Vati was standing in the doorway when they broke apart. His face was blank, without rage, without accusation. Gilbert carefully let go of Ludwig and opened his mouth as if to say something, but finally didn't. Vati turned and went back upstairs.

Gilbert didn't look at Ludwig. He was quiet for a long moment, his expression indecipherable.

'Are my things still up there?'

'I put them in boxes,' Ludwig said, his voice too small for the weight of silence hanging over them. Gilbert nodded. He still wouldn't look at him as he climbed the stairs.

Gilbert hesitated before turning the doorknob and stepping inside. Ludwig hadn't taken down his posters of girls and birds. Gilbert silently gazed at the room before rushing towards the birdcage. He stood over it and his hand drifted towards his hair.

'Where's Gilbird?' Ludwig asked.

'Still in Vienna,' Gilbert said. 'I-I didn't take him with me.'

'What happened with Roderich?' Ludwig's old anger suddenly welled up inside of him like hot blood. 'Did you leave him too?'

Gilbert's body rounded in on the corners-curling his shoulders, ducking his head. 'No. It wasn't like that.'

'Tell me.' Ludwig was tempted for a second to push further, and then he did. He wouldn't, he couldn't force himself to stop Gilbert at doing anything he wanted with his fragile eggshell heart, but he could make him hurt, too. 'You don't get to hide anything anymore after what you did.'

Gilbert flinched like Ludwig had hit him, and a hot surge went through his chest-there was power in hurting someone like Gilbert, from knowing he was one of the only people who could. And then he felt guilty, horribly guilty, because if he had to have burning power under his hands he wanted it to be in the groaning praise of Feliciano's voice and his body made for art shuddering against him, all that power for creating beauty instead of breaking it. He didn't want to hurt anybody else, but this was Gilbert. Hurting him was the only way to make him feel and listen.

'They found out,' Gilbert said with a voice like the wind. 'Or-someone sent them the clips. The company covered it up well, his picture never reached the TVs in Europe, but someone sent it in.'

'And you ran.'

'I told him first,' Gilbert said. His shoulders rose and fell in some approximation of a shrug. His voice was choked. Ludwig didn't care. 'I found out, and we agreed it wasn't safe to live together anymore.'

'So you left him?'

'I couldn't do anything else,' Gilbert spat, suddenly rounding on him. 'You know I'm still in love with him, don't you? It fucking hurts to have to leave him, but I'd rather leave than get him hurt again.'

'It didn't seem to hurt you very much to leave me!' Ludwig shouted, not caring that Vati might hear. He wanted Gilbert to know what had happened these three years. 'Since you did it so much. Every time you had to face something you left me! I didn't get to talk to you about it! I didn't get to agree to losing my big brother for three years, Gilbert! Not that you'd cared for me before that!'

Gilbert flinched back again. Ludwig grabbed him by the shoulders and in a split second, realized he was looking down at his big brother. He'd gotten taller while Gilbert was still wiry-thin and sparing, like he hadn't changed in three years, and he felt...breakable.

Ludwig pulled away so fast he crashed back against the wall, shaking out his hands to rid them of the horrible feeling, but the urge hadn't inside his hands, it had been inside him. He had wanted to hurt Gilbert then, not with words but with the fact that he was stronger. He turned away, feeling disgusting.

'I know,' said Gilbert, behind him, like he had stopped himself from coming closer. His pale hands settled gently on Ludwig's shoulders, not pulling, but steady. If he was saying it about Ludwig's words or about the intention he'd seen in his eyes, Ludwig didn't know and he didn't want to.

'You said again,' Ludwig said, trying to push away the feeling, hoping every memory of it would vanish like a bad dream. He did not want to think of hurting Gilbert more than anything, he did not want to start this fight-that-would-not-be-a-fight. Because Gilbert would not put his scarred hands on him. He would let Ludwig shove him and paint his white skin black-blue-red, he'd think he deserved it. For all his faults-for all these hurts and runaway words, Gilbert had always wanted the best for him, Gilbert would not fight back.

The thought of his big brother's blood staining his skin made him sick, made his stomach turn and the world spin and his mouth fill with acid.

'When has your big brother ever been able to stop getting into a fight?' Gilbert asked with the barest trace of humour in his tone. 'I shouldn't have done it. I should have been more careful, but Ludwig, we felt invincible.'

