A Human
Kingdom of Hungary
1926
Gilbert wakes slowly. He sees nothing but amber and orange as the morning sun filters through his sleep-heavy eyelids. He groans and turns over, reaching for the slender slip of a girl he'd gone to bed with. He slides his head around and finds nothing. The bed is cold and the sheets are neatly smoothed and tucked into place. His heart leaps into his throat. He opens his eyes.
She's gone.
His heart plummets down again and he swears he feels it hit his pelvis it swoops so low. Of course she's gone. Last nights indulgence had been just that, an indulgence. He sighs and decides he might as well make his own life easier. He rolls off the bed and dresses. The night had scattered his clothe about and the more he looks at what he is wearing, the more he wonders if last night had happened out of pity. He does not put on the jacket, but tucks it under his arm with the cap as they are the most pathetic parts of the uniform.
"Why did you come here?"
He whirls around, bewildered and the words stick in his throat. He swallows and licks his lips and tries to ignore the ripple of her tense muscles of her crossed arms that bulge even as she tries to relax against the door frame.
"I don't know." He says, and its the truth. There will be no union between them, there is no future to build or hope for, all there is a hollow in his chest and the flickering sight of them between each others legs on the grass and against the firelight and under the summer canopies of her sprawling forests. He doesn't know why he came, but he swallows again and tries to answer completely. "I want it to be like it was, before."
She frowns. And he knows that "before" could mean a lot of things. It could mean when he was a European power, or when he was a knight or when he was a child in Germania's lap or when Germany was a child in Gilbert's lap.
"Like when we were young." When they were young, life had been mud and wooden swords and newly discovered breasts and wild days.
"Gilbert." She whispers. He can hear the ache for her marriage in her voice, for Roderick and for the peace and prosperity that marriage had given. He can't give her any of that, he can't even stand to the side and watch her seize that for herself like she can. "Gilbert." She repeats and he looks up, because his name is much sharper this time.
He swallows. "Yeah?"
"We can try, right?"
He starts and his spine snaps straight, but then a grin spreads across his face and Elizaveta is laughing.
"We can try!" He says and he wonders why he's so happy, why even the hope of an effort is making him so happy, and then he remembers that trying is all that matters, that as long as he can try, he'll get something out of all of this death and renewal.
"Race you to the beach!" She yells, and it ends in a screech of laughter. Gilbert makes quick work of his shirt and suspenders and he nearly falls as he hops past her trying to get his pants and boots off before he hits the beach that makes up her back yard. He doesn't fall until his feet are in the water. Elizaveta slams into him then, from behind. He's inhaled so he can proclaim his victory, but her weight knocks the air from him as they fall.
She straddles him, and Gilbert kisses her before she's scrambling off him and driving into the water. He follows her and the rocks are as smooth and rounded under his feet as her skin is under his hands as he catches her.
Time has worn them down to shadows of what they once were, but maybe what's left is what they really are, what they are really supposed to be. Elizaveta pushes down on Gilbert's head and he bobs beneath the water and he thinks that maybe that all that's left is the savagery that makes them free. All that's left is what makes them human.
He laces his fingers through her hair when he needs to come back up for air. The sunlight streaming through the copper of her hair flashes gold and Gilbert thinks she's the most beautiful human being to ever grace the planet. They are not human, no matter how hard they try, they cannot be human and whenever they forget that, it bites them back viciously, but Gilbert can't remember that now. He can't remember that with Elizaveta's hands on his neck and her legs pressed into his as they tread water. The valley of her breasts is pressed into his sternum and all he can remember is his humanity, because humanity will fill that pit of loneliness in his chest and give him something meaningful.