Hello beautiful people. Um… this is my first time posting even though I've had this account for like two years… yeah… I hope you like it. I don't own Hetalia. Thank God because I would rip your hearts out. Don't let this fluff fool you of how much of a sadistic writer I am. Yep. Please enjoy~ I like constructive criticism but don't be mean because I'll either get mad or cry. Or both. You don't want either.
I lay there, just coming out of unconsciousness, next to my love. I feel him stir, but I do not open my eyes (it wouldn't matter if I did; my vision sucks). I feel Gilbert press barely parted lips against my temple and I know he feels my heart rate quicken slightly at the familiar touch.
"Morning, pretty bird," the smiling voice spoke just inches from my ear. He talks with a pleasant German lilt and usually at a much greater volume than this. He's only talking softly so he doesn't scare out of sleep. He learnt at a very early stage of our relationship that that is the exact opposite anyone wants to do. I cherish my sleep. "Wake up, Birdie," he says again, "today's our anniversary." I open my eyes and smile sleepily at me lover. I put on my glasses and take a moment to look at the beautiful- yes, men can be beautiful and masculine at the same time. Gilbert is proof of this"- man next to me. He has snowy white hair that sweeps sloppily just above his eyebrows. His skin is a milky white color that is unblemished, save for some scars on his chest and back. He doesn't like to talk about how he got them, so I never ask. He's slender, but not scrawny; his lean muscles strong and firm underneath his perfect skin (which, at the moment, is being covered by a black undershirt. God, the contrast…).
I gaze at his eyes. They're a vibrant red with just a hint of pink around the edges of his lids. I know he thinks they're stupid, but I think they're stunning. They have the capability of sucking every molecule of air out of your lungs, just when they meet your own, and admittedly boring in comparison, eyes. They have seen countless battles and death and have been soaked to drowning in tears, yet they somehow manage to appear childlike and jovial most of the time. These eyes lead into the soul that I fell in love with. One that has been broken and sewn together and broken again and sewn together again and broken and sewn and broken, sewn, broken, sewn…
"What'cha thinking about, Birdie?" His mischievous voice pulls me out of my reverie. I see a small smile playfully tug at the corners of his mouth.
"You," I answer just as playfully as his expression looks. He grins and crawls on top of me. Maple, he's sexy.
"Oh? What about me?" A devilish glint forms behind his eyes and his grin turns into a borderline smirk. I decide not to lie.
"Oh, just how amazingly awesome you look," I say, twirling a piece of his hair in between my fingers.
"Don't you mean awesomely awesome? Kesesese!" That laugh, I hated it with every fiber of my being when we first started hanging out together. Somehow it grew on me.
"Oh yes," I roll my eyes, "how silly of me to forget." He doesn't answer, he just kisses me instead. I kiss back and close my eyes. He moves his lips ever so slightly in unison with my own. I inhale through my nose. He doesn't smell like earth or petrichor or anything so easily described like that. No, he just smells like something. And that something is solely Gilbert. He breaks the kiss and presses his head against mine.
"I love you," he whispers as if it's a secret.
"I love you too." My tone is equally hushed. "I, um… I got you something." I feel a slight blush creep its way across my cheeks. He sits up so he's kneeling around my legs and tilts his head to the side. Adorable.
"You did?" he asked. I smile up at him.
"Of course I did. It is our anniversary, after all." I lean over to the bedside table and open its dark wooden drawer. I pull out a black chord with a single metal charm on it in the shape of the Prussian flag. His eyes widen a little and a smile slowly spreads across.
"Birdie," is all he says.
"Do you- do you like it?" I can't help but to feel a little nervous. Gilbert is rather masculine and isn't really the necklace-wearing type (apart from his old iron cross, but he doesn't even wear that anymore). On the other hand, he is extremely proud to be the former country of Prussia.
