Matthew sat on the couch, not quite sure what to do. Gilbert had found some random movie he decided he wanted to watch, some animated movie Matthew didn't pay attention to, and they were watching it in the family room. Gilbert seemed to find it entertaining how everything in the house worked, even though Matthew was used to it. The massive screen and the loud sound system seemed to keep the man happy.
But Matthew couldn't help but think. Gilbert was obviously keeping quite a few secrets from him and Matthew could just tell that Gilbert wanted to keep him in the dark. Matthew wasn't going to let it keep up like this for too much longer.
Once a quiet part in the movie came along, Matthew decided to ask at least one question.
"So, you and Antonio were talking about a Francis," Matthew stated and he saw Gilbert give him a worried glance. "Were you talking about my papa?"
"Nein," Gilbert shrugged and continued watching the movie. Matthew let out a sigh.
"How about telling me something about how you and Antonio and this Francis met?" Matthew tried.
"Not really in the mood now, kid," Gilbert stated and Matthew let out a sigh, picking up the remote and pressing pause.
"Look, I know you're keeping secrets from me," Matthew sighed. "And I'm not entirely happy about it. If you don't tell me…something now I might just stop going with you right now."
"Trust me, Birdie, you don't want to know anything," Gilbert sighed and reached for the remote, which Matthew kept easily out of his reach.
"Who do you keep talking about when you say that not just the police are after you?" Matthew asked and Gilbert glared at him before reaching for the remote again. Matthew simply stood up from the couch and held the remote behind his back. "I play this game with Alfred all the time. I can beat someone taller and stronger than me."
"I'm not Alfred, Birdie," Gilbert stated, standing up. "Just let me watch Lion King and we can just go to bed."
"Nope," Matthew shook his head. So that was the movie they were watching…Why would Gilbert choose Lion King, of all movies?
"I'm not telling you anything," Gilbert stated. "You better get over it."
"I should know who else is following us," Matthew stated. "I should know about something that potentially involves my own father!"
"Francis was barely there in the first place, it's not like it matters," Gilbert sighed and Matthew bit his lip.
"You already told me about your father," Matthew stated. "Maybe you just have to…get it out of your system like you did last time. It's not like I'm gonna be mad at you."
"Out of my system?" Gilbert scoffed. "My vater is one thing, I only knew him for a couple of years. This is a bigger fucking deal."
"A bigger deal than the death of a family member?" Matthew asked.
"You're not gonna let us move past this, are you?" Gilbert huffed.
"Nope," Matthew shook his head.
"Fine," Gilbert stated. "But don't say I didn't warn you. Now, sit down, you're gonna be here for a while."
Matthew nodded and did as he was told. Gilbert stood still for a while, as if thinking through what he was about to say. Matthew rationalized that he wasn't going to regret forcing this. He knew that Gilbert was keeping secrets and he very much disliked the feeling of being put into the dark. Especially if it was something this important to Gilbert.
"I was six," Gilbert finally spoke and slumped onto the couch next to Matthew. This was definitely not the story Matthew was thinking he would hear, "playing at some playground with my four-year old bruder. I wanted to be cool and bring him to the park without our parents. I didn't tell them we had left. We gained the attention of a few older kids; they were all at least thirteen. When I was helping Ludwig down the slide, they picked him up.
"I tried to be tough and say something along the lines of 'Hey, let him go or I'll kick your butt.' But it came out more like one of your whimpers. They started laughing and started messing with Ludwig. He was just four, and so he started crying at the littlest things. I tried kicking at one of the guys and they just started laughing. And then I pushed the one holding Ludwig so hard that he actually fell over. Ludwig dropped to the ground and I immediately went over to make sure he was okay. He was crying, but he was fine.
"That was when their…I guess you could consider him a leader. That's when their leader stepped out. He was a lot older than them, at least twenty, I think. He's a fucking creep, goes by the name Ivan, but I never learned his last name. The second I saw him, I nearly shit my pants. Even though it was summer, he was wearing a thick coat with a scarf that looked good enough to at least make him sweat. But he didn't look uncomfortable, he just smiled creepily at us. He had white hair and purple eyes. And I thought I looked weird.
