The drab grey room high in one of the concrete skyscrapers that was Matthew's quarters had felt like a prison. The military was ruled and regulated until every ounce of beauty and gentleness was crushed away into the mud of trenches.

He hung the painting of the maple leaf where the light made the carefully applied paint sparkle, and the world felt a little bit better. Maybe that was the thing to remember about falling in love, he thought, letting himself linger on adjusting the canvas. You couldn't expect the world to stop being a churning war machine just because you were in love. Maybe he had expected that once, naively, maybe he still did, just because Francis made his whole world fall over itself and rearrange better, but all love could do against the wars was to be something to come home to. A breath of fresh air. And that was enough for now.

Matthew ran fingertips across the silk of his shirt, adjusting the collar, and stepped into the bathroom under the slick fluorescent lights. His hair was missed and his cheeks were flushed still, and the collar made his head top up and his jaw look sharper. More determined, in a way.

He couldn't bring himself to take it off, not yet. He buttoned his rough army jacket over it and went down to the mess hall, feeling buoyed up and braver for it. At this hour, he didn't expect anyone to be there, but Alfred was sitting alone, hair sticking up, bomber jacket crumpled around his shoulders. He was drinking, blue eyes wide. Matthew sat down nearby.

'Morning, Al,' he said. Alfred looked up. His face was flushed, and he had- Matthew squinted, disbelieving- a bruise on his neck. 'Hey, you know you've got…' He gestured.

'I don't know what I'm supposed to do, Mattie,' Alfred whispered frantically, not listening. 'I met this guy, right, and he's- he's amazing, everything about him. He likes poetry and offered to tell me more about rock music, but now he won't because he left.'

'He got sent home?' Matthew hazarded. His stomach was twisting. Alfred was evidently drunk, his mouth slack and his eyes glassy, but the way he was speaking so openly about a man made Matthew desperately want to hush him.

'No.' Alfred buried his face in his jacket. 'I'm so fucking- God, I shouldn't have been so forward.'

Matthew felt sick. He'd had his suspicions, casually, offhand, about Alfred's preferences, in the way his friend might have had about him, but to hear this made him want to deny everything. Everything except-

Francis.

He couldn't think of that now. He had to pretend like people like them always did.

'You told him you were…' Matthew's gaze lit on his mark again. 'Oh, Alfie.'

'Yeah.' Alfred touched his bruise, his eyelashes fluttering.

'He didn't feel the same?' Matthew asked gently. Alfred lived his life with his emotions too close to the surface, and he understood more of that now. Francis made him feel like he could rage and sing and fall all at once.

'No.' Alfred laughed, questioning, like he was still surprised at it himself. 'He did. And he- I kissed him.' His hand drifted to another mark on his collarbone. 'But now he's gone.'

Irrationally, the first thing Matthew felt was jealousy. He pushed it away. Now was not the time to be wanting Francis.

'Is he going to tell people about it?' he asked carefully.

'No. Arthur is good, Mattie. He's...I don't know how to describe it.'

'I understand,' he said. He felt the same ache.

Alfred finally seemed to notice him, and flashed a tired grin, his shadowed eyes brightening. 'You do?'

Matthew took his unattended glass, eyeing him over the rim, trying to hide his trembling grip. Whether it was from nervousness or release, he didn't know. 'Are you surprised?'

'Not really.' Alfred sat back and let him drink. 'Really. You don't mind, I don't mind. We gotta stick together.'

Matthew stared into his drink, taking a deep breath to feel it unknot through the tension in his chest. 'I guess.'

'So.' Alfred nudged his arm, in a better mood now. His eyes still held the weight of sadness, but some battles he would always fight alone. 'Who's yours?'

Inexplicably, he felt his face heat up. 'He's a poet.'

'Really? Artie would like him.'

'No.' Matthew almost chuckled. 'He knows Arthur. They're not friends.'

'Too bad.' Alfred folded his arms and rested his chin on them, yawning. 'If you're not going to tell me…'

'His name is Francis,' Matthew blurted. It felt good and bad and freeing, enough that he could relax enough to drink. Alfred grinned at him.

'I like that.'

Matthew offered a smile back, and they sat in peaceful silence, thinking their own thoughts until they went off to try to sleep.

0o0o0o

Francis knew it was stupid to walk near the Wall. The concrete was going up, the graffiti was making bright stains on the West side, and the guards still trained their guns on the East. It would only make him angry, furious and useless and hurt.

But he walked, back and forth, and then he finally sat and waited until he saw the unmistakable flash of white hair in the barbed wire. The sight made him want to rage and cry and spit out all the thoughts and hate that had been roiling under his tongue for these few months. He wanted to scream out every hateful, horrible name he knew at Gilbert Beilschmidt, and it still wouldn't be enough. Instead, he walked up to the fence.

'Hello, Gilbert.'

