The Price We Pay For The Sun

PruAus, romance & tragedy

A.N.

Okay, I know, I have a huge apology to make for my huge absense here on FF. I am so, so sorry. I have been so busy of late, and technology has kept on failing me, and my time where I can actually write has dwindled and dwindled, along with my inspiration. However, I am regaining it again, after a huge case of writer's block, and I hope you will see more of me after this very long absence. I am going to be revamping my profile and editing things - for example I was never quite happy with 'Caffe Italia' so I shall be taking that down. However the rest of the ones I have up should be continued - and, I promise, will be finished, no matte how long it takes. Anyway, the next chapters of 'This Time' and 'TSAICS' are nearly nearly done, so I shall upload those when I get back from my holiday (I leave tomorrow! And of course holiday means lots of time to write!). So sorry, again, and here's a little fic I write a while back and have been waiting to upload. I hope you enjoy it, and if you wouldn't mind taking the time, a review would be amazing to get my lazy arse up and writing properly again!

I love you all, sorry once again, and thank you for staying with me!

Keep dreaming!

Love Charli xx

The Price We Pay For The Sun

"I love you.

There's no other way to put it. I can't shorten it to a simple offbeat sound that won't let you know at all, and I can't lengthen it, wrap it up in meaningless words until what I'm really trying to say is lost, and I can't tell you with my body language, blushing and turning my head and murmuring it under my breath because you won't see, and you won't hear.

Not now.

But then again, you never were very good at reading my emotions, were you?

Like when I'm quiet and I've stopped yelling at you for five minutes in favour of shutting the door, not wanting to talk, cuddling up to you, and burying my head in your shirt, you wonder whether I'm hungry and you should go and make me toast and baked beans, not realising all I want in the world is just stay there in your arms, away from whatever's upset me.

I always have to say exactly what's on my mind otherwise you'll never notice.

Obtuse git.

But then, that's who you are, isn't it? I couldn't change a thing if I wanted to.

…

But I don't want to.

I want you.

Gilbert Beilschmidt.

Yes, you screw everything up and I feel like I spend half of my time yelling at you to take your boots off when you get inside and scolding you for interrupting me whilst I'm playing piano and screaming at you to just lower your bloody voice already! but at the end of the day, I love you.

I love the way when you're nervous or embarrassed, you brush your hair back from your forehead as if imitating your brother and just bite your lip slightly, looking at your feet and shuffling them imperceptibly, before looking back at me, pink cheeked, as if waiting for me to reprimand you. But when you do that, I can't possibly come out with a reproachful comment and have no choice to shake my head and just laugh.

I love the way you have to shake your wet hair like a dog after you get out of the shower. No, you can't towel it dry like the rest of us, or let it dry naturally, oh no, you have to shake your head back and forth and splatter the bathroom with drops of water that stay stuck on the ceiling for the rest of the day. And God help anyone that gets in the way; I know first-hand that your platinum hair can hold more water than the Kariba Dam in rainy season. But then you after you've finished giggling at my dishevelled appearance, soaked from the water you've liberated from your own hair and instead covered me in, you apologise and start your feet shifting and lip biting and blushing and it's so perfectly endearing I can only mutter an exasperated comment and tell you to just get your clothes on and come into the kitchen and bear some vague resemblance to a normal person.

I love the way you say my name when you're half asleep. "Roderich," voice croaky and fogged with dreams, and then you pull me closer just to go straight back to sleep again. But that one word is so honest, so genuine, so perfect, that it makes me fall in love all over again. You forget that there are in fact three syllables in my name and just pronounce it as if it's just two, slurring the 'er' until it vanishes completely. And the end of the word just trails off into the pillow until it's barely audible. It doesn't sound like my name at all after that, but it's purely you and no one else says it like you do. And so when I hear that slurred, blurry, sleep-distorted version of my name, I know you're there and I'm not alone.

I love the way sometimes you just spontaneously decide to take me somewhere and you wake me up at six in the morning, press a steaming thermos flask of tea into my hand, ignore my protests and threats of 'just let me sleep already Gilbert, or I swear I won't cook for you for the next three months!', tell me to dress scruffily, and guide me, bleary-eyed and half asleep, into the car to fall straight back to sleep, sometimes for several hours while you drive, and then wake me up again (with less protests this time) to take me somewhere magical and different every time. I remember you taking me right up to the coast one day without warning, no preparations made, nothing but each other, your battered old jeep, a hamper of hastily picked-out food, and enough tea and coffee to put the entire population of Austria on a caffeine high for a year. I remember going right up to the edge of the cliffs, nobody else in sight, just you and me, and we sat at the edge and spent the entire day there together, eating junk food and picking flowers out of the sandy soil to put in one another's hair, and at last we watched the sun go down together, feeling as if we were sitting on the edge of the world. We stayed until after it was dark and it was three o'clock in the morning before we eventually got home, me asleep in the car, and I remember you waking me up because I was in an awkward position and you couldn't pick me up out of the passenger seat, so I had to clamber, half asleep, out of the car, only for you to hoist me up in your arms and carry me inside, me uttering curses and kicking feebly from under the veil of sleep.

