Francis followed his people to the house where they kept the wounded, pushing the doors open into a room heavy with alcohol disinfectant and the metallic scent of blood, so heavy in the air that he could taste it.
Gilbert was no stranger to blood, but he'd never been one for the healing after the battles. His scarred hands never had the gentle strength to put people back together. He'd shied from every soft touch, walked around with bruises and scars like the evidence of battles was all he was worth. Maybe to him, they were. Francis didn't have to live wishing he was more like Gilbert anymore. He could live and breathe and fly, away from him, away from Berlin.
Francis pushed his hair back and knelt down to help a boy with a long bleeding scrape up his cheek. He had white-blond hair and wide eyes, a little like Ludwig when he was younger. Francis swallowed back memory. Gilbert didn't hold sway over him anymore. Berlin may be his city, but Francis' heart was lost to Canada. He fell in love with softer things, with young men who should not be soldiers, to a gentler future of moonlight and Matthew rather than the flash of gunpowder and the lights of the Ku'damm.
He recognized the people here, resistance members trapped on the West side of the Wall. He melded back into them seamlessly, treating what wounds he could, slipping into this neat, bloodstained fabric. He could learn to live past his angel, his Gilbert. He could learn himself in the arms of a mathematician turned soldier turned lover, and that was just where he wanted to be.
When they brought Ludwig in, Francis thought he was dead. He looked like Gilbert, that was the first thing he thought. He looked like Gilbert pushed beyond all his limits, pale and bloody and haggard. Francis hissed, low and pained, at the idea of those horrible marks, of the brutality. He'd be as scarred as Gilbert, if not more.
Feliciano screamed, a sound of longing and anguish and love, and rushed for the body on the table. It was more than heartbreaking to see him hold Ludwig's unresponsive body, plead and cry and beg for him to hold on and keep breathing, keep fighting. Francis could only watch, transfixed in sympathetic pain, seeing every thought and heartbeat of his love reflected in the artist's hands stained with his lover's blood. It was almost a relief when they took Ludwig away.
By the end of the day, he was so exhausted that he slumped back against the wall, too tired to stay on his feet, the sight of Feliciano and Ludwig swirling behind his eyelids. He'd bandaged a few of his light wounds and helped where he could, but now the exertion of everything was catching up with him.
'This city does a number on you,' the woman beside him said, and Francis leaned against her steady shoulder, trying to catch his breath. He felt like Atlas' burden had fallen onto his shoulders. He was so tired, and all he could think of was Matthew. He wanted him to be here, simply to hold and be held and find a respite from the weight of everything.
'It always has,' he admitted, and laughed, overwhelmed at the weight of love and pain in this house. 'I thought artists were supposed to love this city. I do, but I- I can't stay. Not now.'
The woman had grey eyes like doves and morning. She stretched her bandaged leg before her and ran fingers through Francis' hair. He leaned into the touch.
'Any reason why?'
'I fell in love,' he confessed. Once in a sunny Spanish village, and once in a moonlight-drenched Berlin street, and now he knew which kind of love held the key to his heart.
One of the men with bandages on his shoulders leaned against the brick outside, head tilted towards the buildings across the street. Francis pushed himself up, muscles protesting, and stumbled over to open the window. The cool air played in his hair. The faint jukebox played Elvis songs.
Francis whistled the song he knew best, the song that spoke of maple leaf love and a young man whispering lyrical about his home. The song wound down, and the jukebox paused, and then the words thrumming in his head spooled out like blue moonlight in the street.
Blue moon, you saw me standing alone…
He laughed, eyes stinging with wind and tears and love. This was what he loved, this was what his poems reached for. This moment between strangers, stories touching ever so briefly before spinning apart again, but caught in this summer-sweet moment. He smiled at the man beside him, who flicked his glowing cigarette, cherry red in the dark, and grinned back. The song crooned on, and Francis thought of flying home.
0o0o0o
Matthew waited for Arthur to call him, because it was all he knew to hold onto. He could help someone. He could hold onto that when all felt dark and hopeless.
His house was so silent. It had never bothered him before, but there was a difference between quiet and blank silence, and he craved the quiet that came with someone you knew beside you. He had never fallen in love with cities, but he fell in love with Francis' Berlin, full of art and a different kind of bravery, a different kind of strength than Matthew had ever known at the controls of a tank. It was cold without him, cold with the guilt of leaving Francis and Alfred behind, cold with the horror that he could be sitting here while they were dead.
The phone rang one day and Matthew grabbed for it, desperate for someone to talk to, someone who would understand losing someone this way.
'Arthur?' he asked before he even knew what it was for.
'Matthew,' Arthur said, and he sighed in relief. It was like the cold loneliness was slowly leaching out of him.
'Tell me what happened?' he asked as gently as he could. Arthur's breathing was shaky and ruined.
'Alfred. I keep dreaming that he's dead. I keep dreaming- of him, of him, of him.' He was gasping for breath, panicked-quick as a bird.
'I know,' Matthew said.
'I think he's dead,' he whispered.
As bad as the words were inside his own head, they were a thousand times worse said aloud like that. 'He's not,' Matthew said, as firmly as he could. Arthur gasped for air, and tears crowded in Matthew's throat. They swayed in tandem, listening to the same starlight radio signals of a pilot turned a sunlit hero.
