Ch. 14

Ludwig sat and opened his second bottle of beer. Gilbert sat beside him, reclining in the chair trying to kick his feet on the table only to have them slapped away or get punched in the arm.

"Come on, West! Stop abusing your older bruder!" Gilbert laughed. Ludwig just rolled his eyes and drank. "I don't know why we don't just go to a beer hall like we used to--"

"I don't want you drunk off your ass again. I got tired of lugging your skinny ass home!" Ludwig glared at the other blond whom just smiled and nodded knowing that's how it always went. They would enjoy themselves drinking until Gilbert had too much and had to be dragged out by at least two other people, then later, Ludwig would have to deal with his hangover.

"So, how was it in Russia?" Gilbert asked, a mischievous smile painted across his face as he waited for the information he asked his brother to gather for him.

Ludwig blushed slightly, remembering what he had let Ivan do to him on several occasions. "...ok..."

Gilbert snorted. "Ok? Didn't you find out anything about that fat bastard?"

"Well... He's a homosexual.." Ludwig began, not knowing what to say or even how to say it.

"Well I knew that! What else?"

Ludwig gave his brother a questionable look and decided to tell him what Ivan told him about that night at the bar. "You're not so straight yourself. You came in your pants from just listening to him."

Gilbert blushed in both embarrassment and fury. He leaped up from his chair, toppling it over onto the floor. "He told you?!" Ludwig nodded. "That.. ugh! What else do you know?"

"He has two sisters."

Gilbert calmed slightly and sat in another chair, pulling it beside Ludwig ignoring the chair he knocked over. "Sisters? Did you meet them? Are they hot?"

Ludwig sighed. "Ja, I met them. He is terrified of his younger sister, Natasha... wait... I think her name was actually Natalia, but, everyone calls her Natasha... forget it, it's Natasha. She's like you, er, sort of. She's in love with him and is all over him, like you are to me." Ludwig finished his beer and set the empty bottle down.

"An incestuous sister? Ohoho! But I don't know why he would be terri--"

"She's homicidal. Beaten and tortured all his boyfriends, or..." Ludwig grins and looks at his brother. "...or anyone she finds out liked him or he hit on."

The colour drained from Gilbert's face, the response Ludwig wanted to get. "Nu-uh!" Ludwig nodded with a serious look. "Scheiße! Well, does she know about me?"

Ludwig sighed. "I don't know. I don't think so... So you might be safe."

Gilbert sighed and downed his beer and asked for descriptions on what she looked like so that he can avoid her if she ever came after him. Once Gilbert had his fill of Natasha, Ludwig began to describe Yeketarina. Naturally, the moment he commented on the size of her chest, Gilbert went on a rant, his face covered in ill thought as he made many comments holding his hands out from his chest as if groping invisible breasts. After a couple minutes of enduring that, Ludwig punched him in the face and went to bed claiming if we wanted to know more he would have to calm down and behave like an adult rather than a prepubescent boy who suddenly became interested in the opposite sex.

As it grew closer to August, Ivan and Ludwig began sending messages back and forward, most of them are official business on setting up a meeting to finalise the Non-Aggression Pact, whilst others were of a more romantic nature. An old acquaintance of Ludwig's caught wind of the pact and decided to pay a personal visit to him to better understand why.

Ludwig opened his front door to find Roderich standing at the door, books of music in his hand.

"I hope you still have that piano I gave you..."

Ludwig nodded and gestured into his house. "Of course. If I didn't have it, I would have to hear it from you later. So you are here about the messages to Moscow, right?"

The Austrian followed his German host, never loosing his aristocratic stride as if he was the host. "Of course, but I don't want to get into politics just yet. Lets talk about something more interesting, like music." He held up the music he brought.

Ludwig chuckled lightly. "It's always music with you." He pulled up a chair beside the piano and sat down as Roderich set down his music face down. "You memorised it?"

"I memorise all my music, besides, I don't want you to cheat." Roderich grinned as he lightly played a major scale.

"So this is a test? Alright. As long as you stick to German music, I'll pass."

Roderich smiled and began to play, his facial expressions mimicking his music as if his very soul was the musical notes emanating from the inner strings of the piano. His fingers lightly danced across the keys in piano and forcefully slammed down in angered passion in forte, and even more so on accented notes. Ludwig just sat back listening to the music reverberate and echo throughout the house, his eyes fixated on the facial expressions of the Austrian and his ears tuned to every cord and rhythm. He sat in complete silence listening until Roderich slowed in a ritard and lightly struck the final cord, holding the note to allow it's dark sound fill the room before removing his hands from the ivory keys and turning to Ludwig.

"Who composed that piece?"

"That's easy, Beethoven."

