A/N: I just got super inspired last night, and this all came out in one sitting. It happened right after reading the new chapter of Ne Ver', Ne Boisya. So I'm blaming this on you, TwistedGoth. If you haven't read it, go read everything Hetalia she's done. Seriously. Do it. (Or I'm getting the pipe.) I'll try and catch any errors. But I hope you find some beauty in this raw diamond.

" The road gets rough, you say things you should not say.

I never meant to treat my baby that way.

I apologize..."

Anita Baker, "I Apologize."

Rift

Every couple has arguments.

Every healthy couple has arguments.

Well, if that was healthy, then there really was nothing to worry about, was there?

Except what they had was not an argument. It was a fight.

Ludwig stubbornly shook his head to pull it away from things he did not want to think about while he was at work. He needed to get through all his paperwork. Even if all of it was just pretense that only required his signature. He still needed to know what it said in case he was asked. That meant getting past more than the first two sentences he had been reading for the last thirty minutes.

He couldn't focus. But that was no excuse to him. Work still had to get done.

If it took longer than usual, well, so much the better.

That left him with less time to let his mind wander where he did not want it to be.

Which was 1,800 some odd miles to the East.

Just thinking about the distance made his stomach twist, shifting around the ice he had been carrying there since the fight. It never melted, even when he did other things. When he worked out, when he cleaned, when he cooked or showered. It just shifted, reminding him that it was there and it was cold and he could never warm up as long as it was there.

Ludwig had tried to force normalcy. He'd changed the sheets on his bed. He'd shoved all the vodka he had possession of at his brother (who was too happy to get rid of it.) Any all reminders of that country had disappeared by the time he'd gotten home from work the day after the fight. (Also something his brother was too happy to do for him.)

He'd checked at least to make sure Gilbert hadn't thrown them away. He didn't want to see them right now, but he didn't want them destroyed. That meant that...

Ludwig shivered and pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead. Nein. Focus. You're at work, verdammt. Read the paperwork. Sign the line. You have to get as much work done as you can today since it's about to be the weekend and Ivan won't let you–...

Except Ivan wasn't coming this weekend.

And he was not going there.

So why was this work so important again?

Ludwig winced when the ice rolled in his stomach, resting a hand over it as if that would make the cold sensation go away.

What had they even been fighting about?

" No! It's not 'just' anything! It's you always doing what you want to do and to Hell with whatever anyone else wants! You only listen when you want to! Otherwise the only thing that matters is what Ivan wants! Ivan, Ivan, Ivan!"

Oh yeah.

Anger flared in his chest, and suddenly the cold in his stomach was less noticeable.

It was cold in Russia.

And bears shit in the woods.

But it was colder than it should have been to Ivan Braginski. In his house, his office, his bedroom. It was too damn cold.

It made him irritable and his smile was looking more like a sneer these days.

He didn't know what to do with himself, really.

The Baltic states stayed well out of his way. Even Nataliya was picking her battles more carefully these days. In the beginning she had been thrilled. Her big brother was potentially done with the troublesome German forever now. She'd immediately set to work trying to make him feel better about it.

For all the good it did.

She should have known nothing was working when he grumpily agreed to be dragged wherever she wanted to take him. She should have been elated. But instead she was getting, to be frank, pissed off.

The slightest thing could incur his wrath, it was true. Every request that crossed his desk was met with a vicious 'nyet' and a threat should the request be submitted again. Instead of cowering or placating her 'whims' he just shot holes in everything with his negativity until even she was hard pressed not to strangle him. His rage wasn't the worst part though.

Whenever he would see someone walking their dog, he would stop whatever he was doing just to watch them. It didn't matter how angry he was at the time, or whatever he was doing. It would all stop, just to watch that person pass. Sometimes he would wince, or tense up. Then they might not see him for the rest of the day.

Ivan had only agreed to go somewhere with her in the first place to get out of the house. A house that didn't have Ludwig in it. Then once he was out of the house, bozhe moi, he couldn't stand to not be in it. Every blond head and pair of blue eyes had him distracted.

He couldn't eat. Everything either reminded him of the German, or his cooking. Only his big sister's cooking was safe. Working was easy. Until his boss nearly banned him from the office for a couple days for working too hard and terrorizing his staff. (Although, in his defense, that aide had thrown himself into the foyer fountain when he asked where Ivan's handsome German companion was.) Sleeping was out of the question after the first two days. He just couldn't get comfortable. His bed was too big. It was too cold without a smaller body pressed up against him for warmth.

God, how he missed that.

Now he had the heat on to an almost unbearable level just so he didn't notice.

Ivan rolled over to face away from his bathroom. His mind kept tormenting him with the image of Ludwig walking through it and to his bed. The way he would climb in and curl up near him to get comfortable. A convenient occurrence, since Ivan made sure his house was colder than usual whenever the German would visit. Ludwig would only allow himself to shiver so much before seeking him out.

...was it cold in Germany right now?

" You make it sound like I don't care! That's not true! Everything I do is for you! You're so stubborn and stuck in your own head, you can't even take care of yourself most of the time! You're just too full of your own stupid pride to see it!"

Ivan snorted. Who cared if it was cold? Let his damn pride keep him warm.

Ludwig had never been that good at sleeping to begin with.

It sort of worked in his favor this time though, since it lent him more time to get work done at night that he couldn't get through in the day.

He'd just pack his bed full of his dogs to remain comfy and work until he couldn't sit up straight anymore. He was technically working longer hours this way, but his work pile never seemed to shrink. He just kept reading the same things, never comprehending them. Never caring past the point of appearance.

