Ok ok update

hope you like it :)

(it's NOT Gil/Lud btw)

PS: MERRY LATE CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Oh and also please check end note for important info!

–-

"We need to talk."

–-

Ludwig's fists were clenched, Gilbert noticed. So was his jaw. The Prussian felt his body tense up, but he willed his tone to remain unperturbed as he eyed him lazily.

"Let's talk, then!" He proclaimed, rolling off his bed to face his brother.

"You knew Vater was all right."

The albino blinked, then smiled wryly. Prussians were never known for their tact, after all, and it seemed that Ludwig had inherited his habit of getting to the point.

"Yes."

Ludwig stiffened, as if he wasn't expecting an honest answer, then he bristled: "You knew where he was, and you didn't tell me. You let me worry." His voice was cracking slightly, and Gilbert could hear the rage that the German was trying to contain seeping through.

"Yes."

In a blink, the younger of the two stepped forwards, so that he ended up about an arm away from Gilbert, and his hands trembled as he spoke through gritted teeth.

"Would you mind explaining why you let me think our father was dead for the past eight months? Because at the moment it seems like a pretty terrible idea to me."

The albino didn't back up, but his eyes remained wary. "It was better this way. I didn't know when he would be back, or where he was, and I didn't want to raise your hopes in vain." "You could've avoided letting me think he was dead!" Ludwig said, voice raised and eyes aflame.

"I never once told you he was dead."

"You let me think so!"

"I didn't expect you to think he was actually dead-"

"You avoided me every time I spoke of him, and didn't tell me anything about him for nearly a YEAR! How did you not expect this to happen?!"

"Look, West, I never know when he's going to show up! I honestly didn't think-"

"You NEVER think!"

"I just think that with the kind of father we have, it's better to learn to fend for ourselves early! You know how he is! He's not bad to have, sure, but we never know if he's even alive! I'm just trying to keep you from being hurt!"

"How would that work?!"

"It worked for me!"

"I'm not you!"

"I'm still your older brother!"

"WELL YOU'RE DOING A GREAT JOB AT IT, AREN'T YOU?!"

The two had been progressively talking louder and edging closer until Ludwig basically shouted in his elder's face. The air was heavy with tension as his words echoed around the room.

Gilbert's upper lip curled into a sneer as he felt a blazing anger start coursing through him.

"Oh, really. Pray tell what exactly I'm doing wrong?"

"You cause a mess everywhere you go, and I'm expected to fix it! When your wreck stuff, I'm the one who has to take the blame! You let me do all the work while you laze around, and you don't even appreciate it! Vater blames me for your behaviour, when I should be the other way around! You constantly mock me and never lend a hand, regardless of my situation! When I'm troubled or hurt, you're the last person I go to because you're an uncaring, arrogant, immature person who can only create chaos! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A NUISANCE!"

The German paused, catching his breath. The air crackled with electricity as Gilbert eyed him nonchalantly.

"You feel better now, Bruderchen?"

The patronizing tone was the last drop.

With a growl, Ludwig slammed his fist into his brother's nose.

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

There was a loud cracking sound.

Silence.

Then Gilbert grabbed the younger by the collar and slammed him into the bed.

"Ok, little bruder, why don't we have a nice, civilized discussion about this, hm?"

Ludwig stood up, then lunged at the albino, who jumped out of the way. The blonde twisted around, narrowly missing his brother's foot coming toward his stomach.

"Fine! Let's do that! Sounds better than letting you go mess with Ivan again!"

It was a low blow, and he watched the red eyes widen in shock before narrowing again.

"Oh, Ivan? I'm sorry, did I misunderstand the part where you pissed him off and I had to go get beaten up by him as revenge?" Gilbert snapped, avoiding his younger brother as he attempted to slam him into a wall. Ludwig scowled, managing to hit his head into Gilbert's stomach, who folded in half, gasping for air.

"No, but I'm pretty sure you forgot the part where you then pissed him off so much I ended up paying taxes to get you away!" Ludwig stated, driven by anger as he slammed the Prussian against the bedpost table. As he reached out to do so again, however, a hand shot out, grabbed his wrist and twisted hard. He let go with a yelp as Gilbert shot up and punched him in the ribs, hard.

"Oh, you're a little jerk, aren't you?"

Before the other could take advantage, he managed to quickly swing his arm up in a right hook that hit Gilbert right in the eye. The elder cursed loudly, but managed to jump backwards before Ludwig could repeat his action. "Nein, I'm pretty sure you're the jerk here. After all, that's the only reason people know you, isn't it?"

