Chapter 42

Night Terror

So far, so good.

They had driven for weeks before they had finally stopped. Before Eduard felt safe enough to stay in another hotel instead of sleeping in the car. Before their thin nerves were repaired enough to take a chance. They looked like hell, they knew that much. Sleeping in a car for two fuckin' weeks was close to torture.

So was thinking.

Gilbert couldn't even stand to think, couldn't stand to wake up, couldn't stand to remember. The only way he was surviving now was complete and absolute suppression of the past few weeks. None of it had ever happened. That was all. No one picked up the phone because they were all busy. Too busy to answer, was all. They were busy. Occupied. Alfred was in school, even now, and Roderich and Erzsébet were just off on vacation somewhere together.

They didn't pick up, but they were alright, somewhere.

Couldn't stand it otherwise. Had to pretend, or he'd just fall over and huddle up and be out of commission. When Eduard picked up the phone to call that women, Gilbert turned his eyes away, and had to fight off the urge to think about it, because if he did he would start bawling. They were just busy.

Roderich was mad at him for something and was ignoring his call.

Anything, anything at all, not to think about it.

To make it all worse, it had been weeks that his imaginary Ludwig hadn't come back. Somehow, Gilbert had resigned himself to the fact that he was gone for good. Could feel it in a way, that Ludwig had vanished and abandoned him. Had to focus now on the real one. Had to focus on Eduard. Had to focus on the invisible men behind them.

It was both a relief and a terror to walk inside that hotel, for the first time in so long. Eduard was looking over his shoulder every second, scanning the streets and the other buildings, looking pale and petrified.

Gilbert was sure they looked alike.

Still, Gilbert wouldn't lie and say that it hadn't been gratifying to plop down on that bed and bury his face into a pillow. Comfort, for once. Eduard left the room a while later, after forcing Gilbert to stay put, and it was fuckin' terrifying, terrifying, to sit there on the bed with wide eyes and stare at the door, waiting for Eduard to come back. Couldn't remember the last time he'd been so scared. Waiting like that, not knowing if Eduard would return.

Couldn't stand to be alone. Missed Eduard like crazy, even for that short time.

Wondering, wondering, wondering, wondering when Eduard would come back.

If.

But he did, not too long after, with a paper bag in his hand, and Gilbert was so relieved and so suddenly ecstatic that he leapt off the bed, stalked forward, and snatched Eduard to his chest in an embrace, hard as he could.

Wanted to cry.

Eduard humored him, and said, as he patted Gilbert's back gently with one hand, "Jeez, I didn't know you missed me that much! You shoulda said something! I would have hurried."

Eduard's teasing didn't really get through. Everything was building up. Felt overwhelmed. Trapped. Alone. Couldn't call. Couldn't talk. Couldn't say, 'I'm sorry.' Felt like he was drowning. Oh, god, he missed Ludwig so much, so fuckin' much, hadn't seen him in so long, and Roderich didn't fuckin' pick up.

So, when he felt his wall finally fall, he pressed his face into Eduard's shoulder, sucked in a great breath, and burst into tears.

His fingers clenched into Eduard's shirt.

For the first time in so long, he cried in front of someone without trying to hide it, and felt like a little kid. A long, stiff silence, as awkward Eduard might have been thinking of something to say. In the end, guess he couldn't come up with anything good, and he just wrapped his arms around Gilbert and let him bawl. Felt like hours that he stood there, clenching Eduard and crying his eyes out.

The whole time, Eduard didn't move, and didn't say a word.

Gilbert was grateful for that, more than anything, because he was already embarrassed. Hated crying, hated for anyone to see him in a vulnerable position, but, for once, he wasn't too bent up about it. Actually, when he thought about it, he felt better. Not his proudest moment, sniveling into Eduard's shirt and soaking him with tears, but he felt better for it.

When he was finally managed to breathe again, when he couldn't really cry anymore even if he had tried, when his eyes were sore and red, Gilbert slowly pulled himself back, wiped his nose with his sleeve, and grumbled, gruffly, "Sorry."

Eduard just said, "Don't worry about it. How you feeling?"

A slow, honest, "Better."

Despite his sore eyes and sore chest and sore head, he felt better. Some pressure had come off. A removal of stress that had been building for months.

Eduard smiled, and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Good! 'Cause I got something for ya. Come on."

Eduard dragged him into the bathroom, and Gilbert went with him, still wiping at his nose and yet feeling lighter. Feet didn't seem so heavy now.

Eduard sat him down in the tiny shower, pulled his shirt off, and grabbed the paper bag. Gilbert let Eduard do whatever he pleased, and when Eduard pulled a glass bottle full of liquid out of the bag, Gilbert asked, curiously, "What's that?"

