Because there is so much potential with Ludwig and Heinrich, I really like to explore alternative endings and plots. I forgot how much I love writing them. Enjoy!
It hadn't been long, but to Ludwig, it felt like an age.
He convinced himself, every day, every hour if he had to, this was for the best. Things would get better soon. It just…it took time. Recovery. The regaining of trust. The allowance of privacy and independence; financially, geographically, socially. This vacuum of complying, degrading surveillance would eventually disperse when his invaders were approving.
Just like before, scrutiny existed in all things in his house. He felt eyes on his back whenever he dressed, making his face burn with shame and a submissive outrage. Of course he had voiced his protests, but it was meaningless when he had already announced his submission. He hadn't the energy to argue, devoting his time to clearing rubble and debris from the remains of his house, which stood in morbid disrepair. Ate food fit only for environments of poverty, in portions of that of a child, refusing to meet the cold, spitefully pitying gazes down the noses of the Allies. Navigating around his home which was now split up between them like rivalling, bossy siblings sharing a room. He felt like a peasant among empires, constantly having to justify mundane actions to keep his house from simply crumbling around him, continuously fending off suspicious accusations about…Him.
What made this 'recovery' all the worse is that he wasn't even getting the treatment from the first time round, when all the blame had been planted on his shoulders and he was bombarded with brutality and humiliation? No snide comments, no viciousness. How could they, when Ludwig stood inside the ruins of a room, meagre clothes dirty with dust and sweat, hair in disarray and sorting his possessions from the debris. Eyes cast down, exhausted and distant from his former self, just like some sort of little victim. Something to be pitied that it exists – just cold, distant pity.
Ludwig stood up from his work, back straining and all limbs on his body aching from the hours of clearing. He dragged a once powerful wrist across his forehead to rid of the dusty sweat accumulated there, exhaling forcefully against the strain and the tire. As he moved he felt his freshest scars stretch, slowly healing afflictions twinging as they shifted across his musculature. He may have felt them more if he moved around faster. But he was finding it hard to distinguish between the pain he had been given, and the exhaustion now.
In his free hand he loosely clasped a broken picture frame, the paper memory inside having slipped from the wood and lost somewhere in the mess. He sighed, and tossed it into the nearby wheelbarrow of junk.
The lowering of the sun signified the end of another days clearing, his watchers growing bored and wandering to their own slices of his territory. Standing a minute, watching the sunlight turn to a mournful scarlet that smoked across the sky, he clasped callous hands onto the wheelbarrow and wheeled it out of the ruined room. There were trucks outside waiting to take the days salvage to some makeshift landfill somewhere, and he roughly tipped the contents, precious things he had managed to keep, fall in with the rest of the trash.
It had been days, weeks, months. More months. He hadn't been promised anything, he had had no conditions. Being found and invaded so finally, in such a compromised state, he had neither the awareness nor the will to list something so large as conditions of his surrender. He had wanted his ordeal over, had wanted to just end it all. He was just so tired.
So he ought not to have expected much. But how was this better? Wallowing around, looked at with such private disgust, still poor and hungry and aching. His house, even after so long, had not even been cleared fully yet. Italy had still been forbidden to approach him. Maybe he didn't even want to.
Ludwig looked at the floor. This WASN'T better. He, his people, everyone was still suffering. This could go on for years. Maybe even decades. He had nothing. He didn't even have himself anymore. No more glory, no empire, no independence or wealth or dreams. No more house to maintain around his invasive brother and persistent, bizarre Italian. No more purpose, or duty, or occupation. No more of Him.
Ludwig felt his emotions getting the better of him as his thoughts spiralled, eyes stinging, rubbing a knuckle into his eye to rid of it. But it was no use. He was alone, even more alone than before. The relic in his attic silent and dead and proving only to be an empty torment each day he visited it. But his biggest despair….when the Allies had found it. They must have. They had been so suspicious for so long, following him closely, asking him closed questions. Then, when he tried to sneak in to clean the cabinet, the uniform had been gone. Taken. He hadn't even the security or the reminder of His best attire to lie as the last safeguard of his house, or the final trigger of collapse. The Holy Grail or the self-destruct button to end everything. But, the uniform had disappeared, and his gruelling work continued unperturbed.
Everything was gone, what was this worth? He was fighting a losing battle against nations that probably hoped he'd lose the will to keep his house and disperse. God only knew if he'd have the strength to face this endless, nightmarish hell. Ludwig felt fresh tears trail down his face, hand coming up in a half-hearted attempt to conceal the water trails across the coat of filth. How he hated it! His brother, he had not heard from him, he did not know if he was ok! Feliciano, the Italian, he had not seen him for so long, god knows what had happened to him, who was controlling and bullying him, whether he had even survived after his forced betrayal!