But it was all he could do since Gilbert threatened to put him in a sleeper hold if he found him cleaning at four in the morning again.

Gilbert had been livid when he entered the living room. Both of them looked up at him, looking somewhat guilty. He was about to just yell at them for yelling, but then he saw the hole in the wall. The hole in the wall a little too close to where his brother had been.

He didn't know who did it, but he didn't need to know.

Immediately, he came between the two and shoved Ludwig towards his bedroom. Any protests he silenced with a fierce glare and pointed down the hall. " You go to your room!" Then he turned on Ivan, with more courage and rage he thought himself capable of without being violent. Or maybe Ivan was just that tired from fighting, allowing himself to be pushed out of the front door. " And you tell your mom you can't play over here no more!"

Ivan was miserable.

Not even the burn of vodka in his stomach cured him.

He was tired of being angry.

Tired of his cold bed.

Tired of being alone.

Hell, he was just tired.

This was the third day of his mandatory vacation. Ivan sat on his couch, flipping channels a mile a minute with no care to what was on them. It was just until he thought of something else to do to waste time so he could get back to work. Something else to keep him from thinking about...

What was the point?

He wanted Ludwig.

As if summoned up by thought alone, Ivan caught a glimpse of that wonderful, beautiful, amazing face through his channel searching. It was some press conference of some kind. Ludwig's boss talking about...hell, he didn't care. He didn't even have the sound on. The man could be declaring war on his country and he wouldn't have noticed. His attention was locked on to the stoic blond off to the side.

Oh Lyudya...

Ludwig didn't look bad. If you didn't know him, he was an impeccable looking soldier, standing at attention, fully alert and the pride of Germany. Not a single hair out of place under that hat. His uniform pressed and creased, no doubt his shoes shined too.

But Ivan did know him.

Ludwig's back was too stiff. His stance too rigid. His eyes were too alert, occasionally looking this way and that. Every once and a while he would shift, however slightly. And it took him a second to start clapping after everyone else did.

Ludwig was just as tired as he was.

Probably even more so since he was still working.

Ivan palmed his face and sat back against the couch.

This was ridiculous.

Hadn't they gotten together in the first place because they didn't want to be miserable?

So why were they punishing themselves like this?

Lowering his hand slightly, Ivan looked at the screen again. Ludwig was walking off stage now, pulling his hat down over his eyes as he did so. Every step was like so much work, even though he bore it like the soldier he was.

Maybe it was his own sleep deprivation. Maybe it was fate that he look up right when he did to see that conference. Maybe he was subconsciously driving himself to this all along. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe it just didn't matter anymore.

He had a plane to catch.

Ludwig was getting the hang of this sleep business again.

He found that his old record still held. He could function just fine on four hours and thirty minutes of sleep every night.

He looked like shit (Gilbert's wording, not his), but that's what make-up and second winds were for.

His brother had left him that evening to go do the grocery shopping. That was supposed to be Ludwig's job. He had tried to do it, but for some reason, he couldn't remember the things Gilbert kept telling him he wanted. Ludwig started to tell him to just write it all down and he'd get it. But his big brother just shoved him onto the couch and said he'd do it himself.

So there he stayed, dogs under him as he didn't-sleep and waited for Gilbert to come home.

Ludwig didn't even know he'd fallen asleep until his dogs started moving and barking. He awoke with a start, his heart pounding hard in his chest, eyes burning, stomach full of nausea. Rubbing the heel of his palm into an eye did nothing but make the burning worse, so he stopped. Someone was knocking at the door anyway. That must mean Gilbert got a ton of groceries and needed help opening the door.

So, being the good little brother he was, Ludwig dragged himself up and over to the door to open it.

Gilbert was not on the other side of the door with his arms full of bags and mouth full of curses.

There was only a Russian.

A Russian with his head down and a sunflower in his hand; extended forward towards the blond.

Ludwig rubbed his burning eyes and blinked. Because Gott, if this was a dream or hallucination he was going to burst into tears.

Nope. Still there.

Ivan lifted his head and opened his mouth to speak.

Ludwig didn't want to hear it, didn't want to waste anymore time.

He practically flung himself into the Russian's arms and clutched at him so tightly. " I'm sorry," he buried his face in his shoulder, " I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Ivan locked his arms around him just as fiercely. "Shh, I know. I am sorry too." One of his hands, the one that held the sunflower, raised to stroke his hair in calming. " We made quite a mess, didn't we?"

Ludwig let out a breathless little laugh. " Ja..." There was so much he wanted to say right now. So much time they had to make up for. But there was something they had to do before all that. Something else came first. " Would you...like to come in and sleep with me?"

" Absolyutno." Ivan released him, kneeling to retrieve the fallen sunflower and give it to him. Ludwig took it and rewarded him with the smile he had been missing for days. That same hand smoothed back some of his tousled blond hair, then continued to trail down his cheek. " In every sense of the word, da?"

Red dusted that cheek almost immediately as the German shyly looked away. However, the smile stayed. He shouldn't have been surprised (really, he should have expected this sort of thing), but when he was unceremoniously thrown over Ivan's shoulder, Ludwig gave a startled yelp. " Vanya!"

" Relax, I am removing my boots before I come in." And he was too. " No more dirty snow on your clean floors, da?"

Ludwig huffed and adjusted himself so the sunflower stayed safe. He didn't miss being manhandled, verdammt. He didn't. " I could just clean it up later."

" You could, but you're not going to." Ivan walked right in and made a beeline to the blond's bedroom. " You're not going to have that kind of energy for a long time..."

Translations:

Absolyutno - Absolutely.

Vanya - Diminutive form of Ivan.