A/N: Beware of OOC-ness and a lot of angst.

Ludwig knows it isn't right.

He feels everything the deepest at night, it seems. He feels the hate that isn't his like an unwilling empath; he feels the grief that is his, now, and the fear—not of death, but the journey there. He hears their prayers, fervent and hushed, that seem to grow louder as their faith dwindles to nothing. And then the prayers are uglied, transformed into pleas. It was never supposed to be this way. It was never...

How much longer will this last?

The smell is always on him. It's smoke; death, and the scent and his nausea won't relent no matter what he does.

He knows that Feliciano notices. He smells the hopelessness and unanswered prayers that stick to Ludwig's flesh like a second layer of skin. But he says nothing about it. It isn't that that he doesn't care. He does, Ludwig knows, maybe more than anyone ever has.

The Italian is breathing softly, in, and then out, and Ludwig is tense against him.

"It has to pass," Feliciano whispers, low and desperate. His palms bump gently against Ludwig's and he tightens his hold. His words are a valiant fighting force through the chaotic dissension he is pressed against. All Ludwig wants is to believe him.

"It will," he presses. The German shivers, feeling something splitting within him. "I know it will." Ludwig clings to the smaller man's words like they are everything, because right now, they are.

"No," he mumbles almost soundlessly against Feliciano's jaw. Then he continues speaking, continues moving, and is now talking against the other's cheek and shaking as the world ends. "It is too deep. It is...set this way, now, and I can't—I can't—"

No, no, please stop talking, he pleads with himself. Feliciano does it for him; silences him with a soft, one-moment kiss, sealed and hushed and strong for him, and Ludwig crumbles underneath it all.

"Evil never thrives for long." Feliciano asserts. Germany breathes out harshly and wonders how Italy can be so strong and never look it.

"Because," he continues, pleading with his tone to be understood. "evil lives from fear, and people can only give so much of that before they collapse under the weight of it."

Something in Ludwig accepts Feliciano's words and understand them, just as his whole has accepted all of Feliciano.

He knows Italy has always known of the violence and horror that comes with war. He just doesn't show that he knows, that he doesn't want to fight because of that and not because he's scared for himself—no, just scared for the others. Not just his people, but the world's.

The seriousness of war was never lost to Feliciano, Ludwig knows. Just buried deep until he had to remember, like now.

The small Italian holds him closer; tighter, desperate like it helps repair the tattered seams.

It doesn't, no matter how much he tries—not in the ruins of Berlin or any of the empty, grieving homes of Europe—though Ludwig would like to believe otherwise...at least for now.

They are beside themselves.

Slowly, things are put back together. Slowly, people try to fall back into old habits from before, trying to recreate their world before everything went wrong. Ludwig feels their struggle in his bones, and in the ripping and tearing of his mind and chest. It is far from over, even though the fighting has stopped.

Today, he finds Feliciano curled in on himself in the bed they share. He got up this morning, pretending to look and act fine, tried to eat the breakfast Ludwig had hastily prepared in an exhausted but determined state. He did eat, but his voracious appetite has not yet returned.

Ludwig walks toward him, blue eyes searching the small form for any vitalizing signs of life. He takes a seat on the edge of the bed, quietly, he hopes. He doesn't want to wake Feliciano. His people are rebuilding, and he still hurts. He needs to rest.

Ludwig knows he needs it, too. The sickness he feels inside is surging through him like a poison. He is split now. Divided. It's instinctive for him to try to bring himself back together so that it stops aching at the edges, where it is particularly fragmented.

Something tells him it will be a long time.

He finds himself tracing a directional pattern on the faintly troubled, sleeping face of Feliciano. In a fanciful delusion, he imagines that his gently trembling fingers are paving new paths for hope and new beginnings to endings.

Finding his place against the other man, he tries to be as quiet about it as possible. He tries to silence his thoughts, too, about how everything is wrecked.

He tries to settle against the smaller man's form.

And then there's the feeling of Feliciano's skin through his thin clothing; human, real, healing—

Ludwig relaxes against him, trying to ignore the headache pressing on his thoughts, monopolizing his attention. Right now, he forces it not to.

He feels no shame as he rests his face in the smooth curve where Feliciano's shoulder meets his neck. Maybe, in some form, this dependency is a weakness. Still, Ludwig doesn't regret it. As his breathing begins to fall in sync with the other man's, he can't fight the feeling that Feliciano is a catalyst for the beginning of something incredible. It is because of his ability to see the end through the blanket of lost lives that populated the world when no one else did, or could.

Ludwig thinks that maybe he can see it now, too.