'I miss him. I miss the stupid way he laughs and I miss having him next to me. I miss it when it was easier and he was just an American and I didn't know I could love him so much. I miss not knowing that everything was hell, that they'll tear you up and bury you for love, I miss the way he smiled when he didn't know that either. I hate that he's such a hero. I hate it. I hate him so much, for running off like this, for always wanting to fix things, for promising me the whole world and- and dying, for making me think he's dead!'
Arthur sobbed, shocking and shattered like a lightning strike. 'I love him,' he breathed. In every word, he heard the echo of Francis, the words gathering in his head.
I miss you, I miss you so much, I miss the way you hold me in the dark, I miss the way you looked at me like I was everything you wanted, I miss those moonlit nights where you made me forget the world can be cold and made me remember that there is warmth and love.
'I know.' It was all Matthew could do, all he knew how to do. I know, I feel the same, I am fighting in the same sea of loneliness as you. Sometimes, that was all you could do. 'I know how much he loves you. He wants to give you a free world, Arthur. He wants to give us all something he never thought he could have.'
Alfred in his bomber jacket, laid back on his barracks bed with his head and goldenrod hair flopping over the side, drunk enough to lose everything but his deepest thoughts- I think the world should be right, Mattie, I think that the future should be better than this. He'd babbled the same when he was drunk and thinking of Arthur. I wish, I wish things were better for him, I'd give the world for it.
'You changed him,' he said, wondering if Arthur knew the depth of Alfred's world-changing love, if he knew that Alfred would take on the entire world to make the future better for those he loved. Alfred's promises were never empty. 'You showed him that sometimes- sometimes the world is terrible and cold and harsh. He wanted to give you something better.'
They sat in silence and thought of Alfred, loud and bright and fearless as fireworks, who had the habit of making people fall in love with him and running off to be a hero. Matthew had seen it in him as soon as they'd met, so long ago, and he'd still let himself fall into Alfred's warm blaze of sunlight. He couldn't resist.
'I should be used to this,' he said, unable to muster bitterness. 'I've always known he's a hero. It's just that...it used to be different. Being a hero was about saving me. Protecting other kids on the playground. He used to do that, you know?' He almost laughed, tears choking him off. Alfred in his Canadian-winter sweaters, Alfred in military fatigues, Alfred painted by sun and moon. 'He used to pretend to be me, on the days I was too scared to go out. He'd wear my hoodie and pull back his hair and take my glasses. I owe him so much. I miss him so much. He can't be dead, he can't, not before I tell him- tell him thank you.'
There was a catharsis in this that Matthew hadn't expected. Talking about Alfred like the bright, glowing hero he was, instead of thinking of him lost to the Stasi.
'Did he tell you how we met?'
Matthew only knew what Alfred had sang when drunk, his name is Arthur and his eyes are the most beautiful thing. 'A little.'
'It was at a bar. He bought me bourbon and tried to get me to drive him to the East.' Matthew pressed a hand over his mouth, cheeks hurting with a teary smile. Oh, Alfred. 'I should have said no. How could I, though? With his smile, with his laugh? With everything he promised me?'
Breathing, in the dark. The house no longer felt so silent and empty.
'I love him,' Arthur said again, sounding lighter. 'Thank you, Matthew.'
He smiled. 'Sleep well.'
'Of course. You too. I hope...I hope you find who you love again.'
'I will,' Matthew said, surprising himself. He would, soon. He knew he would.
The call clicked off, and Matthew sat back, noticing he was shivering from the onslaught of emotion. He wondered if, across the ocean, Francis was thinking of him.
0o0o0o
It was a while before he could bear to look his past in the eyes again. He wrote letters to Matthew. He planned how to leave. He ran fingertips over the fuzzy head of Matthew's bear, practiced reading hand signs, and thought of Gilbert less and less often.
Francis was glad to be free of Gilbert, but he still cared for Ludwig. How could he not? He'd first known him as a boy with down-feather hair and the widest blue eyes, silent and solemn and stained Prussian blue from the start. He'd always promised that he'd take care of him if Gilbert couldn't, and his only regret was not realizing sooner that Gilbert had never taken care of his baby brother.
Ludwig was alive. The words stung as much as they soothed. Ludwig should be more than alive. He should be happy, he should be laughing, should be the bright, gentle boy that Francis had seen beneath Gilbert's bloody colours so long ago.
He knocked on the door, and Feliciano opened it, eyes lighting. Francis! he signed excitedly, the signs wide with exuberance. You're here!
'Hello, Feli,' he said, embracing him.
'Francis?'
His eyes shot up to Ludwig, lying in bed, awake. Relief and guilt and too many broken promises crowded for room on his tongue.
'I'm sorry,' he said first. 'For Gilbert. For not being there for you. I was your brother's best friend, I should have been able to stop-
He gestured at the bandages crossing Ludwig's entire torso.
'Gilbert isn't your fault.' Ludwig still looked tired, but his eyes were warm and he held himself...differently. Prouder. More sure of himself.
Francis came to sit by his side, Feliciano curling into Ludwig's chest. Their hands danced together.
'I saw your brother in the East.'
Ludwig's posture tensed for a heartbeat. 'I did too.'
'I'm free of him now,' Francis said carefully. 'I...realized things about myself. I'd like to make things right with you, if I could. If you'd forgive me.'
All they had to say and forgive could take a lifetime, but they had the future to say it. Of everything Gilbert Beilschmidt had done, at least he had given them this.
'I will,' Ludwig said. He looked happy, shining, sure of himself, and he looked nothing like Gilbert.
0o0o0o
:: Pillowcases with embroidered flowers