"Ink."

"For what?"

To answer that, Eduard just said, "Cover your eyes."

Gilbert did, and shivered a little when cold fluid hit his head.

"Told you we were gonna dye that hair of yours. I probably should have done it earlier."

Oh. Made sense, he guessed, now that they had been caught.

Gilbert sat there, shirtless and still sniffling, and could hear that Eduard was trying very hard not to laugh. A strange feeling crept up, but not an unpleasant one for once. Almost felt a little hope, or something close to it. More than a little odd, to sit there in that dingy hotel bathroom, fingers tangled in his hair and hearing someone laughing. Hadn't heard laughter in a long time.

Eduard's hands scrubbed the ink deep into his hair, and Gilbert reached up to wipe at his eyes whenever he felt it trickling down.

"Why are you laughing?" he finally asked, over Eduard's giggles. "Huh? What? Do I look stupid?"

"Oh, yeah," was Eduard's immediate chirp. "You look like a Beatle!"

Gilbert snorted at that, despite himself, and almost laughed. Almost.

Minutes of something that was comforting, as Eduard scrubbed away, and then he said, "Lean your head back."

He did, eyes squinted shut, and when Eduard ran fingers carefully over his eyebrows, Gilbert was sure he was actually smiling. Easy to pretend that it was Ludwig. Missed those hands.

When the water started running, when those fingers started rinsing excess ink out of his hair, when a towel was placed over his head, Gilbert finally opened his eyes, and was surprised. It wasn't Ludwig. He knew that already; that didn't surprise him. What surprised him was that he very much saw Eduard, and was content with that. That he could look at Eduard and feel like he'd made a friend. Hadn't ever really had any friends. There had only been Ludwig.

Eduard had been with him for months now, and, beyond anything, Gilbert realized that he was grateful, and said as much. As Eduard toweled his hair dry, he heard himself whisper, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Eduard said, quite cheerily. "No offense, but you look pretty terrible. Dark hair does not go with your skin."

"I didn't mean that," Gilbert said, as he squirmed around to look Eduard in the eyes. "Thank you. For taking me. For coming with me. For helping me. I don't... Well, if you hadn't helped me, I woulda never got this far. So. Thank you."

Grateful that Eduard had given him the time of day. Grateful that Eduard had bothered to help him, when he hadn't deserved it. Those words were always so hard for him to say, thank you, and yet somehow he had managed it.

Eduard stared at him for a while, still crouched on his knees, and then tried to smile. "No problem," was all he said, although it looked as though he had wanted to say something else.

Probably had wanted to say, 'Don't thank me yet for that, either, because we probably won't make it.' Didn't want to say it aloud, though, and Gilbert was grateful for that, too.

A rather rough tussle of his hair, and Eduard's smile was back up when he said, "Well! Go look at the damage. Just don't punch me."

Another laugh.

Gilbert hauled himself up, walked to the mirror, and the good feel of Eduard's laughter died when he finally looked at his reflection. He didn't see himself. For a second there, with that dark brown hair, he only saw Roderich.

The threat of crying came up again, but Eduard saw it this time, and reached out to punch his arm, gently, drawling, "Hey, don't cry about it! You look bad, man, but not that bad. If you want, I'll just shave it off."

Gilbert gave a coarse, shaking laugh, and shook it off. Just pretend. Carry on.

When they went back into the room, Eduard sat down on his bed, and this time, Gilbert found the courage to sit down beside of him. Didn't want to be alone. Eduard didn't seem too bothered by his presence, and, as usual, it didn't take too long for Eduard to start drinking. Gilbert found himself scooting ever closer, until their knees bumped together, because he was miserable and lonely and if he didn't have someone to touch then he was going to go fuckin' crazy.

Eduard glanced over at him, seemed to understand, and smiled as he suddenly repositioned himself so that he was laying correctly on the bed, kicking up his legs to shove them over Gilbert's as if he were a footrest. Without any hesitation, Gilbert reached down, grabbed handfuls of Eduard's pants, and was more than content to stay that way.

Hadn't ever had friends, and this normal human interaction was a little alien to him. Felt good, though, even just to be used as a glorified pillow. Gilbert wondered, out of the blue, if Ludwig and Alfred had ever sat like this.

Oh. Hurt.

To distract himself, Gilbert asked, suddenly, "Where are we?"

Eduard smiled as he poured himself a glass, rested up against the headboard, and replied, "Krasnoyarsk. We're close now. Just a day more."

"Until what?"

