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incalculable myriads of millenniums
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(this is the end)
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1 –
Gilbert, he knows, is not quite the enemy, but he's not quite a friend either, more some kind of devil-ghost-man with red eyes and snowy skin and sharp, pointy teeth.
Still.
It doesn't stop him from giving Matthew a cigarette every so often, doesn't stop him from playing some makeshift games of poker with Matthew and his brother and Francis, doesn't stop him from sharing the porno's that Ivan's sister sends him (and no, Matthew really doesn't want to think about why Ivan's sister sends him porn, it's nice to see something other than dusty uniforms and short hair every once in a while.)
Because deep down – underneath all the world weary looks and red eyes and everything, Gilbert's still kind of just a guy who shows Matthew letters from his brother and pictures of this girl from back home with emerald eyes and laughs when he tells stories about him and Alfred, back when they were tiny farm boys playing with wooden sticks in the mud.
(He might be Matthew's best friend, because he's never been a people person anyway and brothers don't really count and neither do dogs that he can never remember the name of.)
"She married a pianist." He had said, about the girl. "And I joined the army."
"Alfred used to always steal the last piece of pie." Matthew had replied, and even though it's nowhere near the same sounding, it kind of made sense because the last time he'd seen his brother his head had been blown off. (Weird things like that tend to make sense, at least in a war.)
Matthew swallows.
And now he's lying on the ground and his leg might be bleeding – but it's going more somewhere towards numb, and he should be happy about that, he's pretty sure, but his arm is hurting like a bitch and he can't really move and somewhere amidst all the redbrownblack, he sees a spot of white.
"Hey, Mattie." The spot of white croaks, and he stares.
"Yeah?"
"This kind of sucks."
The Canadian lets out a little croak of laughter that turns into the most pathetic coughing fit possible.
He remembers once, after one or two contraband beers, when the sun was setting and there was no one shooting at them and Alfred was still alive and Francis and Ivan were next to them, grinning and laughing. He thinks Gilbert was rereading one of Ludwig's letters – the folds are so pronounced that the line in the middle is faded to obscurity, but Matthew is pretty sure that Gilbert had it memorized anyway.
What do you think happens when we die, Francis had asked, with the kind of laughter that his voice (had) always contained. And Alfred had parroted off his catholic boy roots – about heaven and dying for his country and the lord. Ivan had sighed dreamily and talked about sunflowers and sunshine and smiles.
Matthew had stayed quiet.
And then Gilbert had grinned – not the sharp kind, in that way that showed off his teeth, but something softer – and said something about reincarnation, this shit – it's like you die and then you just show up as something else, but like your soul. Like, I could be a flower or a like little rich boy who doesn't have to fight in wars.
The rest of them had laughed, dulling the somewhat treasonous edge of the previous statement.
Matthew has stayed quiet, and they all were. Just for a bit. The three other men faded into a background of nighttime and alcohol and Matthew had asked Gilbert what he would be if he was reincarnated.
A bird, Mattie. Probably for some poetic shit that I can't think of right now. But, really, just a bird.
And Matthew had nodded and only shrugged when Gilbert echoed the question back to him.
"I'd be a bird too, I think. A big one. Like a goose or something." He says now, and for a second it looks like Gilbert is going to chuckle again and call it ramblings of a dying man or have forgotten about the conversation entirely, or worse, be dead –
"And then we'll fly off together into the sunset, or whatever the fuck Ivan was going on about."
They both smile, and Gilbert reaches for his hand.
Matthew closes his eyes.
2 –
Matthew groans.
Gilbert does something with his tongue on the blonde's neck and whispers Birdie.
He doesn't love Gilbert. Nowhere close. And Gilbert doesn't love him. That's their system.
See, because Matthew is a sophomore with too long hair and messy blue eyes that Alfred swears are violet in the light, but that always makes him feel sort of twisty inside, when Alfred says things like that, and that's a completely different issue that isn't related to him being a sophomore at all. Except it is related to the whole hooking-up-with-Gilbert-in-closets-and-abandoned-classrooms-like-some-bad-Harry-Potter-fanfiction.