"Do I like it?" he starts out. I half expect him to say that no, he doesn't. How could he? "Birdie, I love it. " He pulls me into a tight hug. "Danke, Birdie, it's perfect." I smile and return the hug. After one blissful eternity, he lets go and puts the necklace on. H presses his lips to my forehead and smiles that wonderful mischievous smile. He looks as if he's going to say something, but almost as soon as he opens his mouth, he closes it. Then he opens again and says, "I have something for you too, but it's going to have to wait."
"Alright then," is all I say, trying not to sound suspicious. He grins and rolls out of bed. I get up and go into the bathroom to brush my teeth. He watches me leave and stays behind to get dressed. After a couple of minutes, we switch places so he can brush his teeth and I can get dressed in my customary summer clothes of jeans and a t-shirt, which is exactly like the clothes I wear during the rest of the year, just without the red sweatshirt.
"Looking good, Birdie," I can hear the playful smirk he speaks through. I grin and turn to face him. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"Pancakes," we both say at the same time. "Kesesese, how did you guess?" He asks.
"Oh, I don't know, it's not like I make them for you every morning." The sarcastic side only Gilbert and my twin brother Alfred can bring out begins to show.
"Kesesese, come on Birdie, you'd make pancakes every day even if I didn't live here." It's true. Before Gilbert moved out of his brother's basement and in with me, I would sometimes eat pancakes three times a day.
"You don't know that," I quirk an eyebrow up at him as I speak.
"Oh don't I?" he asks. I pause
"Okay, just kidding I would."
He throws his fists in the air and grins triumphantly. "Yay, I win!"
"I didn't realize we were competing," I say with a small chuckle.
"Well, we were, now you must make the totally awesome winner some slightly less awesome pancakes!"
I roll my eyes. "Glad to know my pancakes are at the status of Slightly Less Awesome than the Totally Awesome Gilbert."
He smirks and says, "Good, you should be."
I shake my head and go downstairs to make the pancakes and hear Gilbert's footsteps follow close behind me.
oOo
Maple, could Gil eat. Seriously, sometimes I wouldn't put past him if he ate more than Alfred, I've always thought that was impossible, eating more than Al, but here's Gilbert, finishing up a massive stack of pancakes at the table. Maybe I should get him checked for tapeworm or something. He finishes eating and starts to stare pensively at the forest just outside the window.
"You okay, Gil?" I ask. I'm not really worried; he gets distracted by a lot of things.
"Hum? Oh yeah, I'm awesome as usual," he says. He doesn't look away from the forest and stares at it for a few more seconds before looking at me with a grin and saying, "Let's go on a walk!" A walk, that's very unlike him; he usually gets bored by those.
I comply, however, and say, "Yeah, sure, a walk sounds like fun. It looks like it's going to rain though."
He glances nervously outside and says, "That's okay, we'll just run if it does." Why is he so intent on going outside? Not that I'm against going outside, it's just unlike Gilbert to take random nature walks. I decide to just let this slide and start clearing the dishes away. Gilbert already has his shoes on by the time I'm done and I notice that his legs are shaking a little bit.
"Are you sure you're okay, Gil? You seem a little," I pause to think of the right word. Nervous, unsettled, off? Off. "You seem a little off. Is something wrong?"
"What? Of course not, I'm awesome!" He tries to prove this with an overly broad grin.
"Okay, if you're sure then." I sit down and pull on some shoes before standing back up. I open the door that leads to the small strip of grass that fades into the forest of tall pine trees. "After you, mon beau chevalier," I call him my handsome knight for two reasons: the first is that he is, in fact, a handsome former knight, and the second is that I just love to see his face when I say it. His smirk or grin shrinks into a light smile and his eyes go from having hard edges of loud laughter that, although not always is audible, is always there etched into his face, to soft and kind. This look only lasts for a second or so before changing back to what it previously was. I watch as these things change on his face as he walks out.
"Danke mien prinz." His face is back to grins and laughing eyes. He always calls me his prince after I call him my knight. He quickly kisses me on the cheek as he passes by on his way out the door. I feel myself blush a little and I also go through, shutting the door behind me. I walk alongside Gilbert and hold his hand. I see him smile out of the corner of my eye.
