So Cold
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.
He was standing in line waiting to have his ticket checked to board the airplane, to go… somewhere else, somewhere away from here. How had he gotten here? Everything that was the last day seemed to be in a haze. Maybe he would show up and declare his love for the entire airport to see like they did in the movies and he would live happily ever after… again. It was the sort of cliché thing Gilbert would do, the self-proclaimed Prussian didn't look it, but he really was a big romantic deep down. Except when it came to this one little, ity-bity idea. Marriage. Gilbert was refusing to even think about them getting married. Oh sure, they were engaged and had been for the past three years, three years that Matthew had watched his friends and family get engaged and married in the time, Lovino and Antonio, Toris and Felix, Elizaveth and Rodriech, even Ludwig and Feliciano were engaged to be married soon, and Monique had called him two days ago to inform him that she and Marcello were going to be getting married. And he was jealous, he was green with envy every time he saw a bridal gown commercial on the television, or saw bouquets of flowers or even looked down at his own engagement ring on his hand. He would be the first to admit that in the beginning he hadn't been sure about getting married, he felt too young, he wanted to live a little before really settling down with Gilbert, but now he was ready. And Gilbert was not.
One day prior
Matthew tried to smile as he made his daily cup of coffee before he would sit down at the breakfast table with a brown toasted bagel in front of him and his laptop beside that reading his emails. Alfred sent him weekly emails, recently they had mostly been about his dislike of Copenhagen and how he didn't understand Danish and how much he really wanted to go back to Russia and his girlfriend Tatiana. A month ago though he'd received one telling him that Alfred had seen Arthur in a café in Copenhagen, working there apparently or something. His brother hadn't gone into great detail about the whole encounter. It was the first time any of them had, had any contact with the British man who had entered and changed their lives rather suddenly and then left just as suddenly as he came taking Matthew's cousin's heart with him when he left. Nothing had really ever been the same since Francis left, Antonio and Lovino had moved out of Montreal and now lived in a small apartment in Toronto where Antonio had just started working at a dance studio and Lovino was going to school. And Gilbert felt left behind and lonely and restless. They were fighting more often now, almost all the mugs in the house were broken or cracked at the very least; the only reason the pillows on the couch were in order was because that was where Gilbert had been sleeping for the past two weeks after Matthew banned him from the bedroom. He wasn't sure how many times he'd put the apartment back together in the past week never less the past month, they fought more times these past couple of months then Matthew could ever remember them fighting before.
He just felt as if there was something wrong with him, some hideous reason that Gilbert didn't want to get married. Why had he even asked in the first place if he didn't want to get married? You weren't supposed to be engaged you're whole life, engagement meant a promise to get married, and sooner rather than later.
Hey Matt,
Francis was amazing last night in Hamlet. He's going to go places, little brother. Wish you could have seen it. You should come sometime to visit me in Moscow or something. Did you hear about Monique's engagement? I haven't met Marcello yet, but I did speak to him over the phone, he seems like a nice enough kid. Monique told me that Francis laid the law into him pretty quickly when they met, I can only imagine what he said, remember when he told Gilbert that it didn't matter if he was his best friend or not, if he hurt you he'd castrate him and make sure that no one would ever know if he really had ten meters or not. I hope things between you and Gilbert have gotten better.
Francis just called. I guess Shannon (one of his costars) set him up on a blind date with her brother's roommate, only guess who the roommate turned out to be. Arthur. The date didn't go so well, Francis got drunk and kissed him and Arthur ran away. Oh, and apparently Arthur has amnesia, some kind of car accident three years ago about the time he arrived in Copenhagen.
Alfred
Matthew's heart reached out for his cousin, his cousin who had lost so much in his lifetime; his sister had been kidnapped and thought dead for years, his mother committing suicide barely a year later unable to cope with the grief, Jeanne, his first love, developing cancer and dying their senior year of high school, and now Arthur was just one big roll of mess that Matthew wasn't sure he wanted Francis to be around. Could he handle any more heartbreak or would the next email he receives be telling him that Francis had committed suicide in his apartment? Maybe he should go visit him, be moral support for him, get away from Canada for a while, the people in Canada. Get away from Gilbert and all their issues. It sounded nice, but Matthew knew he'd never do that, he wasn't one to run away from his problems just because the road got rough, they had worked through so many other issues they could make it through this one too. For fuck's sake, Gilbert had gone through hell in back to rescue him from a crazed sociopath who ran a brothel, strip club type place.