Gilbert didn't look surprised to see him. He gave that crooked, achingly familiar smile. His brow was marred with a healing wound, the same copper red as his eyes.

'Hey, darling,' he said softly. 'You shouldn't be talking to the enemy.'

Gilbert had no right to act like this, like nothing had happened between them. He was a turncoat. But Francis knew every line of his face and the scars of his body and the ways he was angry and scared and hurt all at once, and standing here, it was hard to think that the boy he'd watch love and live and burn had let the Wall happen, but he had. He gritted his teeth.

'You're a traitor,' he said.

'I know, darling.' All he could catch was the flash of emotion of his eyes before he laughed. 'I've heard. What, do you think I haven't? Better than running away from the only worthwhile thing we've ever done as soon as the going got rough, isn't it?'

There was the Gilbert he wanted. Slanting snarl, wolf eyes in the shade. It made it easier to hate him.

'I'm going to go talk to Ludwig,' Francis said smoothly. This time, the flash of pain over his face was open and raw, and he couldn't hide it in time.

'Francis,' he said. Francis steeled his anger into something cold.

'How do you feel about that?' he pushed. 'Throwing your baby brother out of the house? Are you proud of him running away to a better life? Finally getting to be something that isn't tied to your bastard existence in this burned city, Gilbert?' He couldn't stop himself shouting, pouring out all his anger and hopelessness and grief. When he was done, he was heaving for breath, choking on his accusing words, his guilt at leaving.

'Yes,' Gilbert said finally, voice carefully calm. 'I'm proud of him.'

'The only good thing you've ever done,' Francis spat, but he couldn't force venom behind it. He turned on his heel and stalked away, his shoulders wanting to crumple in from exhaustion, but he kept them rigid. The outburst had taken everything from him.

'I love you, you know.' Gilbert's voice was faintly lilting, mocking, but under that was a question, hidden so far only Francis knew how to hear it.

Francis wished he didn't stop in his steps. They had all said that to each other once, when they were young and stupid and none of this had ever happened. Remembering that time now would only hurt.

'I don't.' He didn't look back, and kept walking. This time, it was easier to keep himself from falling into nothing.

He had left. When Antonio, drunk and distracted and raging, had told him everything, Francis had wanted to stay. He had wanted to finish what Mathias had done, tear something out of his best friend as payment for the hurt he'd caused. Antonio had taken his hands in his, palms together- one pale, one tanned, with the same artist's callouses- and promised them both that he'd kill Gilbert himself if he ever saw him again.

If Francis had been more like him, a revolutionary, a freedom fighter, he'd have brought a gun and put his angel back in hell.

Francis remembered the taste of the cigarette they'd shared, standing outside his old studio with the soaring, pale blue-grey roof. He remembered the moonlight in their hair and the prayer Antonio had led them through, the words a dull comfort. Hail Mary, full of grace. He remembered the way his lips had still been warm when Antonio pressed a dry kiss to his cheek and told him, those utterly familiar green eyes haunting and haunted with pain and amusement, to leave the East.

Francis remembered, and then he carefully locked the memories away. It was no use to dwell on those memories. What mattered was how the world was now, with enchanting Canadian soldiers who should have never been in the army. Francis raked hands through his hair with a groan, mouth twitching into a half-smile. How could he explain to Matthew everything that had happened when he was in the East? If he asked, Francis would tell, of course. He could never resist the look Matthew always gave him. However, he wouldn't tell of his own volition. It was better for the wondering, impossibly gentle boy to not know just how close war had been back there. Some days, it felt only millimeters from his fingertips, in the form of hard twists of muscle under pale skin.

He, with his messy history, with his ties to Gilbert and the resistance that was not nearly so glamorous as he pretended- he didn't deserve to be with anyone like beautiful Matthew. Yet he still came back, and he let Francis talk and gave him that wonderful smile.

He really was lost, wasn't he? Francis laughed and tipped his head back, gazing up into the steely sky. If he was going to be lost, at least this time it was to someone good.

Ludwig saw him before Francis noticed he'd gotten so close to the checkpoint. For someone so young, he looked impassive and authoritative in his uniform, and his eyes had a way of cutting someone down to the core. Francis felt like Ludwig could see that he'd already talked to his brother, and all his fears and hopes beside.

When he came closer, Ludwig's gaze flicked out, watching for anyone who might see. When he came back, he had a shadow, a suggestion of the boy Francis had once known underneath the steel.

'Francis,' he said cautiously, testing the waters. Francis forced a casual smile.

'I'm glad you haven't forgotten my name.'

Ludwig glanced out again, every muscle taut. 'I shouldn't be talking to you.'

'Did your brother tell you that?' Francis asked, and as soon as he did, regretted it. Ludwig was eerily still, face shadowed. His cautiously open expression hardened.

'No.'

