Part I
I don't own Hetalia
"Feli, I'm on my way home from work." Said a deep voice from the mobile phone in a brunette's hand that was placed by his right ear. "I have something important to tell you." The brunette frowned not liking the serious tone his boyfriend was using. Sure Ludwig his blond, German boyfriend was a serious man, but still something in the tone of his voice didn't sit well with Feliciano. The two had been dating for almost two years now. Feliciano Vargas was a history teacher at the local high school while Ludwig Beilschmidt, his boyfriend was a major in the military.
"Ve~ okay. I'll see you soon then. I'm making potatoes and wurst." The Italian said proudly, most nights the Italian man made pasta, his favorite dish from his home country. But on rare occasions he would make food from his boyfriend's native country, Germany. "Hey Ludwig, did you think about the trip to Spain to visit my fratello I proposed the other day?" Feliciano had an older brother named Lovino who lived in Spain with his husband Antonio Carriedo. It had been a while since Feli had seen his brother and he was hoping that taking a holiday to the beaches of Spain and visiting such a relaxed country would do his militaristic boyfriend some good.
"About that, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to go." Ludwig said a hint of regret in his voice. "I'll explain it when I get home." Feliciano sighed and moved the wurst around with a spatula, the wurst were sizzling in the frying pan on the stove which he stood beside. What kind of training was the military sending him to now?
"Okay," Feliciano said halfheartedly, "How long till you get home?"
"Not long." Ludwig promised, Feliciano heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway and a huge smile replaced the frown that had been on his face previously. The phone clicked and Feliciano placed it on the counter beside the stove and almost literally ran to the door. Ludwig's shining blue eyes meet his brown ones as Feliciano opened the door. His camo uniform hung to his body and Feliciano could almost picture the rippling muscles underneath it.
"Hey," Feliciano said breathlessly not missing the sad look on Ludwig's face. "Is something wrong? I made potatoes and wurst. The wurst is almost done, I'd say about five minutes." Feliciano looked over to the clock and then started to walk back to the kitchen only to be stopped by a hand wrapping around his waist.
"Feliciano, I need to talk to you now. It's important." Ludwig said pulling Feliciano down on the couch beside him. The happy atmosphere of the room vanished as if someone had turned on a vacuum and sucked it all out.
"Ludwig," Feliciano whispered afraid of what he'd hear come out of his lover's mouth, his whole body shook with fear. He wasn't stupid; he'd heard the rumors of activation, of the soldiers being sent to Afghanistan and other seemingly Godforsaken countries in the Middle East. He had tried to ignore them; he didn't want to think about his precious Ludwig on blood soaked sand, soaked in blood from his comrades and his enemies.
"I'm being deployed to Afghanistan." Ludwig said calmly and looked down at the shaking Italian who gripped his uniform like it was a lifeline. As if it would forcibly make him stay there on their couch and not leave him behind.
"When?" Feliciano asked not sure where he came up with the strength to ask the simple question, it felt as if the life had been sucked out of him. "When do you leave?" a silent "me" hung in the air.
"Two weeks," Ludwig said quietly lifting Feliciano's chin so that he looked straight into the teary brown eyes then he leaned in and brought his lips to Feliciano's. It was not the innocent kinds that they usually shared after Ludwig came home after a particularly long day at work. It was full of need, lust, desire, and pain. Pain of separation for a seeming indefinite amount of time.
"Please come back to me." Feliciano pleaded when they separated, "Promise me you'll come back to me, that you won't die." Ludwig sighed, his fingers fiddling around each other like they always did when he didn't want to tell Feliciano something.
"I can't promise anything, Feli, there's a chance I could get into a car wreck and die on my way to work tomorrow. You can't always worry about me. I don't want you to when I'm over there. I want you to continue to live in some degree of normalcy that the situation will allow." Feliciano nodded he'd do anything the blond man requested of him to put his mind at ease while he was over in the danger zone.
The kitchen buzzer rang bringing the couple back to something that seemed so insignificant as dinner again. "I made potatoes and wurst." Feliciano said as he hurried into the kitchen as to avoid Ludwig from seeing his second round of tears. He turned off the stove and pulled down two plates from the cabinet overhead scooping out some of the mash potatoes he'd made earlier and a couple of the pieces of sausages that he had fried onto each of them before joining Ludwig at the kitchen table where the blond was reading the newspaper.
"There was another earthquake in Japan. Have you spoken to Kiku?" Ludwig said putting down the paper and watching Feliciano sit next to him at the rectangular kitchen table that had once belonged to Ludwig's uncle.
