There was something sacreligious in how easily Gilbert could draw them all back into this twisted parody of how they used to be. Sitting around a table, faced painted with gold and shadow, drinking away the mornings to come. Sitting as if nothing had happened between now and that heat-hazy night in August where Gilbert came back. Francis wished that he'd stayed dead.

Gilbert swung his head towards him, unblinking, mouth cracked open in a grimacing smile. Francis knew that expression, his mask for when the world was coming down and he didn't know what to do except revel in the burning of it, this dead and dying soldier from dead ages.

'You should have died,' Francis said, thinking back to their conversation through the concrete foundation of the Wall. 'It would have been better for Ludwig.'

That got him to flinch, head swaying back and forth, face frozen in that mask. 'I'm saving him.'

'I don't mean now. I meant a long, long time ago.' Francis downed his drink again. Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, but he refused to give in. If Gilbert had taught him anything, it was how to shoot first, how to keep his guard up and turn his love into a weapon. How to sharpen his teeth for war and sink them into the hand that fed them. 'You're only saving him from yourself.'

They'd shouted at each other when they were young and wild, until Antonio stepped in or didn't, and they all went home muffling sobs into stolen beer bottles. There was no more tears now, no more climbing up sunny Spanish rooftops to apologize. They were all well and truly broken now. Antonio glanced up and met Francis' eyes for only a moment, and didn't say anything to stop him.

'If you loved him, you wouldn't have abandoned him. If you loved him like you said you did, none of this would have ever happened.' Almost too fast to catch, Gilbert's mask broke and showed anguish. Francis wanted to sink his teeth into that, pull that blood-soft colour out of Gilbert Beilschmidt's gunpowder bones and scream about everything that had happened, all the pain he'd ever caused. Ludwig, dead for this hopeless cause. Alfred, the soldier of a war he hated. Matthew, waiting in Canada for the letter that told him Francis might already be dead. 'If you loved us, you would have taken care of Ludwig like you'd promised. But you're incapable, aren't you, of loving anyone or anything-'

Antonio's fingers grazed his wrist, and Francis broke off, tears filling his throat. Gilbert's eyes were perfectly, completely blank, like gleaming night-animals watching from the sky. Francis wanted to wrap this lonely, broken man in his arms and sob for all of them, but he couldn't. There could be no more love between him and Berlin's eagle, not until one or both of them were dead.

He rose from his seat and stepped away from the two people he'd once given his life to with open hands and laughter, and who now held what was left of his future in their scarred hands.

If he had more time and more fire, he'd paint Matthew a poem that ran through the streets of Berlin like art itself, with words curling up the sides of the buildings and dripping like fire and deep green water down the windows, sweet rain and cold stars both falling from the sky at the end of the world. As it was, he wrote a goodbye instead. The paper was old and soft, creamy coloured, and Francis steadied his hands for his last touch of art on the world. Wasn't it all a masterpiece in the end? Would Mattthew recognize himself in the lines that flowered into the shadows of the blue moon? Love was an undefinable thing but Francis liked to think he'd captured at least a little part of it in sunset and lavender, night into day, morning laying soft silk on pale hair and a shy, wondering smile.

He went to mail it, and he waited, and he watched Antonio sit by a young man with curled dark hair and bright hazel eyes, a man who looked like Feliciano. They held hands, clutching tight against the oncoming dark.

'His name is Lovino.'

Francis didn't turn to look at him. He could move so quietly, something so at odds with his careless hurricane force, with the crooked set of his smile and hands and future.

'Why did he tell you that?'

Gilbert settled down beside him, burning hot and close, and didn't answer.

'Ludwig being here wasn't my fault. Not all of it. He traded himself in for-'

'For Feliciano.'

'You know.' He heard Gilbert shift beside him, like he was going to touch his shoulder but reconsidered.

'I know Feliciano.'

'Do you?' Gilbert sat forward, so bleach-white against the mahogany bronze that Francis had to look at him. He was smiling again, something only a little more real than before, ironic and challenging. 'Tell him- tell him I saved Ludwig.'

Francis gave him the same kind of smile back, all teeth and no honesty. 'I know that Ludwig's already told him everything he should know about you.'

They sat in silence. Gilbert twisted a plain polished wood cross around his fingers until it bit into his skin with angry red lines, staring into nothing. Francis took his hand before he could think, soothing the places the thin chain cut.

'Gilbert,' he whispered. He hated him, he wanted to hate him, but with the cross in his hands there was a strange vulnerability that Francis had never seen before. A vulnerability that reached into Francis' own moonlit love.

It only lasted a moment, but it was enough. Gilbert pulled away, and Francis spoke quietly enough that they could both pretend nothing had ever happened between them, nothing is wrong.

'Who?'

Gilbert stared away. His eyelashes fluttered gold. Just when Francis thought he would ignore it and leave, he grabbed his collar and dragged him closer, burning up, burning out, all gasoline and smoke.

'His name is Roderich Edelstein. Tell him goodbye if any of us survive this. If not, I'll see you and Toni in hell.' He grinned like broken glass, and Francis remembered the first time he saw him smile, crooked canine teeth in the Spanish sun. Gilbert touched his fingers to the silvery scar on his forehead, a mocking salute. 'To the best worst people I've ever known.'