I love the way you occasionally try to cook for me and I'll come into the kitchen to be greeted with a room that looks as if a bomb has gone off inside it; cooking utensils strewn about the counter, food arranged messily in random positions on the table and some on the floor too, some sort of sauce dripping off the kitchen cupboards, everything in the wrong place; an absolute mess. And you'll meet my eyes with a sheepish grin and my heart will melt and I'll set about cleaning up while you try to finish whatever strange meal you had in mind, only for me to eventually take over from you, rolling my eyes and grumbling after I notice you knock some random bowl I had been meaning to salvage from the wreck of the kitchen onto the floor.

I love the way such cooking sessions inevitably descend into a food fight, and after we've finally finished throwing food at one another and your hair is no longer white but splattered with the colours of whatever you had been trying to cook, and my glasses are so smeared I can barely see anymore, we leave whatever bombsite we've left in the kitchen, shower it off, and only after that do we come back, pop a ready-made pizza in the oven and tidy up the kitchen while it cooks. Your attempt at cooking goes into the bin and several no-longer usable utensils with it, and we argue about who broke the expensive mixing bowl before the oven interrupts us with an impatient bleep and we go and eat, giggling about your failed cooking session. And then after we're done eating, we'll look at the remains of the mess in the kitchen, promise ourselves we'll clear it up tomorrow, and go to bed.

I love the way your boots look next to mine in the hall, yours dirty and smeared with mud, mine pristine in perfect condition, because they complement each other and though mine are lined up neatly and yours are strewn about like a toddler has just had a tantrum, it fits. Like you and me, Gilbert. I mean, we're not exactly the most similar people in the world, are we? But we work, and we fit together, and I am what you aren't, and you are what I'm not, and your childlike recklessness compliments my timidity and unwillingness to do anything out of the ordinary perfectly.

I love the way you can't bear to see an animal suffering, and so no matter what time of day (or night for that matter) it is, you will bring some poor, sick animal from outside, into the house, trailing dirty footprints (and pawprints) all over the carpet, pleading with me to help it. And I try my best, because it's you, and you want to help. And every time I have to shoo a newly healed animal out of the house when you insist on keeping it in the library and it knocks over a bookcase or something even more valuable, you look at me accusatorily and I have to remind you that it's now perfectly healthy and we've done all we can. And then you shuffle your feet and look at me and thank me for helping it and I call you an idiot and you wrap me in your arms and rest your chin on top of my head and I close my eyes and know I'm home.

I love the way you're just taller than me, just enough that I can feel protected, but not intimidated when you wrap your arms around me, and I'm just at the perfect height to be able to bury my face in your shirt and breathe in the smell of you. My arms go comfortably around your shoulders and yours around my waist, and my lips press to your collarbone, almost fragile, and you'll either rest your head in the crook of my shoulder, or your chin on top of my head, or you'll lean down to press your lips to my forehead, or to capture my own lips in a kiss. We just fit, you know. Like it was meant to be.

So now I feel like half of me is missing.

I love the way you always try your best to make me happy. Even though you end up infuriating me most of the time, you'll always try and patch it up and make sure I'm ok. I mean, you're not really that good at it; you can't tell the difference between when I'm upset or hungry. You ask me a lot if I'm happy, and when the answer is an exasperated 'yes' you'll grin in that dorky way you do and move on, but when I answer no, you'll wrap me in a warmer embrace and whisper in my ear that it's ok and I can tell you what's wrong, and it's so sweet and endearing I can't help but spill out everything and let you hold me until I feel brave enough to face the world again.

I don't know if I'm ever going to feel brave enough again.

I love the way you get so fiercely attached to characters in the silly little American sitcoms you always make us watch. We'll be wrapped up in blankets on a cold winter evening when the heating's cut out, watching one of them, me practically falling asleep, when I'll get jolted back to reality by you jumping up and screaming at one of the actors to 'just tell her you want to bang her already!'. I've known you to pump your fist so enthusiastically you fall off the couch when a couple finally got together after three series' of hinting and flirting, and I've also known you to cry for half an hour when a character died.