"Correct," Roderich answered with a smile as he turned to the piano again. "Here's the next piece..." He began to play the music again, the notes coming out in a gentle wave of cresendos and decresendos. Roderich swayed with the music, once again putting all his emotion into the notes, his fingers skipping and dancing across the keys. Ludwig had realised long ago that if you couldn't grasp the emotion or meaning of a certain piece of music, all you had to do was watch Roderich's face while he played it. All his movements mirrored the music. As the music intensified into more dramatic rhythms, the Austrian became more tense and exaggerated every note with his movements before lightening up and finishing the song with a smile. "This one is harder. Who composed it?"

Ludwig thought for a moment, struggling to remember. "I would have to say... Chopin?"

"That is correct," Roderich proudly spoke, holding his head up high. "Now.. Was that one of his preludes, ballades, or nocturnes?"

Ludwig thought for a moment. He wasn't good on music, having never studied it to the extent that his guest has, but after knowing Roderich, you pick things up. "Nocturne?"

Roderich nodded in approval. "Can you name which one?"

"This is ridiculous, I don't have every song memorised."

"Guess."

Ludwig sighed. "D...flat and um...Op. 27?" Roderich gave him a blank stare in disbelief. "What? Was I wrong?"

"You were guessing, right?" Ludwig nodded. "That's one hell of a guess.. It's right. It was his Nocturne in D-flat Major, Op. 27. That's some guessing."

"Danke. I thought you were going to keep to German music, so I was thrown off."

"Oh but this is! In Vienna--"

"He was born in Poland. His father was French and his mother was a Pole."

"So? Poland was gone, it was just different areas that had been annexed by me, your brother, and that Russian. Oh! Who, by the way is why I'm here." He spun around on the stool so he was directly facing Ludwig. "As much as I would love discussing Chopin, and I'm quite proud that you know so much about him, the fact of the matter is... you're getting yourself into trouble. Why do you need help of the Russians?"

"It's not that I need help, I don't. I just want to make sure that I don't have to deal with him in the war, if, in fact we even go to war." Ludwig shifted in his seat, leaning forward slightly and pointing at the Austrian at key points of his explanation. "We would want to take as much land as possible without getting too many people upset about us." He leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs slightly and folding his arms across his chest. "We have common enemies. His allies aren't too happy to have him with them; they hate Communists. So do we out here in Germany, but if we agree not to attack and being completely different political standings than his allies, he would be more willing to side with us. I'm not asking for assistance to fight on our side, that'll look bad publicly. All I'm asking for, is him and his army to lower their weapons and look the other way as we take Poland and any other countries between us."

Roderich thought for a moment. He wasn't fond of getting caught up in politics and had always preferred to discussions on the musical arts than war tactics and strategies. After coming up with a reply he answered slowly, trying to sound as educated in the subject as possible. "Even so, if you do get all the land in-between you, he's bound to feel crowded and fire upon you. He's like us, he wants a large empire as well. All the land he has isn't enough for him. I had asked him once to help me fight your brother when he finally got close to my capital. He did, and within a month or two he pushed his military to the Prussian capital, but when I refused to allow him to completely remove Prussia, he got upset and left, causing me to loose the war later on. He only wanted more. What's to say he won't do the same now?"

"Precisely the point. We thought of that actually and we discussed it recently. We are willing to give him complete custody and acknowledge his control over the Baltic countries and the other Eastern Slavic countries. He gets to keep those and he would also gain the eastern half of Poland if he agreed to help out. Nothing else is required. He helps with the invasion and doesn't fire on us later on, and he gets his satellite countries to himself. So he is gaining more land as well."

"So this is all well thought out. You sure it's going to hold through? He's not going to back-stab you?"

Ludwig shook his head. "We have...a certain understanding in the matter. I have his trust."

"So how did you come across this understanding? I find it difficult to reason with him, he's a bit...backwards. Was it hard?"

Ludwig coughed and blushed slightly and looked away. "You can say something like that." There was silence for a couple minutes as they both just thought, staring at their boots. "Are you staying for dinner? I haven't had your cooking in awhile."

"Maybe next time." Roderich stood up and picked up his music. "I really need to go talk to Elizabetha. You know...about the separation."

"You're still upset about that? I'm sorry it didn't work out." Ludwig stood up to help with the music but his offer was declined.

"It's not like I had much of a choice then. Everything just went to hell in the Great War. We both couldn't handle it. She blamed the whole thing on me because of Ferdinand."

"Maybe if we won the war you two would still be together." Ludwig walked with Roderich to the front door.

Roderich nodded as he stepped outside, his music neatly held under his arm. "What can you do? Lead your troops to force her to join your Reich?"

"There is always that option."

