[Fic] Lilies, Leaves and Weeds Chapter 2

[deegeeak]

"You want what, eh?" Matthew was reasonably sure this had to be some sort of joke. For one, Felicano Vargas had come straight up to him and called him by name. For two, well, no one did that.

Except Alfred.

When he remembered.

Sometimes.

(Not that Matthew was bitter or anything. Ok. He was. A lot.)

"Can you take care of brother Gilbert for a bit?" Felicano repeated. "Ludwig's going to be gone, you see, and he doesn't like to leave Gilbert alone."

Ivan had said the other nation was safe and not a threat anymore, right? But why was Germany unwilling to leave his brother alone if he wasn't?

"Can't he um, take him with him?" Matthew asked, desperately trying to figure out how to get out of this. He'd never had the best of relations with Gilbert - who likely didn't even know who he was. Growing up he'd always been jealous of him, and well, in the wars he'd gone hunting for the other to make him pay for hurting Francis. Something twigged at his senses and he looked behind Felicano, who was still babbling on, to see Ludwig glaring at him.

Geeze, possessive much?

"Ve~ but Ludwig doesn't know he's going to be gone!"

"Huh?"

"We're going to the Villa, and the Winter Prix, and then Milan and--!" Felicano continued to enthusiastically detail his plans. When he got to the part about going to the Villa in Rome to spend some time in a couple's retreat, Matthew gave in and waved the figurative white flag.

Also Ludwig's glaring was growing worse by the second. Honestly, it wasn't like he'd tried to touch the Italian or anything! Besides, Ludwig certainly hadn't made any moves to take the bubbly man off the market so to speak, despite their long running relationship.

"Ok, ok! Just say when, eh." God he was such a pushover for a pair of wide eyes. Matthew winced as the big German walked over and glowered at them (him). He really didn't need to get into a fight at an international meeting - he'd leave that to Alfred - who'd already been fined along with Ivan.

Felicano clung to Ludwig with a look of utter happiness on his face, as Ludwig escorted Felicano far away from him. Matthew wanted what they had; wanted someone to look at him with that adoring-forever-just-yours look. He wanted to be the person who was needed, and he wanted someone who he could spend hours lavishing attention on. Matthew wanted what they had, someone to go to bed with, and wake up next to in the morning, full of love and passion for.

Bastard didn't know what he had - what the Italian was to him. Felicano wasn't collared, but it didn't stop Ludwig from acting like he was, Matthew grumbled to himself. Still, possessive German bastards aside, Matthew found it hard to deny most subs anything.

Which is why, three months later, he found himself driving late on icy streets through the snow trying to get to the airport to pick up Gilbert before he froze to death.

Gil felt the cold air settle around him as the snow began to fall harder. Without even thinking about it, his movements began to still.

He didn't much like the cold or snow. Too much time there. But then he couldn't really remember a time he had liked the snow or cold. Snow meant winter, and as a young nation in Europe, winter could and often did mean a die off in your population. All those historians and academic types could say what they liked, a nation felt the deaths of their people, and Gilbert could still remember what it felt like to have massive portions of his population first starve, then freeze to death in winter. His bones ached with the memory and his guts gnawed in remembered hunger pains.

So really, he didn't like the cold or snow much even before Ivan.

And right now, if he didn't know there was a worried Airline greeter eyeing him from inside, trying to figure out if she should drag him inside where it was warm or not, he'd think he was back there. Muscle memory was a funny thing he thought. Ivan trained him to give in to the cold, to let it creep inside him, and steal his warmth away in order to keep him pliant and passive. Even now, free from the Russian's possession, on the other side of the world, he was still going passive in the cold.

Don't move, don't do anything. Just...be and maybe he could go home to his brother earlier then expected.

Feli had shoved the tickets into his hand yesterday, saying something about how he thought Canada looked so lonely, and wasn't he really good at that game Gil liked? Wouldn't Gilbert do Feli this little favor and spread some of his Awesome self to sad, lonely Canada? He'd even get to play that hockey game too!

(Feli had sprung this on Ludwig and Gilbert at breakfast, knowing full well neither brother operated at full brain power till after their morning breakfast and coffee. Gilbert had shared a bewildered look with Ludwig as both of them nodded dumbly at the right places. For once since the reunification, the two Germans had been on the same confused page.)

