Chapter 37

Water Rising

Ludwig was coughing up water when he got home, and if Toris hadn't been so mad and so fuckin' sick, he might have slapped Ludwig on the back of the head and berated him for being such an idiot as to go out with Ivan in the first place. Ivan was just as wet, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened.

Shouldn't have let Ludwig go, just like with Moscow. His pride always got in the way. One of his many faults, probably his worst.

Pride. Sometimes, Toris could only stop and look upon himself and wonder if it had ever really been pride so much as resentment. Resentment towards Ivan, who had found something that was so important to him. Resentment for Ludwig, who had ascended into something worthwhile while Toris still lingered in shadows. Resentment for himself, that he was so pathetic that earning Ivan's attention actually meant something.

Too late, now.

Ludwig couldn't even stand up, he was shivering so bad. The dumb son of a bitch was gonna get pneumonia again, and this time Toris wasn't going to sit there and feed him pills. Ludwig thought he was Russian now, but still couldn't figure out how to survive here.

Yup. It was resentment, alright.

He couldn't worry about Ludwig now, and didn't really want to. Instead, when Ludwig was sat down in a chair, trembling and soaking wet, Toris just cast him a glance from the doorframe, and then turned his eyes back to the phone.

Waiting. Too much waiting. The phone still wasn't ringing.

He'd looked all over Berlin. He'd scoured that entire fuckin' city, searching for a man who was essentially a ghost, and the only conclusion he could come to was that Gilbert wasn't in Berlin anymore. Gone, like smoke. The men he had sent frantically over the wall kept coming up with nothing. The trail was cold. Ludwig's flat was short a person. The Austrian ambassador was where he always was, and his wife was still. Ludwig's roommate was in the same spot. None of them shifted. Gilbert wasn't with any of them.

The only one that might have known anything was impenetrable Edelstein.

Out here, Ivan ruled. Back in the real world, an ambassador was far too high an official to even think of touching, not for people like them, so Toris could only watch from afar and see what he did. Who he called. Where he went. None of it led to Gilbert. The only thing his men had to say about Edelstein were gripings along the lines of, 'This guy is too boring! I swear, he always looks like someone just shot his fuckin' mother.'

Edelstein's misery wasn't what Toris was interested in. Wished he could have beat something out of him, but that was a no-go. Harm to Edelstein or his wife would be too risky, even to them, so Toris looked elsewhere.

And every day that passed with nothing, his stress levels started creeping towards the ceiling. Every time Ivan came forward, Toris jumped, because it was only a matter of time before Ivan found out or just asked, to check in, 'Is he staying put?'

Ivan would know if he lied.

It was six days after Ludwig came home soaking wet, six miserable days, that the phone finally rang.

Toris skidded towards it more than he ran, and he was grateful, more than anything, that there were so many rooms in this house and that Ivan was constantly occupied by Ludwig. He grateful that the phone in Ivan's office had its own private number. He was grateful that Ivan wouldn't pick up the phone offhandedly and hear Toris whispering.

The death of him, surely.

He picked up the phone in a second, keeping his voice a low hiss as he asked, fervently, "Did you find him yet?"

The answer he wanted was not the answer he received.

"Not yet. I checked all the trains out on the Trans-Siberian like ya wanted. Doesn't look like he's on any of 'em. Last I can find he was in Brno, asking around the train station. I think a guy here knows where he went—"

"So shoot him!" was Toris' immediate cry. "What the hell am I paying you for? Either he went to Budapest or he went straight into Moscow, so find out! I'm already too far behind him as it is. Take whoever it is out back, get him to talk and then fuckin' shoot him! Hurry up! Call me again when you beat it out of him."

He slammed down the phone, lashed out to kick the leg of the table, and spent the rest of the night stalking around the halls in circles.

Above, he could hear Ivan's silky crooning. Whispering, in Ludwig's low rumble. Those new lovebirds, chattering away to each other with their own private language, even if it was only insanity.

Ludwig's deep voice called out to more than just Ivan. Gilbert's dog whistle.

The phone rang again two days later.

"Get this! He's not alone. Looks like he made a friend. Got smuggled in through Kyiv. Bad news for you, man. He's in Moscow. Can't find him yet, but I got some info on his buddy. I got a picture. I'll send it to you."

Toris stood by the fax machine, and waited. His head was killing him. Gilbert had made it to Moscow without kicking the bucket. Yeah, that figured.

The man kept on talking.

"We've been checkin' every shitty little motel in the city. It's gonna take forever to find him here, you know. Ever try to find an ant in this place?"

"Just do it," Toris snipped, as he ran his hand restlessly over his hair. "The hell are you complaining about? How the hell you think I feel, huh? You're not the one that'll get it if he gets any farther. I'd have you burn the whole city down if I could get away with it. I don't care how you get him, just get him. Both of them. Soon, I'm just gonna have you shoot anyone who even looks like 'em. How hard can he be to find? He's a fuckin' albino! You ever seen anyone else that looks like that? He's gotta be strung out enough, and then that fuckin' hair and pale as he is."

