Gilbert could not call this love. Not with his crumpled uniform still soaked in battle grime. Not with blood still buried under his fingernails. The thought was an unsafe one, dangerous and volatile. Love usually was among nations, but during war the beast was at its worst. The continuous violence made it too easy to become caught up in the base-qualities of a nation, free of political bullshit. Emotional barriers centuries in the making seemed to topple as easily as a poor front line.

Gilbert Beilschmidt did not believe in poor front lines. He had a policy, damn it. He would not break it for one nation.

So. This was not love. This was just a fascination.

But Mathew Williams had a habit of making life hard on Gilbert. The blond was wild thing, in battle and out, and that called to Gilbert on an animal level. Since Mathew had first dropped him at Vimy Ridge, Gilbert had found himself left wanting. His dreams were filled with Mathew's hands, how deceptively birdlike they were even while snapping Gilbert's neck. No one had ever beaten him so quickly, so carelessly. Like Gilbert was little more but one man among many.

It itched at him, that his first impression should be so weak.

Immediately, Gilbert had asked to be transferred to whatever battlefield the Canadians were fighting at. He didn't care how it happened, or who pulled the strings. He was not about to let some new baby nation get away with thrashing him so easily. His pride would not allow it.

That decision of his had led to such a game of cat and mouse that even Gilbert's socially oblivious brother had cornered him about it. Apparently, Ludwig was worried that he was getting too caught up. That Mathew would somehow break his heart. Gilbert had cackled all the way to the next battlefield.

Oh, Ludwig. He acted like there was still something of Gilbert left to break.

Now, Gilbert wasn't so sure if he shouldn't have paid more attention to his little brother. Sure, the war was over – Mathew was too much England's son to be doing this with him otherwise – but Love had yet to retract its claws. They knew each other too well for that, now.

If Gilbert were clever, he'd pull away. Leave Mathew at this ruin of a shore-side town and go find a whore somewhere. Someone pretty, a brunette with green eyes who might be able to wash away the violet of Mathew's. A woman with a hot touch, in order to deaden his skin to the northern chill of Mathew's. Instead, Gilbert pulled Mathew closer, fingers biting hard into his naked back.

Plump lips parted in a gasp, driving Gilbert to arch up and steal it for his own. Hands that had sniped Gilbert's men down for a hundred gruesome days carded through his short hair, followed by Mathew's mouth as he pushed forward to bite at the shell of Gilbert's ear. Gilbert hissed and wrapped a hand in Mathew's waterfall of curls. His attempt to flip them so that Mathew would lie under him was met by a breathy laugh, and soon Gilbert found himself reclined against the sheets, Mathew grinning down at him from where his thighs pinned Gilbert's hips.

How typical that even the consummation of their attraction should meet like an artillery exchange.

Twining his arms around Mathew's neck, Gilbert pulled a series of hot kisses from Mathew's mouth. Distracted this time, Mathew rolled onto his back easily. Locking his fingers with Mathew's, Gilbert planted Mathew's hands above his head and littered kisses across his chest and stomach.

"Gilbert…" He could feel the flutter of Mathew's heart against his lips, the way Mathew's stomach concaved as he hissed Gilbert's name. He growled through his teeth and set to leaving a more lasting mark above Mathew's collar bone. Howling in response, Mathew knotted a hand in Gilbert's hair. Kicking a leg over Gilbert's back, Mathew claimed his mouth, freehand leaving bloody crescents on Gilbert's pale shoulders. Mathew seared with his kisses, clawing at him while they settled into Gilbert's skin. His head felt heady and dizzy, unlike the usual knife of excitement he was used to. Everything, with Mathew, was so unlike what Gilbert was used to.

(By this point, they were so far past using their nation names for each other that it wasn't even funny.)

With Mathew like this, fast and clever and strong, lying heatedly in his arms, Gilbert couldn't help but want to sing him odes. He wanted to show him the side of Europe that no one ever taught their children of, the black magic and the ruins. Dress him in little but flowers and moonlight and see if he fit there the same way he did the carnage here.

He wanted Mathew, so vicious and driven and like Gilbert, even if the rest of the world was too blind to see it. He wanted him for more than a night, for more than a day, for more than a war.

Gilbert had a policy he did not like to break. But Mathew Williams was a shock-trooper.

