It was my birthday today, still I post for you all. Please enjoy and have a wonderful day. ^.^

I don't think there is any T/Ws for this chapter either

Chapter 5: Memories

Gilbert woke up to his stomach grumbling again, he looked over to see Ivan asleep by him. That weirdo even wore his scarf when sleeping. However it had gotten loose as he slept and Gilbert could see a bandage around his neck.

'Is that recent? What crazy bastard was brave enough to try to cut your neck.' Gilbert said in shock.

'Poor guy probably died really horribly.' Gilbert shook his head before looking at the time.

He had only slept 3 hours but it was still better than nothing. Not like he could get much sleep lately. The possibility of his own death had been playing on his mind. He didn't know if being de facto dissolved despite still being a country on paper meant he could die.

Prussia still remembered HRE after his dissolution, he lived for a while but he kept getting weaker and weaker until one day he died. It always ate away at Prussia as HRE was his little brother and he was supposed to protect him. He tried his hardest to shield him in his final days and protect him from the world.

It's why he was protective of Germany. He wanted to make sure nothing ever happened to him like that. Gilbert also wondered if dying out here would make it easy on Ludwig if his death was indeed coming, since he didn't want Ludwig to see him like that, barely alive, he didn't want anyone to see him like that.

Gilbert felt his eyes get wet as he remembered HRE and allowed it to happen since Ivan wasn't awake to see it anyway. He remembered one of the times that HRE overdid himself and had to be dragged back to his bed. When he told Prussia he was scared to be forgotten, Prussia's heart shattered.

'I will never forget.' Prussia whispered to himself as he tried to dry his eyes.

Ivan woke up and looked up to see Gilbert crying, knowing the Prussian didn't like showing negative emotions he decided to close his eyes again and pretend to be asleep. However the quiet sound of sniffling was bothering Ivan, he was tempted to just shoot the Prussian to shut him up but he knew how bad he wanted to be held when he was so upset and couldn't stand hearing Prussia crying alone like that.

Ivan pretended to stir slightly and rolled over so his arm was across Prussia's lap, hoping that would provide him some comfort without making him feel like he had to keep up his act and stop him from having to kill his new friend to get some quiet.

Prussia was startled by this but looked over to see that Ivan still seemed to be asleep. Prussia wiped his eyes, as he laughed a little.

'You asshole. I said no cuddling… I guess I can let it slide this once.' Gilbert whispered to himself, not thinking Ivan could hear it.

Ivan felt happy his plan had worked. He also enjoyed the human contact, he didn't exactly get too much of that anymore.

After some time of just sitting there with Ivan asleep by him he looked at his watch and saw it was coming closer to sunrise.

'Hey Russki get your lazy ass up.' Gilbert said, grabbing Ivan's arm and dumping it off his lap.

Ivan, who had actually fallen back to sleep in this time, just grumbled and remained still.

'Asshole! I need to get back before I get in trouble! wake up!' Gilbert yelled, poking Ivan in the face repeatedly.

Ivan just grumbled and sat up grabbing Gilbert by the wrist.

'It is not nice to poke people!' Ivan said darkly as he began gripping tighter and tighter on Gilbert's wrist.

'Mein Gott, I just wanted to wake you up, stop trying to break my wrist, okay.' Gilbert complained.

Ivan let go of his wrist and got out of bed, putting his coat and pants back on over his shirt. Gilbert followed suit and soon both of them were wrapped up warm and ready to leave.

'God the snow is thick.' Gilbert complained as he walked outside.

'It snowed a lot, that might be a problem as our tracks could be followed in such fresh snow. Get on my back.' Ivan ordered.

'No, no, no. I am not letting you carry me like a baby!' Gilbert argued.

'One set of tracks can be explained by me, two leading to where I am known to hide out will cause people to get suspicious so get on my back!' Ivan said frustrated.

'Fine!' Gilbert relented and jumped on Ivan's back as he began to walk towards the place where Gilbert would sneak in and out.

Gilbert held on tight, not trusting the Russian not to drop him. Looking over the snow covered city that was surprisingly quiet. Gilbert then looked down to see Ivan's scarf pushed up against the back of his neck.

'Hey so, what with the bandages on your neck?' Gilbert asked.

'What do you mean?' Ivan said, focusing on getting away unseen.

'Last night, your scarf came loose and I saw them. Did someone try and cut your neck or something?' Gilbert pushed.

'Forget it. It's not important.' Ivan said in a scary tone.

'Noted.' Gilbert agreed, not fancying pissing him off.

They soon got to the collapsed building where they parted, Ivan then suddenly grabbed Gilbert with his scarf and threw Gilbert several metres ahead of him. Gilbert landed in the snow hard.

'You fucking asshole! Why did you do that, you creep!' Gilbert yelled.

'So the tracks don't meet, don't come back the same way tonight and good luck.' Ivan said before running off back into the snow.

'Could have warned me. I am going to get you for that later dick.' Gilbert sighed before making his way back to the German side.

He dragged his feet in the hopes of making it less obvious they were human tracks, maybe someone would think they were from a fat animal or something. As he shuffled along he noticed something shiny sticking out of the rubble and pulled it out.

It was a gilded metal music box. It had been dented but when Gilbert opened it he saw the mechanism was intact. Deciding to test it when he was safer he shoved it in his pocket and confined his shuffle back to his camp.