He shoved Francis away, hands clenching for one last instance in his, and wove his way into the bar. Even artists shied back from the fallen angel, gunpowder wings, broken bones, cigarette starfire glowing at his mouth.

Francis closed his eyes and dreamed and wished things were different. Mathias came by in the drifting dark, glad you're here with us- falsely hoping words for these false prophets saying that everything will be okay. Francis dreamed that was true until a man with smile lines around his eyes and grey streaks all through his pale hair touched his shoulder, and then he went to go find Alfred. He was swaying where he sat, unscarred and golden.

'My group will leave soon.' This was it, Francis only realized that with a dull shock now. The words spilled out of his mouth like they'd always been written in his bones, but he wasn't ready to die. 'If I do not make it back...can you tell Matthew? Can you tell him that I loved him until the end, and that I am so, so sorry?'

'Francis.' Alfred sounded on the verge of breaking right open. If he did, Francis would, too. He shook his head.

'Please.'

'I will, I will, I promise.' He nodded frantically, eyes searching his face. The sudden grief that came with staring death in the face rose in his expression. 'Can you tell Arthur-'

'You will tell him yourself, because you will survive this,' Francis insisted. He couldn't die here. Francis wouldn't let that happen. 'Alfred, you will.'

'Francis,' he said, eyes shining wet. He looked a little like Matthew, with wide sky eyes and hope as bright as morning.

'It has been a pleasure to meet you,' Francis said, and let go of himself and the future in his dearest Matthew's hands. The battle of Berlin was Gilbert's now, just like before.

0o0o0o

Their tiny group gathered beneath the rafters like scrappy paint-splattered birds, close enough the prison to be shot but not close enough to shoot back. Wasn't all history like that?

A man sat beside him. He had fierce eyes, a purple-blue bright against the bricks, close enough to sting but not close enough to soothe to Matthew's wildflower shade. His gloved hands twisted through themselves, over and over.

'Kalmar needs us to hold the streets. Keep the Stasi backup away from the prison at all costs. Once the prisoners are out, defend them and help them to the border. Finish off the guards if you need to.' His eyes settled on Francis for a moment before flicking away, heavy with knowledge. Shoot Gilbert once all of this is done and this fight for Berlin doesn't need his weapons anymore. He held out his fist. 'We fight for freedom. We fight for the future.' His gloved hand shook. 'I am proud to stand beside you all.'

Their little group brushed bruised knuckles and melted away piece by piece into the lavender light. Francis moved into his position closer to the prison, automatic and almost easy. It was easy to sink back into being Jean, being another sun-bright piece in a better mosaic.

But he couldn't, after what he'd seen in the West. He'd fallen wholly into waking up in the morning with Matthew in his arms, and gentle teasing, and the openness of him and his wonder. Maybe it was cowardly. Maybe he would be hated in the future, but love was not a weakness. Happiness would not have to be a liability in the future.

He brushed his thumb across the smooth wood handle of his gun, imagining it was over the sun-rough back of Matthew's neck. Oh, dearest, if you could see me now. He'd seen more than a spark of this fire in him, but Matthew was gentle; he wouldn't be standing here with a gun to shoot his oldest friend, he would have said no.

Francis was too tired and too hurt to say no anymore. He wanted all of this to be over so he could find his way back to Matthew and curl up in his arms and let himself be sung to sleep. He tightened his grip on the gun and stared into the wind, watching the lone guard circle his post. Slow breathing, quick heart. Steady hands on the trigger and shaking breath when he thought of pulling it. Time slid slow and suffocating, narrowing down to just this. Just Francis, standing in the stone shadows, waiting for the world to end.

As the guard rose to go back inside, Francis signaled and caught the responding flicker of motion across the street. The world held its breath for a moment that lasted forever, where Francis felt himself pull out his gun, felt his head tip back to the morning stars. A moment, and then Gilbert was suddenly there, beside the new guard, nothing but a smear of pale lightning.

The guard didn't even have time to cry out before there was blood on the concrete and blood on Gilbert's hands and all of theirs, Berlin dripping scarlet dawn. The body slumped to the ground and Gilbert rose from a half-worshipful bend, staring back at all his witnesses. Do you believe me now? Do you trust me?

Francis trusted him to kill and nothing beyond that, never again. It was good to trust him in that, because the idea of pulling the trigger made him feel sick and hollow. Gilbert would have laughed.

There was beauty in the way they all fell together. Francis knew his part, automatic as breathing now, and the resistance members across the street moved in the same perfect unison. The front guard had done their work well, the guard who was supposed to be rounding the corner of the prison now was gone, called away. If he was still here, it would have been Francis' job to shoot him. There was beauty in Gilbert and his flawless kill, but Francis was loath to think of it.

He saw Alfred slip inside the door of the prison followed by a group of Mathias' best soldiers, full of kinetic energy and life. His head turned to catch the outside world one last time before he was gone. Gilbert was wiped clean again, stride loose and easy as he opened another door, gone to find his brother and right at least one wrong. Their eagle was in the nest now. They'd done everything they could.

I'll see you and Toni in hell, Gilbert had said, as if this wasn't already hell, watching everything and everyone he loved disappear.

0o0o0o

:: Clear glass sculptures by firelight