Winter's Sleep (A RusGer Fanfiction)

Chapter XIII: All hopes are bound to die, as all lie are bound to fail

They were two souls sitting amidst the sea of flowers at some edge of the world, somewhere close to the sky but did not feel all that high above either.

The wind whispered to Germany a faint hum of a tune; a lull too old to remember but familiar to ears. It washed childhood memory into him before disappearing too quickly along with the breeze. When he came to, he was running fingers through East's golden hair while East entwined one flower to the other into a flower crown. Standing between them was white silence and East's thin smile that barely reached sunny eyes.

His own golden eyes were gazing at the spilled molten gold river running through the length of his back, a wave of bright placidity to the solemn countenance. This hair was used to be arranged in a neat braid by him, or a high bun if the heat became unbearable. All a morning habit before their morning coffee and preparing the shop, but now he could only touch it in his dream.

So Germany gathered it, fingers worked to weave hair into the braid that used to sway gently with each of East's movements. And perhaps it was because of the silence or the hypnotizing sway of flowers around them that got him into thinking how he got there.

Because one moment he opened his eyes to the world bathed in a warm brown hue, flowers in hand but eyes fixed to the indigo swirl of smoke and aphasic lethargy morphed into slack shoulders of a figure outside the shop, and the next moment the room contorted, encapsulated him in the cold darkness. And then he was falling. Deep, deep, down into the void with everything felt calm and safe like home.

But what was a home without East, really; a bunch of phantom images sculpting ghost of him, myriads fragments of memory recalling cheerful grin framed by golden tresses, countless hard stumble into the realization that he no longer needed to brew two cups of coffee every morning.

It was not home. And perhaps there was more to that idea-like how loneliness seeped through every crack of his or sadness piled into a whole depression mess. Although there were moments of someone filling the crack, pulling him back from the depth of lavender that was his mind, subtly yet unconsciously pouring reassurance into him, nothing ever felt enough or right.

The moment he thought of those, he woke up to a familiar voice calling his name. Sunlight refracted into a pair of similar golden eyes staring back at him with worry overflowing and lips tugged into a grim line. Above, the sky was painted blue and endless.

"Brother," he remembered saying that; voice cracking all over, shaky, and coarse. "We meet again."

But he barely remembered if East replied to him with anything. Germany was not even sure what brought him into brushing his hair before braiding it while East worked on his flower crown. Maybe there were exchanges made between them that slipped past him or maybe it had been quiet since then.

"Aren't you happy to see me again?" was something he would like to ask him, yet it was hard to utter it with this hovering silence around them as if ready to drown out his words and left it unanswered.

One quiet sigh followed by flowers tucked to decorate his braid and Germany promptly disregard the heaviness pooling in his chest. The last bunch of unwoven hair, too short to be braided, slipped from his hand. East turned to him, then, placing the flower crown on his head, offering a small smile that he could barely return.

A hand found its way to his cheek, rubbing nostalgic warmth on him that made him turn to him. There was hesitation skittering along the edge of East's lips before it broke into a frown followed by a heavy sigh. Golden eyes flashed uncertainty and disapproval, all gathered to form a question embedded with too much concern than the joy of meeting him again.

"West, what brings you here?"

It was as if he was the only one missing him.

"I don't know," was the only reply he could muster after a pause, after pushing away the idea to a corner of his head with a feeble smile. The burn at the back of his throat was a full-blown furnace as he spoke, grating prickles all over his chest and hitched breaths. There was an urge to laugh, or perhaps it had slipped past his lips since the beginning.