Was it any surprise that Gilbert crumbled before him so easily?

The Thirties found them with Gilbert's fingers caught up in Mathew's hair, holding it back as Mathew dry heaved. The Twenties had left them both in withdrawal, Gilbert having tasted the lavishness through the gild on Mathew's skin. Now, as he pressed soothing kisses to Mathew's temple, all he could taste was sickness.

Frowning, Gilbert focused on helping Mathew back to his bed. He was desperate to ignore the wrongness he felt stirring in his own guts. It didn't feel like a Depression. He'd already been fighting one of those since the War ended. Instead, it tasted bitter on his tongue. Like lead and ink.

It made him think of revolutions.

Closing his eyes against the awful chill spiraling up his spine, Gilbert didn't hesitate to press a soft kiss against Mathew's lips. Mathew protested weakly, pleading how bad his breath must be, but Gilbert couldn't bring himself to care. They were on a time limit, it seemed.

From the point of that realization forward, Gilbert would make damn sure to take every kiss he could get.

When Mathew's door refused to open for him in August of 1939, Gilbert was not surprised. Instead, he cringed at the ease with which he could read the tears in Mathew's voice as he shouted for Gilbert to leave. Later, he'd try to bury those emotions in anger. For now, he just did as Mathew ordered.

It was all he was good for, anyway.

The next - God, six years? It felt like so much longer – were spent living in a portrait of Hell. Gilbert did as he was told, to start. Ludwig, too. It was what they were designed to do, as nations. It didn't last long. It couldn't. Not when Ludwig had started to waste away and fuck, Gilbert should have been able to see this coming. He was an old nation, so much more so than Ludwig. Sure, he might have been demoted and mostly dissolved, but Ludwig was his baby brother and Gilbert should have seen this coming.

(You did, a dark piece of him whispered, taunting. You just didn't want to.

Shut up, Gilbert snarled, far more firmly than he felt.)

So, Gilbert ranted, he raged, and then he disappeared. As it turned out, he wasn't the only one in Berlin who'd realized that having a psychopath in power was dangerous. He worked with them until the war ended and tried to forget that Ludwig was missing, too.

There was a difference between disappeared and missing, in the context they were living in. He tried to forget that, too, until he had the opportunity to scratch both words from his vocabulary.

It didn't come in the way he'd hoped.

Bombs fell on Berlin. Everywhere, someone was shaking or crying or burning or dead. Gilbert couldn't see through the smoke, through the blood. It felt like God's own judgment. It felt like losing Ludwig - or, Dear God, Holy Rome - all over again.

And, of course, that was where Mathew found him.

From his place in a bombed-out alleyway, Gilbert looked up and saw a creature of myth. He saw Michael and Lucifer and God in every incarnation, hidden in amethyst eyes. He couldn't help but wish that Mathew would just shoot him, or cuff him, or something. It'd be better than seeing the heartbreak hidden behind the fangs.

(There wouldn't be any post-war sex in a dodgy backroom this time. Just a litany of never-ending war trials. The worst part, Gilbert would come to find, was watching Ludwig on the other side of the room. Watching, but not being permitted to speak to him. Normally, Gilbert would have done it anyway, fuck the world and their hypocrisy. However, even Gilbert could acknowledge a precarious position when sitting on the precipice of one.

The only thing that might top the shit-pile that was his perpetual separation from his brother was being forced to sit in one of the still-standing movie theaters, watching film after film of war atrocities. Like Gilbert hadn't known what was happening when he'd started counting Ludwig's ribs. All it did was kill his will to do much besides sick up and hate himself, and Hell, maybe that was what the Allies were hoping for. After all, it'd explain why they refused to let him see Ludwig outside of the trials. They wouldn't even tell him where they were holding him.

It set him up nicely to hate the Allies. Something he did for many bitter-months-turned-years-turned-ages while trapped with Russia.

The only other alternative was to think of Mathew, and contrary to popular belief, Gilbert didn't actually enjoy things that caused him pain.)

He didn't know how Mathew had managed it. These little visits of his. God knew the rest of the world couldn't have traded their souls to get past the Iron Curtain. Mathew knocked at the door of Russia's Moscow mansion and the crazy nation all but created a holiday in his honor.

And Mathew seemed to actually enjoy the bastard's affection.

Gilbert had said it once, and he'd say it again. Northern nations were fucking nuts.