'They hurt him?'

'They hurt him,' Gilbert echoed, this time pulling him around to face. His hands dropped away and curled into fists. 'It wasn't the first time, but we were everything, we were always winning, until then. And-and we knew it was going to keep happening. I can't stay when I'm hurting people, baby brother.'

'Is that what you saw leaving me as?' Ludwig asked. If Gilbert said it was, Ludwig knew he'd end up accepting it. Because it was easy to let Gilbert fall back into the paragon of perfection Ludwig had seen him as, that all his decisions were selfless and for better.

'No. But I know it tore you up,' Gilbert said. 'All our arguing. You changed. I changed you, and I hated that.'

'I know,' Ludwig said, as if from a distance. 'I found your diaries.'

'You did?' Gilbert chuckled softly, but his eyes were suddenly sharp. 'Did you see the pamphlet?'

'I did.'

Gilbert nodded. His eyes kept drifting to their height difference. Some of Ludwig wanted to curl in and make himself smaller again, but part of him couldn't, not anymore.

Gilbert suddenly reached out and Ludwig stepped back, not out of fear but out of the conflicting memories of different touches. Gilbert pulled away as if he'd been burned.

'When did you start putting back your hair?' he asked, voice distant and pained.

'Right after you left.'

'And you got so much taller.' Gilbert touched his shoulder. 'Guess you're not so much my baby brother anymore.'

Ludwig's throat was too tight to answer, and Gilbert turned his face towards the moonlight streaming in the window.

'It wasn't just leaving you,' he said. 'It was leaving Vati.'

'Was it worth it?' Ludwig asked. Gilbert turned back towards him, seemingly at a loss for an answer.

'It was, some days. Do you expect me to say no?' he asked, and when he looked away, his eyes gleamed with tears. 'But that-the freedom and the ability to be what I never could be here-that was always separate from missing you.'

Ludwig didn't know how to answer. He wasn't sure what or how to believe Gilbert anymore, and he was tired; not just of tonight and his unrestrained emotions but of three long years. He had stopped expecting Gilbert to come back, and there was no preparing for the cold-water shock of his brother back in his life.

'I need some time,' he said, and held up a hand to stop Gilbert from speaking again. 'I'm going to sleep. Tomorrow we can-we might talk more.'

'Okay,' Gilbert said, uncharacteristically understanding. Ludwig turned to go.

'I missed you too, Gilbert,' he said, his voice cracking over his name. 'For three years.'

'Oh, baby brother. I've always been your fatal flaw,' Gilbert said sadly, and then softly, 'I'm sorry. It's not worth much, but I'm sorry for that and everything else. Go to bed.'

0o0o0o

Vati didn't say anything to Gilbert at breakfast. He stared through him like he was a ghost. Gilbert didn't say anything, either, and Ludwig only realized after he'd gone back upstairs that he'd been bracing for Gilbert to start a fight.

He sat down at his desk and opened the textbook in front of him with more force than he intended. Gilbert wouldn't start arguing again. He wasn't that foolhardy, Ludwig hoped. He was selfish and prideful and didn't think about his decisions, but he wasn't stupid, far from it. His brother was one of the most brilliant people Ludwig knew in terms of living, but in terms of knowing when to be quiet and when to speak, he was less so.

'Ludwig?'

Ludwig still wasn't used to Gilbert's voice again, and he wasn't ready for whatever would keep happening, but he nodded for him to come in. Gilbert did, but stayed by the door, staring around at his room.

'You aren't going to start fighting again,' Ludwig said. It wasn't a question.

'No, I'm not.' Gilbert came closer. 'I'm surprised you didn't take any posters for your room.'

'They'd not my taste,' Ludwig said. He didn't need this, this that he'd convinced himself he didn't need to deal with, because Gilbert had gotten turned out because of it. It didn't matter, anyways, if Feliciano wasn't here.

'That's not what I meant and you know it,' Gilbert said sharply. Ludwig kept his gaze fixed on the meaningless words in the book. Gilbert sat down on the bed beside him. 'Sometimes you have to do things, Ludwig. You get hurt if you don't.'

'I know.'

'You haven't told him.' It wasn't a question, either.

'Why would I? After what happened with you.'

'Because you aren't stupid, even when you're drunk on love. Unlike me.' Gilbert shifted and for the first time, smiled slightly. 'He hasn't told you to stop bringing Feli over, has he?'