That's all because Matthew is completely, irrevocably in love with Alfred F Jones, also known as his best friend since they were born, blood brothers from some messy scar on the back of his hand, that boy with the golden hair and bright blue eyes like looking into the sky. Matthew could go on, but he'll end it with that boy who is dating Natalia Arlovskaya, also known as that scary blonde girl who Alfred had been lusting after since the first day of freshman year when she stepped on his foot.
Matthew could have easily stepped on Alfred's foot too, but he doubted it would magically make him fall in love. It probably has more to do with the whole thing about Natalia being pretty, and Alfred liking challenges.
Also, Natalia is a girl and Matthew is very solidly a boy, and kind of terrified to tell anyone (especially Alfred) that he is gay. Except Gilbert, of course. Not that he counts.
Gilbert is a senior with platinum-white-something hair and crimson eyes, and Matthew thinks he's an albino, but the eyes might be contacts, because that's the kind of thing Gilbert would do to fuck with people. He's got a younger brother in Matthew's grade and his best friends are Francis, Matthew's cousin, and Antonio, who might be dating a freshman, which is a little bit creepy, in Matthew's opinion. He's confident and he smiles and people know he's bisexual or gay or whatever, but no one cares, because that's just the kind of person Gilbert is.
Of course, Gilbert also has a severe case – and this is just according to Matthew's two semesters of psychology – of Oldest-Child-Of-A-Strict-Parent syndrome, which Matthew might have made up, but includes symptoms such as not sleeping for weeks on end so he can have a social life and make perfect grades and watch out for his younger brother, telling off his father and then going off to get shit-faced, and falling in love with girls with very pretty eyes, but still hooking up with a sophomore in closets. Yeah. The girl he was in love with was Elizaveta, and she was a senior too. A senior, and tall and curvy, and emerald eyes, and long hair, and kind of batshit insane, and also, dating Roderich Edelstein.
It's not perfect (because Gilbert's hair is white and Matthew is a boy, and you can't find true love in other people) but it's something, and in all of thirty minutes, Matthew is pulling back on his shirt and Gilbert isn't kissing him goodbye.
"I'm leaving soon, you know." The older boy says instead and Matthew nods.
"For college. I know."
"We're still gonna talk, right?"
And Matthew gives him an odd look at that, because talking has never been a thing they do, but then his heart does this weird thumping thing, so he nods yes.
"Good deal, Mattie. Because otherwise I'd miss you too much." And then Gilbert is effectively ruining the moment – or whatever that was – and ruffling his hair and Matthew can't help but grin back.
3 –
"The usual?" Matthew asked, as he placed a cup of black coffee in front of Gilbert.
Gilbert was a regular.
They had a lot those. There were the two Italian brothers who came in only to order coffee every single morning, and the older one would always complain. There was a Turkish man who would come in after his shift at the hospital, stuff his face with fries, and sneak into the kitchen to bother Heracles, the sweet couple that came in every Sunday.
Gilbert was the most important though, at least to Matthew.
Matthew was a waiter.
He had a rather monstrous crush on Gilbert, who came in every day except Tuesday and always ordered the same thing.
The diner was a diner. It was called Joe's, though as far as Matthew knew no one named Joe ever had worked there. The owner was in fact a rather angry British man who couldn't cook for shit. The fry cook was a lazy Greek man, and Alfred and Ivan were waiters and cashiers, respectively, when they weren't making out in the men's bathroom.
"Gdlfkgjsd."
Gilbert was hung-over.
It was a Wednesday, but that wasn't all that unusual anyway, not for Gilbert. And it wasn't like Matthew was a stalker or anything; he just knew things about Gilbert. Right. That was it.
Anyway, he assumed the grumbled noises meant yes, Matthew, I would like to marry you and have your adopted babies, I'm free tomorrow, or better yet, right now – let's do it right on this table, so he went to the kitchen and told Heracles to make a plate of fries and some pancakes and seven sausages.
When he gets back there is a man sitting at the booth with Gilbert.
And, yeah, he has a mild panic attack.
But, really, what if this man is Gilbert's boyfriend, or worse, his domestic partner, and they already have adopted babies together and they probably have sex on diner tables that haven't been cleaned in two weeks all the time, and he's probably going to start coming here every day and eventually Matthew will just have to drown himself in leftover potato grease and he'll make the news for saddest death ever: no one really cares.
He forces himself to smile for the tan man with green eyes.
