GerIta room... for fluffy/smutty goodness

"Did you two kiss that day? And you gave him a gift?" Foggy memories began slowly drifting in and he held Feliciano closely. He remembered a sudden overwhelming joy just at being able to touch Italy's skirt. IT was a childish feeling, but it had made him so happy.

"I am so sorry that you had to go through that, Feliciano." He tentatively looked the brunet in the eyes. "Do you believe he really died, as Francis said he did?"

"Ah... eh, yes, we kissed. And I gave him my pants as gift..." he looked him in the eyes. "Did you already know about that? Or are you... uhm, jealous?" he asked feeling a bit awkward all of a sudden.

But then Ludwig held him closer, and their gazes met.
"I believed Francis, yes." of course he did. Francis had no reason to lie to him about that, and anyway, Feliciano had not seen that boy again. Or better, he had not seen Holy Roman Empire ever again.

"But I've started wondering if maybe Francis was wrong, that time. I've started wondering if maybe that boy has survived... perhaps he still lives, somewhere, and has a different name, and maybe he just doesn't remember anything from the past, and that's why he never came back. Or maybe again..." he smiled as he started playing with Ludwig's hair, looking at him in expectation "...he has come back after all. He just doesn't know."

He was aware he was possibly saying a lot of stupid things - he did that all the time, anyway. He just didn't want to hurt Ludwig, with this. But then again, Feliciano had never been good to refrain himself once he had started talking about something.

"Your pants..." Ludwig looked at him a moment. What if Feliciano's theories were right? The hazy memories could easily have been those of this boy's. Did that mean he was the same person? Or it was a past life or...?

He ran his hand over Feliciano's hair and kissed him. "He painted you too, didn't he? Took the painting with him into battle to remember just what he had to come back to and why he wanted to return so much." He couldn't say he remembered it all, but he had the memories there all the same. He just didn't know why.

The question was, why had he wanted to forget? Had he betrayed his love? Or had the trauma of a near death experience been so much that he had to forget and move on? He didn't know, but he was beginning to realize that something had caused it. He just needed to know now what Feliciano would do if this were the case.

"What if he had forgotten, or he were someone else? Would you hate him for it? All that time gone from his memory, not remembered even after he said he'd loved you since the 900s?"

"He painted me?" Feliciano looked up at him puzzled. Had Holy Roman Empire brought a picture of him with him on the battlefield? That thought made him feel warm and sad at the same time - what happened to that painting and to the memory it was meant to preserve?

Feliciano thought about the question. He had often asked himself what could possibly keep Holy Roman Empire from coming back to him. His strong faith in the boy's words was sometimes questioned by Feliciano's own insecurity. What if he had found someone else, someone who was not a maid and...?
But he had kept trusting him, hoping to see him coming back, until that day.

The thing was that Feliciano didn't care. Of course he had been worried, and sad, and nostalgic - but none of those counted if that boy was back, no.

"I'd just be happy to have him back." he answered honestly looking Ludwig directly in the eyes again, always smiling "I wouldn't mind too much, he would have all the time in the world to make new memories with me, wouldn't he?"

Ludwig paused a moment. "Feliciano, would you come with me to the attic? I think.... I think I saw something before up there that we both need to see." It would take some willpower for him to go back up there. He'd been there once, seen a patch of black cloth and retreated back faster than he'd ever done in his life, even from Ivan.

He couldn't say for sure what it was, but he just had this feeling that it was something he had to face and that having Feliciano there with him would help.

"If you're not too sore." He kissed him on the lips lightly. "I could even carry you. I just... would like you there. I think there is something important there."

How much there was he couldn't say. But he couldn't deny the feeling he had now that he needed to go up there with his lover.

He kissed him back, once and twice. "Sure I can." He could feel a bit of uncertainty in Ludwig's voice. Was he worried? What was there in the attic? Feliciano held his hand, attempting to reassure him.

"I want to come to see whatever is important for you." he said. He would follow Ludwig wherever he asked him to come, especially if it meant something important for him.

He sat up, ready to stand - and with that movement he understood what Ludwig meant with "being sore".

"...I think I'm fine. It hurts a bit, though." he simply stated, rubbing his right hip slowly.