Matthew went to work after he finished his bagel and typed out an email in response to his brother's. He worked part time as an assistant librarian while he was in college. It was fun with all the little kids and story time every Tuesday afternoon, and he enjoyed watching people look for books and recommending books to people. He knew enough of the faces to know who came in to do research for school and who was an actual book lover and some of them he even knew their favorite genera and authors so he could recommend books to try at the checkout counter. He'd been working longer hours since the fighting started, almost a full forty hour work week now that he also didn't have school to contest with. He left work at eight-thirty, and found an empty apartment waiting for him, not that he expected anything else, Gilbert hadn't come home earlier than ten for the past couple of weeks or so and every time he'd be rip roaring drunk. He was even more loud and obnoxious drunk then he was sober if that was hard to believe, and Gilbert's new best friend had become the source of many of their fights these past two weeks. He hated this, what had happened to them, what they'd become. He wished one of his childhood friends was still here, just so he'd have someone to commiserate with, he hadn't told Alfred how bad everything had gotten, Al had his own problems to deal with. He felt like the child he had once been before Alfred and his father came into their lives, the forgotten child. Only his mother had really ever remembered him when he was really little, even his pre-school teachers forgot who he was, and then Alfred had come and he was so loud and obnoxious Matthew could remember thinking that even his mother would forget about him now, too overwhelmed with this intruder in their lives. But Alfred made sure no one forgot him, helped him develop his own voice, and then joked that he regretted it when they got older and Matthew began to play hockey and get a reputation of his own.
A quick dinner of whatever Lean Cosine was in the freezer that night, and then he sat down with a book in the armchair to read before heading to bed. He didn't go out with friends anymore, didn't really watch TV, he hadn't watched Star Wars in ages. When had his life become so boring? When had he stopped enjoying it? Was that what was really wrong with him and Gilbert? Had they just become boring, or was it just him and Gilbert didn't want boring? He went to bed with these thoughts filling his head, knowing that he'd wake up in about forty-five minutes to Gilbert stumbling in the door, cursing. Only he never did. And when he woke up there was no sign that Gilbert had been there that night. What if Gilbert was lying in an alley way dead, his over active mind asked himself. What if something bad had happened to him? Lots of what if's played in Matthew's head as he made his daily cup of coffee. He had just been about to sit down when the key clicked in the lock and the door swung open revealing a very disheveled looking Gilbert. His hair was tussled very messily, and Matthew could see a bruise forming on his neck, a bruise in the shape of a- Matthew thought he was going to be sick as he dropped the mug, coffee and shards of cheap ceramic falling all over the kitchen floor.
"You cheating son of a bitch, I hope he was worth it!" Matthew very nearly screamed, he couldn't do this anymore; his chest felt very constricted suddenly and if there had been anything in his stomach he might have even gotten sick.
"I'm a man Matthew, I have needs! Something you've been denying to me!" Gilbert roared back and Matthew pushed back the tears that were threatening to fall, his throat becoming raw from holding back his cries.
"So that's all I am to you, a way to fulfill your needs." His voice had suddenly become calm, calmer than he expected it to be. "I see. Thank you for letting me know." And then he pushed past the other man making his way to the bedroom and locking the door behind him. He grabbed the suitcase and just began stuffing his clothes into it, he didn't know where he was going or what he was doing he just knew he could no longer stay here, in this apartment, their apartment. This bed had been the bed that Gilbert had asked him to get married in; this was where he had said yes, this was where they had expected to share the rest of their life once upon a time. And now, now everything was ruined and he could no longer bear to sleep in this bed, be in this apartment surrounded by all these memories. Had this been what Francis had felt as he lived in the same apartment Arthur had lived in for those many months after Arthur disappeared? Suddenly Matthew began to understand how Francis felt, and why Francis left.
Present time
"Boarding pass, sir." The brunette working the desk beside the terminal asked, Matthew passed her the thick paperish material that had come with his plane ticket. "Thank you for flying Air France." Oh, so that's where he was going, France.
He was lucky; somehow he had managed to get a window seat despite buying his ticket only today. That was nice, he supposed, at least he'd be able to see what he was going to crash into before they actually crashed. He couldn't believe the scenery he saw from the sky when he looked down at the ground, the formations in the earth and the squares dividing up the different farms, it was something you couldn't see when you were on the ground. Matthew hated to think about it, twenty-one and this was his first plane ride, his first time out of the country. He was the only one of his friends who had never left Canada before now; even Gilbert had been out of country when he was little visiting relatives that still lived in Germany with his Opa. But for the first time in a long time, Matthew felt as if he was doing something for himself. He felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his chest. If Gilbert wanted to live the lone solitary life as a bachelor, that was fine with Matthew, but he was going to move on.
You caused my heart to bleed,
You still owe me a reason,
I can't figure out why
You caused my hear to bleed
You still owe me a reason
I can't figure out why
Oh, you can hear me cry
See my dreams all die
From where you're standing
On your own
It's so quiet here
And I feel so cold
This house no longer feels like home.
Author's Note (the part of the story where the author comes out and writes a silly note): Mwhahahahahahaha, you weren't expecting this were you? You're all screaming at me for not telling you what comes next with Arthur and Francis, I'm evil and I know. I originally was going to write what happened next and have it be chapter seven, but couldn't get the words right and this was what was happening in my head so you'll just have to deal with my side story line that I have been hinting at. Yes, you can see the division of where farms are or where they used to be in the Quebec country side when you are flying into or out of Montreal. It really is very pretty to look at. Thanks for reading and reviewing and please continue to review. Just remember all flames are fed to the llama gods.