Roderich shrugged and slowly made his way to his car. "It was nice seeing you again."

"Wait! I almost forgot!" The German hastily ran down his steps to his friend, stepping in front of him to prevent his entry into the vehicle. "There is a man I want you to keep an eye out for. I recently had him transferred out to Mauthausen out in your area. You have more say there now, but I--"

"I'd prefer to stay out of your politics and just let the Nazi's do as they please. You know I'm in full support of--"

"I know I know. Trust me on this. This man, Alfred Haag, he's important." Ludwig kept his voice low and spoke quickly so that no one heard him, not entirely sure as to why, but it was better to be safe than sorry. "I want him eventually to return alive."

"Are you protecting this Communist?" Roderich raised an eyebrow, speaking louder than Ludwig would have liked.

"Of course not!" Ludwig lied, grabbing his friend by the arm and pulling him close so he can keep his voice low still. "It's just that, I don't want him to be executed in Austria. If he was going to die, it would be in Germany. After all, he was a threat to my people, therefore he should die by our hands, not yours. Besides," he quickly added, "Dachau was getting full and his execution hasn't been ordered yet and I needed to transfer him."

"Why didn't you say that in the first place? I thought you were trying to protect him. If you said 'my camps are full and I needed to transfer him until I can have him return for an execution' or something like that, I would have believed you. After all, I don't really get how your system works, but I'll try my best."

"Viel danke. I could hug you, but I won't." Ludwig released him and stepped out of the way. They said their goodbyes and Roderich left with promises to make him some of his cakes, swearing this time he wouldn't destroy the kitchen.

Back in Moscow, Ivan had gotten back to his usual routine of locking himself in a room alone with vodka to stare blankly at the walls. Toris, Edward and Raivis had all gotten used to his kindness from when Ludwig was around and found themselves taking it for granted, though they all had to agree that he was much kinder the past week than he had been before. Often when Ivan disappeared into his study, they would hear nothing if not, loud shouting at some nonexistent person or uncontrollable sobbing. They never let on that they can hear him, especially after what had happened to Raivis when he had first moved in.

Back then, Raivis was naïve and didn't understand that when Ivan begins to drink, you should avoid him at all costs. He had wandered through the house looking for him, a loud crash followed by slurred swears alerted him that he had locked himself in his study again. He peeked in to see if he was alright and curious as to what had broken. Ivan was hunched over his desk, holding his bleeding hand that had shattered his glass. The floor of the study was littered with vodka bottles, some broken, others not. Ivan grabbed the bottle and began to drink from it, holding it with his bloodied hand as if he couldn't feel the pain anymore.

Raivis was staring at the oddly pink vodka before realising that it was only pink because blood had dripped down inside and mixed in with the alcohol. Ivan didn't even notice. What he did notice however, was Raivis in the doorway. Ivan turned and gave Raivis a grin and motioned him to come in, questioning why he was standing there. The events that followed, no one remembered, but they all knew what happened.

Toris and Edward both sat in horror as they heard their younger sibling screaming, crying, begging for Ivan to stop, both of them too cowardly to stand up to protect him. Toris had broken into sobs knowing how badly Ivan had beaten him and feared that he was now doing the same to Raivis. They watched as Ivan walked out of the room, a look of satisfaction on his face mixed with drunken pride. They rushed in expecting to see Raivis covered in gashes and blood, barely conscious. Instead, he was cowering on the floor, crying, hiding his face in shame. Blood was smeared on his mouth and neck from when Ivan muffled his screams and choked him. His red coat was torn open and his pants were tossed against the chair. It was then that he began to suffer from fainting spells and severe shaking that lead Ivan to believe that he had epilepsy.

But now, Ivan wasn't in some pit of drunken anger but rather, a drunken joy. Curiosity caused them to check up on him and found him silently smiling as he looked out the window, his eyes set on something in the distance. If he caught them watching him, instead of beating them as punishment, he invited them to sit and drink with him. After a few days of this, Ivan began to notice that they all were behaving like they could do anything and get away with it, so he decided to exert himself on them to remind them who was in control.

Ivan began to randomly push and shove them out of his way, or deliberately change his path so that they were in his way, using his height and weight as an advantage against them. He slipped back into creeper status as he would watch them cook or read while he lightly chanted "kol kol kol" to send fear into them. One incident Ivan had grabbed Toris by the collar of his coat and slammed him against the wall hard enough to cause his head to bounce off the wall resulting in a concussion. After staring at him with a cold glare he then asked, "What time is it?"

"J-just after three, sir..." Toris choked out.

"Ok, I'm going to take a nap, wake me up at four." Ivan dropped him and lightly skipped off to his room to sleep, leaving Toris confused as to why he needed to be so violent in just asking for the time. Still, his time of kindness was a blessing that was well enjoyed and now the Russian household was once again being brought back to normality.