I love the way you can't sit still for a moment. You just seem to find it impossible. Even in sleep, you have a habit of squirming around until you're comfortable, being still for the tiniest of moments, before grabbing the covers closer and wriggling around again. I tell you, it's like being in bed with an army of gerbils. And when you steal the sheets every single bloody night, I end up shivering on my own, resorting to wrapping my own arms around myself grumpily to keep warm; but even then I know that I only have to prod you and you'll open your eyes and grin sleepily at me and come closer and wrap your arms and the blankets around me and suddenly, despite your incessant fidgeting, I feel warm.

So why then, Gilbert, won't you open your eyes now?

…Why?

Back then they had said it was just something small. Barely worth an operation, really. Just a silly little lump at the base of your spine that didn't seem to be doing much. But they'd done it anyway, taken it out, patched you up, and sent you back home again five hours later with a slightly bemused expression and a great new story to tell at the pub. It had drifted to the back of our minds and we'd never really discussed it or thought of it again. Until you started getting the back pain.

Of course, like the worrier I am, I made you go back to the hospital and get it checked out. And to my relief, they sent us back with a 'it's fine, nothing to worry about, take some paracetamol'. But it persisted. And it was only after nearly a year had gone by and it hadn't cleared up and seemed to be getting worse (not that you'd ever told me) you suggested to me that it might be a good idea to go back to the hospital. I'd had no idea how much it was starting to affect you. You simply didn't want to worry me or anybody else.

So maybe it was your fault that it was left so long. Maybe it was mine for not thinking to ask if you'd stopped getting the pain.

But either way, the lump was back.

And not so benign anymore.

The next few months were just a whirl of failing treatments and panic and tears and confusion and last times. You were determined to do everything, to be everything you could in the time you had left.

I don't understand it. Any of it.

Our lives were just beginning. Just getting started. So why was it all just callously thrown away?

I love you so much, Gilbert. It would take me far too long to tell you every single thing I love about you. You make me scream, and you make me cry, and you make me wonder why the hell I'm even with you at all, but at the end of the day it's like you're a part of me, and I love you so much it physically hurts.

I remember falling for you. Gradually realising that the days of arguing and teasing were slowly growing less frequent, and the angry scowls were turning to lingering glances, and the few occasions I would be forced to spend time with you were becoming less of a chore. When I suddenly realised I was making excuses just so I could be with you.

I want to be with you. Forever. And I don't see why this all has to end. I never wanted you to go, ever. But now you're lying in front of me, so close, and yet so far at the same time. Technically there's nothing but a sheet of glass between us. But that sheet of glass stands between all the jokes and the hours and the affection we shared. Between everything that makes you, you. Everything that I love.

I just don't understand.

Why you?

Why you, Gilbert? This wasn't supposed to happen. Never. We were supposed to grow old together. To save up and buy that…that house on the coast – the one you always wanted. To watch the sun go down in the evenings just because we could. To – one way or another – have children, and watch them grow up together. I wanted all of that.

I still do.

So if you just wake up and tell me it's all okay it'll be fine.

...

Wake up.

Please.

Every single infuriating, exasperating, stupid, bloody thing about you is just yours and yours alone, and I'm so in love with you that I could never hope to feel the same way about anyone else. Ever.

You are perfect.

I'm not just saying it. You are simply perfect. But you've been torn from me, right when I was starting to feel it was so wonderful it could never end.

I'd never really got the meaning of the word bittersweet before.

Now I know it's just another word for the future. All the things we could have had together. They would have been beautiful.

But now they're tainted by the knowledge that they can never happen.

Who else can I scream anything at and still know they'll come back because they know I don't mean it?

Who else can I spend every possible hour with because it never gets old and it never gets boring or predictable?

Who else can I love with every fibre of my being until sometimes I don't even know the difference between love and hate because with you they mean the same thing.

You were everything.

You still are everything.

But for whatever reason, someone somewhere has decided it's not to be.

So now I'm looking at you and you're barely a metre away from me and I just want to reach out and touch you but I can't, because of the sheet of glass in the way.

And the glass might just as well be a ton of bricks for how easy it would make that.

I want you back. Okay? Please.

Just come back.

Gilbert, wherever you are now, I want you to know that I still love you. I will always love you. So if you're somewhere out there, just know that I'm waiting until we can meet again.

Because I love everything about you.

Your eyes, your hair, your hands, your heart, your face, your smile.

Oh, your smile.