Eduard pushed his glasses up his nose, hesitated a bit, and then said, carefully, "She's waiting for us in Lesosibirsk. We'll meet her there, and she'll make sure we make it out to Mirny without dyin'. Best as she can, anyway. Can't say I trust her much, once we actually have to be with her, but looks like we'll have to take a risk."

That woman. Meeting her seemed suddenly as terrifying as meeting him.

Scared.

"Why's she so important, anyway?" Gilbert finally asked, having thought it now for months, so that he wouldn't start panicking.

Eduard glanced up at him, put back his glass, and then said, simply, "Because she's exactly like him. She thinks like him. She knows what he'll do. I sure as hell don't."

Gilbert shuddered. He'd have gladly spent the rest of his life trying to avoid people like that, yet he found himself on the trail of one. Eduard saw his fear, and reached up a leg to nudge his shoulder with a foot.

"Ah, it'll be alright! Say, before long, we'll all be going back to Berlin. Hell, I think I might go, too, this time. In a couple of years, we'll be sittin' in bars, telling everyone about our ride through Siberia and how we beat the man."

Bullshit.

That was the most bullshit Eduard had ever tried to sell him, that anyone had ever tried to sell him, and it was the sheer absurdity of it, the sheer ridiculousness, that made Gilbert start laughing. Couldn't stop, it seemed, and he laughed so hard and so long that he started crying again, but not quite out of misery that time.

Eduard just smiled at him, blue eyes calm behind his glasses, and poured another glass.

After that laugh, after that first intake of breath where Gilbert didn't feel like he was being suffocated, he found himself smiling, and realized that he felt good. Good. A foreign feeling after so long. Hope. For the first time, he felt almost positive, as if some part of him really thought that maybe they could pull this off. That maybe this crazy, stupid plan would actually work, that maybe he really could get Ludwig, and get home, and the three of them could sit in some shitty bar and have stories for years.

Stupidity.

Some part of him bought it. Confidence that had been lost long ago in the snow came back up. Eduard seemed content enough to see him laughing, and that might have been the first time that Gilbert had seen a real smile spread over Eduard's face. A crinkle of his eyes and a showing of his teeth, and he nudged Gilbert with his foot again, just because he could.

Oh, he felt good.

They sat there well into the night, long after they normally slept, and just talked. Hadn't talked to anybody in so long.

Eduard told him stories about life before all of this mess, about exciting things he had done before he had gotten mixed up in Siberia, and in return, Gilbert told Eduard stories that he hadn't ever told anyone. Told him everything. Told him about the times that he had gotten Ludwig into trouble despite Ludwig's best efforts to be the 'good' one. He told Eduard about the times he had been in jail. About his ventures in clubs. All of his trouble-making.

He told Eduard about the time that Ludwig had been so mad at him that he had locked Gilbert out of his own house and forced Gilbert to climb up a fuckin' tree just to reach the window above and crawl inside, and when Ludwig saw that he had still gotten in, he had dragged Gilbert back to window and tried to toss him right through it.

Eduard listened to everything he said, and most of the time he laughed so hard that he nearly snorted vodka out of his nose.

Felt good.

Gilbert realized then how much he missed the world. Not just Ludwig, but everything. The first time in so many years that he was clear-headed. Not high. Not drunk. It felt good. It was just a disgrace that it had taken this, all of this, to get him to figure it out. Well! Better late than never, and Christ, when he got Ludwig, he was gonna make it up, all of it, everything.

Hoped Eduard would really hang around, too, because he was the only person that had ever bothered to get to know Gilbert.

Now that Roderich...

Nah.

Couldn't finish that thought.

Gilbert glanced at the clock, a while later, and saw that it was already three in the morning. Wasn't sleepy, and Eduard was still going strong, quite sober still, and laughing so much that his voice was almost gone. Not once, in all those hours of talking, had Gilbert's hands let go of Eduard's legs. He found himself clinging to Eduard now as much as he had to Ludwig. Couldn't stand to be alone.

It had started drizzling outside.

Looking over, Gilbert met Eduard's eyes, and asked, "So, when we're done, are you really gonna go to Berlin?"

Eduard leaned back, lazily, and leered, "I might! I've been thinking about it a lot. I think this has worn me out. Helping you makes me wanna go into retirement. So, yeah. Maybe."

Gilbert smiled.

Eduard teased him, again, adding, "I mean, if you're gonna miss me so much that you're gonna start crying again—"

Gilbert was quick to grab a pillow and throw it into Eduard's face.

In the middle of that comfort, in the middle of Eduard's laughter, in the middle of the first time that Gilbert had come close to feeling something even a little like happiness in so many years, there was a knock at the door.