He shifted his weight from side to side in inner defiance but didn't move from the spot against the wall that the Airline greeter had pointed him to. Snow. Why'd Feli have to send him to some weirdass North American country no one'd ever heard of, especially in winter! Wait, no. He sort of remembered a vague, washed out blond hanging around Arthur Kirkland before the Wars. Wasn't he supposed to be some sort of dom? Someone had mentioned it in passing, he thought. Antonio? No... It hadn't been Austria, he'd've remembered that conversation for sure.

He squinted into the thickening snow. But hey, hadn't Arthur collared all of his colonies? And what sort of dom allowed themselves to be collared by a sub - even if it was Arthur fucking Kirkland?

A worn out truck screeched to a halt in front of him. Looking up, he saw the washed out blond from his memory stare at him from behind a pair of glasses and motion violently for him to get in. "Don't let the hot air out!"

Matthew had thought he'd known what to expect when it came to his new guest. He had thought he'd have to deal with a half-crazed German who may or may not be holding a grudge from the World Wars. As far as Matt was concerned, he'd proved himself perfectly capable of kicking Gilbert's ass, and was pretty confident he could still do it. He was a landed nation, after all, and Gilbert wasn't.

(He was not, no matter what Cara muttered to Alfred, holding a grudge of his own for the condition he'd found Francis in when they'd liberated Paris. He was mature, and an adult, and was above such immature things. Unlike Alfred.)

What he'd expected was not what he got. From the looks of the shivering snow-covered German he'd been standing in that one spot for far too long. Gilbert was dripping snow in the warm truck, and the wet spot was growing steadily. Matthew fought the urge to start chain apologizing as Gilbert dripped on to the worn seat. Instead he reached back into the backseat and fished out one of the towels he kept back there. In the corner of his eye he spotted Gilbert slowly start to mop up the melting snow and dry himself off. Feeling a bit foolish, he explained his lateness to the European. "Here, wipe off with this so you don't drip."

"First of the snow storms and you flew in on it, eh," he babbled. "Go figure. But hey, be home in a few and it's pretty warm and all." Gilbert flinched when he mentioned the house being warm. It had been a small movement, not noticeable unless you’d spent the that years Matthew had fighting with the man. Matthew was hyped up, in that sort of frame of mind where he noticed everything. He knew from experiences fighting Gilbert - Alfred's Independence, both World Wars, he knew how Gilbert moved. He moved with as little motion as possible, giving away nothing and always ready for something to come up and try to take a chunk out of him.

He had at least. The Gilbert dripping on the seat had flinched, however subtly, when he'd tossed the towel at him. An unconscious, reflective action, it was out of character for the other nation. Even now the German was leaning against the door, putting distance between them. Matthew didn't even think he knew he was doing it. It was almost like he was afraid? Of Matthew?

Mentally shrugging he turned his attention back to the roads, which were rapidly becoming annoyingly slick, even for him. It was a mystery he’d have to solve another day.

As days quickly turned into a week, and then a week into two, Gilbert was a surprisingly cooperative house guest. Half the time Matthew even forgot Gilbert was even there. They'd fallen into a comfortable way of life, and if it wasn't for the beer, the sometimes missing Jeep or Matthew having to buy more food then usual, he'd think he was alone half the time. The other half was full of half-grunted conversations held over a game, or the news. It was calm, quiet and good.

Then the blizzards hit, and hit hard.

He'd spent a few precious hours preparing for the worst of the storm outside. Checked his generator, hauled wood and made sure there would be no surprises come morning. When the power finally went out about mid-afternoon, he'd been ready and waiting for it. Night fell and with it, the wind picked up and the house shook with the force of the wind bearing down on it. Matthew had born here in the wild harsh beauty of the land he was the nation of. Very few nations understood what it was like to be slightly cold all year round, and to spend months in the dark before spending days in the midnight sun.

Denmark knew what it was like. So did Finland and Norway, and Sweden and Iceland. Matthew thanked whatever god looked down on nations for the time he'd gotten to spend with the Nordic nations. It had been a rebellion of his that Arthur had never found out about, or cared about.. He'd learned ways of dealing with his extreme weather and how to handle his own temper.