He shot out his leg, hooking it around Gilbert's to make him lose balance. The albino staggered, but managed to push himself forward into Ludwig so they were both wavering. The German was about to grab him and hit him when the red-eyed nation managed to slam his head up against the other's jaw, making him bite down on his tongue. Ludwig howled and let go, as Gilbert drove a quick series of punches into his already injured ribs. "Well, Luddy, it's still better than being unknown like you are, huh. I mean, it isn't really surprising seeing as you have no personality apart from your OCD!"

The younger flinched, then felt his adrenaline speed up with anger. He threw himself at Gilbert, throwing him onto the floor, and kicked him with all his might. "Your only personality traits apart from being obnoxious is that you're a MONSTER! Your only purpose is killing others!"

His shout shook the room as he kicked his brother's leg once more, sickeningly satisfied with the loud crack it made. Gilbert's head was spinning, his one eye was swelling up, his mouth was bleeding, he had bruises around his neck and on his stomach, and he was pretty sure his leg was broken. Ludwig looked at him, panting slightly. He had won. The pit in his stomach, however, had not shrunk, and he felt worn out as he eyed his elder. There was also this other feeling, a ridiculous one, making him feel, well...Disappointed. Despite his complaints, he had always imagined the Prussian as kind of invincible. And now here he was, lying on the floor and-

In a flash, Ludwig found himself on the floor, arm twisted painfully behind his back as Gilbert held him by the hair. He grinded his teeth together in pain. Scheisse.

From behind, he heard Gilbert's voice hissing triumphantly.

"Yes, West. I'm a monster raised for war. But you have to remember that I'm damn good at it. Tskk... Have you forgotten all our lessons? Lesson number one..."

Ludwig grimaced: "It's not over until the other is dead or dying."

"Do I look dead or dying to you?"

"I don't think this applies seeing as I wasn't exactly going to kill-"

"Do I look dead or dying to you?"

"No."

"Then you have it. Besides, I'm such a nuisance, it would be good for you to be rid of me, no?"

"..."

"Ah, Ludwig. You intend to be harmful, but you have to know I've heard it all before. Monster, devil, and all the lot. The big bad Prussian is going to eat you. They're all hypocrites, you know, because they've done as much as I have. They just didn't enjoy it. I did."

A cackle, then he continued.

"Yes, I enjoyed it. Not the deaths, just the actual fighting. I was born for fighting, and that's what I did. So sue me if I was good at it. It's no wonder I don't fit in with the civilized lot, with their pretence of being pure and innocent. At least I'm an honest murderer."

A laugh again.

"Scared now, Lud?"

Ludwig's throat was sore, but he managed to choke out: "I can never be scared of you. Not really."

The pressure suddenly loosened, and he dropped to the floor as Gilbert laughed humourlessly.

"Ah, so I'm not even good at that any more. Pity."

"It's not that."

Ludwig wished he as good with words.

"What is it then?"

"It's...I mean...You trained me."

It wasn't what he had been trying to say, but Gilbert got it anyway.

There was a crash as he lied down on the floor too, humming thoughtfully.

For a while they just lied there, feeling the pain of their wounds but choosing to ignore them. Then Gilbert sighed, and obviously ignoring his complaining limbs, he hoisted himself up, heading to the door. Ludwig followed with his eyes.

"You coming?"

He blinked.

A warmth surged through him suddenly, and he somehow found himself standing up and heading towards his brother. Gilbert wouldn't help him up, but he trusted him to get up by himself. You trained me. When he reached him, the Prussian paused, smiled wryly, then kind of vaguely extended his arm. Ludwig clutched it. I didn't mean it. Sorry. A chuckle. Forget it. Nice fighting skills, by the way. The guy who taught you would be proud. The younger looked at his elder incredulously, but Gilbert had looked away. Sentiment doesn't come easy to the Germans, Ludwig thought, and semi-smiled;

Then he turned to open the door, and stiffened.

It appeared that the door was, ah, wide open.

And three-quarters of the school was staring at them.

–-

The duo honestly had no idea how long they stood there staring at their audience, or how long the audience had been there, but after a while Gilbert snapped out of it and dead-panned: "Well, I know you're very impressed by the awesome me and my bruder's fighting skills, but bleeding to death isn't on my top ten to do list today, so..."

There was an embarrassed grumble, and the crowd stepped away from the door, allowing the Germanic brothers to exit. Gilbert and Ludwig stepped out of the room, then stopped, aware that someone had to say something but not really knowing who.

Ludwig eyed the crowd. It really did look like most of the school was here- well, most of the European section anyway. At the back of the crowd Feli was in tears, and Lovino was scowling (Ludwig quickly looked away; he had not forgotten the awkward situation he was in); over there were the Baltics, and yes, Ivan, who was smiling very creepily; Lukas was muttering something to Matthias, who was flashing Gilbert a thumbs up; Antonio was trying to push through from the back, but he was accidentally stopped by Lars; Dmytri, Kat and Berwald were apparently arguing about something; Herakles was sketching something that looked suspiciously like them fighting; and Arthur was apparently communicating with Gilbert through raised brows.