Ludwig handed over one of his dress shirts and wrapped it around Feliciano. He helped the other man put the shirt on, first with the sleeves. He buttoned it up carefully before he walked over to put a pair of of underwear on himself as well as a tank top. "I hoped that you'll be comfortable in that. It's like a big night shirt."

He smiled at the sight of the other man in his dress shirt. Even though he was nervous about what they might find upstairs, he was unbelievably pleased at the idea that they were now at a point when he would see the other man in his clothing like a real boyfriend might do.

"I'll carry you if you would like. As a matter of fact, I think I might like that." He gently scooped Feliciano into his arms and held him bridal style.

He let Ludwig dress him, giggling a bit - that wasn't the first time he lent him one of his shirts, but for once the context was different. Wearing his shirts after having made love was totally different from wearing them after he had run naked in the shower or situations like that.

The shirt was comfortable and it smelled of Ludwig, he discovered with a smile as his head popped up from it.
"Ve, is perfectly fine~ and I love the scent!" he answered. He raised his arms until the hands come out from the sleeves, too long for him, and then rolled them up to leave his wrists uncovered.

As Ludwig lifted him, Feliciano wrapped his arms around him, leaving his head abandoned next to his lover's neck.
"I like this as well~" he replied tenderly as he kissed his collar-bone. "Now, let's go upstairs to fight the enemy together, my brave captain!" he boosted, waggling his legs.

Ludwig smiled and carried the young man out of the bedroom and headed for the doorway at the end of the hall. "There is something here I've not been able to face in years and years of living here. Every time I head for the corner, something in my head stops me. I need you to make me strong enough to face it with you."

He kissed his lover on the lips. "I don't think it's anything really frightening. It's just difficult for me to come to terms with it. So there should be nothing for you to fear there."

He headed up the steps slowly under his own and Feliciano's weight, but at the same time, he found Feliciano's weight comforting rather than overwhelming. "You know I don't remember much before Gilbert started raising me as a teen."

"Well, better if so. You know I can't handle scary things well..." he squeezed his shoulders tight, happy to realize he could be a real help for Ludwig, this time. "You can use me as shield~"

He glanced down at the steps, holding him tighter - he wasn't worried that Ludwig could drop him, though, he just felt like reaffirming his presence there, in his arms.

Anyway, whatever was there in the attic that sort of scared Ludwig so much, Feliciano mentally prepared himself to face it.

"I know. And I still wonder why nobody gave you any explanation or told you anything about what you were and did before. But brothers can be strange, sometimes."

"Indeed they can be, but I think that Gilbert was simply trying to protect me."

He was just a few steps from the top, unbelievably pleased with the presence of his lover in his arms as he prepared to face this.

When they reached the top of the stairs, he asked Feliciano to pull the chain for the light. Once the room was illuminated by the single bulb hanging from the ceiling, he kissed Feliciano on the neck.

"Do you see the rear corner? That one with the black fabric? That's where I can never manage to bring myself to go." He held him close and kissed him again. "I think that has something to do with my past and that's why I'm afraid. What if I did something terrible. Or I was an awful person. I am still dealing with things in my past as it is. I do not think I live with more."

He really needed his lover's encouragement, and he felt comfortable enough to admit that between the two of them.

Feliciano closed his eyes at the kisses; the situation had started making him feel a bit nervous as well. He reached for one of the hands that still held him and squeezed it, to reassure him and being reassured as well.

Black fabric... it was never a good sign. But again, he hadn't come here to be scared of some fabric, had he? The thought that his lover needed him, this time, was making him feel brave.

"Ludwig." He took his face in his hands. "We all did a lot of bad things in the past; I ended up doing a lot of cruel and unjust things as well. But you still love me, Ludwig, don't you?" he looked into his eyes to find the affirmative answer to his question before going on.
"It's the same for me, I'll love you no matter what. I've loved you all through the nightmares of these wars... I don't think that in this attic I can find something that can make me change my mind."