It had been a whispered conversation between Finland and Sweden that convinced him he wasn't quite normal for a nation.

"He's like Ivan, Sve," Finland had whispered to the taller man. "He could so easily become like him."

Later when he'd gathered his courage up, and asked Sweden what Finland had meant, Sweden had smiled sadly at him. "Y' b'th so n'rth and is'lated. W'nt'r does s'mthing to people, 'nd m're so to nations."

He wondered if winter-madness, the sort that could take a nation, had been behind the Vikings - and behind Russia's own bloody history. It wasn't really pleasant to think about.

Matthew felt lucky to be a Northern nation. Sure, the blizzards could kill in seconds, but the result in the morning....He knew when he woke up, if he slept at all, the land would be covered in a thick blanket of pristine white. The land would be silent, and the air crisp, cold, and shockingly clean. He'd get up, and sit with Kumashiro before going out to stand in the snow, let it creep inside him and cool his wants like he always did.

A noise at the door to the living room startled him out of his warm chair. Gilbert, his somewhat forgotten house-guest was standing there, paler then even he had the right to be. There was a look of something in his eyes that Matthew didn't like. The look in Gilbert's eyes reminded Matthew of things. Dark things. He saw the broken fields, the scorched earth of wars and the screaming rotting dead in Gilbert's eyes.

The last time he'd seen another nation with eyes like that had been his brother when the civilian death count from Japan had come in.

"Are you all right," he whispered. Something told him if he moved too quickly, the other nation would spook and run - with nowhere to go except outside, he didn't want to risk it. Death was never pretty, especially when frozen solid.

Gilbert stared at his host. Lit up by the fire place, Matthew looked warm, inviting and solid. He looked real. "It's cold," he forced out. His brain kept screaming - snow! danger! Ivan!

Matthew looked startled, "Oh yea, it is a bit, eh? Come in - it's warmer in here."

Gilbert grunted and slid further into the room, soaking up the warmth as he edged closer to the fire's warmth. He'd been invited, it was all right.

"Prolly ought to sleep in here tonight," Matthew said idly from his chair. Gilbert tensed, trying to figure out why he wasn't allowed in the room he'd been given. "It'll be warmer in here - and to be honest," the blond paused, "I usually sleep in here during a storm anyways since it always seems warmer in here than in any of the rooms."

Gilbert grunted in response, easing himself down onto one of the chairs. They sat like that for a while, the fire light dancing across their faces with every gust of wind. Matthew politely didn't question the tension as he laid out blankets and pillows, creating a warm nest for each of them next to the fire place. "If you need something, come over and wake me up."

"Hn."

With the fire banked and a fresh log laid across it the pair eased into their own nests of blankets, sleeping bags and pillows for the night. Matthew dropped off quickly, the sound of the winter storm luring him to sleep. For him it was better than any lullaby.

Gilbert on the other hand didn't. As the storm raged on, he kept getting more and more tense. Towards the end of his time in Siberia, he never slept alone, always with Ivan. Ivan never touched him beyond what he had to, but during the worst of the storms, he'd always end up alone, cold and shivering as the big Russian sat outside to better commune with General Winter. Ivan had tried to help him get over his dislike of being touched, by keeping Gilbert close at hand. After re-unification Gilbert rarely slept well. He'd gotten too used to being next to someone at night for him to sleep very well alone even if the other body wasn't really wanted.

Before he could stop himself, Gilbert found himself out of the constricting blankets, kneeling next to the sleeping blond. "Hey." He poked the other nation's shoulder. If he didn't wake up, then no harm, no foul. Gilbert would just go back to his pile and shake all night. He could do it. If he could survive it in Siberia, he could survive this, right? He was Prussia! Amazing and awesome, and oh god it was so cold.

Blinking sleepily, Matthew tried to focus on the white blur above him. "Gilber'," he mumbled. "Wha's matter?"

"It's cold," Gilbert was horrified to hear a sort of whine in his voice. Not Awesome. The Canadian blinked owlishly at him then moved slightly.

"Ge' in then. Two's better then one, eh."

