Authors' Notes;

Weapon Frayer; I feel you too, Laurel. The story will be updated every Sunday, with exceptions later in November, and possibly December. DFTBA!

Laurel Silver; thank you to Dreiks for correcting a German mistake in the title. I feel like a bit of an idiot.

Für Gilbert, Von Liz

Chapter 2 - I'll be your burning sun

[Love Me Again, John Newman]

Elizabeta wakes up, horrifically hungover. A breakfast of tea and toast and a total of five texts to Gilbert, and Elizabeta's sober enough to worry. Usually, Gilbert would have texted and called multiple times, messaged apologies full of holes; he knows he's done wrong and he's trying hard to take it back.

She calls. The phone rings. The phone is picked up, and a distinctively British voice answers; "Hello?"

"Who is this?" Elizabeta demands.

"This is Officer Kirkland. Am I right in assuming you are Gilbert's girlfriend?"

"Yes. Oh, fuck, what's happened to him?"

"He's got into a fight. And he's been mistaken for a mafia boss."

"What?!"

"Yep. A notorious 'Ivan Braginski'. I keep telling Jones that Gilbert is definitely Gilbert, but Jones is sure. And he's a great detective; if he says Gilbert's Braginski, and he'll go down as Braginski."

"What?!"

"He'll be put away for a damn long time. Jones will pull every string, favour and hand he can to get 'Braginski' put away for life, or even on Death Row if he can."

By this time, Elizabeta has pulled on a pair of shoes, jeans and a jacket over the shirt and Gilbert's boxers she'd thrown on this morning, and is almost down the stairs to the car. "He can do that?"

"Yep. Jones is charismatic, good looking, and by Christ he's good at what he does. He's got friends and favours in high up places. He's a demon. A sexy, clever demon, and he's gonna rule the worst of him, destroy everything good there is about him, and turn him into this Mafia devil, based on a few sketchy descriptions, and he'll do it well."

The car starts, spluttering far too much for Elizabeta's exasperation, and tears down the roads to the station.

Arthur 'Rabbit-face' Kirkland sits bolt upright as Elizabeta slams through the doors, expression like a deer in the headlights. "Elizabeta? Didn't recognise you from the voice."

"Same. Where's Gilbert?"

"Interrogation." Under Elizabeta's glare and demands to hurry, Rabbit-face gives Elizabeta directions to interrogation.

The door he points out is locked. Elizabeta rattles the door, hammers on it, shouts through.

"Lizchen?" Gilbert calls from the other side. "You need to be quiet. Don't attract that detective's attention, okay."

[Love Me Again, & Love Runs Out, One Republic]

Footsteps fade, and grow again. Silence, then a scratchy little scraping noise as a piece of paper is shoved under the door.

"Lizchen," it reads in Gilbert's smudged writing, "They think I'm some Russian guy!"

"I know. I'm gonna tell them they're being ridiculous, and they'll have to let you go."

"I don't know. I hope so. This guy sounds like a maniac to me."

"You'll be okay, I promise."

"I know. Mama raised me good, she raised me right. I say my prayers, I'm so devout. Got an angel on my shoulder. Etc etc etc."

"Yeah, you'll be fine. We can get through this, it's nothing."

"Hey, Lizchen, as sure as I am that this will all blow over and fuck off, if I do get sent down for being the Russian guy, you just carry on with life. See other people."

"What?!" Elizabeta screeches aloud, "You cannot be serious."

"I can't expect you to wait for me!" Gilbert shouts back, "I could be going down for life for things Braginski's done. Murder, Lizchen, murder!"

"No! I can't let go of you like that!"

"I've made my mind up, Liz. If I go down, let me go and move on. If I don't, I'll be your light, your match, your burning sun, I'll be your ghost, your game, your stadium, I'll be your fifty thousand clapping as one, and I'll love you for God, for fate, for love, for hate, for gold, for rust, for diamond, for dust, or for whatever other indie metaphor mush you could possibly ever want, Lizchen, but if I go down I can't do that."

"I can write," Elizabeta argues, "And I'll wait for you to come out."

"No, Lizchen, listen to me gottverdammt I might not be coming out! This guy's a murderer, he has killed people and he hasn't paid his taxes and I don't think anyone could get it through the Detective's thick skull that I'm not Braginski! Short of Braginski handing himself over, which I doubt he's ever going to do, I fucking screwed."

"What's going on?" a cheery American voice asks. The owner of a voice is a man with blond hair, blue eyes, lightly tanned skin, and a big, big smile on his face, "You alright, you lost, darlin'?"

"Don't call me 'darling'!" Elizabeta snaps, "You're locking my boyfriend up on the hunch that he might be a murderer."

"He fits the description, honey, the facts don't lie."

"Loose descriptions are not facts! And don't call me honey either!"

"Hey, Elizabeta?" Rabbit-face tugs gently on her sleeve, "There's nothing we can do, Lizzy-love, just leave the dickhead to it, and we'll work something out, yeah?"

[The Hangman's Body Count, Volbeat]

Detective Jones watched, too wide smile still in place, as Arthur coaxes Elizabeta away. Gilbert glares at him coldly as he opens the door to the interrogation room, and the smile drops.

"You're staying at the station until your court case, then being moved to a more secure location."

"Only if I lose the case."

"Oh, please, Braginski; I've been chasing you for years. I've got proof of every crime you committed, I've just never been able to pin you down, you sneaky asshole. Now you're here, you're not getting away. If I had it my way, you'd be heading straight down to Death Row. And you know me; I'll fight till I get my way."

Jones practically throws Gilbert into a cell. Gilbert continues to glare from the floor, up at this hangman dressed in black. Judgement will prevail, not justice, and it is Jones's judgement putting the rope around Gilbert's neck instead of Braginski's.

And fifty thousand miles away, in a hideout in Russia, a figure dressed in white and purple snuggles into his girlfriend, their dog asleep on his feet, and the Russian is glad that the noose is around another man's neck, even if it's his name the wind is calling.

End notes;

Weapon Frayer; Hope you enjoyed; short story, I ran 'from' through Google Translate, and it came back as 'aus'. So I feel like an idiot for not asking my German friends who's in my class. *facepalms self*

Laurel Silver; I'd wanted to call this story 'Love Runs Out' because Weapon Frayer managed to get this stuck in my head. Thanks.

'Chen' here is a shortened version of 'Herzchen', and I've been told adding it to the end of a name is endearing, like adding 'dear' or 'love'. But I've already proven myself not so good at German, so I could easily be wrong.

We own nothing!