Chapter 4
You wake up with a jolt. Your eyes immediately connecting with baby blue ones. Your lips almost connect too, but your reflex kicks in and Ludwig lands with a crash on top of you. His face landing in the space above your right shoulder. Your fingers were wrapped in the front of his shirt.
Your face starts to burn considerably, especially since you were lying down in your bed. Now all you needed was for someone to walk in. Oh god. Please, someone, spare you that embarrassment.
"Uh, Y/N."
"Ahhhh..." You both move away from each other automatically. He's standing up now and you're curled on the bed. Much to your surprise, Ludwig is about as red as you.
"I must have fallen asleep..." you say with a small chuckle, Ludwig's blush looked like it was getting worse. Yours was starting to fade but if anything else like that happen it was going to get worse. Like you eldest brother when you got really embarrassed your entire face to the tips of your ears turn red. Right now you were trying to lighten the mood, it wasn't working.
"Sorry?" Ludwig looks like he managed to calm down a bit to respond. But then the door decides to swing open revealing none other than Gilbert.
"What the hell-" His eyes take in the two of you. It wasn't what he was expecting. And you had a feeling like you really didn't want to know what he was expecting. But whatever he saw was enough for him to immediately launch into teasing Ludwig.
"Oh, West what is this? Finally manning up like a real German?" That wasn't helping Ludwig at all, his face got a bit darker as he shot you a sorry look out of the corner of his eyes. He didn't mean to accidentally land on you, you knew that.
"Brother, can you leave me alone?"
"Y/N-," Gilbert says, whirling around as if about to start questioning you. Ludwig took a handful of his brother's shirt, dragging him across your room. He paused in the doorway giving you an embarrassed look.
"Sorry," he grumbles, he exits and you hear the door to your apartment shutting soon after. Laying down you start to hear Gilbert questioning his brother to death. Pulling a pillow over your head you tried to tune them out before stopping.
You fell asleep with the sound of the bickering brothers ringing in your ears and a small smile on your face. This wasn't that bad.
.
.
.
You had your headphones on with your laptop in your lap; the bar was awfully slow today. A girl who also worked at the bar was doing most of the work. You were just trying to find a site that played songs in ENGLISH.
...Even though you had a playlist of downloads.
It's been a little more than a week since you met the German brothers; you had hit it off amazingly well. But you were nowhere close to doing the mission assigned to you. If you didn't know better you would say you were delaying it on purpose.
The song from your dream pops up and you decide to listen to it. Opening another tag, you log into your account on a blog where spies share rumors for a certain spy to confirm in the form of popular references.
Turns out rumors of another battle up near North Sea...oh, German espionage got wind of how the first one was a decoy? Russian and Chinese forces nearing from the East. But that was mostly it.
Ugh. Nothing about another planned victory...
Not like anyone would post something like that on here. Closing the tag, you hear another song come on. Closing your eyes the world melts away and the image of you sitting at home at your desk listening to music and watching the hands on your UFO clock tick by...
"So Fräu, have any plans today?"
"I'm going to work," you respond flatly, crossing your arms behind your head you slide down further in the booth. The image disappearing entirely as the albino enters your vision.
"Really? It looks like you're just listening to music."
"I am, but if you wanted to take me somewhere you could have asked yesterday. I have Tuesday's and Thursday's off," you reply. You needed to try and apologize to Ludwig. You also needed to get on the whole confirming secret battle plans business.
"You aren't helping around the bar at all."
"There's only one customer."
"Well have fun, the awesome me needs to head out."
"You too," you reply nonchalantly. You see Gilbert make a move to head back to the apartment.
"The door is the other way," you say, speaking up. Gilbert gives you a sly smile.
"The awesome me forgot something."
"So I guess you're being unawesome," you retort. Gilbert is obviously annoyed by your side comment.
But instead of answering he disappears into the storage area back up to his apartment that he shared with Ludwig. Something was up. Pretending not to pay any attention when Gilbert finally came back down and left without a single word, you sat there, music blasting away a large smile starting to spread right across your face.