"I started running, pulling Ludwig behind me. I was going as fast as my little legs could carry me, but they caught up with us. I pissed them off and now they were out to get us. I was pinned down with my arms behind my back and Ludwig was pinned as well. He was sobbing at this point, nearly at hysterics. I felt a knife on the belt of the guy that was holding me down and I was able to actually get it into my grip. I pushed it into his side and he yelled out, releasing his grip on me.
"I scrambled over to Ludwig and somehow got him out of their grips as well. We started running again, but Ivan picked me up by my hair and put a knife to my neck. On the bright side, I was able to watch my bruder scramble away, running in the direction of home. Ivan was not happy with me and he started to take me away. I started crying, I was freaking out so bad."
Matthew blinked. He would have never expected this. But it seemed like Gilbert wasn't even close to done yet. Maybe he was just getting it out of his system…
"Once I got to their hideout, which was basically an abandoned subway rail, Ivan just dropped me in some corner and went off to deal with some business or some shit. While I was a sobbing mess, these two older kids came to comfort me. One of them was Francis, yes, your dad, and the other one was Antonio. Franny was 16 at the time and Toni was 11. They felt pretty bad for me and tried to calm me down, convince me I would be fine and I would make it out of there alive.
"A little later, Ivan came back, making Franny and Toni leave. He said he was going to get revenge for the guy I had stabbed. So he stabbed me in the leg. It wasn't extremely deep and I got over it in a couple of months, but I was six. And it was the most painful thing I'd ever had to go through. Ivan made me bleed for a good ten minutes before he let Franny and Toni come back. I thought I was gonna fucking die, but they said I was going to be fine.
"Franny started stitching me up and I was about ready to pass out. They didn't have anything to numb me up and so I was screaming my head off. Toni was holding me down, making sure that I didn't fuck anything up too badly. There's a reason they became my closest friends.
"Antonio kept telling me, 'You're awesome, just breathe through it.' Everything motivational those tow told me started with 'You're awesome.'
"Right after Franny was finished stitching me up, I heard that Ivan was planning to go off looking for my brother, for no other reason than to spite me. Even though I just basically went through surgery, I ran to stop him. I promised I would stay a part of Ivan's gang, or whatever the hell that was, and I would do whatever he said. He just couldn't go after Ludwig. To prove myself, he told me to rob a store, get them all some money.
"That was some day…I was just six and I'd been kidnapped, stabbed, had stitches, and I robbed a gas station with a pistol in my hands. I would do anything for my bruder. Ivan seemed impressed with what I could do and actually agreed to what I wanted.
"And so I stayed. Franny got away when he was 18, and so did Toni. I was alone, stuck as Ivan's fucking errand boy or whatever the hell he wanted me to do. He would always say that he could always go after Ludwig if I ever said I didn't want to do anything. And I just responded with an 'I'm awesome. I can do this.'
"When I turned 18, I agreed to a solo mission. No one was around to watch me and, by then, we'd moved to Belgium, so we were far enough away from Germany, home, for me to feel comfortable with leaving Ivan. So I pickpocketed some random guy and I decided to go to Italy. But I knew that there was no way I could do anything like get a job. I was that albino kid that was always getting in trouble. I'd shot so many people and robbed so many places and my face had been on camera every time. But I've never been caught.
"That's why I'm just so freaking famous while no one else has to worry. From the beginning, I'd gotten myself on camera. Ivan liked the idea and made me keep doing it, even when I could avoid the camera. I figured that, since I was already sort of famous, I might as well get even more famous."
It was quiet for a while after that, Matthew too stunned to say anything, and Gilbert too deep in thought on what he was going to say next. When he finally spoke, the sound of his voice made Matthew jump slightly.
"So, that's it. My big story. I don't really care what happens to me as long as I'm not caught. And if you've even been curious about why Franny can pick any lock in just a few seconds, now you know."
Matthew was frozen in place, trying to soak in everything he had just learned. He had never expected that this energetic, loud, happy albino to have such a tragic past. When Matthew was six, he was playing around with Alfred in some foster home, allowed to stay as out of the spot light as he pleased. The closest he got to danger was when Alfred tried to use an umbrella to slow down his landing after jumping off the second floor railing.
Meanwhile, Gilbert was risking his life to keep dangerous people away from his brother. Matthew wouldn't be able to deal with stitches with no way to numb the pain as he was now. He was pretty sure not even Alfred could do that. He almost felt bad for asking for Gilbert's backstory…
"Wow, I had no idea," Matthew muttered, staring into the fire.