A grumbled, "You ever been to Moscow? Everyone looks like that."

"Find him."

"Yeah, sure."

A click. Dial tone.

The giant machine began to whir soon after, and the paper started printing. The first thing Toris saw, poking out, was a name. A name he knew well. A photo came soon after, faxed in from the outside world that Ivan pretended didn't exist. That photo—Toris was pretty sure then that he wished he had someone under him whose arm he could break.

That face.

Eduard.

Eduard! Ah, that little fucker! Gone but not forgotten. What were the chances? What were the chances of those two coming across each other? One in a million? More? Fate must have really abandoned him, somewhere along the line. Toris was certain he had popped a vein somewhere in his anger, and he was quick to crumple the paper up and toss it in the trash. Couldn't even fathom it.

Eduard.

Anger? No. This was rage. Fury. Wrath. Whatever the hell it could possibly be called.

This made everything so much more difficult. A dumb Gilbert fumbling around blindly in Moscow had suddenly turned into a dumb Gilbert knowing exactly where they were and having a straight line set before him. Not an easy line, but a straight one all the same. With Eduard, Gilbert could actually make it here.

Oh, god—when Ivan found out, he was gonna kill him. Kill him. It would be him that Ivan was drowning in the fuckin' river.

Every day after that seemed to come far too quickly, as Toris struggled to keep calm and composed around Ivan even as his mind whirred away. Ivan and Ludwig passed by here and there, and Toris waited and plotted. He hung over his map every free minute and tried to figure out where Eduard would lead Gilbert, while Ivan and Ludwig hung over their own. He sat in corners with pen in mouth and tried to pretend he was Eduard. Get into his head and think like him.

Eduard. Still couldn't believe it.

Had to be going through Lesosibirsk, knowin' him. That was where he had gotten away. The closest location Eduard was familiar enough with. Too far away, though. They couldn't have made it there yet. Not in the snow. Not without the train.

So, where were they?

Between Moscow and Lesosibirsk. An entire fuckin' country, and no small one at that.

Sometimes, Toris just wanted to bang his head on the desk until he knocked himself out. Shouldn't'a let it get this far. Why hadn't he paid attention to Gilbert like he was supposed to? He could hear Ivan's voice already :

'You only had one job! One fuckin' job, and ya couldn't do it!'

The thing he would hear after that would probably be a bang.

Voices from the hall interrupted his frantic thoughts and made him look up.

A slam. Outside the door, he could hear a strange, strangled gasping. A loud thunk, as someone collapsed against the wall. Toris crept forward, clicked the door open, and stuck his head out.

Ludwig, having another panic attack.

Whispering.

Ludwig was slouched against the wall, sitting on the floor, white as a sheet and cold-sweating, and Toris could see how hard it was for him to breathe. Still, though, he was smiling, and Toris knew why.

Ivan was kneeling in front of him, running one great hand through Ludwig's hair and gripping his neck carefully with the other. Ivan had set the attack off, no doubt, and now it was Ivan who sought to pull Ludwig through it. Must have scared the hell out of Ludwig, one way or another. Probably slammed the door just to see what would happen.

Ivan had been upset enough by the first instance, but now that he had seen Ludwig come out of one relatively unscathed, he might have enjoyed causing them just so he could be the one to say that he had kept watch over Ludwig during.

Toris found his damn imagination running wild again, trying to conjure up what Ivan whispered to Ludwig in the middle of a panic attack and again afterwards.

'You're so pitiful, aren't you? Can't even breathe without me to help you do it!'

Something Ivan would say. Something this new Ludwig would believe.

Unpleasant.

Long, uncomfortable minutes, for both Ludwig and himself. On the stone floor, Ludwig's hands trembled. Wheezing. Odd gulps and hisses. When Ludwig's chest unclenched and he could breathe again, what felt like hours later, the first thing he gasped was a fervent, breathless, "I love you."

Ivan beamed. Toris shuddered.

Even now, even in this dry hallway, Ivan still had Ludwig's head beneath the water.

Horror.

If something put a wrench into the gears of that machine, Ivan would kill him. If Gilbert somehow arrived here, and if Ludwig found himself again and went with his brother, Ivan would kill them all. Ivan would burn this entire household down to the ground before he let Ludwig go. All of them, right down to the fuckin' cat.

The next day, when Ludwig walked down the hallway, battered and bruised, Ivan walked beside of him. Toris saw right off—Ivan's cheek was cut. In his belt, Ludwig always carried a gun. Ivan's gun.