Francis knew what Gilbert had done to make him leave. He hadn't been told, but some things you know after a decade and change of growing up with someone. Paint stained Ludwig's hands, blue and gold against the red-white blush of his knuckles.

'Feliciano,' Francis said. Ludwig started, eyes widening, his shell breaking open. Francis grabbed that moment of unguardedness and dug in. 'I know him. You saved him, didn't you? I heard the story.'

The story, of course, was more tragedy than romance, or so he would tell Matthew. An officer and an artist is never a happy ending. They were already being whispered about, and Francis hurt all the more for them.

His hands curled in on the gun, the rushes of metal biting into his hands.

'I did what I had to.' There was a burr to his voice then, saying it was not duty that led him.

Isn't that dangerous, Francis should have asked. But instead, he hazarded another smile, and held out his hand. 'He cares for you, you know. Even though you wear this uniform.'

Ludwig broke their gaze. 'I know, Francis. He's just so idealistic and-' He looked furious and confused all at once. 'He is. And I make foolish promises, but I mean them. For him.'

'Art has a way of doing that to you.'

'I have my duty,' Ludwig said quietly, more to himself than to Francis. 'Even for him, I don't think I can give that up. But I am willing to be less…' He stopped, frustrated again. 'I will not shoot to kill.'

'That's good,' Francis said softly.

'It's the best I can do.' Ludwig turned away, his chest heaving slightly. 'I'm sorry.'

'I'm not the one you should apologize to.'

He didn't answer. Francis dropped his gaze, gritting his teeth. Everything was stained with the bitter tang of disappointment. He should have expected this. Gilbert's influence still held him now.

'We shouldn't be talking,' he murmured again, voice flat and blank. 'Go.' Francis held his tongue and nodded, biting back the rest of his words. There was no use arguing with a Beilschmidt.

He wandered the backstreets, letting his thoughts drift, wondering offhandedly why he kept staying close to the concrete and barbed wire. Did the East still draw him? Gilbert would have said it was guilt, but Francis wouldn't listen to him.

He didn't know how long he spent absorbed in his thoughts, debating his own conscience, but the eyes across the border shocked him awake. This time, Gilbert didn't have his pretty words and his taunting smile. This time, he looked like the boy Francis had grown up with, on his bad days- a little hopeless and a little scared and bitter and bared-teeth about it all.

'There's tanks at the border,' he said. There was a flash of guilt, or pain, or memory on his face for a half second before he was gone behind the drab concrete again. Francis stayed frozen.

Matthew. With his pressed dark uniform and his fear of war, he would be thrust out there to face the East.

For all his selfish, foolish wondering, he'd forgotten the threat of war. He didn't have the luxury of forgetting such a thing, when Matthew and hope and peace all now hung in the balance.

He turned and started running towards base.

0o0o0o

Someone jostled Matthew awake, and he blearily pulled himself up, blinking away his sleep. Someone was shouting, and all around he could hear the clatter of people hastily pulling on uniforms. The sounds clattered around in his head, against his dreams of numbers and Francis

'Al?'

'Matt, come on, I needed to be down five minutes ago.' His friend's face was blanched white. 'There's tanks. We need the tanks at the border.'

Before he could say anything, laugh or scream or fall back down at the thought of the war, Alfred bent close to him, gripping his pale lavender collar.

'If I die up there-' He was gasping. 'Tell Artie I'm sorry. I love him. He knows I don't mean what happens. I don't want to bomb this city. Make him understand.'

And then he pulled away and was gone, running out the door and Matthew was left alone, with only a hollow terror at the prospect of what lay ahead.

Someone shouted, someone roughly pulled him out of bed and he pulled on his uniform with jerky movements. The apartment was full of discordant noise and the air was too thick. He tried to lose himself to the rhythm, the odd dance of controlling the metal beast that was a tank, but in the sound and fear he couldn't, he couldn't. He would lose everything to this fear. He could die here.

The air in the tank tasted of metal. The blood in his mouth tasted like metal, like war. Matthew rested his shaking hands on the controls and saw the ways that he could start a war, that he could ruin the world.

The bombers could be roaring, the order could have come to fire the shot that would echo across centuries. Matthew wouldn't hear it. All he could hear was the blood in his head and Francis' voice calling him dearest, played like a newsreel on repeat, over and over. In the last moments, Matthew saw the curve of his smile and the shade of his blue eyes and felt every heartbeat of that simpler, happier time, the breath of safety in the middle of this war.

Matthew closed his eyes and thought of how one night he'd charted the path of stars through his night sky, laid them out in careful numbers and laid back with his head buzzing and empty and open. If only the human pride that led to wars could be explained the same way. The collar of his shirt, where he'd forgotten to change, unwilling to let go of this small softness, fluttered with his breath. Maybe if he'd been able to map love the same way he mapped stars, in simple, calming equations, he wouldn't still be wondering what Francis tasted like.

0o0o0o

:: Orange leaves in patchwork