Ivan had left to go buy more vodka with Edward leaving Toris and Raivis alone to watch and clean the house from his last drinking spree. Toris and Raivis joked and made foolish impressions of Ivan drinking with the many bottles of vodka that had been tossed about. Raivis in a good mood for the first time in a long time, free of his trembling and fear, leaped across the room and picked up an empty bottle and sat in the chair.

"Skatieties, skatieties!" Raivis cheerily laughed, drawing the Lithuanian's attention. Once he had his attention, Raivis shouted with a large grin. "Who am I?!" After he said that, he slumped over in his seat and kicked his legs out from under him and lazily held the bottle above his head as if he was trying to pour it down his throat. He frowned and tossed it to the floor with a large clink and grumbled poorly pronounced words that started out as, "Damn, out of vodka already?" but then progressed into mumbled nonsense.

Toris doubled over in laughter, "Ivan! Ivan! Just like him!" They both sat in laughter until they had fallen into the laugh where you were out of breath, sides aching and tears streaming from your eyes. "Ok, ok, that's enough. We need to continue cleaning or," Toris stood up and put an hand on his hip and pointed with a stern look, mimicking Ivan's deep authoritative voice, "do you want me to give you a lashing?" They were silent for a moment before erupting into laughter once again.

During their merriment, Raivis had accidentally knocked a dish onto the floor shattering it into several pieces. Worried, he began to tremble in panic on it's consequences. Toris reassured him that Ivan wouldn't know it happened, they would simply clean it up and never speak a word of it. After all, Ivan was out of the house, he didn't need to know what went on in his absence. But like all good things, it came to an abrupt end as the front door opened.

Edward rushed in with a stack of paperwork, looking distressed which ultimately meant that the Russian was in a bad mood. Toris and Raivis quickly went to work on cleaning up the plate before he entered, but were too late. Ivan slammed the door and stood in the kitchen doorway, glaring down at them.

"I'm sorry, sir. I accidentally knocked it over." Toris spoke in a panic. He had to take the blame to spare the young Latvian of the punishment.

Ivan silently glared at the Lithuanian, his eyes filled with his usual anger before a beating. Toris came up with two reasons for this: One, he bottled it all up until now, and two, today just really wasn't his day. They both lead to the same result, that whatever it is, Ivan is going to take out all his frustration on whoever broke the plate.

"Get up," Ivan commanded. Toris obeyed sheepishly, his body no longer used to the abuse and suddenly felt very frail. "Come with me."

Toris was lead to Ivan's room, the air heavy as Ivan's negative energy filled the room like a dark poison. All Raivis and Edward could do then was silently watch their brother being lead into the room, their hearts sinking in guilt as he was brutally shoved into the room. The soft click of the lock echoing through their heads as his fate was sealed. On the other side of the door Toris just sat on the floor where he fell, staring up at the taller man as he walked closer, towering above him.

"It's been awhile since I've punished you. I'm going to have to make up for the ones you got away with." Ivan coldly spoke, his normally soft high voice had dropped down to be coarse and deep. All Toris could do was stare up in terror. "You thought I have forgotten haven't you?"

Author's Note: As always, I apologise for the lateness of this chapter. I tried my best to get the musical sense of Roderich but somehow, I feel as if I could have done much better. Too late now, I'm leaving it as is. I am trying to get to the dark side of Ivan so the next chapter may be a bit...graphic so to speak. I have a main idea on what I'm going to put but I am also open to any suggestions and interpretations on what Ivan's punishments would be. I won't stray too far from my original plot of course, but I would like a few of your opinions. The idea, and I'll say it quickly, has been stuck in my head for the longest time and has puzzled me to write it out, so the next chapter may be a bit late as well. I had to rearrange this chapter entirely when I read it through, realising it didn't flow properly. As always, I am not the best at translating so if I made an error in anything, please let me know and I'll fix it as soon as possible.

Bruder: Brother (German, though it's pretty obvious, no?)

Ja: Yes (German)

Scheiße: Shit (German)

Skatieties: Look (Latvian)

If you have any questions about the musical terms I used, message me and I'll be glad to explain them. And as for what Ivan did to Raivis, if it isn't already obviously, he raped him. That is my whole theory on why he is so shaky around Ivan and faints. At first, I thought the character was an epileptic and he vaguely reminded me of an epileptic character from a book, so I had to mention epilepsy directly rather than indirectly like in the previous chapters. Oh! and one last thing, don't as what the first piece Roderich was playing was, I just wrote it as is without a particular piece in mind, which I probably shouldn't but oh well...