CHAPTER THREE - AUSTRIA/HUNGARY/PRUSSIA/HUNGARY
Concerning divorcees, and alcohol with a touch of shortlived denial.
Summary/ The other ties that can be broken.
Authors note:/ This is a short drabble series, consisting of the small things I have written over the past year, grouped into comfortable, linked chunks. There will be three chapters minimum, in various stages of progress; however, these have been edited to stand alone. They have quite some time between them, and only a few of them have been edited again, so the styles may vary, and they may be in different periods of completeness, so please pardon me. These have been stress relieving, more often then not, and seemed appropriate at the time. xD
am i making all the right moves?
"Roderich... I love you."
The slurred syllables that woke him, stumbling drunk, from sleep had come out in a broken whisper, the syllables muffled by the edges of sleep and his pillow. He looked down at her tightly curled form beside him, her smooth skin as her legs tangled around his, her curves, faintly visible through his shirt, that she had worn since she had stumbled, painfully, shaking onto the threshold of the cold apartment building. Her frame was crouched, slightly, the light material of her shirt clinging to her to remove any possible protection; and she was, impossibly, weak.
His fingers were also tangled in her hair, the tight strands clinging to his fingers. Halfheartedly, he tried flexing them, fingers constricting, clingingly after just an inch, before he rested his hand back down, resuming his prior position, half curled around her, or against her, arms covering, as if trying to shield her, against the outside. The world. Gilberts eyes closed, deliberately, blocking out the growing orange glow on the horizon, that highlighted the room- and, he had to admit, it was funny what changed over five years. Just five years ago, he would not have let her in, and she would not have asked.
Yet, and he stuck on that thought, leg moving from beneath the blanket to stretch, briefly, in the colder air of morning, the comforting strain of his muscles sending a pleasant shiver down his spine into her hair on the pillow; when he had the chance to re-examine the last sequence of events, he had to condemn himself to the conclusion that, in actuality, she hadn't asked then either. The reddened eyes flashed open once more, dried, crispy, wavering slowly in a yellowed haze around the room before settling on what he could identify as the wet stained remnants of her sodden entry – but she had to come to him in that state, at that time- the luquor cabinet opened and half drained, his defences god damn down- and then need him.
Damn it. She hadn't needed to, had she? Pained, saying nothing in her pride, yet the raw emotion in her eyes, the untempered hurt and damage striking out as loud as if she screamed, flecking his now humble front door, and cheap wooden grain so hard it could make it flake into splinters, and he had had no choice in the matter.
"Roderich…!" His fingers tightened briefly, his knuckles turning white around the strands.
But then again, he was the unchanging factor, impacting nothing- her decisions, his own path, her affairs, politically and the more 'interestingly inclined routes. He didn't impact anything to the extent to change her decision on her marriage- or to his acceptance of the proposal without a second thought. That was why he was the one she'd stumble back to, for the first time in nearly a century of waiting, to catch her as she fell right into his bed; to follow suit, without the care and plan that he had liked to show her, and tend to her, as she expected of him.
The little 'Gilbert'; the little beast, trained and obedient, yet dangerous enough, for her.
He frowned into the darkness, the remains of the Cordeau haze blinked away. She had entered the house quietly, memory mapping out the route up the stairs, through the cramped, shared corridor to his apartment flat. She had not forgotten how, with that soft glow in her eyes, a sliver of a lighter green shade of need, as she physically moved herself back into his life.
How the hell had he managed to stay here this long?
Getting up quietly, he slipped out of the bed silently and onto the drying puddles she had left behind her in her wet entrance, toes sinking into the half-damp carpet, eyes adjusting to the breaking morning light. The wet shambles of his apartment was clearer to him, and pausing briefly by the door to brush his fingers across the wet cloth at the back of her jacket, he snorted, reaching for the rusty lock to his apartment, twisting the keys with a rusty creak. There was a small sound behind him, but his swinging arm didn't stop, slamming the door forcefully, enjoying the loud splintering crack it made against the wood, probably waking up the whole building.
Keys pushed through the letterbox, his glinting grin flicked wider, his hands shoved deeper into the deeper fabric of his coat.
He was never one to stick around with the dead, and if anything that was what she was now, what she had done to herself. He wasn't god damn Roderich.