"Your stuff will be out in a bit, Gil. Do you need anything?"
"Thanks Mattie. And nah, Tonio only came to stalk that bratty Italian."
"Well, you really should have said he came to this diner before last week. Franny always says diners are gross and all and you know he won't come to this one just because Arthur owns it and oh… Are you that cute waiter that Gilbert is always – Ow. That hurt!"
Matthew turns kind of red – and by that he means bright-fucking-hey-look-a-stop-sign-with-stupid-hair red.
(Gilbert had, at some point in his life, called him cute.)
And he doesn't really look, but Gilbert is pretty pink too.
The other man is rubbing his ankle.
"Shut up Tonio." Gilbert mutters, but he's unheard, because Tonio has noticed the pair of Italian brothers entering and has rushed forward to glomp the one who always complains about his coffee.
Matthew takes that as a cue to go back and hide in the kitchen, but he's stopped by Gilbert, who's still pink, but mostly just around his ears.
"Hey, um, Matt."
"Yeah?" He says, trying to ignore the way that just Gilbert saying his name sends little tingles of electricity up his spine, because people forget his name a lot, okay, and Gilbert is just so damn – pretty much everything Matthew's ever wanted in anyone.
"Do you, I mean – do you wanna go somewhere sometime? Like, somewhere that's not this diner?"
And then Matthew manages to stumble out a reply that he hopes comes out as a yes and goes back into the kitchen to sit around and smile until Alfred calls him a fucking teenage girl.
4 –
And he is surrounded by grass, blades of grass – he can see every detail, but he can't, because it all swirls together with the sky into some kind of purple-green-black-blue-red. Every color he could think of, except white.
Then there is white – white like snow and eyes like blood and a smile like the Cheshire cat.
He and the Cheshire cat go for a swim on the sea of color. They don't have a raft, but Matthew doesn't think that's really a problem right now.
He just breathes and floats and grips the Cheshire cat's hand – if he lets go, he thinks, his body might collapse and that would be bad, maybe – he's not really sure on the facts, but the hand is warm and fits his like a glove, and something almost seems familiar –
So he floats.
Until the raft disappears, and the water is sort of like butterscotch pudding – all slow moving and the color of cartoon sunshine.
Drowning in sunshine doesn't sound like such a horrible way to go, but when he tries to duck under, the Cheshire cat grabs his arm and pulls him back up.
There aren't sharks in this water, and something in the bag of his mind is wiggling around, something like – maybe sharks are supposed to be in water, but that might have been a movie.
This is the high.
(At least, he thinks that's what it's supposed to be called, but he could be wrong, he is a lot, or that might be Alfred – but… He can't really remember who that is now.)
There are lows too, of course there are. He remembers seeing that kid – the one with the curls who always looked too young with wide golden eyes – remembers him screaming about ants eating his feet, slowly he had said, like slow painful bites.
But the pills – white, shiny pills, only not really shiny – they just make Matthew feel dizzy and happy and maybe a bit – not sad, but nostalgic for things he ever even knew he could miss.
(Because in real life he was just a brat who with an absent father and a dead mother and t-shirts from vintage stores and thick glasses, but when he swallowed, he could be anything.)
And there are in betweens – because he's seen Miguel on some kind of orange trip thing where all he wanted to was run, run had said, run and never stop – and he almost made it but then that car came out of nowhere and –
That's not so good.
It's almost like Matt's in real life now.
There's a boy next to him now, surprisingly real, or maybe not surprisingly.
His hair is white, but that might be part of the fantasy.
He has a pile of pills on his tongue and Matthew kisses him to try and grab it, only he doesn't know if he did or didn't, but then he's floating again, so it doesn't matter either way.
5 –
Matthew was late, like intense late, shitshitshit.
Stupid job interview that he didn't even have time to go to, because he was doing fine, he really did want to be an artist, and he didn't see why Arthur just couldn't be supportive of that like Francis was, just because he wasn't some super-junior-senior-governor's-assistant like Alfred, and whatever. Half the time when Matthew went to these forced job interview things, the people forgot his name halfway through, and the other half he forgot what he was interviewing for anyway, and that had been especially bad last time because he'd spent 10 minutes whining about some environmental thing he didn't really care about because he'd thought that was what the company was about, only then it was actually that they were trying to acquire the rights to destroy some historical forest. And, yeah. He hadn't gotten that job.