A fuckin' knock.

Out in the middle of this godawful hotel in the center of godawful nowhere. A knock. Just a short, quick rap. Nothing more.

Silence. Hadn't ever known such silence.

Beneath his hands, every single muscle in Eduard had seemed to clench and freeze. A wide-eyed look of terror. Nothing short of horror.

Silence.

A quick, testing jingle of the doorknob. It was locked.

The sound of the doorknob was what jolted Eduard, and he sat up so fast that he fell straight off the bed, and flew to the window. Eduard yanked the pane up so hard that Gilbert was surprised it didn't shatter, and then a hand was on his shoulder. Eduard pushed him forward, and then hands were suddenly in his belt. He looked down, dumbly, to see Eduard stuffing a gun and a map into his pockets.

Everything felt so slow. So distant.

A meeting of eyes.

Eduard tried to smile, and breathed, "Lesosibirsk, remember that. Lesosibirsk."

Wanted to say, 'I don't have to remember that, that's what you're here for.' Couldn't. Gilbert couldn't even think, let alone move, and didn't twitch again until Eduard was shoving him out the window as he had once before.

Eduard let him go first. Always let him go first.

He gripped the pane, tried to lower himself down, and when he had one leg out, there a was a bang, as someone or something rammed into the door. A surge of fright, and Gilbert's other leg was pushed out furiously by Eduard, who hissed, "Go! Get out, go! Just run! Go on, I'll be right behind you, don't wait! Go—"

Fear.

Trying to drop out of that window was terrifying, but he did it, somehow, clinging to the edge and glancing down. Seemed so much higher than the second story when he was dangling above the ground like that.

Tried to steady himself for the fall, and was rudely interrupted. A bang, a fuckin' gunshot, so close by him, scared him so badly that he cried out and lost his grip. A dull thud, a shooting pain up his arm as he landed on his elbow, and he laid there on the ground for a long second, the wind knocked out of him and eyes wide as he stared up above.

Another loud, ear-shattering bang. Screaming. Something moved beside of him then; a flash of mud, kicked up by something.

A bullet. Right next to his fuckin' head.

No one in the window above him. Musta come from another building. Air came back from the sheer panic, Gilbert hauled himself up and started running, as fast as he fuckin' could, and kept waiting for the sound of Eduard hitting the ground.

Oh, Eduard, jump already—

The streets were dark. Slick. Didn't know where the hell he was going but ran anyway, because staying still wasn't an option when someone was fucking shooting at you. He ducked into an alley a few blocks down, chest aching and lungs stinging, and waited, too petrified to really go much farther.

Another shot. It echoed in the night.

The rain fell. Freezing. Gilbert waited there in the slush of melting snow and rain, crouched down in the alley and holding his arm, head poked around the corner as his heart pounded in his chest with dread. He waited.

Waited.

His hair was soaked with rain. The old ache in his hand flared up. His legs were numb. Chest hurt.

Then voices, loud from the buildings, shadows moving, and Gilbert knew then that he couldn't fuckin' wait anymore. Couldn't wait. If Eduard had jumped without him seeing, then he wasn't going to be standing still, and Gilbert couldn't risk immobility, either. Couldn't sit there like a fuckin' duck and wait for those men to come looking for him. He'd come so far, so far, too far to just sit there and let them hunt him down like that, not when he was so close.

All the same, it was frighteningly difficult to push off of that dirty alley wall, and step back into the street alone. It was beyond dismal, trying to get his legs to move when all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. To walk, when all he wanted to do was wait for Eduard.

Eduard.

Somehow, he got moving. He walked for hours, always looking over his shoulder and praying, praying, that Eduard would round the corner.

But Eduard never came.

By the time the horizon turned pale pink with the rising sun, the despair swimming through his veins was overwhelming, and Gilbert found himself stumbling along more than walking, dazed and numb. That stupid feeling of hope had long since been shattered. Lost. Didn't know where to go. Didn't know where he was. Too stunned and hurt to even try to look at the map. Just wanted Eduard to show up, grab his hand, and lead him on, as he always had before.

Eduard never came.

He was alone now. Oh. Why hadn't Eduard jumped? Why had Eduard let him go first?

He limped off through the quiet streets of the town, with only his damn gun as a companion, and sometime later, when he had left behind buildings and found himself on a road along a forest, he sat down under a tree, buried his face in his arms, and burst into tears. Alone. Everyone that tried to help him only ended up paying the price for his stupidity. He brought nothing but misery. Eduard never came.

Eduard had let him go first.