HIII sorry that I haven't been posting ANYTHING AT ALL for a very very very long time. I'm really sorry for not finishing my other story that was meant to be a two-shot, I kinda lost motivation but I PROMISE there will be an end to THAT story. For now, another story meant to be a two-shot. I swear I won't lost motivation and finish this story, okay?
Anyway I suddenly decide to write this because I've been having tooooo many PruHun feels lately and I felt a NEEEEED to write a fic to get these feels off my chest.
Hopefully you'll enjoy this one. :D
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Hetalia.
"Dear Gilbert,
Sorry for not having kept in contact with you since… forever. Anyway, guess what? I'm getting married. I bet you're thinking about who'll actually marry someone like me. Yeah, I can't believe it either. I'm getting married! The man I'm getting married to is nice, gentle, sophisticated, and he even plays the piano! Also, he's (obviously) nicer than you by like, a thousand times. The purpose of this letter is, of course, to tell you that you're invited to my wedding. PLEASE dress nicely, suit and tie and all, but no need for flowers and all that shit, okay. That's all then. The address and everything are written behind this paper. Hopefully you wouldn't be such a jerk on that day.
See you there,
Elizabeth"
Who said I would bring 'flowers and all that shit' ...
He laughs.
Liz is still Liz no matter how much she tries to act so lady-like huh.
But wow, 'I'm getting married!' ?
She doesn't talk to me for ages and suddenly writes me a letter telling me that she's getting married.
Gilbert tries to ignore the sinking feeling he felt in his chest.
"I think I'm just gonna drink for a bit." He says to himself before pushing himself up from the table.
Ah, I'm getting weaker day by day, aren't I?
"Brother, you know you're not supposed to be drinking..." Ludwig sighs as Gilbert opens the refrigerator and leaves the kitchen with beer in hand.
"Let a dying man enjoy his last moments, would you Ludwig?" Gilbert laughs, though a mirthless one.
"You're not going t-"
Ludwig stops in the middle of his sentence.
He can't just say that Gilbert isn't "going to die".
He doesn't even know what's going to happen to his brother.
"It's okay, Ludwig. It's okay." Gilbert smiles, then goes into his room.
Not long later, Ludwig hears a faint snoring coming from Gilbert's room.
He shakes his head, Brother seems to be sleeping a lot lately.
"Oi! Gil! Gil! WHERE ARE YOU GIL!"
"Shut up! I'm up here!"
Gilbert waves at the kid at the bottom of the tree.
"What are you doing up there?"
The kid starts climbing up the tree.
"Why are you climbing up my tree?"
"It doesn't have your name on it." Elizabeth says as she sits beside him on the branch.
"Get off Liz!"
"Make me!" She challenges.
Gilbert shakes his head.
"I can't be bothered with you!"
"Aww, is wittle 'awesome me' feeling upset?"
She pokes his sides repeatedly, hoping for a reaction.
"I'm going to war tomorrow and I don't even know whether I'm coming back alive!"
Gilbert loses his temper, and punches the bark of the tree.
"What? So you're scared of dying?"
Elizabeth lightly punches him in the face.
"Who are you kidding, Beilschmidt? You're the toughest guy I know!"
"I'm not."
"Aren't you awesome? Didn't you fight for me like twenty times already? What are you even saying! Don't be scared!"
He doesn't respond.
"Heeeeeeeeey it won't be fun if you're like that, Gil! Come on let's hunt for rabbits!"
Elizabeth clambered down the tree.
"I'm gonna win you if you don't start hunting now, loser!"
"Who says you're gonna win!"
Those were the days huh...
Eh...?
Gilbert suddenly sees Elizabeth in a hole.
"What the heck Gil!? Get me out of here!"
Oh, this is a dream...
I'm dreaming.
Gilbert laughs as Elizabeth screams at him from the bottom of the pitfall.
"Stop laughing asshole! Get me out! I am going to kill you!"
"Oi jerk!"
Gilbert nearly falls over laughing.
"Gods, Lizzy! Your beauty is so in VAIN y'know? I wonder if anyone else sees you like this, cursing and swearing like a boor!"
"Shut the fuck up! Get me out!"
"Okay, okay, wait a minute!" Gilbert wipes the tears from his eyes and lowers a ladder.
"No thank you, bastard!" Elizabeth winced as she started climbing the ladder.
"A-Are you injured?" The joy dissolves from Gilbert's face almost instantly and is replaced with worry.
His brows furrow and he runs into his house, grabbing the first-aid box.
"Don't move so much..." He says as he wraps the bandage, as gently as he can, around her swollen ankle.
"It's all your fault, what the fuck was that for anyway?"
"Oioi, you know you have to stop being so crude, right? You're older now, and a babe too, don't let your mouth ruin you."
