Title: An deinem Grab (At your grave)
Characters: Gilbert/Prussia, Arthur/England, mentions of others
Warnings: mentioned character death, some language I guess?
Disclaimer: Unfortunately neither Gilbert nor Arthur nor any of the other characters are mine. I hold no rights to anything other than the writing.
Wer wird an deinem Grab steh'n? - Who will stand at your grave?
Wem wirst du wirklich abgeh'n? - Who will you really leave?
Wem wirst du wirklich fehl'n? - Who will really miss you?
Wer wird um dich trauern? - Who will mourn for you?
Wer wird deinen Tod bedauern - Who will regret your death
Wenn du nicht mehr bei uns bist?- When you are no longer with us?
It had started as a beautiful, sunny day in late autumn, so they had decided to hold the funeral service on the lawn near the cemetery. Later, the sky had clouded and they were all glad that they had installed a canopy when it started to drizzle.
While the priest was reading something from his prayer book, Arthur let his gaze roam over the service. The coffin was covered with flowers, and a big photo of his old friend was standing next to it, showing him with a wide smirk and two thumbs up, as if he wanted to say "Everything will turn out okay because I say so!"
He sighed. The grey sky was a very fitting background to this sad occasion.
"Hey!" a very familiar voice suddenly said, and then Gilbert took a seat next to him. "Why are you sitting in the back row?"
"Because I knew you'd show up sooner or later," Arthur whispered in reply. He was glad, though, that Gilbert had enough tact to not shout in his usual tone. He couldn't bear that today.
"What kind of reason is that supposed to be?" Gilbert asked curiously.
Unlike the Prussian, Arthur didn't turn his face to look at him, and whispered: "I knew that you'd pull me into some kind of conversation, and it would be very rude to disturb the others' mourning, don't you think?"
"Hm," was all the other replied before taking a look at the others. "I didn't think that so many would come…"
Arthur nodded. There were only a few humans, but a lot of nations were sitting in the rows, some just staring in silence, choking back their tears, and some crying loudly. Some of them he had expected to see, like that damn frog who was weeping like a little girl, but there were unexpected ones too, like the Baltics.
On the other hand, he thought, Ivan was here, so they had probably been forced to come. Toris especially didn't seem to be too happy about it, since Feliks had refused to attend the funeral.
Gilbert was also surprised to see Lovino among them, but then he realised that he had only come to comfort his brother, who was clinging to his shoulder, tears running down his unusually pale cheeks. Normally this would've been Ludwig's job, but his brother was too busy shedding silent tears himself. Gilbert made a face. "Aw, poor crying Ita-chan… maybe I should go and comfort him a bit, what do you thi…"
"You sit down!" Arthur hissed through his teeth as Gilbert made an attempt to rise from his chair. "Leave them alone. You can't do anything to reduce their pain."
"Ah, you're such a spoilsport!" the Prussian whined, but he sat down again. He looked at his brother. "Why's he crying, anyway? He was always complaining about how annoyed he was!"
Arthur let out a low sigh and faced his friend. "You know he has difficulty expressing his emotions… just like you," he added when he saw the Prussian's eyes watering.
"I'm not!" Gilbert replied, and wiped his eyes. "I'm not crying. I just… something flew into my eye, ok? I'm not touched by this! At all!"
Arthur just nodded in silence.
The priest then closed his book and they were ready to let the coffin down into the grave. Roderich, Antonio, Francis and Ivan took positions next to the coffin, then heaved the wooden box silently.
When they let down the coffin, Arthur could see wet streaks on their faces and asked himself why he was the only one who wasn't having to fight back tears.
As the others started to offer their condolences to Ludwig, Arthur got up from his chair and whispered to Gilbert, who didn't move at all: "Get up already." He nodded towards the grave. "Someone's waiting for you."
With a sigh, Gilbert stood up and walked towards his brother, giving him a gentle smile that wasn't noticed at all, and then passed him and approached the man standing behind the gravestone.
Finally, Arthur felt tears welling up, and with a scowl he tried to gulp them back. Without success.
"You bloody git… don't look so damn happy!" he cried when Gilbert took the hand that Old Fritz offered him, and let his old mentor lead him away from the cemetery.
Note: This fanfiction was inspired by a song called "An deinem Grab", by the German band Megaherz. Song with translation: watch?v=GN2An6PqQuw
When I listened to it, I immediately had Prussia's funeral in my mind and who of the others would be sad and who would not. And after almost tearing up (yes, you read that right), I just had to write something about it to get it out of my head.
So I killed Gilbert … again -_-
And I wanted… I don't know… I wanted to use Arthur's ability to see ghosts… that's it, I guess.