"Yes, he was in Tokyo when it happened but he's okay. They say that Japan will have large aftershocks like that for about a year." Feliciano said before picking up a glob of mash potatoes with his fork and putting it in his mouth. Kiku Honda was an old friend of Ludwig's from military boot camp. The man was of Japanese descent and six months ago was sent to Japan for a tour there. When the earthquake struck Japan, Feliciano had immediately been concerned about their friend.
Silence surrounded the couple as they ate, Feliciano had reclused himself from the world and delved into the solitude of his mind like he did when there was something he didn't want to deal with. And right now he didn't want to deal with the fact that his Luddie was going away to a war zone and might never come back. Feliciano cringed at the thought of the blond never coming back. The action didn't go unnoticed by Ludwig either and he slammed his fork on to the table making a large clashing noise as the metal object hit the metal table that was covered by a red table cloth. The noise pulled Feliciano from his mind and he looked over at him.
"I'm not him Feliciano, I will return." Ludwig said quietly, he didn't know the boy's name or how Feliciano had met him, or really anything about the situation. A boy Feliciano had been in love with in high school joined the military straight out of high school; he was apparently a few years older. He promised the Italian that he would return and they would always be together. Right after boot camp the boy was sent to Iraq and never returned. And though Feliciano had only been a senior in high school when he received the news of the boy's death it had taken till he was just about to graduate from Grad school when he was finally ready to date.
"You can't guarantee that," Feliciano whispered, "you said so yourself."
"What would you have me do, Feliciano?" Ludwig asked his voice rising to a dangerous tone. Very rarely had ever raised his voice with Feliciano. "I am a solider; going to war is something that comes with being a solider. Would you have me abandon my men now when we are so close to going to combat? To have them lose faith in me?" Feliciano's response was to throw down his fork, tears streaming down his face and run upstairs to their bedroom, the lock clicking behind the sound of the door shutting. Ludwig sighed and looked at the mess that had become of their dinner. He no longer felt hungry so quietly he cleared the table putting the leftovers in containers to take for lunch tomorrow. Then stripping down to his undershirt and boxers he flopped down on the couch and grabbed the silver remote to turn the TV on. More than likely this would be where he slept tonight.
Ludwig didn't know what time in the morning it was when he heard the bedroom door open and a quiet voice say "Ludwig," and then creaks in the steps as Feliciano walked down them. Ludwig shifted over towards the back of the couch and opened his arms out so that the Italian could crawl into them. "Ti amo."
Ludwig sighed as he read the schedule for the day's trainings. That's all they had been doing lately, training. Training for Afghanistan and their mission to stop the Taliban from taking back the power in the country, as they had been doing while America focused their attack on Iraq. He just wished Feliciano had taken the news better, Feli knew when they started dating that there was a chance with all the upheaval in the Middle East that there was a chance that Ludwig would be deployed. They were lucky that he hadn't been deployed sooner. "Did you sleep on the couch last night, chief?" only one person called him chief, First Sargent Jones. Jones was loud obnoxious and didn't know what the meaning of the word no was. He had a hero complex and if you could go an hour without him saying "I'm the Hero!" it was a miracle. But he was a good solider none the less, one that Ludwig was proud to call a comrade, and despite the childish outlook Jones liked to personify as, Jones took care of his men never one to not be on the front lines if his men were there as well much liked Ludwig.
"How could you tell?" Ludwig asked not looking up from the schedule to look at the blond man that stood in front of his desk.
"Your eyes have purple rings around them." Alfred said with a shrug, "I take it that Feli didn't take the news very well?" Ludwig shook his head, leaning back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling, sighing.
"No, he went on a rampage last night. Asked me if there was any way I wouldn't go. He cooked wurst and potatoes for me. I wish I didn't have to put him through this again." Ludwig looked into the man's sparkling blue eyes. They were darker than his own sky blue eyes. He looked concern for the major's relationship issue.
"Major Beilschmidt! Major Beilschmidt, there's an urgent message for you." Said Private Addams, a brunette with wide doe brown eyes and was one of Alfred's personal favorite underlings. She pushed up her glasses as she tried to catch her breath once she'd entered the room. Whatever the message was must be important as the private had abandoned her normal cool exterior and had run down the hall way to deliver the message.
"Oh hey Ally, what's the rush?" Alfred asked a teasing smile on his face that normally would have made the private flush red and scowl at her sergeant.
"Go ahead with the message," said Ludwig scowling himself at Alfred. She nodded still trying to catch her breath.
