Authors' Notes;
Weapon Frayer; I would like to thank LaurelSilver for her work here! It's been great, and I hope we can continue this as it goes along!
Just as a quick note; if you are wondering about the song titles, you might might to look them up, and listen as you read. Trust me, they really enchance the story! :)
Laurel Silver; Weapon Frayer suggested most of the story and song list. So you might notice that a lot of the songs are indie and pop punk, with a few metal and punk songs thrown in for good measure.
Also, you might notice that 'time is wrong', i.e, this story is set in 1980 but things from more modern times are featured. Please don't be upset, this isn't (usually) a mistake, but it will be explained later.
I also swear in the narrative. Just mentioning it so nobody's alarmed.
Für Gilbert, Aus Liz
Chapter 1 - We Can Burn Brighter Than The Sun
[Levels, Avicii]
Illinois, 1980, and the atmosphere is bright and vibrant, giving every person cloaked within it a good feeling, a feeling they may never have had before.
[We Are Young, Fun.]
In a small bar, Armes Effilochés, a young couple sit, cradling their first round of beers. He is pale, white hair and red eyes, grinning mouth laced with beer and a heavy Germanic accent, clothes dark yet neat and clean from the polished boots to the Rammstein shirt to the cross necklace. She is as fighting fit and healthy as he is, with long oak hair pinned up with a poppy, wearing practical men's clothes that suit her plain pettiness well.
A phone sits between them, on loudspeaker. Both of the young, firey couple seem confused as a Russian voice emits from the device; "And Gilbert, my good man, if you should happen to see a green eyed police officer or a detective with a big, big smile on his face, kindly punch them for me? Shout over Francis; drinks are on me. Just tell him 'Braginski'." And he hangs up.
Gilbert stares at the phone, then shrugs and downs his glass. "Drinking competition?"
Elizabeta grins. "Loser carries the winner home tonight."
It takes three hours, several hundred dollar's worth of beer, and a very concerned French bartender before the pair are even remotely drunk. Elizabeta stumbles out of the bathroom, avoiding the teenagers and old friends getting higher than the Empire State. Her seat has been taken by a pretty blond girl with sunglasses, a hair ribbon, a Rammstein shirt, and her tongue down Gilbert's throat.
[Lose Yourself, Eminem]
So the soap opera is told and unfolds; Elizabeta, enraged, storms out of the bar, not caring what she knocks over.
Out of the corner of his open eye, Gilbert sees her as she storms through the open door. He leaps up, trying to shout out to her, he opens his mouth but the words won't come out, he's choking, and she slams the door behind her, and the clock's run out, time's up, over! But he's so mad that he won't give up that easy, no, and he stumbles after her.
It seems that Elizabeta is better at holding her beer than Gilbert. She's gone.
Snapping back to reality, swearing and cursing, Gilbert stumbles about, falling over, feet failing him, the globetrotter faceplanting, nosediving the earth.
"What's going on?" A British accent, vaguely familiar, asks.
Gilbert stumbles up onto his feet to find green eyes staring back, glaring a gaping hole into his body for his barely sober soul to escape through. The name, or rather the nickname, Rabbit-face Kirkland, flashes in Gilbert's mind, the Kirkland eyebrows furrowed into a frown, the once-rabbity teeth hidden behind pursed line lips, blond hair just long enough to brush the collar of his police uniform.
Holy fuck, Rabbit-face Kirkland's wearing an actual police uniform? Not a slutty one? Unless he's a stripper.
"Hey, Rabbit!" Gilbert grins. He stumbles, Rabbit-face barely quick enough to grab him, hold him up as he vomits up mom's spaghetti.
"Let's get you to the station," Officer Kirkland says gently.
"Nope." Gilbert pulls away, stumbling about until something clicks into place; Rabbit-face is a green eyed police officer, like that Russian guy had said. And how likely is that? Pretty slim, like once in a lifetime. And Gilbert is going to miss this one chance to throw the first punch.
Officer Kirkland reels back, his assistant running over to restrain Gilbert as he giggles drunkenly.
[Clocks, Coldplay]
Stumbling into their shared home, Elizabeta flops onto their bed, passing out, lights out, almost immediately.
Her relationship with Gilbert is an odds one, with troubles that can't be named and tigers that can't be tamed. The confusion never stops, and sometimes it's simply maddening, and it feels like the walls are closing in and the clocks are ticking down, and Elizabeta doesn't know if she's the cure to all Gilbert's awesomeness and recklessness, or if she's part of the disease. But to her, oh! nothing else compares, and when she's sober and awake she's gonna go back and bring him home, come out with the things left unsaid, come out upon her seas cursing missed opportunities, and she'll be home where she wanted to go.
Fucking hell, her heads a mess when she's drunk.
[Ich Will, Rammstein]
It takes a while for Officer Kirkland and a smiley blond Detective to sober him up, but within a few hours, Gilbert is sat in an interrogation room with Detective Jones, as he had introduced with a big, big smile. It has dawned on Gilbert, his mind being a little quicker when sober, that this is probably the Detective the Russian asked him to punch, but being in handcuffs, he hasn't had the opportunity to punch the happy-go-lucky Detective. Yet.
"Can you hear me?" Detective Jones asks.
"I hear you," Gilbert answers.
"Do you understand why you're here?"
"Yeah, because I punched Kirkland in the Rabbit-face!" Gilbert laughs.
"Cut the joking, Braginski."
"What? I don't understand you."
Jones gives him a glare. "Really? How many white haired, weird eyed, creepy laughing Europeans can there be?"
"Obviously more than one, since you're mistaking me for someone else!"
"I'll admit I expected you to be taller, but seriously you fit the descriptions."
"The same vague descriptions! And besides, what was his name, Braginski? Do I sound like I would have a Slavic name like Braginski?"
"Witnesses have only said European. A couple have said Russian-"
"See? I'm not Russian; I'm German!"
"Which could easily be mistaken for Prussian."
"What? That's a weak deduction and you know it."
"Ivan Braginski, you're under arrest on account of multiple cases of murder, manslaughter, drug trafficking, hostage taking and tax evasion."
"How can one person even have the time to do all that?"
"You tell me, Braginski, now I want to see your hands. You have the right to remain silent-"
End Notes:
WF; Like the introduction! Well hope you did! DFTBA!
Laurel Silver; We're hoping to upload a new chapter on a weekly basis. However, school sucks so if we miss a week (which I doubt but manure occureth) you'll just have to bear with us
We own nothing.