That little trickle of blood down the side of Ivan's face, that gleam of metallic light at Ludwig's waist, focused Toris' attention on Gilbert all the more fervently.

He couldn't worry about Ludwig anymore, because Ludwig could survive Ivan. Ludwig matched Ivan. Ivan had wrought this Ludwig, and had done it damn well. Ludwig could outlast Ivan.

They couldn't.

They had left Moscow behind two weeks ago.

They wandered now on the outskirts, in little towns so small they probably didn't even have names, gathering their bearings as Eduard studied a map nightly with pen in teeth and fingers tapping.

The going was slow. Difficult. Not because of where they were.

Eduard was stealthy to the point of being insane.

Gilbert had tried to open the curtains once, only to have his hand slapped away by an angry Eduard. Couldn't go out once they checked in. Couldn't leave in the mornings without wearing heavy, hooded coats. Eduard stripped the license plate off of the car and bribed people in the street for an exchange every three days. They changed motels every night, whether they left the city or not. Eduard looked over his shoulder every few seconds whenever they walked, and every time he sped up Gilbert could swear that his heart was gonna give out from the adrenaline and fright that came from thinking they were being followed. While driving, Eduard always checked the rear-view mirror and never did anything reckless so as not to attract the attention of the police. If they had to sleep in the car, Eduard locked the doors and forced Gilbert to huddle down on the floor of the backseat. Just in case.

Eduard had looked at him one morning, and muttered, "We need to dye your hair. You stand out too much."

Gilbert did whatever Eduard told him to do, feeling the whole while that Eduard's cautiousness was more for his own sense of security than it was an actual help. He didn't know what Eduard was so goddamn scared of, not exactly, and was happy to keep it that way. Made going forward easier.

Gilbert waited, those weeks, and watched as Eduard carried on without acting upon his earlier intent to find help. Sometimes, Gilbert couldn't help but wonder if maybe Eduard was as all-talk as he was, because for all of his tactics, Eduard never once found the courage on his own to grab the phone and call that woman.

Gilbert had to force him.

This way of living now was making him crazy.

Finally, Gilbert lost his patience one night, stuck in another shitty motel, and asked, "Are you ever gonna call that broad? You talked about it enough but you haven't done it yet. You said she'd help us. Why haven't you called her yet?"

Eduard looked at him for a while, pen tapping away, and it was with obvious reluctance that he scooted over to the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. He held it still though, and made no move to act on anything else.

Irritable as he was, Gilbert found himself griping seconds later.

"Well?" Gilbert snapped, as Eduard just sat there with the phone in his hand. "You gonna call or not? If you're scared, just tell me the numbers. I'll do it."

Eduard stared at the floor for long after Gilbert had shouted at him, finally took a deep breath, and started dialing. Gilbert was glad, because if he had actually been tasked with it, his fingers might have shaken so badly that he would have fumbled every number Eduard tossed at him. One day, his bluffing was going to be called, and he'd have nothing to show for it.

Ringing.

Gilbert could hear the muffled answer.

"Allo?"

Eduard opened his mouth to speak, and actually choked. He lost his voice, sitting there on the bed, and Gilbert was fairly certain that Eduard had looked pretty terrified for a second. Eduard had been the definition of brave until that point.

Who was this woman?

Gilbert leaned forward, as Eduard sat frozen, and hit the speaker button. The voice on the other end was distant. Garbled. Even Gilbert shuddered a little as another coo crackled over the speaker, although he didn't know who she was or why Eduard was so scared of her.

Somethin' about that voice.

"Allo?"

Eduard found words at last, and broke the silence.

"Hello, Natalia."

A short silence. Eduard, hands trembling, seemed to be gathering his strength, and then he spoke again.

"Do you remember me?"

Another silence, and then the woman offered her guess.

"Eduard."

Eduard smiled, a bit wanly.

"That's right! That's good. You remember. I thought maybe you'd forgotten me."

"Why no. You weren't German, though, were you? Forgive me if I'm wrong; you can't really expect me to keep up with all of you."

"Sorry," Eduard said, abruptly. "I've got a friend here that wants in on the conversation."

A vague, foggy explanation, but something was going on between them that Gilbert couldn't see, because she seemed to understand right off.

"You know, it's funny," she finally purred. "I just met a German, not too long ago."

Gilbert sprang forward, mouth open and ready to start asking questions, but Eduard held up a hand, and stopped him short.

"Did you? I'm interested in him. Thought you were, too. How about we help each other a little bit? I'm sure that he didn't make a better impression on you than I did."

"Oh, but he did. If you're referring to Colonel Müller, at any rate. I think you were only a sergeant, weren't you? Didn't even make it higher than Toris. We've gone beyond petty officers, Eduard. We're almost up into the top ranks now. We'll have a new general, soon."

A flash of something unpleasant across Eduard's face as he sat up straighter and suddenly quite alert. Alarmed.