No need to issue a second invitation. Gilbert dove under, curling up next to the heat of Matthew's body, shaking with the relief of being next to a warm body, of finally having protection against the cold. The other nudged him slightly in concern and he shifted slightly. It took a few moments of banged elbows and smacked knees but before long, they'd settled down, curled up together under the shared blankets. Matthew was pressed up against his back, arm thrown over his waist, and face buried in his neck. Gilbert wasn't sure but he thought he could sort of hear some sort of muttered words as a stray hand stroked up and down his stomach. He figured it was just the Canadian being his normal self and well...it felt good anyways. It didn't take much, but soon he was drifting off, lured into sleep with something deep inside easing as he fell asleep.

Matthew didn't fall asleep for a long time. As his sort-of-unwanted-but-not-really-anymore house-guest relaxed against him, he felt himself getting a little...well. It was inappropriate. Gilbert had come to him for something - had wanted his protection against Matthew's own winter storms. No one had looked at him like that, not even that sweet, dark eyed girl in Scotland. His mind kept looping on the weird look he'd seen and how good he felt next to him.

When morning broke across the the clear new snow, Matthew woke up to a cooling, empty nest of blankets and the sound of Gilbert leaving the house.

Gilbert, for his part, spent the rest of the day drinking. He’d tried at first to go out, do other things, but then everything went to shit. He didn't want to remember last night, that stupid, fucking night he'd crawled into Matthew's bed, shaking and gasping from memories he shouldn't be bothered by.

He'd been the one to tell West, that first time, when they'd become unified, that you had to forgive and forget when it came to your memories, or you'd be so overwhelmed you couldn't function eventually. And here he was, unable to do that same thing, stuck.

It's not Awesome. So he drinks. He drinks and he goes out and he finds someone looking to hurt someone, and he gets hurt. And while sometimes it takes the shame of it all off, it's not tonight. He tries his best to ignore the fact that he's actually picked men to beat the crap out of him, men who look a little bit like his host. Gilbert's pretty damn good at ignoring what he wants to after all, and ignoring how he's picked out blond, tall men, even as they start tying him up.

He knew if he went back to the cabin, he'd be able to sleep in comfort and warmth. He'd crawls out of bed each morning to see a stack of pancakes and a first aid kit sitting outside his door. There'd be three white pills sitting there. And he knows he wouldn't touch them, and let the pain from the injuries bite at him till they healed.

He didn't feel the man above him start shoving his knife deeper and deeper into his flesh, nor did he feel anything when the world got dark and blurry.

Matthew spent his day worrying over the other man. He worried he pushed Gilbert too far last night, curling around him and pretending that Gilbert was his and he was protecting him. He knew what happened with people who were traumatized and the dangers of pushing them too fast. Felicano warned him about Gilbert's self-destructive behavior over the phone. Ludwig had sent him detailed information as to what exactly the Prussian did. It always, Ludwig promised, follows the same pattern.

Gilbert finds a run down, seedy, dark, little hole in the wall bar.

Gilbert then proceeds to drink as much as he can, as rudely as he can.

If he hasn't gotten into a fight by then, he picks one.

If that fails, he finds one of those clubs that everyone tries to shut down. The illegal ones, the ones where people walk in and don't walk out.

After getting beaten, however it happens, he eventually drags himself home and hides out in his room.

He didn't, Ludwig apologized, know what happened during that part. Only that, eventually, Gilbert would come out and eat, and be sane and whole, be his elder brother again, for a day, maybe even two or three. One time it was even a week. But eventually the shadows would creep back into his eyes and the cycle would set off again.

Matthew really wanted to punch Ivan when now that he realized how off Gilbert's behavior was. Would he have been responsible for handing over the albino man if he'd known this would happen? Right now, he didn't know and wasn't sure he could handle knowing. Either way, something had to change. Matthew couldn't let another nation, even if it was a sort-of-hated-not-really-a-nation-anymore nation, continue to torture himself like this.

When things finally do change, it doesn’t go exactly how he expects it to.

His phone rings later that night as he's pacing the length of his room, trying to think of some way to help Gilbert. He had been the one to hand the German, still bloody from fighting, over to Ivan after all. He should be the one to also try to help him.

And for once, as he picked up the phone, it's not his brother, drunk and desperately pining after Arthur, nor is it a drunk and confused Arthur, pining after Alfred. It's not even Francis calling, or the Netherlands.

It's one of his local Mounties.

And they want to know if Matthew would mind coming down and answering a few questions so they can release one Gilbert Beilschmidt into his custody, pending release from the hospital.