Today was your day.
"Y/N?"
"Hey, Ludwig." A stupid smile still on your face, eyes glued onto the entrance. He clears his throat and your eyes immediately flicks back to him. Pulling off your headphones, they rest on your shoulders as you wait for him to say something.
"Y/N-I was wondering if you would want to...want to..."
"No one's around so I guess I could take a break," you say, sparing him. "I heard there was going to be a celebration on Main Street in town today; you want to come with me?" You shut down your laptop, picking it up you gave him a say something look.
"Yes," he says, you smile brightly,
"Just let me put this away; I'll be right back down." Dashing away, you change into a pair of cargo pants with a nice shirt that you thought went perfectly with it. Adjusting the thin straps, you pulled a little at the frills on the bottom before sliding on a jacket that ended at your elbows to finish it off.
Setting down your computer, you tie your hair up and grab a book bag with a shoulder strap before running all the way back down.
"Back," you announce, he gives you a look but you're confident you had done just fine. You weren't going to dress for another, but it wouldn't hurt to make the other person know you might have put some thought into it.
"So..." You wrap your arm around his, shrugging off his blush while trying to push down the one on your face. You need to make today work out for you. Some information would be good. Something really important and maybe you could talk to Alfred. Matthew might be there when you call too.
"This way," you say, marching off, Ludwig not far behind. Well, you were dragging him.
"Y/N, wait a-"
"Did you just want to stay at the bar?" you ask. Ludwig looks away for you for a second his blush dying down. He shook his head.
"Okay then, the celebration it is then."
And he didn't bother to argue.
.
.
.
"So, you're the personification of Germany right?" you press. Ludwig and you have been spending a while at the celebration on Main Street. Ludwig seemed to have gotten comfortable and so have you. The question comes out before you could stop yourself, you didn't want to do this at all anymore. You just wanted to have fun.
But that wasn't the way your life or job worked.
"Is that what you do? Just study all day," he asks, a small smile on his face. You look up at the clear blue sky above you. With the celebration going on it was sort of easy to forget that there was a war going on. You don't mention how Gilbert had talked about the Berlin wall and he had been alive then.
"Yea, my brothers both went off to war. So I spent most of my days sitting around listening to music and watching the time pass by. But then one day I had a nightmare-" You check to see if he's paying attention, he is. "I decided that I was going to have to do my share. I didn't want to just sit around waiting for news. So I started working hard."
"Was that the nightmare where you-"
"Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't know I was actually clinging to someone that time."
"Did you see their caskets or something?"
"I saw officials; there were four to a casket. Everything in the entire house that I shared with them seemed to die. And then I fell apart. I want to be able to give them something after all they've done for me after our parents died." You pause allowing the information to sink in before you asked the question. "Is the war going to end soon?" Ludwig gives you a look as if wondering what to do.
"Something big's going to happen, I'm sure." You lean back on the bench the two of you were sharing. Eyes to the sky that was an amazing blue.
"Yeah, I just want this war to end soon."
"Y/N?"
"Hmmm?"
"Do you have someone else waiting for you? Is that why you're working so hard?"
"Nope, just my brothers." Ugh, this was going to be harder than you thought. No duh, that was going to be his answer. 'Something big's going to happen.'
"Are you okay Y/N?"
"Yeah, just tired. And talking so much didn't help."
Maybe if you snuck into their room...
"Well, would you like me to take you back?" he asks, standing up and offering you a hand.
"Yes please," you reply taking his hand. Misjudging how heavy you were he pulls you up with a little too much force. Landing on his chest your face starts to burn brightly. Instead of immediately letting you go he wraps his arms around your midsection.
"Ludwig..."
"Thank you very much Y/N, today was amazing."
"Okay," you mumble quietly. You both stand like that for some time before Ludwig finally lets you go.
"I hope you didn't-"
"No, that was really nice of you Ludwig. Thanks."
He shows you a small smile and a flow blown grin spreads across you face.
Okay, you were going to deny it. But it was too late now.
You think you have a crush on him.
On Ludwig.
Well... crap