Author's Notes
So… I basically collabed with my BEST BUDDY tranquil sheep on Instagram for this. He fucking loves these boys but he noticed a gap in their fanfictions. There's not enough soft fanfics. What am I good at? SOFT FANFICS LADS. Also this AU? Badly thought out on my part. Do I know what century this is? Nope. Do I want to say Napoleonic? Yes. Is it historically detailed and accurate? Fuck no. Are they humans or still nations? No fucking clue my man. I want to say human.
Ivan's curtains were thin from age; when the sun was up, he also had to get up. Luckily the sun didn't rise too early on his side of the house anyway but Ivan could sleep all day if you let him. He peeped one eye open, already wishing the room wasn't so bright from the sun, his room gold and spinning with particles of dust. He grumbled, hoping to ignore the sun by closing his eyes, until he heard a familiar chirping. He shoved the covers off of him, threw back his curtains and saw a little yellow bird.
"Privyet Gilbird!" Ivan greeted the little fellow before taking the slip from his mouth. Inside contained a tea bag and a small message:
"Good morning, my sunflower! I found this, supposed to be good. G.B."
Ivan gave a tiny laugh at the message and picked Gilbird up on to his finger. Gilbird then flew away, now having completed his little message. With evidence that their master had awoken, the servants flew to his room for the morning preparations.
Normal aristocrats changed their outfit quite often, but Ivan could not afford that luxury. His servants dressed him in an outfit that he would have to wear all day, whether it was lounging in the house or seeing an opera. Whilst they were scurrying around, he managed to grab Gilbert's handkerchief from a bedside drawer. Gilbert's handkerchief was made out of the same silk as his own, but was different from the red "G.B." embroidered near the corner. Gilbert had recently became enamoured with a new perfume he found in Berlin and had sprayed it over his handkerchief. A smile escaped Ivan's face as he quickly inhaled a bit, careful for the servants not to catch him. Around his neck was a small locket with a miniature of Gilbert and a lock of his white hair. Ivan only opened it in private; the servants didn't realise that it opened due to it looking so old and crusty.
"I found a new tea bag for us to use," Ivan said to Torus, passing him the one Gilbird had sent, "Is it too late to ask Eduard to use this for this morning?"
"It's never too late for you, sire." Torus answered and, with a quick bow, ran off to make sure Eduard received it. Ivan quickly made sure he remembered everything. Perfumed? Check. Locket? Check. Handkerchief? Check.
Breakfast was a boring affair. He sat down in his breakfast room with his two sisters and servants. These were used as unofficial house meetings, for everyone ate dinner at different times. Today's breakfast consisted of white bread and homemade jam for the aristocrats; brown bread and a knob of butter for the servants.
"Shouldn't they be having jam and we have the butter?" Natalia, his younger sister, spoke up.
"Butter is good for them, fattens them up for the cold." Replied Ivan.
"Jam is good for you, makes your hair nice." Chipped in Katarina, the older sister, already tucking in.
Eduard, the last of the servants, brought out cups of tea and water. The servants sat on the opposite side of the table to Ivan's family, three versus three.
"I'm almost done sorting out a dowry." Ivan spoke up after five minutes of silence. The servants stole glimpses from each other. What did he sell this time?
"Maybe your icy persona will have to start thawing." The oldest sister commented to the younger. Natalia stuck her tongue out but eventually nodded to herself, her face obscured by her hair.
"Could I not just stay with you forever?" Natalia asked, poking her jam with her soft knife. She secretly hated jam.
"The two of us getting married will help big brother get money." Katarina answered in between a yawn. Ivan sighed. If he had the money, he'd keep his sisters happy in their family estate forever. Any lovers they gained would be purely for love and could stay there too. But this softness and generosity had already hurt Ivan's finances: they all needed to start maturing. He smiled up to his servants.
"Would you like to report anything?"
Eduard, Ravis and Torus stole glances once more from one another, trying to egg each other on. Ravis, who was used mostly as a cleaner, spoke up.
"The damp is getting worse, sire. It's reaching the kitchen."