'He doesn't need to.'

Gilbert went still. 'He didn't-he was straight?'

'No.' Ludwig's mind filled with memories of his touch, of the blankness in his eyes and the rasping of his breath when he sobbed. His voice still sounded like he was listening to the words, not speaking them. 'He moved back to Europe. His grandfather died.'

'Oh, fuck. I...I'm sorry, Ludwig. I had no idea.' Gilbert sounded terrible.

'If you'd stayed, you would have known,' Ludwig said, but he couldn't force the venom he wanted behind it.

'He shouldn't have had to go through that.' Gilbert shook his head. 'I...God, I'm really sorry. I just wanted to know. Has Antonio been taking care of you?'

'Yes. He helped me pick out what I wanted to study.'

'Engineering?' Gilbert asked, voice carefully calm. Ludwig finally looked at him, keeping his face expressionless.

'Yes.'

Gilbert left him after that. Ludwig pretended to study until his eyes hurt and then he listened to Feliciano's music, watched the end of the rain drip off his windows, and imagined opening the window to hang a note, even though he would never get a response.

Two days later, Antonio and Francis came by. Gilbert ran into the front yard to meet them. Ludwig heard crying, and furious, accusatory shouting, and finally hysterical laughter and sobbing before he went back upstairs, and when Gilbert came in his face was flushed and he looked alive.

Ludwig still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about Gilbert being back. It wasn't perfect. Nothing was perfect, because Vati still looked through Gilbert like he didn't exist, but it was better. It had to be, because his brother was back, but on the other hand, he had gotten used to life without him. Gilbert being back was another change, but it was never the one he wanted.

Ludwig didn't let him think of Feliciano coming back. It would be better if he was able to let Feliciano go, like some wonderful wild bird from the cage of his heart, but hearts were only fragile when dealing with older brothers and not when you had to let go of artists with the world in the curve of their palms. He didn't let himself wonder about Feliciano coming back because it would be too painful.

Gilbert took a job in engineering downtown, which gave Ludwig an excuse not to see him and Gilbert an excuse only to come to church occasionally. But on one weekend, his caution had worn thin, and he told Gilbert he wanted to go downtown.

Ludwig automatically headed for his usual place, but Gilbert grabbed him by the back of his collar.

'What are you doing?'

Ludwig's explanation died on his tongue. He remembered the boy with the scarf and how there had been no questions about who either of them liked, just the eyes that boys and girls at normal places made across mahogany tables as if they were normal, too-as if they were allowed.

Ludwig kept quiet and let Gilbert lead him somewhere else. He hadn't been down here for months; he hadn't had the heaviness or the furious confusion that meant he needed liquid courage to make him braver and make his thoughts quieter. Gilbert ordered and stumbled on the second order, like he was used to ordering for someone else, someone with music and bruises now blooming on their skin.

'You're almost eighteen,' Gilbert said once the bartender had left. 'Answer me honestly on this, baby brother. Have you been with anyone else since Feli?' His voice was low.

'A few-a few girls, but I don't-'

Gilbert cut him off. 'You know what I mean.'

Ludwig looked away and stirred his drink. He didn't like talking about this. It was something he kept private.

'Only once. I didn't know their name. Fifteen minutes in an alley.'

Gilbert relaxed slightly. 'Good. I had hoped so.'

'You hoped?' Ludwig asked. This time, Gilbert met his accusation with one of his own.

'Do you think you can get anywhere if people think you're like that?'

'But I am,' Ludwig said. This was the first time he'd admitted it, even to himself, since Feliciano left, and it was to his brother, who was telling him he shouldn't be.

'So am I,' Gilbert threatened, but his voice shook. 'And Roderich paid for it.'

'Feliciano isn't here.'

'Then you'll be the one getting hurt,' Gilbert said. He blew out a sharp breath and drained his drink. 'I know what happens, Ludwig. I'm trying to help you.'

'Helping like when you left because of what your arguments did to me?' Ludwig accused, barely remembering to keep quiet.

'Helping like trying to keep my brother from ending up like the man I love,' Gilbert snarled.

'You're still in love with Roderich,' Ludwig said, eyes stinging. 'How do you think he'd feel about this?'

'He'd understand,' Gilbert hissed back. 'Maybe you would, too, if you realized this isn't just pretty words and love declarations. I can't control you, Ludwig, but I can tell you to stop at least being open about it.'