And no, he was not just saying that because he was jealous. Shut up.

Gilbert told himself that he didn't care. He told himself that Mathew could do whatever he fucking liked. If that meant chess games in Russia's drawing room and warm conversation over expensive Chinese teas and Cuban cigars, then whatever. And since when had Mathew known Russian, anyway? It freaked the Baltics out, and even Ukraine looked uneasy when conversation shifted to America and his faults and failures.

No one in Russia's house had ever expected to hear the nation of Canada agree with their keeper's opinion of his twin. Not when the brothers' close relationship was something of a fairy-tale among the ever-warring nation-families of Europe. The twins seemed even closer than Gilbert and his own brother, at times.

Thus, Mathew's words about America to Russia became Gilbert's first hint that Mathew's visits may not have been all that they seemed.

The second hint wasn't actually a hint – they were in a Cold War, you had to be sharp in those days –

It was a confirmation.

Mathew's mouth felt so good on his that Gilbert was half-convinced it was a dream. It just might have been, really. It was happening late enough in the night.

"I missed you so much." The words had lived in his mouth for years, fed with desperation and loneliness. Gilbert almost couldn't believe it when they finally slipped into open air.

Mathew made a sound like a sob. His hands ran over Gilbert's face and arms, like Mathew was a blind man trying to understand sight. He repeated phrases like "me, too" and "you have no idea" as though he were a chorus. Gilbert traced reassurances into every empty space. Did his best to plug the holes in their - whatever this is - with promises. He didn't doubt that Mathew knew he wasn't free to keep them. He trusted that Mathew knew all those promises were was Gilbert on his knees, begging forgiveness. He hoped that Mathew deemed him worth a second chance.

When Mathew crept from the room it was nearly dawn, and Gilbert's Iron Cross hung from his neck. Gilbert had kept it safe since he was signed over, pretended that he'd gotten rid of it sometime before the Wall went up. God knew Russia would have made good on his threats to do something awful to it if Gilbert hadn't. Now it was in the safest place this New World Order had to offer, guarding the throat of the one person Gilbert still... cared for.

Love was a monster. Gilbert refused to let it tear what was left of him apart.

He rolled over, the click of the door echoing in his head. He tried to pretend that he wasn't counting the echo of Mathew's steps. That his eyes didn't feel wet.

Gilbert Beilschmidt would not let love tear him apart. But... there was only so much he could do, if it was already too late.

Hugging his brother was possibly the best feeling in the whole world. It didn't matter if Ludwig still felt too small in Gilbert's arms, or if Ludwig was sobbing harder than he had the first time he'd fallen off a horse. As long as he was alive, Gilbert would not go a day without hugging his brother. He swore it.

Distantly, he thought that he should get up. Ludwig had assaulted him barely minutes after he and a group of others had taken out their patch of the Wall, and there they'd remained since. However, getting up was easier said than done, and soon Gilbert gave up and just let himself be thankful that his brother was in one piece.

"He said you were okay, but I couldn't believe him..." Ludwig murmured, clinging like a child to Gilbert's neck, head against his chest. The words made Gilbert pause in his consoling for just a moment.

"Who?" Gilbert dared to ask. Could it have been? He'd hoped Mathew hadn't forgotten him, but it had so long since they'd seen each other…

Ludwig looked up, just a touch confused. Probably wondering why it mattered. Hopefully he'd write it off as part of Gilbert's eccentricity.

"America. During his last visit before the Wall fell. Said that 'a little birdie' had told him you were alright. I thought he was just teasing me, or something, but..." And here Ludwig smiled, so big and bright and un-Ludwig-like that Gilbert couldn't help but mirror it, "I guess he was telling the truth."

Holding Ludwig tighter as his brother let loose a manic little laugh, Gilbert allowed himself a more private smile. A little birdie had been whispering in America's ear, hm? That was all the lead Gilbert needed.

He would find Mathew again, come Hell or high-water. He'd hold him and kiss him and not let him go. Bask in the way his Cross looked on Mathew's throat. Only Mathew himself would be enough to keep Gilbert away.

He would let love rip into him, and offer Mathew the pieces. Pray Mathew had some pieces of his own to offer. It would still be alright if he didn't. If these last forty years had taught Gilbert anything, it was patience.