I love the forest. It had been my home for years before Papa found me, and even after he found me sometimes. A lot of people are afraid of the forest because it's so deep, full of surprises, and they don't know what plants are foods and what plants are poisonous. They forget that there are so many beautiful things other than what's in front of them on a screen and they don't quite notice how the light filters through the leaves in a way that makes everything seem green and golden. They don't realize how perfect everything really is, like the spots on a fawn's back are there for camouflage , or that if you pick the right herb, you don't need to spend money on manmade chemicals with lots of side effects to help get rid of a cold. They also forget the little surprises that don't need a filter to be Instagram worthy. In fact, some things probably look worse on Instagram and people should just go and find some themselves. They don't even need to go that far to find them.
They could just walk out of their back yard and find this:
A clearing in the trees, but everything is still filtered in green except where dots of blue and pale purple have sprung up in between the grass. A really big rock (or a small boulder, whatever you want to call it) serves as a cliff over a small, clear pond (thank you, glaciers). I let go of Gilbert's hand walk over to the pond. Little tadpoles are darting around inside.
"Aww, tadpoles," I say. Gilbert smiles and doesn't say anything for a while until he says:
"Hey Matthew, I love you. I love you more than anything in the whole world. I'm surprised every day that you chose me and not someone else, someone better."
I look up at Gilbert, a little surprised. Sometimes he does get a little depressed about not being a country anymore, so I decide to try to cheer him up. "In my opinion, there isn't anyone better than you, Gil." His eyes are fixed on a little patch of grass that's a little darker and thicker than the surrounding plants and he isn't smiling. Well, I never said I was good at cheering him up (or anyone for that matter).
"Thanks," he answers, "I wish I could do more for you, but I know I can't, not really. I'm not a country any more, I can't help you out if you're having some crisis and need money or something, but I know even if I offered you money because you were in trouble, you probably wouldn't take it."
"Gil, what are you going on about? I appreciate everything you do. You don't need to do anything else to make me happy because I already am happy." It's the truth, at least. He actually smiles, it's not a big smile, but it's something.
"Yeah, I'm rambling again, back to the point!" His voice is more cheerful too; maybe I am good at cheering him up.
Then out of nowhere, he pulls something out of his pocket and gets on one knee. That something just so happens to be a ring. The ring is silver with one ruby embedded on top. It's simple, but I think it's beautiful. Gilbert says something, but I don't quite catch what it is; it feels like there's either way too much oxygen or not enough, I can't decide, either way I feel really lightheaded. "I'm sorry, what?" I manage to get out.
He swallows and says, "Will you marry me?"
Oh.
Well. Maple, Gil, it's been years, I thought you'd never ask!
I don't say this though. I, as anyone with even the slightest mental stability would, say, "Yes." I'm not sure how loud I said it, but it was loud enough for Gilbert to hear. His eyes widen a little and a smile slowly spreads across his face.
"Really?" he asks.
Oh my God, Gil, yes really! "Of course I'll marry you, Gilbert. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I love you more than anything." He jumps up and throws his arms around me in a gigantic hug.
"I love you so much, Birdie, I love you more than anything in this world." It feels like every part of me is vibrating and I can hardly move, but I manage to hug him back. He lets go of me and slips the ring onto my finger. He kisses my hand once it's on and whispers, "Ich liebe dich, mein prinz"
Je t'aime aussi, mon beau chevalier.
a/n : Hello ! I thought I'd write this because I don't know. It was fun and I procrastinated a lot while working on it. Oh well. Fluff is fun. To keep in the spirit of happy marriages, I would like to give a big congratulation to California! I am so super happy for you guys! :D Also. Should I make a second chapter for this? It'll be the exact same thing but in Gilbert's POV. Idk. It's up to you. I hope you, liked it! /hops on a boat and waves goodbye with a handkerchief. I am wearing late 1950s clothing and large sunglasses. I am Audrey Hepburn.