"It's not as if I talk like this to everyone else, only an asshole like you. Also, we ARE the same age, you know."
"Wow thank you so fucking much Lizzy, I feel so damned special." He grins. "Also, I never said we weren't."
"You better." She laughs.
How much he loved the sound of her laughter.
"By the way, thanks for the compliment." She smiles.
"What compliment?" He looks up from her scraped knee he was tending, puzzled.
"You just called me a babe didn't you!"
"I-I did? Well you- uhm- I dunno, you ARE kinda... you know... pretty, beautiful, whatever."
He went back to tending to her knee, looking down attempting to hide the blush that contrasted against his pale cheeks.
"Ow, that hurts you idiot!"
Elizabeth drew her right knee back by reflex when Gilbert dripped antiseptic on it.
Gilbert pulled her leg back towards him, rested it on his thighs, and began blowing on her knee.
"What did you come here for, anyway?" Gilbert asked.
"Well... I'm going to war tomorrow." She grins sheepishly.
He sighs.
"No you're not."
"I can fight my own wars now, Gil."
Gilbert's hands stop whatever they're doing.
He looks into her eyes.
"No you're NOT going to war, Elizabeth."
"I know you're going to say things about how you were born to fight and shit but-" Elizabeth places her hand on his, "I can fight on my own now."
She smiles, reassuringly, then whispers, "Thanks for always protecting me Gil... though I fell into a dumb hole you made earlier on."
Her phone suddenly rings.
"Uhm... Excuse me for a moment."
Gilbert helped her up from the ground and she walks a distance away to pick up her phone call.
He then goes back into his house to keep the first-aid box.
When he goes back out, he overhears Elizabeth talking.
"Yeah, I'm here... Mmm yeah I told him."
A few pauses here and there while the caller speaks...
"He doesn't seem too pleased, but I don't think I want that idiot risking his life for me anymore... He has his own wars to fight too, right?"
Another long pause.
"I hate him a whole lot, but I don't want him dead, to be honest... If he's gone my life will be too boring without a jerk like him."
She laughs.
"Okay, I gotta hang up now."
Gilbert flushed a bright red.
"Her life will be too boring without a jerk like me, huh."
Gilbert opens his eyes and finds himself staring at the white ceiling of his room.
What kind of dream was that...
Not that he was complaining that he had dreamed of the girl he thought was the most beautiful.
"And now she's getting married, huh." He lets out a long sigh.
He remembers the last time he went to look for her - when he was still Prussia and not just "Gilbert Beilschmidt" - and she said she didn't have time for him anymore.
He sighs again.
The incessant ticking of the clock on his wall reminded him of every single second that passed, and each single second he had left to live.
"What happens to countries when they aren't countries anymore?"
"They dissolve, Gilbert. Like how Holy Roman Empire disappeared."
Gilbert suddenly missed those times when he was still a kid.
He missed those times when Old Fritz would bring him out and introduce him to everyone.
He missed those times spent with Elizabeth.
Like when she'd patch up his wounds after he comes back from a war.
Like how they would hunt for rabbits.
Also when they'd fight over nothing.
AND the big realisation that Elizabeth was a girl.
He finds himself drifting off into another sleep.
"Liz! I'm back from the war! I beat them up real good!"
He ran as fast as he could towards his best friend's house.
"Liz Liz Liz!"
He burst through the door.
"Welcome back, Gil!"
Elizabeth smiles and runs towards him to give him a high-five.
"Woah Gil, you look reaaaaaaaaaaaaaal ragged though, what with all the cuts and all."
She laughs.
"Come here."
She gets her first-aid box, instructs him to sit on the sofa nearby, and starts tending to his wounds.
"I'm okay, Liz! Just a few cuts and- OUCH, THAT STINGS!"
"That's good! It means the medicine went in... now hold still!"
He went on and on about how awesome he was in the battlefield...
"I kicked his sorry ass!"
"And then I dodged his attack and stabbed him in his chest!"
"I was so cool out there Liz!"
Later on, Old Fritz came over to Elizabeth's house to find both of them huddled together, asleep.
This time, Gilbert woke up due to his cough.
It seems to have gotten more severe recently.
He clears his throat and looks at the clock.
He's been asleep for around 6 hours in total...
The clock read 10 p.m.
He moves to the table and sees the letter from Elizabeth.
How could just a mere 6 hours weaken him so much?
Even moving to the table left him panting.
Was it really time for him to go, soon?
He settles into the chair, with much difficulty.
Now that Elizabeth is getting married, she would be happy, no?
"Brother..."
Ludwig knocks on the door.
"Come in."
He held an invitation card in his hand.
"Are you attending her wedding?"
"...Maybe."
A deafening silence followed.