"How could ya, Birdie?" Gilbert smirked. "I'm over all of that, though. All that matters to me now is that it's made me awesome and mein bruder is safe."
"If you're having nightmares about it," Matthew glanced back at Gilbert, remembering the plane ride, "then I don't think you're really over it."
"I'm over it enough," Gilbert shrugged. "I'm never gonna see that fucking creep again. And I did some research on Ludwig a little while ago. He's some kind of police officer now. I don't know why, since he skipped two fucking grades, he could be some kind of genius."
"He might be trying to find you," Matthew shrugged.
"Fat chance," Gilbert muttered. "I doubt he even remembers something like that. He was just four. He probably blocked it all out or something."
"You were just six and you remembered going through being stabbed and having stitches in the same day," Matthew stated. "It's not that farfetched that he could remember watching his brother be kidnapped."
"Night, Birdie," Gilbert simply stood up and made his way up the stairs. Matthew sat on the couch, thinking through what he'd been told. So…maybe Gilbert wasn't as much of a child as Matthew thought. There could be plenty of reasons why Gilbert acted the way he did. It could be some sort of mask to hide the fact that he'd been through so much. It could be that he didn't have time to be a kid, being forced to grow up in practically a day, and so now he was acting like one while he could.
A few things Matthew did know now, though, was that there was a dangerous man named Ivan looking for them…
…and that he was going to have to ask his parents why they never told him something this big.
"It started when I was fifteen," Francis sighed, looking at the floor. "I was randomly picked up while I was walking through Paris, kidnapped because a…gang needed more people. Their leader, Ivan Braginski, told me he would shoot me if I did not do what he said." At this point, Francis looked up. He seemed pretty indifferent about the subject, even though Alfred was already concerned. "At that time, there was only 10 or so people and we were forced to keep moving, I had to leave behind my friends and family. Merci Dieu I knew English, or I would have been very lost.
"We went to Spain next and picked up quite a few people. One of them was Antonie, he was 10 years old but it did not seem like Ivan cared too much. I became close friends with him immediately, despite the fact that he was only a novice in English. We spent our time robbing places and people for money for whatever Ivan wanted to spend it on, and we sometimes got to eat. We moved around Europe, picking up anyone we wanted. No one would have guessed that we were a gang, just random crimes happening in random countries. None of us ever got caught."
Alfred was speechless, trying to take in this information. He would have never guessed that someone like Francis would be a part of a gang, let alone something that almost seemed like a crime ring. How come he'd never heard of an Ivan Braginski before?
"One day, when we were in Germany, Ivan brought back a little kid, no older than six, I would say," Francis continued. "He was so terrified, he was crying, and so Antoine and I decided to make friends, knowing that the boy would most likely be staying there for quite a while. I was surprised when I saw him, I'd never seen an albino before."
Alfred blinked. Was he talking about Gilbert Beilschmidt now? A little, kidnapped six-year-old? No way.
"He began to lighten up around us, but eventually Ivan made us leave, and I saw that he had a knife in his hands," Francis sighed, looking back down again. Alfred was on the edge of his seat. "I still hear that scream in my nightmares. Ivan stabbed him in the leg because the boy had stabbed another person, accidentally puncturing his lung and killing him. I still haven't told him that he killed that man, Gilbert would never forgive himself.
"Ivan let him bleed for 10 minutes before he allowed Antoine and myself to help him. He needed stitches or he would have died. And so I gave them to him, without anything to numb the pain. Antoine held him still and he was somehow able to stay awake through the pain. We were trying to get him to rest, but then we received news that Ivan was going to try to go after Gilbert's brother, just to spite him. And then the boy was on his feet, ready to fight a full-grown man to protect his famille.
"Starting on that day, Gilbert became Ivan's dog. He had to do anything the man asked, or his brother would be in danger. We stayed in Germany for quite some time. When I turned 18, I left. I had to, knowing that I could not be a criminal forever. I could not tell Gilbert, though, since he would be forced to tell Ivan where I had gone. He was only eight and I am sure that he was torn up about it."