He kissed him on the forehead, and then on the nose, tenderly. "This is why you shouldn't say scary things like you cannot live on. I couldn't survive without you, you know that, sì?" he smiled sweetly to him, admitting the truth. "And furthermore, I don't want to be left alone once again. Leaving me - this would be a horrible thing to do and to be ashamed of, indeed." he rubbed his nose on Ludwig's, leaving a kiss on the top of it.

He cheerfully pointed at the corner. "Let's go there and face the unknown enemy, captain!"

Ludwig walked over slowly, looking at Feliciano to give him the sign that yes, indeed, he loved Feliciano no matter what. And while their bosses had been involved in some awful things in their names, they had not always been involved in the worst of it. That by no means meant his hands were clean, but he still bore the scars of what was done to some of his own people during that time.

"The problem, Feliciano, is that I fear I have left you once before, and when I returned, I was very different."

He found an old cushioned chair near the corner and gently set his lover on it. "Sit here and I will look through the boxes."

He picked up the first crate to bring it over to Feliciano. He set it at the other's feet. "Are you comfortable enough there?" he asked him, trying to stall pulling the items from the box.

Feliciano sat down, looking at Ludwig while he went to pick one of the boxes and carried it where he was sitting.

He could see how Ludwig felt - what happened to him in the forgotten part of his past? If Ludwig was Holy Roman Empire, what happened to make him change so much? It had to be something terrible, Feliciano knew that. People don't just loose their memories from one day to another without a serious reason. Still, Feliciano wasn't concerned about what he could have done - of course he had gone to war, and of course wars were horrible things. But wasn't this one of the things nations were just bound to do all the time, fighting wars?

Feliciano was way more concerned about what terrible accident could have happened to him to make him forget everything. Was he badly injured, close to death? How much had he suffered before someone went to rescue him?

Feliciano shacked his head slowly. "If you have changed, you're not the only one who has." he caressed his head slowly. "But whatever happened, is behind now, you've survived it and you've come back, isn't this what counts?"

He paused as Ludwig started pulling the stuff from the box, and then stopped to ask him if he was comfortable. "Yes, I'm alright. Do you need any help with it?" he asked then.

Ludwig shook his head. "No, no. You stay. I know you're still tender, even if you're hiding it. Just you being there is enough."

It was true. The other man's presence was more than enough for Ludwig. It was Feliciano's strength that was really what drove him on more than anything. He wanted to find this out for the both of them, but he feared what caused the memory loss as much as anything he'd ever gone up against. Trauma and suffering he'd lived through, but what if he'd made the conscious decision to forget the things he did? What if he'd betrayed Feliciano or done something awful?

He removed the black cloth, seeing spots where it was discolored with age and stains that appeared around gaping holes in the fabric. Some of the holes were big enough to poke two and three fingers through. He turned it a few times before finally holding it right and seeing it for what it was: A black mantle. One suited for what he might have looked like as a teenager. It looked only half moth-eaten. Which meant the other holes were from something very different. Some at the stomach even went all the way through.

I hadn't expected Francis to have that in him.

He draped it over a box of things from the 1940s. He wasn't ready to deal with those yet, either.

He removed the matching hat to the mantle, though it was brittle now, feeling as though it could snap under his fingers. Only as he turned it in his hands did he dare to look at Feliciano, afraid of what he might see in the eyes that, in this light, reminded him of warm caramel.

Feliciano watched as the black fabric unraveling under his eyes, revealing tears and holes, together with its age and real shape. An ancient mantel, he realized holding his breath, a mantel that Feliciano knew very well - the image of that mantel had accompanied him like a shadow for all that time. He just remember it bigger, more wrapping, like a dark and fluttering blanket he would happily wrap himself inside.

His eyes followed the holes and the tears in the fabric, tracing their borders; although it was so old and dusty, he was expecting to find blood stains on the dark cloth. That black had been soaked with red, he knew that - that image had haunted his dreams for years: the mantel floating in a purple pool, wrapped around a motionless body like a velvet funeral cloth.

Breathless, he watched at Ludwig holding the hat - oh, it seemed small now, he remembered on the boy's head, so big over those blue, serious eyes, always shadowing his pale skin.
He reached out a hand, hesitantly, tempted to touch it and scared that it could turn into dust at the contact.

"Why don't you... try putting this on?"