"Hey Ludwig..." Gilbert sighed.
"Yes?"
"I must be the worst lover in the world," he smirked. "What's up with the shit about 'If you love her let her go'?"
"I can't let her go."
"It's like I love her so much that I can't let her go, see?"
"And that shit about a person being happy if the love of their life is happy?"
"That's bullshit too.."
His voice cracked.
"How am I supposed to be happy..."
A tear ran down his cheek.
"If the one who makes her happy, isn't me?"
"God damn it, Ludwig..."
"I'm dying."
"I'm dying, I'm dissolving, I'm disappearing, whatever."
"But, did I manage to make her happy?"
After a moment of more deafening silence, Ludwig says, "I'm sure Elizabeth could answer your question."
And he leaves the room.
Gilbert picks up a pen, finds a piece of paper, and decided to start on writing a letter of his own, to Elizabeth.
"Dear Lizzy..."
He tried his best to write as much as he could before the fatigue hit him again.
"I'm no longer a country, Lizzy."
"What?"
"I'm no more 'Prussia', just plain old 'Gilbert', now."
He says, on the day his friend decides to look him up after... awhile.
"You have got to be kidding me." Elizabeth's eyes widen.
Gilbert stares at her, not responding.
"WHAT THE HECK?"
"WHY?"
"WHAT IN THE WORLD?"
"WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU?"
"ANSWER ME, BEILSCHMIDT!"
She slams the table, the teacups rattling.
"I... don't know."
"I don't know what's going to happen to me, Lizzy."
"Old Fritz said that I'd dissolve. Disappear. Die. Like how Holy Roman Empire just... disappeared."
A silence filled the air between them.
"I'm so sorry, Gil..."
He doesn't reply.
Gilbert hears her soft sobs.
Then he hears her sniffling.
"Why are you crying, Elizabeth?"
He asks.
"Hey..."
"Don't..."
He sniffles.
"Cry..."
He moves over to the other side of the table and hugs her, attempting to comfort her, though he himself is a sobbing mess.
"Gilbert Beilschmidt you better not just die like that."
She clings onto him, and cries into his chest.
"Shut up Elizabeth Hedervary," he leans his forehead against hers, staring into her emerald eyes. "I don't die that easily, I'm awesome, remember?"
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"Why are you crying?" Elizabeth asks after awhile.
"Because I saw you crying. Now shut up we're meant to be hugging like the bestest friends in the world."
She laughs.
"So you cry when you see others cry? What a weakling. Loser."
"Not 'others' but 'you'. Dumbass."
She laughs again.
He really loved hearing her laugh.
"I love you so much, Gilbert."
"I love you, too, Elizabeth."
Though I love you in a different way you love me, Elizabeth.
And that really sucks.
Gilbert was getting really angry about how he keeps falling asleep.
It was currently 2 p.m in the afternoon.
What kind of weird ass dreams were those anyway?
He was pretty much done with the letter.
"Are you awake, Brother?"
Ludwig asked through the closed door.
"Yep... Pretty much am."
Gilbert lifted himself off his bed - with much more ease than he used to - and opened the door.
"Ms. Elizabeth's wedding is tonight... You're going aren't you?" Ludwig asked. "Well I have to pick out a suit for you and-"
"Damn wrong I'm not."
Gilbert cuts him off mid-sentence.
"You expect me to watch the love of my life swear eternities to another man?"
"Make all those vows about infinities?"
"About loving each other forever?"
"I can't fucking see her do that..."
"I CAN'T LUDWIG."
"I AM A HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE MAN, WHO CANNOT LET GO OF THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE LIKE HOW OTHER MEN CLAIM THEY CAN DO. I CANNOT JUST WATCH HER BE HAPPY WITH ANOTHER MAN. I CANNOT JUST WATCH HER SWEAR INFINITIES TO A MAN WHO CAN ACTUALLY... LIVE UP TO THOSE INFINITIES."
"THE MAN SHE IS MARRYING CAN KEEP HIS PROMISES, UNLIKE ME, WHO USED TO BE PRUSSIA, WHO CANNOT LIVE FOR AN ETERNITY, BECAUSE I HAVE DISSOLVED."
He laughs as streams of tears flowed down the sides of his face, dripping off the tip of his chin.
Ludwig doesn't say anything.
He doesn't know what to say.
He found himself pitying his own older brother.
His older brother who used to be able to carry himself with an air of arrogance, was now reduced to this state.
"Anyway, Ludwig," he cleans his face with the back of his hand, "Since I'm feeling like the strongest man in the world right now, I shall go out for a walk."
"Okay Brother. Be careful."
"Thank you Ludwig." He pauses. "For everything."
Gilbert Beilschmidt didn't make it home that night.