Author Commentary: I saw the summary of this, only with different characters, and figured it might be fun to write it. So, I plugged in the characters I wanted and here we go... Hopefully I'm able to make this one my longest yet. I'll do my best! Also, the rating is for sexiness I'm planning for later chapters.

Title:

Characters (for this chapter): Gilbert (Prussia), Antonio (Spain), Ludwig (Germany), Feliciano (Italy)

Disclaimer: I, lucky for all you people out there, don't own Hetalia. If I did... There would be much crack! Hahaha...

Gilbert had a date with his long time friend, Antonio. They'd been together for six months and today was their anniversary. Normally, Gilbert wouldn't dress up for their dates unless Antonio told him to, but today, he took a little more care in his appearance than he usually did, hoping to surprise Antonio and maybe get a little something in return. He had attempted to comb his hair, but gave up because it was still a mess. He had picked up his nicest jeans off the ground and, after sniffing them to make sure they were clean, he put them on. The shirt he had chosen was Antonio's favorite. Every time Gilbert wore it, Antonio would shower him with compliments, and their night would generally end in mind blowing sex (with Gilbert topping, of course).

The doorbell rang, interrupting Gilbert's musing on his awesomeness. He didn't bother to go and answer it, though. He was planning on meeting up with Antonio, so Gilbert didn't expect it to be him and he wasn't planning on anyone else showing up, so the door most likely wasn't for him. Figuring it was probably just for his brother, Gilbert went back to thinking about how awesome of a boyfriend he was. Antonio would love that he went through some extra effort, especially since he wasn't specifically told to. Gilbert couldn't help but smile as he thought about how absolutely awesome his night was going to be.

Once again, however, Gilbert's thoughts were interrupted. This time, it was his brother shouting his name up the stairs.

"What do you want, Ludwig? The awesome me is busy," he shouted back, making sure to sound annoyed.

"Your boyfriend is here," he replied, and Gilbert could practically hear the frown in his voice. Ludwig didn't approve of Gilbert having a relationship with Antonio. He didn't mind that the two of them were friends, but he didn't feel that Antonio was "boyfriend material." It was just because happy-go-lucky Antonio could be a little slow at times. At least, that's what Gilbert figured. In truth, though he would never say so aloud, he found Antonio's slowness a little endearing. Gilbert rolled his eyes at the thought of Antonio not being "the perfect man." He knew his brother had the hots for the hyper, pasta loving Italian, who wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Ludwig had no room to judge.

Rushing down the stairs with a huge grin on his face, he started speaking the moment he saw his boyfriend. "Antonio! I thought we were meeting up! What are you doing here?"

Antonio looked nervous. "Hey, Gilbert."

"What's wrong?" Gilbert asked immediately as he looked over the other man. He'd never seen Antonio look so nervous, so something had to be wrong.

"We need to talk," Antonio said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.

Oh shit! Those four words were bad news. Gilbert didn't know what exactly Antonio wanted to talk about, but he could tell by the body language and those four choice words that he wasn't going to like it, whatever it was.

"Okay, we can go up to my room," Gilbert said, proud that his voice didn't shake.

Antonio was shaking his head, though. "Can we just talk in the living room?"

So he wasn't planning on staying long... That meant no date, which meant that Gilbert went through all this trouble for nothing. He frowned without thinking about it, then replied, "I guess..."

Walking past Gilbert, Antonio went straight into the living room and stood in front of the couch. "You might want to sit down," he said as Gilbert followed him in.

Nodding, Gilbert sat down and looked up at Antonio expectantly.

"Well... there's really no other way to say this, so... I'm just going to tell you. I've fallen for someone else," Antonio told him.

Gilbert felt his jaw drop, but he was too stunned to stop it. He was too awesome to be dumped! Besides, dumping people was his job! He'd never been on this end of things before and he didn't know what to do. Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, "Who?"

Antonio blinked, looking like he didn't want to say. "Uhm, it's Lovino... " Antonio finally said, a fond look coming over his face... The look he used to have when talking about Gilbert. Stupid, fickle Spaniard. Then he continued, "But don't do anything to him. It's not his fault." The fond look was a little mixed with worry now.

Gilbert clenched his jaw. He was being dumped for the jerky Italian brother?

"I still want to be friends," Antonio said with a hopeful note in his voice.

Trembling with barely suppressed anger at his audacity... or maybe it was just naivety... either way, it didn't matter. Gilbert was pissed that he would dare to think that everything would be A-OK between them after this. "Out!" he shouted, pointing toward the door. He didn't want to even see the stupid Spanish man he'd just wasted six months of his life on. He was pissed... and... there was some other emotion there that he couldn't quite place.

Looking like a kicked puppy, Antonio walked to the door and stopped. He looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped when he saw the look on Gilbert's face. After a moment of indecision, Antonio finally left.

Upon hearing the door close, Gilbert crumpled onto the couch and curled into a tight ball. His body was shaking yet again, only this time it was with the sobs he was trying to suppress. He recognized that other emotion now. It was sadness. The same sadness he'd felt when they were in elementary school and the class's pet chick had died unexpectedly. Gilbert had been attached to it, and, though he didn't like to admit it, he'd cried. Only now he didn't have someone to comfort him. Last time, Antonio and Francis had taken him away from the other students so they wouldn't see him cry and they had done their best to comfort him. Now... he was alone on the couch, trying not to cry and failing miserably.

"Gilbert?" Ludwig asked, poking his head in and looking at his brother worriedly.

"Go away," Gilbert mumbled, halfheartedly throwing a pillow in the general direction of his brother.

"I told you he was no good," Ludwig said, the usual hint of smugness that would have accompanied the 'I told you so' was absent from his voice.

"Go. Away," Gilbert said, lifting his tear-stained face to glare at Ludwig.

After a moment, Ludwig disappeared into the kitchen. Gilbert sighed and then heard his brother speaking quietly... Most likely, Ludwig was just on the phone, so Gilbert tuned him out and stared blankly at the ceiling. It was much better than thinking about how much it sucked to get dumped.

Gilbert lost track of time as he stared at the ceiling and was confused for a moment when someone was suddenly standing over him, worried face inches from his own.

"Are you okay?" asked a voice full of the same amount of worry that the face held.

"'Course," he replied gruffly. "I'm too awesome not to be." Gilbert's face was still blank as he looked into the eyes of his brother's Italian friend (or was he something more? ...Gilbert didn't want to think about that), Feliciano. It was Feliciano's brother who had stolen Antonio from him. After a few moments of reminding himself that it was Feliciano and not Lo vino who was in front of him, he asked, "What do you want?"

"Your brother told me you were upset, so I brought you some gelato to cheer you up!" Feliciano said brightly, obviously proud of his thoughtfulness. "Want some?"

Gilbert's face brightened considerably. "When does the awesome me not want some of your awesome gelato?"

Feliciano looked confused.

Gilbert sighed. The kid really was thick. "Yes. I want some gelato."

"Oh! Okay!" Feliciano practically skipped to the kitchen to get the gelato from the freezer where Ludwig had deposited it. Bringing Gilbert a ridiculously filled bowl, he sat next to him and chattered away.

Not even pretending to listen, Gilbert happily ate the frozen treat. Maybe things weren't going to be so bad... After all, he was, is and always will be awesome!

And so the healing began.