Ludwig made a small sound, as though he were trying to wrestle back some control. Gilbert hushed him, running his fingers comfortingly through his baby brother's short blond hair. First, Gilbert needed to take care of Ludwig. Make sure that he was safe and sound, that he didn't have anything to fear. It would take time, but Gilbert was confident Ludwig would survive this. It had always been his secret opinion that Ludwig was the stronger of the two of them, anyway.

Then, Gilbert could focus on other things. Like getting to his little Birdie.

The memories snapped through Gilbert's mind like a flip-film, a hundred years' worth in a few minutes of dreadful silence. Perched on the edge of an overstuffed wing-back, he couldn't help but feel that it was like watching his life flash before his eyes. Some of the more important parts, at least.

Winding his hand tighter with Mathew's, Gilbert prayed he didn't look as gutless as he felt. Never had their relationship come under such strain as what they were facing now. Sure, they'd survived wars (both Cold and World varieties), economic depressions, fast-killing sicknesses, natural calamities, and every other national travesty short of God hisownself coming down from Heaven and telling them what they were doing would bring about the apocalypse.

Hell, they probably could have taken that, too.

But this?

They'd truly be meant for each other if they made it through this.

"So," Arthur Kirkland said, teacup settling on his saucer with the same malice he'd once used to string severed heads up upon London Bridge, "How is it that this... came about?"

"Well, -

"Oh, I can tell you." America cut in, chewing obnoxiously on one of England's delicate tea cakes. "Matt got really smashed one night, and -"

"Even drunk, mon petite chou would have more sense." Francis sniffed imperiously, glaring at Gilbert as though he were singularly at fault for the bad judgment of his 'petite chou'. Some best friend he was, Gilbert thought bitterly.

Fucking weird pet name anyway. 'Birdie' made much more sense.

"Then I bet you made him." And suddenly there was no teasing in the blue of America's eyes. Suddenly, this was a nation who would and did drop bombs capable of world decimation to protect what he considered his.

Like, perhaps, his younger twin.

Who Gilbert still had his arm around.

Ah, fuck.

"Alfred!" Mathew hissed, as outwardly angry as Gilbert would have been had England not been glaring death at him. And had Francis not been looking as though he'd help hide the body.

"What? Did you blackmail him? God knows you can't bribe him. If you got physical -" and then the entire 'meeting' fell apart. Suddenly Mathew was on his feet and screaming at America. Francis had thrown himself backwards, proclaiming that it was England's fault for leaving Mathew "naive to the ways of l'amour!", and then England snarled something back, and -

Well.

No family fought each other as venomously as his Birdie's did.

Sighing, Gilbert settled back to wait until they'd tired themselves out enough to settle into coherency. To think that this had all started because he and Birdie hadn't been able to keep it in their pants long enough to get back to the hotel.

America's expression upon discovering Gilbert with his hand down Mathew's pants was going to haunt him in his nightmares.

If he lived to have nightmares, that was.

"You're just pissed that for once in my life I'm fucking happy and it has nothing to do with any of you!"

Gilbert flinched internally. Mathew rarely lost composure like that. Who the fuck would push him so far?

Didn't matter. Gilbert had had just about enough of this shit.

Standing, Gilbert wrapped a possessive arm around Mathew's shoulders, anger building as he felt the restrained tremor hidden there.

Occasionally, Gilbert was a little jealous of Birdie's family. When compared to most nation-family situations, they weren't actually that awfully off. They all gave a shit about each other, at least.

And then something like this would happen.

"Look," And fuck, did they ever. If looks could kill, Gilbert would have been a stain on the posh carpet. "I get that you think this is a horrible fucking decision, but what you need to understand is that we were completely fucking happy before the All-American Asshole over there ambushed us. So just calm the fuck down. What happened –"

"And that's what I don't understand." England could never just keep his nose out of anything, could he? Fucking bulldog.

"Understand what, Arthur?" The exhaustion there made him want to kiss Mathew's frown away, and then maybe punch his family for putting it there. Little steps, Gilbert had to remind himself, and instead ran a thumb over Mathew's hand.

"How this happened," Been there, done that, Gramps - "And why it's still going on."

That last bit made Gilbert pause. Made them all pause, actually. There was something judging in the old empire's eyes, something waiting and assessing. Like he was watching a new rendition of an old classic and wondering why everyone kept changing the ending. To Gilbert, it felt like all at once this shitshow of an interrogation had suddenly developed a direction.