Toris.

Gilbert remembered that name somehow, someway. The distant sound of a sewer grate sliding shut.

Her voice came out from the phone, so many miles away and yet close enough to make Gilbert scoot away from the phone as if her damn fingers would start poking through the speaker-holes.

"You know! When you ran, Ivan was so angry that he put poor Toris in the hospital for two weeks. I sent him flowers, in your stead. Poor thing. The way you left him behind like that."

Eduard looked so damn pale all of a sudden. A breath away from illness.

That story of Eduard's came back to the surface of Gilbert's mind. Toris and Eduard. The brother Eduard had abandoned once. The only reason Eduard was helping Gilbert now.

Eduard recovered and managed a scoff, and asked, "Were they poison flowers, Natalia?"

Across the desolate lands, Gilbert could only imagine that this woman was smiling.

"Not all of them."

Eduard's smile stood strong.

"Kinder than I recall!"

It became suddenly obvious to Gilbert that the pulse in Eduard's neck was hammering so fiercely that it was visible. He looked perfectly composed, but this woman, this unassuming woman who spoke so calmly, terrified him.

Gilbert kept his hands clenched to keep them still. Was it her that scared him or was it that her voice was the first glimpse of really lay in wait for him across the snow?

"Why are you calling? What do you want?"

"Help."

"Getting to him?"

Eduard nodded—how stupid, not like she could see him, but maybe she knew somehow, all the same.

"What's in it for me?"

"Anything!" Gilbert barked out, without thinking, and Eduard reached out and pinched his arm to silence him.

Before she could speak, Eduard tried to regain control of the situation with a quick, "How about getting rid of a competitor? I know you. Isn't that the best thing you can get out of this? Getting rid of someone?"

Silence.

Competitor? Gilbert fidgeted non the bed, irritable and agitated, and wished more than anything that Eduard would just tell him the goddamn truth about everything. Just let him know what he was getting himself into.

Whether or not she accepted this deal, or whether she would ask for more later was yet to be seen. For now, though, she seemed to agree.

"You call me," she said, as Gilbert's heart hammered away, "every time you stop somewhere. No matter where. You call me first. I'll help when I can. Don't let him know you're here. No one can help you then. You get him away, though, or we're all dead."

Eduard's only answer was a cool, "Alright. Alright. Deal."

When the phone clicked, Eduard heaved a great sigh of relief, and turned to Gilbert, looking so pale all of a sudden. Sick.

"Well," he said, a bit shakily, "That went better than I thought! She must really hate your brother."

"That's good, right?"

Eduard just smiled at him, thinly, and the look on his face was strange. As if, somehow, that wasn't good. As if he wanted to say, 'No, we're in deep shit.' Whatever he was thinking, Eduard was afraid to tell him. In a way, Gilbert was glad, because he was afraid to know.

They sat on their beds, avoided looking at each other, and even Ludwig was quiet. Wasn't long before Eduard started drinking again.

The last thing Eduard said, before he went to sleep, was, "I hope you spent as much time with him as you could."

A churn of nausea. Guilt. He hadn't. He had been so absorbed in himself that most opportunities to be with Ludwig had been blown off for other ventures. Living in the moment. He lived in the moment now more than ever, because thinking too far ahead was pointless when he could die any damn day.

And he felt sick now, because the assumed end of Eduard's sentence was, 'Because it's lookin' good that you might not ever see him again.'

Roderich had been right about him all along. Useless.

Ludwig sat still and silent on the floor, and all night long, the woman's voice played over and over in Gilbert's head.

It was around then that he started losing hope.

Ludwig was quiet.

In the morning, before Eduard awoke, he slunk outside into the street and grabbed hold of a payphone, and called Roderich for the first time since he and Eduard had met. Should have called sooner.

He didn't really have anything important to say, but speaking to Roderich made him feel real. Like he wasn't in a different world. Roderich, mutual hatred aside, still made him feel safer.

Even Roderich didn't seem to have the energy anymore to bitch at him, and instead asked, "How are you?"

Gilbert's answer was short and simple.

"Bad."

"How's it look?"

"...bad."

This time Roderich had no encouragement to offer, and hung up the phone after a few more forced words.

His farewell was a rather dreary, "Call again soon, Gilbert. Don't stop calling unless you die. But don't... That is... Oh. Maybe you should just come back. Sometimes, I think Ludwig might already be dead."

No. Not dead. He'd have known, somehow, if Ludwig had died. Wouldn't he have felt something? Not dead, but maybe gone, in a way.

Couldn't say exactly what it was, but Gilbert put down the phone, and felt his own path steadily winding downwards. Sometimes, he felt like he was drowning. Even Roderich sensed it, so far away.

The Ludwig that stood at his side now always just smiled, and offered nothing else.

Berlin was gone.