Ludwig looked at the brittle hat and gently set it atop his own head. It didn't quite fit, but it was close enough that it was able to sit there without him holding it in place. "I don't think it fits me anymore."

He gingerly took it off and set it in Feliciano's lap so that he could look at the hat. He felt as though he were presenting his lover with the garments of his dead first love more so than trying to recall his own lost memory. He see the hurt in those eyes and he hated it because it was his fault, whether he would remember it or not.

He looked again in the crate to find the picture that had gone to countless battles with him. It was dirty, but it still evoked the same emotions he remembered. This was his first love. And now, sitting in the chair was the same love, grown up.

"This never left my side when we weren't in battle. I knew I was growing, and I wondered how time changed you. I hated I wasn't with you." He looked at Feliciano. "Today was what I'd dreamed of back then. Being with you and telling one another we loved each other and promising to never be apart again."

Feliciano stared at Ludwig wearing that hat. He had tried to imagine so many times how the small boy he used to know could have changed, growing up. In his fantasies the hat and the mantle always grew up with him as well, though, while now that old and worn out hat topped his blonde head in precarious balance - but Feliciano didn't find anything funny in that.

He held the hat in his hands, still silent, and then looked at the painting Ludwig had found. He slipped to the pavement, leaving the hut on the chair, kneeling next to his love.
The painting portrayed what it seemed a sleeping girl, wearing a maid outfit - it wasn't a girl, though, Feliciano knew it well.

"...this is so sweet." He embraced Ludwig's shoulders, kissing him on the cheek. "I felt so lonely, and I kept wondering if you were feeling lonely as well. I... I wished I could have seen you through this portrait's eyes." Feliciano kissed him again, looking at him like he was seeing Ludwig for the first time, again.

"You do look like him, you know? I just... couldn't realize that. Your name, the way you had changed, all the time that had passed meanwhile. The wars. And the fact that I was sure you were dead." He buried his face in Ludwig's neck, pretty sure he had no intention of leaving that place for any reason in the world.

Ludwig looked again at the portrait and then at Feliciano. "There are times I wonder if things would have been different if I had known you were a boy. I think I'd have fallen in love with you just the same, but I think I may have scared you a little less. I might not have been so awkward."

"I hate that you were so lonely," he said, holding Feliciano closely. "This picture let me remember you and what I was going back to from the front."

He remembered countless nights on the front spent staring at the picture by candlelight and then putting it carefully away each morning with a silent wish that his Feliciano was okay. He feared that Francis would again try to take control of Italy or that he might take advantage of him in some way, yet did his best to trust in Austria and Hungary to guard his love.

He hugged him. "I had every intention that when I came back, you would be my equal. I wanted to marry you as soon as we were together again, to become one country. It was what my people wanted, but most of all, it was what I wanted."

He felt his eyes pricking with unshed tears. Despite himself and his wish to remain strong, he was overwhelmed by long-forgotten emotions and memories. To be quite honest, he still wanted that.

"Well, I think I wasn't fully aware of being a boy in the first place, back then." he giggled at the memory. Everyone treated him like... well. He was dressed like a girl all the time, and none ever cared to explain him that maybe that didn't suit him, since he wasn't a girl. He had to realize it with time. "I tried to make up for it later, but as you see it didn't work too well! I still prefer to look at cute girls instead of being one, though." he commented, still giggling a bit.

"It's fine, anyway. You had to go, and now you're back. I don't mind the time I had to spend for having you back, it was painful, but now it's gone... and you've returned." he kissed him on the neck, caressing his shoulders.

"And I've become an unified and independent nation, in the meanwhile. Now you wouldn't need to marry me for making me your equal... ah." He kind of felt awkward, at mentioning this. Maybe it was the face Ludwig was making, as he could start crying any moment. Or maybe it was because he had just mentioned his past will to marry him.

Feliciano caressed gently his cheeks. "It's alright, really. We are together now." He laid a kiss on his lips.

"We are. Finally after all this time." He tried to smile as his own hands moved up to cup Feliciano's cheeks. He was older, but his Feliciano had hardly changed after all this time.