Alfred couldn't believe it. That criminal that he'd hated for so long…had to go through something like that. He was pretty much a hero, standing up for his family like that, protecting his own brother just like Alfred was trying to do. And when he was just six, he was that strong… However, Francis still wasn't done with his story.
"After I left, I decided to go to England to at least try to get away from Ivan," Francis continued. "He apparently did not care much for me, allowing me to just simply leave without a care in the world. After three years of being a criminal, however, I could not shake the habit. There was some party filled with rich people and I could not resist." Francis looked up, glancing at Arthur. "While I was trying to steal a woman's necklace, someone who thought I was a girl asked me to dance."
"It is not my fault that your hair makes you look like a woman," Arthur snapped.
"After that, it becomes a love story I am sure you do not want to hear," Francis chuckled. "For a while, all I cared about was the money that the famous Arthur Kirkland had, though he did eventually make me think about more than just money. I do not even think about it much anymore. Especially when you boys came around. We kept this from you because I know you two would trust me a lot less. Arthur broke up with me when he found out, which happened to be the day we were engaged. Though I did slowly gain back his trust…"
It was awkwardly quiet after that, Alfred trying to run through all of this through his head and Francis and Arthur waiting to see what Alfred would say about it. Alfred wasn't even sure what to think. So, one of his dads was a criminal…but he ran away…and changed his ways…more or less. And the guy that kidnapped Matthew was his dad's friend. Then again, Francis had only known Gilbert for two years and a lot could change in all the years Francis was gone.
"Do you know if Gilbert got out of that gang?" Alfred asked and it seemed like neither of his parents had expected that.
"Antoine said that Gilbert had mentioned it," Francis nodded slowly. Alfred was quiet again, thinking things through. So, there was a small chance Gilbert was lying to Antonio and was actually still with that gang. In that case, Matthew could be in some serious trouble. After all, Gilbert was still a criminal. Both Francis and Antonio had stopped being criminals after they left (because it was obvious Antonio and left, too) so why didn't Gilbert? It didn't make sense…
"Alfred, what are you thinking?" Arthur asked cautiously.
"You stopped being a criminal, right?" Alfred asked, looking at Francis, who nodded. "Then I guess I'm cool with it. I mean, all you did was rob a few stores, right?"
"Basically," Francis shrugged.
"Then we're good," Alfred grinned.
"That's it?" Arthur scoffed.
"He took it much better than you did," Francis smirked.
"Sod off," Arthur rolled his eyes. "Are you sure, Alfred? That was a lot to take in."
"Yeah, it was," Alfred nodded, leaning back in his seat. "But it's not like I really have time to freak out or anything. Maybe I'll freak out later, who knows. Right now we've gotta focus on Mattie, right? Gilbert is still a criminal, obviously, so we've still gotta stop him. That's pretty much the bottom line."
The plane began tilting downwards, signaling that the plane was beginning to land. They were in Paris.
"Hey, how much of that did you tell Eliza?" Alfred asked curiously.
"That I was with Gilbert and Antoine in a gang," Francis shrugged. "She did not need to know all of it."
"And she just went with that?" Alfred laughed.
"It seems it was all that she needed," Arthur shrugged and stood up, moving to the back of the plane most likely to get Elizaveta back.
"So, I've got a question," Alfred stated, looking at Francis. "If Gilbert was that Ivan guy's dog…and he ran away, wouldn't that mean that Ivan would want to get him back?"
"Oui," Francis sighed heavily, nodding.
Just what Alfred suspected. No matter which way he looked at it, Ivan would be following Gilbert and Matthew closely behind. Which meant this just got a whole lot more dangerous.
"Bring it," Alfred grinned.
Holy plot. I don't even. This took forever, especially the FACE side of it. I know Alfred would be mature enough to probably be freaking out inside on the news, but knowing to keep his cool until this all stopped (which will be a while). And now we've got a whole new character we haven't even seen yet. Sure, I've mentioned Ivan plenty of times before, but he's now a major character…yet no one has seen him. Oooh!
Also, I did not know the irony of Gilbert watching Lion King until I was editing this chapter. It was just the first Disney movie that popped into my head at the last minute. Let's see if you can see the irony in it.
And thank you Ironsling for being my 200th review! I really wanna see if we can get to three hundred….Hm…
Now that you guys all know the big secret (two sides of it, in fact), what do you think about everyone? I'm curious.
With that question in mind, please review!