Disclaimer: all the characters belong to Hideki Himaruya

AN: This is one of the first fanfics I've ever written, and it was partially inspired by class on turn of the century Viennese society and Art. So, I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1: Counting

Gilbert always tucked Ludwig in at night, with a stiff kiss on the forehead and sheets wrapped a bit too tight, but he would always tuck Ludwig in. He would walk out of the room in five steps always counting. Five. Ludwig had counted them too - once or twice.

Gilbert would then close the door without making a sound.

In the morning, he arose at six and as soon as he left his bed he would then make it. Ludwig had never seen his brother's bed unmade, or with the pillows skewed, or any crinkle on the sheets. Ludwig's own bed was also always perfectly made. He would make it every morning sometimes after breakfast, but he always made his bed perfectly. If there was any flaw to it Gilbert would make sure to wordlessly smooth it out.

Lunch would always be at noon. They would sit at the kitchen table and eat in silence. Gilbert ate neatly and mechanically. He mashed his potatoes to perfection. Then they would do the dishes together – in silence.

Ludwig sometimes wondered if his brother had learned to be so precise about everything he did, even his walking, back in the military. He also wondered if it had been forced on him. He wondered if at a time before he could remember his brother had been different. He tried to recall the times when he was much younger and their grandfather still alive, the time before a fifteen-year-old Gilbert had joined the army; but much of Ludwig's memory was gone, lost when he hit his head on a vacation to the south of France.

After lunch Ludwig would help Gilbert with his work. He would mostly put the appropriate paper work in the precise stack all labeled neatly. He might also send letters his brother had written to some government official, some ally or some enemy all with written in blue ink rather than black with neat slanted words. The spaces between the words were all the same, and he always used the proper punctuation.

Ludwig's grammar and penmanship lessons consisted of hours spent trying to imitate his brother's perfect hand, down to the spaces between words.

Letters sent to the Austro-Hungarian Empire were different. They lacked formality and pleasantries and were sometimes simply labeled: to the Prissy Aristocrat and Masculine Wench. Gilbert did not waste his time with the proper lines and spaces in letters to them. Although there was one letter, something about a wedding he had not been invited to, offering formal congratulations, pleasantries, and well-whishes in a hand so neat it might have been typed or printed.

He had found the letter in the midst of sorting old forms and documents as his brother had instructed him to do. He figured at first it was one of his brother's official letters and started to read to see if it was still worth sending but Gilbert had taken it from his hands, almost too gently, folded it and hid it away.

That day Gilbert counted everything.

They traveled to Vienna when Ludwig was on breaks from school. Usually they would travel by train and Gilbert would mark every town on the map from Berlin to Vienna. He would count them. Ludwig would just watch the towns go by. Vienna had become new and vibrant in a very short time. There were building and statues and parks which had not been there when his father had been a child. Some said it was another Paris, but Vienna was not Paris.

When they made it to Roderich and Elizabeta's house, Gilbert would count the steps from the gate to the front door. Then, he would knock three times and let himself in. If the front door happened to be locked, Gilbert counted his steps around the house, knocked once on the kitchen window, then let himself in. Roddy and Lizzy's house consisted of the ground and first floor apartments of a new building furnished with things that had been in Roderich's family for generations.

Roddy and Lizzy had to have some sort of magic in them, or maybe it was the house, because, for good or bad, when treated with warm insults and empty threats, his brother would stop counting. He would not count steps when Lizzy led him from the kitchen to the music room or the stains on her apron or the pleats on her dress. He would just let himself led among arguments on who would have made a better knight. In the music room, Gilbert did not feel the need to recite softly the notes Roddy played, the way Ludwig was once heard him do at a concert. He would flap lopsidedly on the couch, without straightening the creases on his shirt demand and Roddy play him a victory march.

The pats Ludwig received on the head at Roddy and Lizzy's house were softer.

Their trips to Vienna were always filled with very adult activities; it was a world of music and dance. There was new art and old art and color and smoke. Gilbert smiled the whole time though. With so much life in the city, people still thought the world would end.

Ludwig knew now. He had known since the day of the letter. His brother had loved; his brother still loved one of them. Ludwig lacked the ability to figure out which one. Sometimes his curiosity would peak when he heard drunken conversations between Francis, Antonio, and his brother about the past. They all shared the same look then. Sometimes, the look in Francis's eye scared him though. It was the look of someone who knew too much and could not tell because the strength of his words would make his friend crumble. Sometimes, a boy who was almost a man, would come with Antonio but Ludwig could not look him in the eyes for there was hatred there – and queer nostalgia. Ludwig did not know what he had taken from him.

Ludwig was getting too old to be tucked in but Gilbert still did so; and he still counted the steps out of the room – five.

Roddy and Lizzy had wronged him, but Roddy and Lizzy where the only ones who would make Gilbert stop counting, stop folding, and stop trying to fix imperfections. Gilbert still loved one of them but Gilbert loved the other one as well and thus he forgave them.

Ludwig counted his steps to Feliciano's door.