"Colonel Beilschmidt in the sixth infantry division of the twenty-fifth battalion has been declared MIA as of o eight hundred this morning after a small ambush that killed two other men." Private Addams said not meeting the Major's eyes. "They will inform family members and next of kin tomorrow. That is all, sir." The saliva drained from Ludwig's mouth as he heard the news about his older brother Gilbert Beilschmidt, a Colonel in the military. He was a loud mouth, obnoxious and the best damn brother any boy could have asked for. And now Ludwig could only wonder if he'd ever seen his brother's obnoxious smile again, or the excited look in his red eyes that made Ludwig wonder what hair brain scheme he was being shanghaied into again.
"We've got to tell Mattie." Alfred said watching the private leave the room. Mathew Williams, Alfred's half-brother, was Gilbert's boyfriend, though Ludwig had no idea what had brought the couple together. Mathew was quiet, logical, and pacifistic whereas Gilbert was loud, rash and aggressive, but somewhere along the road about five years ago the two met and fell almost instantly in love.
"Yeah. I can give you leave to report to your brother about the news." Ludwig offered, he would need to inform Feliciano as well. He would want to know the news.
"Thank you sir and I'm sure they'll find Gilbert alive. He's never been one to go down without a fight." Alfred said on his way out the door. Always the optimist, Ludwig admired that about the blond. If there ever was a man he wanted by his side in a warzone it was him.
The yellow door, that was the entrance to the house that he had lived in since last year, seemed uninviting for the first time to Ludwig. The news of his brother weighed heavily on his heart as well as knowing the water works and begging from his boyfriend that would come after hearing the news. The house was unusually quiet as Ludwig walked in, no Feliciano singing to Dean Martin in the kitchen while he cooked some amazingly tasting Italian food even the hum of the stove being on was absent. "Feliciano?" He called looking around the small house the two lived in but the Italian man was absent.
It was a piece of paper stuck to the fridgerator by a magnet that had some witty phrase on it. Ludwig, It read I've gone out. I won't be back till later, there's some left overs from last night in the fridge. Please don't worry about me. Feli.
"Damn it, why did you decided that today of all days you needed to go visit him?" Ludwig asked crumbling the note in his fist trying to push back the unfamiliar tears in his own eyes. Why couldn't Feli let go of the past and focus on him and the present and maybe, perhaps their future together. He threw open the fridge looking for the left overs that Feliciano had mentioned in his note and making sure to make a lot of noise to make his anger clear to the empty house he dished out the food onto a red plate and shoved it into the microwave pressing the buttons to make it cook for ninety seconds.
He felt alone in the world at the moment, his brother was MIA, his boyfriend had abandoned him to talk to the dead, he was deploying to Afghanistan in less than two weeks and no one was taking the news the way he wanted them to. He made his way to the couch once the left over wurst and potatoes were done cooking and turned on the TV to watch something stupid and mind numbing till Feliciano came home. All Family Guy did was annoy him, how could anyone enjoy something so perverted and ridiculous. Well Alfred like it, so that explained a lot about it. He finally after flicking through the channels for some time settled for the news channels which were reporting new news about the Libyan conflict that had escalated into an civil war, something that neither Tunisia or Egypt had escalated into during their uprising. Then it reported something about the government and funding. Ludwig growled as he remembered that only a few days ago he had been worrying about whether or not he would be getting a pay check. He wasn't sure where entirely he stood with politics, Feliciano was a liberal democrat and most of his soldiers were conservative republicans, Ludwig only knew he fell somewhere in the middle. Which suited him fine; he really didn't care what the lawmakers in D.C were doing as long as it didn't affect him or his men and during election times.
"Ludwig," Feliciano said tapping him lightly on the shoulder, Ludwig hadn't even realized he had fallen asleep watching the idiots on Capitol Hill argue about something stupid. Looking over at the silver cable box that sat under the TV, the neon green letters told him that the time was close to nine at night.
"You were out late." Ludwig remarked raising the matching silver remote to the cable box to turn off the TV. Feliciano nodded sitting down beside him.
"I see you got my note." Feliciano motioned to the plate and bottle of beer that sat on the coffee table in front of them. "How many bottles did you drink?"
"Just one," Ludwig responded irritably, he had wanted to drink more. Lose his sorrows in the bottom of the bottle, like he use to before the met Feliciano. He certainly had had a bad enough day that would warrant such actions. But he was afraid that he would fall into bad habits right before he left. "Look I got some news today."
"Good or bad?"
"Bad, it's about Gilbert." Ludwig choked out the name not realizing how hard it would be to talk about the day's events. "I received information this morning that he's MIA right now. His convoy was attacked by terrorist today. They don't know much more than that." Feliciano opened his mouth to say something, but Ludwig cut him off. "Yes, Mathew already knows. Alfred was with me when we received the news. He's been with him all day."
