, should they linger, were always the same. Irritated. Annoyed. He had never said 'thank you' or 'please' or 'sorry'. He never felt the need to. Neither did they.
So when he heard these words, directed at him, he felt his gaze gravitate to the speaker in nonplussed and utter confusion. It was a simple hallway, and he had simply collided with a passer-by. A daily occurrence.
And yet, the person in front of him was thrown in a frenzy. Gilbert only sat there on the ground, mouth screwed shut, staring up at the man as he rambled on and on (in a foreign accent, Gilbert had the consciousness to note) about how terrible his manners were.
There was a sigh, something about, 'I'll take care of it,' and in no time flat, the mess, and the person, were gone.
Well.
Gilbert felt his feet move on their own, his hands gathering his papers off the ground. That was certainly odd, he concluded. Assuming he would go on about his day the way he normally did, he proceeded.
There was just one problem. The person with the strange hair and the strange eyes and the strange accent clinged onto him, to his head, to his thoughts, like glue to a piece of paper. The more he thought, the more it intrigued him, and the more he began to realise that he had never seen this person before.
Gilbert did not expect a second run-in, or a third, much less fourth, yet they happened, and he felt fondness overcome his curiosity. The person had yet to give him a look of irritation. Had yet to snap at him for being an imbecile. Instead, there was a general warmth and kindness. It was something Gilbert felt he needed to know more of.
Before he could stop himself, Gilbert had asked the person whether he would come with him on one of his idle bouts around town. The person had looked thoroughly surprised, confused even.
Opposite to what Gilbert had been expecting, the person had agreed.
It was a short, uneventful outing, but somehow devoid of awkwardness. Almost immediately, the other had accepted him, and almost immediately, Gilbert had found his fondness grow. Matthew was still as strange as he had been, but now he could be strange in specific ways, Gilbert had decided. He had a twin. He played hockey. He had a pet dog, whose name he could never really remember. On accident, Matthew had blurted out word of his obsession with maple syrup, and Gilbert had joked about Canadian stereotypes.
It was outlandish how comfortable Gilbert had felt around him. Outlandish to the point that he began to wonder why, of all people, his mind had chosen a stranger to open up to.
Gilbert noticed the silver ring circling the end of his flute emitted bright, airy tones. His mood changed dramatically, and his lowered ruby eyes became alight with a faint, uncharacteristic happiness he didn't feel very often.
He couldn't quite pinpoint why, but at that moment, he didn't care.
Matthew had commented on it the same day. Gilbert had told him how, since the attic was mostly filled with useless junk, he was thinking of cleaning it out and putting some of his stuff there. Apparently, he had made these plans last year. Matthew reprimanded him for being a lazy ass, and offered his help, which Gilbert had grudgingly agreed to.
The conversation was choppy, and Matthew had been far more blunt than his usual self. Gilbert was strangely unnerved.
"…You seem different."
Gilbert looked over to his side.
"Different how?"
"…happier. Happier, as in," Matthew paused to shove an old dusty book into a box, "you smile a whole lot more. You've stopped drinking every night, and you don't snap as much as you used to."
The back of Gilbert's mind marvelled how much Matthew knew him, despite knowing each other for little over half a year. He debated on whether or not he should throw in a comment about stalkers.
He decided on offhandedly replying with, "Maybe it's the weather."
And he left it at that.
Gilbert's mind spun a thousand questions at once, double the normal amount his hyperactive brain could usually think.
After watching his brother fall in love all those years ago, he had recently fallen suspicious of himself. Never, on his entire internal mural of musings, did the word love fit in.
Last time he checked, it was written in the corner, in red pen.
This morning he checked, and it was written in the center (next to the word awesome), in sickening swirly graffiti that was both beautiful and shockingly repulsive at the same time.
Now he questioned himself. His newfound cheerfulness. His sudden desire to tackle Matthew and thank him over and over and over again, because the kind nature of the other had placated Gilbert's contrasting personality. Impulse was no longer what he listened to.
Gilbert had understood that, amidst all of the outrageous behaviour he had showcased, all of the times he had said 'I'm perfectly fine with being by myself,' there was hesitance. Instead of fully dealing with the circumstances, he had idled, plagued with the death of his father and grandfather. He and Ludwig had switched rolls, Ludwig scolding him like a bigger brother and Gilbert ignoring him like a younger one.
Matthew had taught him to stop and think. Gilbert considered the idea that he could very well be indebted to him.
He checked again. His mural still had the word love plastered over the middle.
The repulsion died with the word fear.
The day was ordinary.
Gilbert didn't fare well with ordinary.
He had given up on staring at nondescript things, trying to make them more interesting with his awesome rays (Matthew, however he tried, could never diminish Gilbert's immaturity). His gaze shifted to the next most interesting thing, which just so happened to be Matthew.
A breeze floated by, rustling the branches of the tree they had chosen to sit under. Matthew had tricked Gilbert into silence, grumbling about how the book he was reading needed his full concentration.
Gilbert had scoffed. Matthew had ignored him.
Gilbert's head was swimming in a sea of utterly random thoughts, one being the question if I wasn't born albino, what colour would my eyes have been?
He waved that off. Probably blue or something.
His head, ever incessantly running, cranked out the question does eye colour have anything to do with personality?
Now this was interesting. Red meant awesome, right? You can't walk around and see red eyed people too often, can you?
Gilbert watched Matthew's eyes skim the pages of his book, and cocked his eyebrow. In the light, the way the sun's rays shined in his eyes, the pure blue looked like a deep purple.
And suddenly, the purple seemed deeper, and Gilbert felt his shoulders fall and his eyes widen a fraction.
The flick of a page broke Gilbert's reverie, and he felt his chest swell. It was a thousand heartbeats at once, a feeling of elation he should have expected by now. He almost panicked.
His mind was spun in a wind of confusion again, and it grabbed for the one thing he could have hid behind.
But the fear was long gone.
"Matthew?"
The deep blue, purple tinted eyes raised to look at him. "Yes?"
"…you know I…love you, right?"
The word on his mural was bolded.
A/N: I feel like I started rambling somewhere in the fic. Bleh. ._.
This has been edited...I don't know how many times. But I finally got it to look the way I wanted it to. ;A;
I stuffed a bunch of headcanons in here. All of them are explained, hopefully.
That bit about Prussia playing the flute is one of my favourite headcanons. Frederick II/Old Fritz was a flutist, so I thought it'd be nice to add that. The room the fic talks about could either be a real room or a figure of speech. It could stand for his mental state.
Canada having dark blue/purple eyes comes from both the anime and manga design. I didn't want him to have violet eyes (I feel like it's been done too many times), so I decided to give him the eyes he has in the anime, just slightly leaning to a purple. That way, it stays canon without being legit! :D
Review?