He goes from being annoyed at being woken up, to half way there in the time it normally takes him to get dressed in the morning.

"Multiple stab wounds, mostly superficial, but there was major blood loss."

It takes a lot to kill a nation. They can die - Matt's died a hundred ways, a hundred times - but never like this.

"We've taken the group running the place into custody. It looks like we found the source of all the homicides amongst the homeless."

He's not that old of a nation, not compared to the European nations, and Gilbert has been around since before the 12th century. Gilbert by extension has to have died millions of times in millions of ways. The truly old nations, China, Greece, they have no idea how often they've died, they count how long they lived. Matthew understands without being told, from the shake in the Mountie’s voice, that they'd found Gilbert dead, and that he'd come to sometime later and scared the living daylights out of the forensics team.

Watching any nation come to from having been killed was never pretty. The first time he'd seen it happen had been Francis, literally thawing out. Alfred, he'd found out, had seen Arthur crushed beneath a dead-fall - and it had taken two more deaths before Arthur could get free. Cara had admitted she'd realized it when she kept waking up, but it had hit home the first time her fingers brushed Antonio’s beating heart.

They'd all had lifetimes to get over the shock. Matthew's poor Mounties wouldn't.

He decides right then and there, on the frozen road, driving too fast, but not fast enough, that this behavior will end. Bad enough he has to call Ludwig and tell him Gilbert died, but he's better now. He refuses to do it again.

As he spins around a curve, deftly keeping his fishtailing to a minimum, his hockey gear rattles in the background.

By the time he's pulled up to the station and walked in to see a white-faced secretary trying to give Gilbert a handful of pamphlets, he's figured out a way to stage his intervention.

In the end Matthew offered Gilbert a deal. In exchange for his keeping quiet about Gilbert's bloody death – and suppressing the information about it – Gilbert had to agree to a series of restrictions, one of which was that he would be going to one of Canada's premier trauma specialists.

“Otherwise,” he said on the drive back to his cabin, “I have no reason to not call Ludwig up and ask what he wants me to do with you.” Gilbert was silent as he touched the still tender scar on his neck. Matthew had no idea how to deal with the kind of suicidal urges Gilbert was having. Alfred might; he had dealt with Kiku after WW2, after all.

But...Gilbert hadn't been entrusted to Alfred. Ludwig and Feliciano had asked him, not his brother.

“Fine.” Matthew sent a wordless prayer to those that watch over foolish nations in thanks.

Oddly enough, Gilbert took to the regimented life very easily. Matthew wasn't sure if it was the threat of Ludwig finding out that his brother's bar crawls ended in his death most times than not, but it worked. Gilbert made every appointment with Dr Kerrigan, and even seemed to like the old, iron haired lady.

Once a week, though, Matthew took Gilbert out onto the local hockey rink and they beat each other bloody. At first he hadn't wanted to get physical with Gilbert, but after being reassured by Dr Kerrigan that these weekly sessions actually seemed to be helping...well...he stopped holding back.

It was during one of their weekly ‘games’ these sessions of violent therapy (one or the other, maybe? Not intervention) that things changed irrecoverably. Gilbert had been pushing and pushing and pushing all week. True to the promise he'd made Matthew he hadn't gone out and gotten himself killed. He had come stumbling in reeking of sweat, sex, and drugs though. The first night, Matthew had stripped him down in the shower to make sure he hadn't done something stupid. After seeing for himself that Gilbert was keeping his promise, he had to settle for just glaring.

However, Gilbert finally managed to push Matthew over the edge during their weekly hour on the ice with an ill-timed taunt about Arthur.

Matthew saw red and slammed into Gilbert full force. "Get up," he snarled. Stay down, he thought.

Gilbert stayed down on the ice, sprawled out from the blow. For a moment the breath had been knocked out of him and his ribs ached in a way that reminded him of bloody fields and the feeling of being alive.

"What?" Matthew demanded. "What is it you want? I told you, you can go fucking home, eh! So why won't you go?!" He knew what Gilbert was doing - pushing him and testing him and trying to get something from him, but he wasn't sure what.

He did know he was sick of it.