Ludwig began to sob, lost to the world in the turmoil and grief. He wanted Him back! He couldn't bare it alone! With Him Ludwig had had everything! What had he done to deserve being so abandoned?! Alone outside the battered ruined of his once proud, functioning, HOME. The sobs grew in volume and mess, anguish so unbearable he could barely comprehend it. His hands were wet with his own miserable tears in mindless gestures to conceal his face from no one. It was hopeless! His head began to shake to himself in denial, intolerable frustration fighting for room inside his body. In a fit of rage he lashed a brutal kick at the wheelbarrow, the force throwing it far over on its side. The collision jarred up his entire leg and blossomed particularly at his toes, furiously spitting a string of curses that just fell back into crying. What was the poi–
"Oh quiet down."
Ludwig looked up before he thought about it. One of the Allies was no doubt doing to be standing there, wrinkling his nose at the pathetic display, and would get a clear face full of the complete state of Ludwig. He should have anticipated to shut up and turn away and control himself. But he didn't. His head whipped up, hands flinching down, wide blue eyes turning red, clear streaks running down his face from all the tears. Face blotched with the redness of his exertion, of rubbing his hands and smudging around the water and the dirt, hair hanging all over the place.
Perfect blues, perfect cheekbones, slender face, glacier blues, golden platinum head swept back into undeniable order. Black. Black and embroidery and insignia, the occasional, complimenting flash of gold and silver and red. The awards on his breast and the sheen on his boots, the creak of leather as a hand flexed at his side. The tall cap, the encrusted fingers, even a polished weapon on his hip. Face twisted into a quaint little smirk, amusement, impatience and a dangerous glint bright on his face.
His face. Him.
Ludwig's next breath came out shuddering loudly, choking on his own disbelief, frozen, certain he was hallucinating. It couldn't be possible he was so close, HERE, alive, with him—
"Come here."
He felt pressure on the back of his head, then a scent like heaven itself to his senses enveloped his nose, fabric grinding into his tears. Fingers laced in his hair, palm pressed firmly to the crown of his head—a powerful, REAL, body forcing his contact. The shock fell from his body like a dead weight, and he surrendered to this feeling, eyes slipping closed as he sagged against Him. He did not hit the floor as if entertaining a mirage caused by kicked dust and exhaustion, but felt the brilliant coldness of metal adornments against his cheek, biting into his tender face. Felt thick fabric crease under his arms as Ludwig gripped desperately at Him around the waist, having collapsed onto his knees.
"M-mein Herr–! H-Heinrich–!!" He choked-
"Hush." A vibration shushed, rumbling like a clean roll of thunder. His hand tightened over the back of his head. The sobbing started all over again.
Like a waterfall tears burst forth again, but from relief and joy, practically howling with release against the leather of His belt, locking his arms onto Him. Could not bear it, this happiness and liberation, weeping like a lost child against his only guardian, only support. He cried with whole new emotions, ones he couldn't remember and others he could, all mixed together in an incoherent, uncontrollable rush. Endless gratitude at being left to this release, working himself into a complete euphoric state of tears and pleas and thank yous, a mixture of mad grins and chokes when new waves of tears hit.
He was allowed this display without admonishment, without a single disapproving strike. Ludwig had never felt so adored, given this priceless token.
"Did you miss me?" A soft, unspiteful jeer.
Ludwig could only manage an awful mixture of a helpless laugh, choke and sob in his inability to form words, an ugly sound, but he knew that Heinrich approved anyway. He burrowed against Him, beginning to tremble at the rush of adrenaline, feeling nothing but all points where they touched.
As if being here was not already a blessing, Ludwig was allowed the space of time to quieten down, body eventually running out of energy (and water) to cry or laugh. He fell into a silent mind, in utter contentment, unanxious entirely. Everything could be controlled, everything could be governed now. This was better. So profoundly better, and good. Ludwig might have been destructible by the Allies, but Heinrich? Not a chance.
The hand on his head pet him lightly, indulging as they stood together (or rather Ludwig himself on his knees). Ludwig breathed evenly for the first time in ages, feeling the warmest and securest he had in years.
Face still pressed to His navel, Ludwig sensed more than saw the curious gaze down at him shift up to his house, the Allies resting away obliviously. He heard, despite the silence, the quiet snarl twist into Heinrich's face, leaning most of his weight. Ludwig felt himself falling asleep, feeling safe and happy, the small smile on his lips falling away as massaging digits on his scalp lulled him into the night.
And as he slipped from consciousness, …he knew everything was going to be fine.