This made Ivan gulp. He had been letting the damp problem fester for years. He promised the girls that once it reached pivotal rooms; such as rooms used for entertaining and the kitchen, he would fix it. He sighed and turned to Natalia.
"Looks like you can continue being icy."
Ivan had retreated to his study to balance his books. Land rental wasn't as profitable as it used to be. His house was mostly being ran on the small profits he was making from the vodka industry. His profits were small simply because his father had been a shareholder, not the actual owner of a brewery or distillery. Paying servants on these profits were fine- but maintaining an aristocratic lifestyle was harder. Carriages, extravagant clothes, keeping up with the whims of fashion, parties, décor- these all required money that the Braginskis simply did not have. Parties had been cut down to once a year, the siblings had to fight over their single carriage, and clothes were reused when possible. Most of this was paid for by loans and royalties from his art. His creative persona, Nikolai Morozov, had caused quite a stir in the art world. Poems, ballads, compositions, essays- Morozov had been very productive. These royalties and donations from admirers kept him afloat, barely. Now the dowry money was going to be used for house repairs, and even that could not cover it. Ivan groaned into his hands. Could he risk another loan?
A knock on the door made him sit up. He had to pretend it was fine, if he pretended hard enough then he could make it fine. He turned around and pulled out his signature, empty smile.
"Come in!"
Torus poked his head over the door.
"Business meeting with Herr Beilschmidt." Torus chimed, "He's downstairs."
"Send him up."
Immediately, almost as if he could hear their conversation, Gilbert had unceremoniously ran up the stairs, his boots thudding loudly on the floors. Ivan smiled and closed his banking book, tucking it away into a drawer. That can be solved later.
Gilbert busted into his study, almost being drowned under paper. Only his hair was distinguishable from under his stack of papers.
"Mr Braginski, I have your papers!" Gilbert shouted loudly as he entered, making sure the whole house could hear him before settling on to the desk. Immediately he arranged his papers into piles and set down an ink bottle and his other writing stationary. He turned around to glance at the door.
"It's locked." Ivan said, his voice only slightly above a whisper. Immediately the two began to grin. Already Ivan felt his cheeks growing pink. The two stepped forward for a quick embrace. Ivan wanted to hold Gilbert forever, but it came apparent that his outfit was never comfortable enough for this action.
"Hello, my big sunflower!" Gilbert beamed up at Ivan, stepping away to place his hands on his hips. Gilbert did this gesture quite a lot.
"Hello!" Ivan answered back shyly. He was always shy at the beginning of their "business" meetings. With his finger, Gilbert beckoned Ivan forward, their attention turned to the desk.
"This pile here is your poetry, I've done the editing work so give me the word and I can send that to the publisher. The pile with this blue ribbon is the collection we were talking about last week. And this pile is your composition sheets, they all worked brilliantly on my flute and violin." Gilbert explained. There was a remaining pile, full of blank pieces and scrawling poetry for Gilbert to read to Ivan.
Ivan sat on the floor, finally allowing his legs to stretch out from all the short chairs that filled his house, surrounded by poetry and compositions to look over. He went through them all with a pencil whilst Gilbert sat down, ready to also create some poetry and compositions. The Prussian aristocrat chose to create multiple creative personas, each for their own genre and individual back story. Sometimes he would publish essays about one of his personas attacking the other one's art, just for fun. His latest project was to be a collection of poetry by all of his personas and Ivan's Morozov, as poems could only be sold in collections. Ivan did not have enough new poems to create a collection by himself, so Gilbert was picking and creating poetry to expand the page count.
They spent the first hour in silence, just as they always did. Gilbert now had desk space to spread out, revealing the remaining pile. Poems dedicated to sunflowers, new sheets for him to scrawl on, notes he had made: these were now organised around him. He managed to write three poems, one of those being half a sonnet he had created the night before. Ivan had gone through his edited drafts with a pencil and was reading one of the first content pages for their new collection.
"I think these poems are ready for the publisher," Ivan finally spoke up, moving the pile away from him. Gilbert smirked to himself, now he could finally start chatting.