"Ludwig," Feliciano cried throwing his arms around him, tears soaked into the uniform again. "If I had known I would have come home and not talked to Wilham, but I just need to tell him how proud I was of you, and how much you had helped me move on from him. I wanted to tell him goodbye for the last time."
"You were telling him goodbye?" Ludwig asked slowly, unsure of what he was saying was true. He never though Feliciano would let go of the boy. Feliciano nodded looking straight in Ludwig's eyes.
"I'm in love with you, and I shouldn't focus so much on the past. Wilham wouldn't have wanted me to, and I know you don't want me to." Then Feliciano brought his lips down onto Ludwig's.
The next two weeks passed with a sense of normality. Ludwig packed for Afghanistan, Feliciano tried to put on a brave face for him. Friends who were nonmilitary often dropped in to talk to the couple, wishing Ludwig a safe return back to the States after his tour in the Middle Eastern country.
"Feliciano, I'm home." Ludwig called, stepping through the threshold of the door the night before he was to leave. He could hear Dean Martin's tenor voice singing in the kitchen "Memories are made of this". A smile crept on his face; it was the first song they'd danced to together at a friend's wedding. Now every time Feliciano played it while cooking they'd dance to it.
"Luddie!" Feliciano cried running from the kitchen and into Ludwig's open arms. He intertwined his fingers with Ludwig's gigantic ones and they started to sway to the music, moving back and forth around the living room.
"It's our song," Ludwig murmured as it came to an end and Feliciano led him back into the kitchen, grinning like an idiot. Ludwig felt relaxed, more relaxed then he had all day even though most of the preparation for their deployment had been taken care of before he'd even told Feliciano about what was to come.
"I'm making your favorite, tacos." Ludwig inhaled a deep breath of the spicy Mexican aroma from the different spices that made up the taco flavoring. Most people wouldn't have guessed that tacos were the man's favorite food. It had certainly surprised Feliciano when Ludwig told him on one of their first dates.
"Smells good," Ludwig said with a nod helping Feliciano pull out plates and glasses from the cabinets and utensils from the drawers.
"Ludwig, do you think, that maybe one day we might be able to have kids?" Ludwig raised an eyebrow at his boy's friend's question. Kids? They were both men, how in blazes were they supposed to have kids? "I mean adopting them, you know." Feliciano cleared up, guessing what the German was thinking from the look on his face.
"I don't know, we're not even married. I'd never really thought about kids." Ludwig admitted, "Isn't your brother adopting?" Feliciano nodded and smiled, pulling out a picture from an envelope.
"He sent me a picture of the little girl. Isn't she adorable, her name is Eva." Feliciano said handing the picture of a tanned girl with dark brown hair to Ludwig. She was only about the age of three. Beside the little girl was Feliciano's brother Lovino, his usual scowl was missing, a smile replacing it, and Antonio, Lovino's husband. "It's what has made me start to think about kids. I always wanted them, even when I was little. I use to help Mama take care of Marcello when I was little. But ever since I realized I was gay, I didn't think that the dream was possible till Lovino wrote to me about adopting Eva."
"When I come back, we'll talk about it." Ludwig promised kissing Feliciano's cheek as he spoke and tacking the picture to the fridge with a magnet shaped like a dolphin.
"Okay," Feliciano agreed and opened the fridge to pull out the cheese, salsa and cream cheese to put on top of the tacos. "Can you grab the lettuce for me?"
"Uh-uhn."
Dinner was a quiet event; each lost in their own thoughts and didn't even really notice that the other wasn't talking. After dinner, Ludwig led Feliciano to the living room again and sat down on the couch beside him. "I know this may come off as cliché, or that I've procrastinated this, but to be honest I've been meaning to ask you this for a while now and I just haven't found the right time and I can't think of a better time to ask you this." Feliciano put his index finger to Ludwig's lips to silence the ramble that only came when the German was really nervous about something.
"Just ask, Ludwig." He said calmly already suspecting what the blond wanted to ask him about.
"Marry me, Feliciano Vargas. Give me a reason to come home." Ludwig said holding out the black velvet box that he had carried around with him in his uniform jacket pocket. "I love you."
"Yes," Feliciano answered without hesitation. Then he threw his arms around Ludwig's neck almost knocking the box out of the blonde's hands if he hadn't had good reflexes. When they separated Feliciano took the black velvet box from Ludwig's hands to open it and put on the double banded ring with a small diamond settled at a converging point for the two rings. "It's beautiful; I wish I had gotten you something to commemorate our engagement."