England always had been a sharp little island.

"It started because Birdie killed me at Vimy and I refused to let that go."

"Gilbert!" Birdie always hated it when he brought up Vimy. He felt guilty, apparently. Gilbert found it a little cute.

"So, I chased him all over Europe. I was a little obsessed. It got even worse after the War ended." He could hear Birdie telling him to shut up, but he couldn't. Not if he wanted England to ever believe that he loved Mathew. That he would never hurt Mathew. England, in his own little conniving way, was giving Gilbert his Herculean task. If he could make it through this, then he'd have all the support he needed to keep Birdie's family from offing him in the night.

They all heeled to Britain, in the end. No matter what kind of independence or disgust they liked to spout.

All he had to do was bear his throat to the same monster.

Gilbert snorted. It couldn't be harder than bowing to his own feelings.

"But it wasn't an obsession." He continued, picking his words carefully. "Not really. Not because I didn't think about him all the time much, or because I didn't crave him." He forced himself to meet Britain's eyes. It was hard to do. They seem to encourage him to fuck this up. "But because I was willing to never touch him again if it meant that he was okay. I wanted him safe and happy. I wanted to show him every secret I had and hope to God they wouldn't chase him away."

He and Birdie had never said those three little words to each other before. Saying them now for all and sundry to hear would be taking away their last safety if this relationship fell through.

But then, Gilbert never had been one for a flat climax.

"This continues to happen because I love Mathew. I love him enough that a World War and a Cold War couldn't keep me away. It continues because, against all fucking odds, he loves me back. Loves me enough that he dealt with Russia on a soviet high to make sure my brother knew I wasn't wasting away behind the Wall. Ain't that right, Yankee-doodle-do?"

America and Matthew both looked briefly confused before a comically synced realization descended. America looked about ready to punch himself in the face, while Mathew sat on the edge of laughter. It was a nice change from the wariness Gilbert had seen building in Mathew's eyes at the beginning of his speech. Gilbert felt a little manic giggle bubble up in himself as it melted away.

He grinned, looking away from Britain to lock eyes with Mathew. "In short, this shit started, kept happening, and will keep happening because we have jumped through so many hoops that we fucking deserve it. And none of you tetchy bastards are going to stop it." Not as long as you let me stay near you.

Mathew nodded, smiling his own promises and vows to him. Gilbert's heart skipped a beat, fingers itching to take them somewhere he could hear them aloud.

Instead, he cast a searching glance over Mathew's immediate family. Doubtless, there was going to be a follow up to this. Shovel talks from these three plus Mathew's multitude of friends and extended colonial family. Gilbert's own brother and friends would probably give him shit for not fessing up sooner. But, for now, Gilbert had the High Holy Mother Britannia nodding at him acceptingly, so he was going to call it a win.

The expression of relief on Mathew's face told him he was right to count it so.

"Well, I'm glad that's all been sorted, then." And then England was shaking Gilbert's hand, and giving him leave to use his human name, and hugging Mathew, and inviting them all for tea next week. America made a comment on packing more heavily, icy eyes glaring pointedly at Gilbert, but Francis had a hand on his arm and Brit– Arthur (would he ever be used to that, he wondered?) sent him a look and suddenly he was all smiley again.

Fucking weird family, was all Gilbert had to say about it.

By the time they were through the gauntlet, Mathew looked about as tired as Gilbert felt. Once free of Arthur's hotel suite, it was almost like coming home from a war.

Gilbert smiled a little. At least they'd both won, this time.

Taking Mathew's hand in his, Gilbert thanked God and Old Fritz for the effectiveness of a well-timed capitulation before pulling his Birdie in for a kiss.

Smiling against Mathew's lips, he couldn't help but feel that they tasted like a celebration long in the making.

"You know I love you, too, right?"

"Ever since I stilled your beating heart at Ypres."

"Shut up, Gilbert"

"Yes, Birdie."

I think this is one of my favourite things that I've ever written. Hope you all liked it, too! Thanks to the marvelous TheVastEmptiness for betaing, as always!

Please, drop a review and a prompt, if you have one. I find a write best if someone else gives me a starting point.

Sincerely,

BlackRoseGirl666