After a while he seemed resigned, and turned towards Alfred, who was saying something to Matthew (it sounded like Dude did you see how cool that was wow so badass) who was just nodding and obviously not listening. Arthur coughed; Alfred noticed and nodded, and they left with Matthew.

This, however, meant that Ludwig now had a clear view of Elizaveta, who seemed to be having a...Nose-bleed? He frowned, slightly worried, because she really didn't look ok. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were glassy and was she ogling Gilbert?! Ludwig decided he really didn't want to know, so he ignored her and decided to focus on the current issue: the awkward silence.

Luckily for him, Vash chose that moment to speak up: "Gilbert, you take too many chances. Ludwig, your style is too repetitive. Otherwise, you both display a quite impressive fighting skill."

Gilbert smirked (the fact that he was bleeding made him look like a shark), then replied: "I'll take you up on that when I'm not slowly dying on the spot." The crowd laughed, and dissipated slowly, so that the brothers could finally start heading to the nurse's office. As they turned the corner Ludwig spotted Eliza (apparently waking up from her trance) cursing and muttering something like I'll have to talk to him later...

He was still musing when Gilbert stopped abruptly.

For the second time in one day, Ludwig looked up at his father's poker-faced expression.

–-

Their father's eyebrows were raised. There was a tense silence, before he spoke to Gilbert: "I see you still haven't stopped getting yourself into trouble."

Ludwig bristled. Before anything could be added, he stated angrily: "I threw the first punch! Gilbert has done nothing wrong!" The other two looked surprised, then Gilbert interrupted: "I was provoking him! If you want to punish Ludwig you'll have to punish me first!"

Silence once more. Ludwig was getting rather sick of them, to be honest. He felt like he was starring in a terribly written novel or something.

"Well. I suppose it is rather reassuring to know you can both still defend yourselves adequately."

For once Ludwig's expression matched his brother; basically gawking at him, and Mr Beilschmidt senior felt his lips twitch. With his hair ruffled and his bruises, it was true that he rather resembled his elder.

He cleared his throat. "Get along. I may be rather lacking in certain parenting skills, but not to the point where I'd let my children bleed to death."

Then he quickly patted them both on the back and turned away. Ludwig stood stunned.

Gilbert laughed, first incredulously then louder. "Ahaha, oh, man! We fight cause of him being a weird dad and then cause we fight he acts like a normal dad!"

Ludwig blinked, then to their equal surprise started laughing too. They continued laughing as they wandered towards the nurse's, wheezing for breath.

"Shit, West-" he laughed again, "If I have to beat you up for you to laugh you could've told me!"

"To be fair I think having Lovino smiling, Feliciano calling me his date, Vater catch me swear and you being an ass might also have helped my nervous breakdown." Ludwig managed, before laughing again. His little speech made Gilbert nearly collapse.

"Woah, he did whaaaaaaaat?! You have to tell me all about it!"

For once his curiosity didn't annoy Ludwig.

"I might if I survive...Isn't the nurse on break at this time?"

His brother smirked.

"Don't worry, bruder, I'm practically a VIP here! No way she won't let me in!"

"Figures you're famous for losing fights."

"Oi! I never lose fights!"

"What about with Elizaveta?"

"Low blow, West! Besides, if we're being that way, let me remind you that-"

Their voices died out as they walked further, and Alfred, who had accidentally been eaves-dropping, paused on the stairs with a sudden pang of affection for Arthur. On a whim, he texted the grumpy Brit: I love you, man! The reply was swift and snarky: Are you on drugs again? Alfred was rolling his eyes when the phone buzzed again: If yes, I am ashamed of you and will stick you in detention with my latin books until you stop. If not...I love you too.

As Arthur clicked his phone shut with a slight smile, he couldn't help but hear the loud voice from afar: "Awwww, Artie has a heart!"

"The little-!"

So many brotherly feels TTvTT

Though I feel that it's a bit too historical for a Gakuen fic, keep in mind that at Gakuen they're still nations!

yes, anyway, hope you liked it and please R&R!

NEWS: I am at an impasse for the story, and need YOU to help: go and vote on my poll for who Arthur ends up with, otherwise this story cannot continue! If confused, you can PM me, I'm always happy to talk.

OTHER LESS URGENT NEWS: I have a tumblr and I will post art and sometimes drabbles there, so feel free to take a look. At the moment my annoying friend Dan is spamming me with Free! requests so please ignore him.

happy holidays!

AM