'I'm not open about it,' Ludwig said, but the hot weight of shame had already settled on his shoulders. Gilbert said he couldn't control him, but that wasn't entirely true.

'Then get a girl. You don't have to love her. They don't even have to be the same ones, just get out if the house and at least act like you aren't just as much of a fuck-up as your big brother.' But it was his last words that hurt. 'You're supposed to be the good kid, you know.'

'I already do that,' Ludwig said, feeling stung. Gilbert got up and put his and Ludwig's mostly unfinished drink back on the bar.

'Do it more often.'

0o0o0o

Gilbert had changed. His own stone of guilt hung around his neck, and Ludwig knew that what had happened to Roderich tore at him, but he was...different. If Ludwig was the good kid, which meant studying and finding girls who's names he'd started to stop asking, Gilbert was the big brother he'd missed, brilliant as wildfire and just as wonderful, showing him a world that worked perfectly, as it was supposed to. Some days, Vati's eyes didn't look through him like he was a ghost, and they even spoke. Gilbert didn't argue anymore.

But if Ludwig came home too late or Gilbert caught him staring at the back of the boy who attended the art classes at school, hands smeared with paint, Gilbert's eyes were flat and hard and Ludwig looked back at the ground. It felt like a betrayal of who Ludwig had held as he confessed he was in love with Feliciano. It felt like a betrayal of himself.

Some part of Ludwig thought and knew that Gilbert was right. He stopped looking at boys, stopped admiring the way they moved and held themselves, but it made him always feel weighted and prickling and wrong. Nothing felt right anymore.

Maybe that was why he ended up in Francis' art store one day, and Francis' eyes widened as he took him in. Ludwig knew he'd changed-he'd seen the same flat, hard look in his eyes in the mirror, and working out was the only thing that kept the prickling wrongness away.

'About you and your brother,' Francis said, clearly waiting, and even though Ludwig didn't want to talk about it, everyone deserved an explanation.

'He left because Roderich got hurt. Because they were together. And he-he's been keeping me safe.'

'He hasn't,' Francis said. 'And that wasn't what I wanted to know.' He dropped the cloth he was using and came closer. Ludwig was taller than him, which felt strange. 'Have you forgiven him?'

Didn't Francis know there were a thousand parts to that questions? That Ludwig had to forgive him, especially for some things? Forgiveness didn't matter, regardless. His brother was back and that was all that mattered.

'Yes,' Ludwig said. Francis shook his head slowly, blue eyes never leaving his.

'You really shouldn't. I haven't.'

Ludwig had known that not everyone thought of Gilbert like he did, but only in a distant way. Francis was his best friend. Francis raised an eyebrow at him.

'He runs away for three years and only writes occasionally. Just because he's decided yet again he cannot stand up as soon as there's a hint of a battle he may lose does not mean all his debts are forgiven.' Francis turned away and began wiping down the new chalkboards again. 'I'd go on, but I trust Antonio's assessment, which means it's useless lecturing you. You hero-worship him, Ludwig.'

'He didn't write to me,' Ludwig said. He couldn't let himself think about the rest of Francis' words.

'I told him he should,' Francis said, but something had changed in his carefully careless stance. He looked back. 'It's natural to want to forgive blood. Especially for you. But Gilbert…' Francis sighed. 'He takes and takes and takes. It's in his nature, no matter how much he cares for you. If you can't stand up to him, he'll just keep doing it. I don't think he even knows he's doing it, but…' Francis absentmindedly touched his chest, as if he too had a huge dark space around his heart.

'I can stand up to him,' Ludwig said, feeling again the rush of hot power that had come with knowing he could hurt.

'No, you can't,' Francis said. 'Antonio and I can. Roderich can even best him. But you? You let him do whatever he wants with you.'

Ludwig didn't answer. He knew it was true, but to have it said so plainly felt wrong.

'I'm sorry,' Francis said from behind him. 'I-I went too far.'

'No, it's fine.' Ludwig's voice sounded far away. 'You're right.'

He didn't go back for a while, but he slowly began visiting every week to see Francis and talk about life and to see Antonio. Gilbert's friendships slowly healed, and Ludwig would find them roaring with laughter in the shop.

The month turned. Ludwig was almost eighteen when the world changed again.