it is nineteen fifty-two and feliciano comes over to visit him, says since they're working together on coal and steel with francis and lotte and constantijn and emma they should really catch up, shouldn't they? and begins making fish soup

he got the recipe from alfred, he says, when alfred was having a good day (the kind where he didn't see ivan in every corner) and thought he should share it because good food is meant to be shared!

and they have spoken in years, because feliciano for whatever unfathomable unknowable reasons of his own has come to see ludwig at least once a month ever since the may when everything finally ground to a halt in dust and blood

and he brings food and ludwig has seen how his cheeks have returned from their hungry starved hollows of nineteen forty-four, have become round and healthy again, and his eyes glint like they used to before

and now it is nineteen fifty-two and feliciano hands him a bowl of chowder and sits next to him at the table

and his shoulders are not tense and defensive and he laughs easily and somehow, unfathomably, unknowably, he is unafraid around ludwig and he has stayed by his side not only through years of fire and blood and twisting pressure bearing down on them both but through the long dark aftermath of rubble and exhaustion and suspicious stares and whispers of murderer murderer once a worthless fascist always a worthless fascist and cowardly turncoat weak traitor whose side are you on but feliciano has stayed and there is no way ludwig knows to thank him for that

and he has been consulting books recently about how to make sense of the twisting mess of gratitude and first-best-friend and kind-to-me and always-there and a thousand more things and the books are no help at all

but feliciano leans against him and tells a joke that doesn't translate into german and laughs at it anyway and then laughs at his translation and the mess tangles in on itself into a ball of

i'm-in-love

and ludwig chokes on his soup and in the end isn't terribly surprised and feliciano says what is it?

nothing, just thinking

about what?

and ludwig answers just…things and in his head takes the little tangled ball and presses it close

feliciano has snuck into ludwig's bed again since if he's going to stay over he might as well

ludwig mumbles in his sleep and feliciano smiles to himself, cuddles into his chest

and he notices that ludwig doesn't wake up in a panic and doesn't go tense when feliciano hugs him and doesn't flinch away from him like he does with so many of the others and instead puts an arm around him in his sleep and returns the hugs and talks openly to him and even laughs a few times but when he does it's one of the best sounds feliciano's ever heard

and he's seen ludwig change, change from the terror of europe to terrified and alone to someone who can speak in public without shrinking in on himself

and he's seen ludwig open up enough to cry

and he's not defensive around feliciano, not terrified, and he's used to feliciano hugging him and sneaking into his bed and always lets him

and he's been thinking a lot about how exactly to unknot the strands of protects-me and protect-him and kind-to-me and trusts-me and he's still not sure but maybe they shouldn't be unknotted maybe they knot together like tapestry and form

i'm-in-love

and that makes feliciano put his arm around ludwig in return and in his head he wraps himself in the tapestry and pulls it close

notes: lotte, constantijn, and emma are belgium, netherlands, and luxembourg respectively; all these countries plus france, west germany, and italy were part of the european coal and steel coalition, which was a precursor of the eu