In death – there, I've said it, death – you look so different. Some people say it looks just as if they've fallen asleep.

But you don't look like you're asleep, Gilbert.

Because if you were sleeping you would be wriggling around, trying to find further comfort, and your eyes would be fluttering as you dreamed, and your chest would be rising and falling slowly with the tempo I've come to know, and if you were asleep, I would be lying there in your arms.

You've always wanted to know what your funeral would be like. You once said you wished you could be there for it. So I…

I'm going to have to just tell you about it, aren't I?

It… It was beautiful.

It really was. We let a thousand silver balloons off into the night. I played that sonata you've always loved.

Elizabeta cried. She stood up in front of everyone to talk about your childhood together and broke down halfway. I've never seen her cry before. Something about her not being able to complete her sentence before she started sobbing just…broke something in me.

Feliciano was devastated too. And your brother. I can't even describe how it felt when he got up to say a few words. He didn't say a lot. But what he said was meaningful and poignant and perfect and- it spoke honestly, beautifully, of you.

Francis and Antonio struggled too. I never thought they would be the type to get that emotional. But they did. They were talking about all the stupid things the three of you had done together. Laughing through their tears. They finished by laying two white lillies on your coffin and saying they look forward to having many more adventures with you.

Don't let them down, Gilbert.

Oh, Gilbert.

This is so like you, to just disappear and leave such a gaping hole in our hearts where our not-yet-made memories of you were supposed to fit.

The world turns too quickly. Only yesterday I dropped my sheet music on the floor of an old, bustling university, heavy with the footfalls of thousands of students. Only yesterday I sank to my knees in the crowd, scrabbling to get everything back together. Only yesterday did another hand cross mine to pick a piece of paper up. Only yesterday did I look up, slowly, blushing, and embarrassed, to meet a unique pair of shining copper-red eyes and a distinctively impish grin for the very first time.

And I can't quite bear it that I've already met them for the last time.

Because as I stare at you now, there's no trace of that grin on your face, and there's no hope of your eyes ever opening again.

Although the tears in my eyes are just making every a little blurry right now so you'll have to forgive me if I'm wrong.

Oh, please forgive me.

When I… When I came home the first time after you had really gone, I expected the whole world to have stopped. I expected every single car to have frozen where it sat in the road. I expected the birds to have stopped singing. I expected the sun to have dimmed its light in respect for the loss of a beautiful person who had once watched it set, sitting on the edge of a cliff with his hand held in mine.

But no one had stopped.

The sun still shone brightly on my downcast face. The birds knew no different. The cars and the people went by, caught up in their own lives, love and loss tangled up like cotton wool in the bottom of someone's pocket, too busy ensnared in their own threads of meaning to spare a thought for the man whose life had suddenly unravelled while they got their hair cut and read the papers, news of the other billions of people on the planet who didn't know about this unknown but world-shattering event.

To some extent, I still expect everything around me to have changed.

But no. Everything goes on as before. Everyone carries on with their lives, meeting friends and family or raising children or taking part in meaningless TV game shows where they cry because they haven't won a thousand pounds or a brand new car, the only change being that now there is no one beside me for me to laugh at them with.

Who am I to call this world unfair and question everything I've ever known when really the only change in the world is a tear in one person's heart. My heart.

Just come back, please.

Please. I don't think I can handle everything alone.

I don't want to be alone.

So please come back.

I love you Gilbert. And I always will. So wherever you are, just…

Just hang on in there. For me.

I'm not going to give up on you.

I'm not going to give up on your carefree grin, and the shine in your eyes, and the bounce of your hair, and the soft brush of your hands, and the thrum of life in your body.

I'm not.

I want to blink and wake up in your arms again.

…I don't know what's going to happen now, Gilbert.

I really don't.

I don't want to ever let go.

I…

I love you. Don't ever go forgetting that.

So…

Goodbye.

For now.

I love you Gilbert.

Wait.

Before I go – I… There's just… just one last thing.

Wait for me.

Please.

It's the only thing that might keep me sane.

Knowing you'll still be there for me.

…I know people might say I'm crazy for standing here and talking to you and asking you to wait for me like this, but I don't think I am.

I just want you to be listening to me, hearing everything that I say and promising to wait.

I desperately want you to wait.

...Maybe that's selfish of me.

…

…

…But…

Until we meet again, my darling.

Until the sun sets in front of us again.

Because after it sets…it will rise once more.

I…

I love you.

And one day we'll watch the sun set together again.

I promise."

There was a long silence.

And then he shut his eyes, took a shuddering breath, and walked away.