Ludwig felt the tears falling down his cheeks as he remembered bits and pieces of his past with Feliciano and he held the Italian closely, as though gaining strength from him. It was as though a whole part of himself was finally coming together. His hand stroked through the Italian's hair as he laughed derisively. "I don't know the last time I've cried like this. Just over some items in the box."

He knew it was more than that. It was the memory that came with them and knowing that he'd loved Feliciano for more than decades. He'd loved him for centuries.

"Feliciano, I know this isn't the most romantic way to do it, probably not the way you deserve, but my intentions to marry you, they haven't changed." He searched the other man's face. "I'd like to be with you as long as our two countries survive and we survive. We could do it like the humans, without involving our people and our politics. Just us."

Feliciano started crying almost automatically as soon as he saw Ludwig's eyes become red and the tears covering his cheeks.

"I understand, Ludwig... I cry for these things all the time..." he said, sniffing and blinking and rubbing his eyes to keep them open. "And those items in the box are important pieces of our past. You can cry over them as long as you want." he said, trying unsuccessfully to fight back the sobs.

What succeeded in putting down his cry was what Ludwig said next. Feliciano listened carefully, almost breathless, and then a bright smile appeared on his face, while the tears started dropping from his eyes again - a shiny rainbow already appearing in the middle of the rain.
"I-is Ludwig proposing to me...?" he looked at him in amazement. "I already know I can't stay anywhere else than by your side, Ludwig, as long as I have life. Where would I go without you?"
He climbed his knees to look him in the eyes. He could feel his own tears dropping on his neck, soaking the shirt's collar, but they were definitely tears of joy. "I love you, Ludwig! I've loved you from the beginning and I'll love you until the end!" he declared happily, and he kissed him on the lips avidly, stopping only to precise: "This is a sì." and he kissed him again.

Ludwig appreciated Feliciano's kind words about the items in the box and the fact that the normally stoic man was shedding tears. He only hated that now his lover was crying, too. He could feel his own tears running down his cheeks, along his jaw and to his neck, but he ignored their faint tickling as he reached up and wiped away Feliciano's tears. He knew the other man could cry on cue, but it was this sort of crying that Ludwig didn't want to see, let alone be responsible for.

He felt the man shift at his question, to rise on his knees, and the tears almost seemed to flow more quickly, though a smile accompanied them. It was a mixed signal. At least, it was until Feliciano spoke. At that, his own smile broadened.

He let out a shout of joy and wrapped his arms around Feliciano. "Mein Liebling. I won't let you hurt again." He pressed his lips to the Italian's and held him close. A hand moved to the auburn hair and his tongue traced the line of Feliciano's lips.

His mind began racing with preparations, what they would need, wedding rings, suits... But he stopped it. For this moment, he let himself focus on the man wearing his shirt in his arms, the man he'd loved since they were children.

Feliciano felt the salty taste of their tears as he kissed Ludwig back, parting his lips gently and letting his tongue playing with the other's.

He paused after a while. His own tears had stopped, the strange knot he felt in his chest was lightened and less painful, soothed by the kiss. He kissed gently his lover's cheeks to wipe out his tears, his lips tenderly indulging on his eyelids.
"You know I get hurt too easily." he giggled again, holding him "But I'll be fine if you're here. Just don't leave me alone."

His lips run slowly down his nose and back to the mouth and the chin, still wet. He savored his lover's taste in every little kiss, realizing that he could never have enough of it. Settling on his lap, he looked at him straight in the eyes; their blue was even more intense due to the crying, and he pushed his hair on the side.

"Are you still worried, now?" he whispered, caressing lightly his ears with his fingertips.

"I won't leave you alone," Ludwig said as their kiss ended, the salty tears still leaving a lingering flavor on his tongue. "I won't do it ever again." There was still a part of him that wondered what had happened that he had left him in the first place. But he couldn't dwell on that now. All he could do was wait for the memories to come.

He gladly held Feliciano on his lap and looked at him. "I will do my best to try to keep you from being hurt all the same.

"I am still worried. Because I don't know why I forgot, but I am not worried about you and me. I love you, you love me, and soon I'll be your husband and vice versa. I couldn't ask for more than that." He smiled and kissed him on the lips.

"Do you want a simple ceremony or something big?"