He taps anxiously on the subway seats. They have an awful pattern, and people have probably done a countless amount of things that he doesn't want to think about ob them, but at least he's not standing. He hates standing, especially when he has to go across town, especially for stupid job interviews that he's never going to get.
There's a guy sitting across from him doing the same – the tapping. Not the inner whining about how horrible his life is. There are people starving in Africa and what not, so he should probably learn to shut up.
He's – the guy, not Matthew, because Matthew is the epitome of boring and plain and a bunch of other things that aren't very exciting – is the type of person people turn their heads to look at. He's got white hair and eyes that look red, though that might be a trick of the light, and he's dressed in one of those dress shirts that are rolled up to the elbows and black slacks and there's a gold-and-green wrapped present on his lap.
It takes Matthew a second to realize he's staring.
It takes him a few more seconds to realize that the guy is staring back – staring back and smiling.
And maybe something there is about to happen – something like electricity, something like true love, something like a conversation – but then it's Matthew's stop, and he's already late –
He'll never see the guy again, probably, but still, his smile sticks in Matthew's head.
6 –
At the airport there are people.
Matthew hates people, hates them mostly a lot. It's sort of why he's leaving.
And okay, yeah, there are a lot of reasons – things like starting fresh, things like losing his job, things like who the fuck lives in Canada anyway, things like airport tickets to California are cheaper than he thought, things like his brothers there, things like his dog died.
There's a too-skinny man, outside the glass doors. He's taking drags off his cigarette like it's going out of style, and tripping over the sidewalk to board a shuttle.
There's a boy with dark dreadlocks and headphones tucked into his ears. His hands look big and kind of strong, and Matthew thinks in another life he might want to get to know him.
There's a couple, saying goodbye. The man has a scar over his nose, and the girl looks young, her black ponytail falling over her back. Only, they both look sad, so maybe it isn't the time to judge things like that.
Two seats down from him, a boy with platinum hair is reading a battered paperback. And, just for a second, there's a jolt in Matthew's heart, and he's thinking for second about crimson eyes and summer days splayed out on the beach and the breath being sucked out his lungs, he's trying so hard, but then the boy turns and his eyes are indigo and he's turning to greet another boy, this one with golden blonde hair and a wicked smile, and the moment is gone, but Matthew is left feeling bitterly empty.
"Mattie."
There's a voice, and he turns around.
It's Gilbert, and he doesn't know whether to be surprised or the opposite of that, or maybe just tired of everything, or maybe he should just smile and grin and kiss him like every fiber of his being is begging him to.
Instead he says something sarcastic enough for it to bite, having something to do with romantic comedies and airport security measures.
"Yeah – well. I mean. I bought a ticket. Not to your flight, because they were sold out. But if I wanted, I could fly all the way to some town in Michigan."
"Do you want to?"
"No. Not really, I mean – fuck, Mattie. Ludwig said you were leaving, but I didn't think, I mean, I couldn't imagine –"
Matthew can almost imagine Gilbert's crying.
"I am leaving, though."
"Yeah."
Before he knows anything, Gilbert's arms are around him. It's some kind of hug, and something like clutching at the last straws that exist in their sort-of-kind-of-whatever-the-hell-it-is relationship.
Matthew hugs back.
"I love you."
"I know."
"This," Gilbert's eyes look broken, and if Matthew looks hard enough he thinks he can see the world falling apart inside of them, "isn't goodbye – not forever. Okay Mattie?"
"No," Matthew agrees, "it'll never be goodbye forever."
He gets on the plane and tries not to look back.
7 –
Two birds – and one is small and yellow and bright and the other is awkward and clumsy, but they're together – fly off into the sunset, or a field of sunflowers, or whatever.
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(this is the beginning)
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um. yeah.
reading through these – cos mostly they were written at different times and everything, hence the randomness. i kind of suck at actual happy endings. i mean. some of them were meant to hint at happy endings and whatnot. but still. sigh.
um, hetalia belongs to himaruya, title is from a book by jack london, etc
anyway. reviews/thoughts/critics/whatnot are always appreciated.
please don't favorite without reviewing.