"You didn't have to." Ludwig protested,
"But this means I'm the girl in the relationship." Feliciano said giving Ludwig a small but cute frown that made the German chuckle.
"Yes, but you'll be my girl in this relationship." Ludwig said bringing his lips down onto Feliciano's. The Italian used some of his normally untapped strength to pull Ludwig on top of him as they laid on the couch.
What was to be a gentle kiss soon turned rough and passionate. The air became heated around the lovers. "Ludwig, love me." Feliciano asked and Ludwig couldn't resist the simple request.
The next day Feliciano was quiet as the two cleaned up from their love making the night before. Normally he would be talking Ludwig's ear off, somehow sex always seemed to make the Italian more alert and awake whereas Ludwig always woke up tired the next day from lack of sleep. Breakfast was eaten quickly as Ludwig had to be at base at seven in the morning to catch the ten o clock flight that the men were taking to Munich, Germany and then to Kuwait City and finally to Kabhul, Afghanistan. Feliciano went with him as he drove the red Farrirri that belonged to Feliciano; it was the Italian man's pride and joy.
"Be good, don't miss me too much, kay." Ludwig said as they got out of the car once on base by the building where Ludwig worked, already Ludwig could see Alfred who was waving at them, Abigail the private who had informed him of his brother's status, Arthur a Brit who was in a rivalry with the American, and a few others who were all talking nervously with other comrades.
"I will," Feliciano promised, Ludwig could see that he was trying to hold back the waterfall of tears that would soon erupt from his eyes. Already a few trickles of tears had escaped his defense. Ludwig quietly caught them his with his fingers. Silently giving him all his love.
"I love you; I want you to always remember that. I don't care what happens in the next twelve months I am gone, I will always return to you." Ludwig vowed and then before Feliciano could say anything to protest or agree with him, Ludwig forcefully and passionately with all his pent up emotions kissed his Italian lover. And then he walked over to the other troops, his duffle bag filled with everything he would own for the next twelve months on his shoulder, his uniform in perfect order, ready to go fight for the country he lived in.
Feliciano didn't look back as he drove away, he was sure he wouldn't have been able to hold in the tear if he did. He could hardly hold them back now. It felt as if his heart was being torn out of his chest and going with Ludwig over to fight in Afghanistan. Well that kinda was what was happening right? He fiddled with his ring as drove to work. Ludwig thought he should have taken the day off, but Feliciano knew that the mind of children worked wonders when it came to forgetting things that you didn't want to deal with.
"Mr. Vargas, are you okay?" asked Elizaveth Hedivery, one of his students in his first class, Feliciano looked around to see twenty faces staring back at him. Had first period already begun? He hadn't heard the bell; he had just wanted to think for a few minutes. Had he really let his mind drift off for that long?
"Yes, I was just thinking. Please open your notes up, we will begin with the Invasion of Sicily and the Bombing of Rome in today's notes. Now if you remember Hitler deemed southern Italy useless and told his armies to retreat as he knew it would fall to Allied forces." Feliciano walked out from behind his desk to the front of the class pointing to a map of Italy, specifically Sicily where he himself had grown up for the first ten years of his life.
"He left today didn't he?" Elizaveth asked coming up to Feliciano's desk at the end of class. "A bunch of soldiers left today. Rodriech was one of them." Rodriech Edelstein, Elizaveth's longtime boyfriend had lived beside Feliciano when he was a kid; Elizaveth had lived down the street from them. He'd graduated last year, and Feliciano knew that the boy had joined the military and was now a private under Ludwig. Elizaveth understood the feelings that were now running through him.
"Yes, this morning. Luddie wanted me to take the day off but-" Elizaveth cut him off always being more familiar with Feliciano then a student should probably be with a teacher without being dangerously familiar.
"He proposed to you didn't he?" She indicated to the ring that he now wore on his left hand.
"Yes, you've always had a keen eye haven't you Miss Elizaveth?" Feliciano laughed and waved his now ringed hand, "Go on to your next class. We wouldn't want you to be late now would we?" She laughed as well, but took the hint. Gathering her things she walked to the doorway before stopping to turn and speak to her teacher again.
"Mr. Vargas, are you going to be alright?" she asked,
"Yes, I made a promise to Luddie to carry on and keep living no matter what. And Italian's don't break their promises." Feliciano said with a smile, not knowing how soon it would be that he would find it difficult to fulfill such a promise.
Author's Note (The part of the story where the author comes out and writes a silly note): Uh, so I wrote this back in April so there are a lot of refrences to what was current events three months ago. Um, I don't know much about ranking in the military besides what my dad has told me.