"I'll send that off to darling Ludwig tomorrow. Would you like me to send your latest musical composition over?" Gilbert asked, now doodling a small sunflower in the corner of one of his manuscripts.
"Yes please."
"Now, let's talk about the future! I was—"Gilbert had stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at the corner of the room, fixated on something. Ivan looked up from his work. The Russian tried to follow Gilbert's eyes. Oh no.
"Anyway, I was wondering if you'd like to sit for some portraits with me. There's this lovely artist coming in, all the way from Italy, and I thought we should definitely get an awesome painting together. I'm also getting a mural in my second bedroom, I think I'll commission him for that too!" The Prussian said effortlessly, as if he had never stopped to ogle at the mould growing on Ivan's wallpaper. Ivan smiled, as always, but internally he wanted to run outside and have a big cry.
"Also, in the March, I think you should come to Berlin with me. It is a long ride, but it'll be so much fun."
"I can't." Ivan replied, looking down at his work. Normally the Prussian was the voice of temptation, and a stubborn one at that. Usually he would beg and pester, but today he knew he was stuck. He knew why Ivan couldn't go to Berlin- money.
"Are we at least still on for the opera?"
"Of course."
"Great. Pop over to mine for some tea, 6pm sharp. We can go to the opera in my carriage," Gilbert said, then quickly added: "you know how fussy I am."
For the next hour, the two went back to scrawling away on their work. Gilbert hid the poems and notes behind his spare paper. He could read Ivan cute poems another time. He wanted to chat Ivan's ear off, but he knew today was not the day. Eventually Gilbert had to leave for an actual business meeting at his own estate.
"When are you leaving for Moscow?" Gilbert asked, gathering up his piles of paper, all organised with separate ribbons.
"I was thinking of leaving next week. I have some preparations to do." Ivan replied lightly to deflect suspicion. He could not let Gilbert know about why he was going to Moscow.
The shorter man smiled up at Ivan, his papers and stationary in tow. He gave him a nod, the special nod that said I have to leave, but I can't say goodbye. Ivan hunched down slightly, noticing the Prussian man's own locket and Berlin perfume, breaking his usual empty smile down with a grin. Gilbert strode to him, planted a fleeting kiss on Ivan's cheek, and then continued to the hallway. Ivan smiled to himself, picking up his own papers from the floor. Every time, he gets closer to my mouth.
Ivan had scheduled two hours of rest before his preparations for Moscow had to start. He used these two hours to strip down to his undergarments and cry in his bed. Gilbert had obviously noticed the mould and damp growing through Ivan's study. Ivan had never noticed the problem in that room, for the corner was on the opposite side of the room to his desk, he had no reason to ever look over there.
The Russian planted his face fully into his pillow and had a little scream. Of course Gilbert noticed. Normally the Prussian would deliberately leave something in Ivan's house: an ink well, one of his piles of paper, his hat- anything. But today he left nothing but a teary Ivan.
"Why me?" He grumbled into his pillow. Why couldn't he had been a girl? Katarina would have to then be the one with responsibilities, as he would then become the middle daughter. If he was a girl, he could marry Gilbert quickly for a good inheritance. Ivan grumbled again. If he was a girl, would he have gotten away with being a ballerina? No, Ivan concluded, that still would have been off the table.
Gilbert. Gilbert with the ruby eyes and snowy hair. Gilbert… An albino? What else could he be? Gilbert Beilschmidt, the heir to a chain of breweries; an estate in Berlin, Russia and Vienna; the heir to some silly Prussian noble rank; the heir to an art collection and an impressive library. Ivan sighed. How come God let Gilbert have a family of heirless aunts and uncles? A family of rich, impressive, child-less aunts and uncles? How was it fair that one man was so rich, so affluent, so clever and so goddamn pretty? Ivan sobbed some more.
A/N: Hi. Err? Do you like? I'll probably edit this again in the future, I want it to be fleshier. This was supposed to be a one-shot but now I'm too excited. I know Gilbert is softer here- I'll make him a dorky dickhead later. Next chapter we'll look at why he's off to Moscow and the opera.