It was all those nights he'd woken up to Kumajii's growling at the drunken, bloody Gilbert. All the not-quite hidden looks of something neither one of them wanted to acknowledge. It was Gilbert's smelling of cheap American beer and even cheaper Mexican cigarettes.

Matthew loathed Alfred's cheap beer and Cara's equally cheap cigarettes.

And Gilbert was really, stupidly, getting to his feet on the ice rink.

Suddenly sick of this whatever it was, he body checked Gilbert into the wall and held him there. Gilbert snarled and tried to fight back, but pinned and off balance as he was, all he managed to do was send them to the ice. They glared at each other, Matthew still holding the other nation down. Matthew was tired of this - tired of being the Nice Sibling, the Good One, the one who always did was he was told, the one who had to be someone he fucking wasn't - enough!

"You know what?”' he hissed. "I think you don't leave because you want my attention."

Gilbert's eyes narrowed, but at least he shut up and stopped struggling.

"I'm right, aren't I?" He knew he was. Deep in the bones of his land, he knew it was true. Here on the ice rink, breath fogging in the cold air, hand freezing where it was pressed against the ice, it all clicked for him.

This, this felt good. It felt right, just like Scotland had said it would. It felt so much better than anything he’d experienced before, and it was intoxicating. Gilbert was still silent where he was squashed beneath him, but he'd felt the give, the subtle relaxing of real, honest submission.

He wanted more.

"Not on the ice, not on the ice," Matthew chanted to himself, as he looked around desperately for a place that wasn’t frozen. There! Bleachers. Bleachers would do fine. Bleachers were awesome. A small part of him was freaking out over how quiet Gilbert was being - he'd thought the other would be a fighter to the very end. He told that part of himself to shut the hell up as he hauled the other nation over to the closest set of bleachers.

They fell in, Matthew pushing Gilbert down and following him. God it felt good to be tucked up between Gilbert, feeling his body. This was his new favorite thing - he'd combined hockey and sex and why hadn't he thought of this before?

Matthew nearly moaned when Gilbert finally started to respond to him, rutting back and making these deep, sexy noises in the back of his throat.

Might be better with a beer though, he thought, or maybe with skin. Matthew reached between them and yanked their jeans down just enough to get closer to Gilbert and oh, Maple~

The cold of the ice rink bit at them as they pushed and shoved and grunted and moved. Matthew kissed and bit at whatever bits of exposed skin he could find. Gilbert's head tipped back, exposing his throat, and Matthew couldn't resist leaving a chain of bite marks on it. Gilbert tensed beneath him and sharply drew in a breath. Well if that felt good, this should feel even better. He reached down and wrapped his hand around them.

Gilbert howled. It was the first real sound he'd made, and the sudden burst of almost incoherent German was like music to his ears. Matthew kept his cold hand wrapped around their mutual heat and jerked up. Once, twice, and the other was gone, body going slack and pliant beneath him. Matthew groaned at the feeling, and then he was gone too, flinging himself off the edge into the void.

Gilbert shifted beneath him. "C'mon," Matthew breathed into this new world of his," let's hit the showers, eh?"

Gilbert, Matthew decided, was breathtaking like this. The other nation was braced against the ugly green tiles, letting the water wash the suds off him. His head was bowed against the water and he looked like the last thing Matthew had thought to find - silently submissive and all his.

Not for the first time Matthew wondered what Russia had done to Gilbert.

He stood there for a moment longer, staring greedily at the white skin and deceptively slim body.

"So. How far are we taking this?" The question jarred Matthew out of his thoughts and he shrugged in response.

"How far are you willing to go?"

Red eyes glinted over Gilbert's shoulder briefly before returning to staring at tiles. He took a few steps closer so his body was almost, but not quite touching the other. "Because you know, I was always so sure you were a pure dom through and through - always running around with Francis. But if you insist on staying now Gilbert?"

He leaned in closer.

"If you stay, you're mine," he whispered. "No more late night drunken bar fights. No more of this crap you’ve been pulling lately. You've been acting out and I'm not going to let it happen anymore.”

Gilbert shivered and Matt was pretty sure he knew why. "You stay now? You're mine. So," he parroted back, "how far are you willing to take this?"

He braced for getting shoved back and told to prepare to have his vial regions invaded, but instead the other only sighed and leaned back into him. "I'm staying. Better bake me pancakes though."