Chapter 13
You awaken with a strange pressure on your mouth.
Opening your eyes in shock, you push whatever it was away from you, immediately coughing out water.
"Y/N." You look up to see Ludwig staring at you.
"What"-cough- "happened?"
"Your alive. Your alive."
He wraps his arms and pulls you into him and plants his lips against yours. You tense up realizing that was what had happened. Ludwig had kissed you, and now he was doing it again.
What do I do? What do I do?
You feel him starting to pull away as your brain kicks into it's focus mode.
KISS HIM BACK YOU IDIOT!
Wrapping your fingers in his wet hair you pull him closer. He pauses having expected reluctance and pulls away, you wrap your arms around his waist and pull him into a hug.
"Thank you for saving me again." You mutter quietly into his ear.
He doesn't say anything this time though and shoves you off of him. You stare at him blankly wondering what just happened to him.
"There an ambulance, they're going to take us to the hospital." He said offering you a hand; he doesn't make eye contact with you however and walks ahead so you wouldn't be walking shoulder to shoulder.
Narrowing your eyes you follow him over to the vehicle. Emergency staff asks you if you're okay and perform some tests. They say you're fine but you're not paying much attention to that. You're paying more attention to Ludwig. Wrapping a blanket around you, the staff leaves you two in the back.
He doesn't look at you, so you get up and grab his arm.
"Hey... That was nice." You murmured not really knowing what to say.
"I almost killed you." He responded not even looking you in the eye.
"No you didn't, it's okay, and I'm not dead."
"But what if-"
"HEY!" You yell, trying to keep yourself from slapping him. He gives you a shocked look.
"You don't do 'what if's'. I'm alive right now, you're alive right now. That's all that matters." You mumble pretty weakly.
Ludwig opens his arm slightly as if asking for a hug and you gladly give it to him. Curling into a small ball in his arms, you listen to the beating of his heart as the ambulance starts on its way back to the hospital.
His arms tighten around you and a smile dance on your lips.
"What's wrong?" You ask him quietly, he sits there as if about to say something but decides against it.
"Let's decorate the Christmas tree when we get back, alright?" You say giving his chest a playful poke. Ludwig looks away from you as someone comes in to tell us we can leave.
Getting up, you both walk quietly into the hospital. Gilbert is in the Lobby, it looks like he's about to burst into interrogation mode but one look from Ludwig silences him.
"He's on the fourth floor... but your too late."
"Gilbert, I'm going to see him."
"Ja, but they won't let Y/N in."
The albino points at you and you hold your hands up.
"It's fine; I'll just catch a cab back."
Ludwig's eyes narrow and you can tell he dislikes the subject.
"Wait for us here, we will head back together."
You nod your head not wanting to argue, holding the blanket closer to you; you head over to one of the many chairs in the lobby and take a seat.
Watching Gilbert and Ludwig disappear into the elevator, a bored expression crosses your face as you lean back into the chair.
So someone tried to kill Ludwig.
With a taxi.
Gotta give 'em props for being weird.
But seriously.
What the hell?
Like how do you get timing that perfect?
"Ugh..." You moan, your right hand falling down your face and stretching your skin.
"Excuse me, Miss, may I have a vord?"
You look up to see a woman dressed in black hovering above you.
"Sure, take a seat." You pat the spot next to you. She shakes her head.
"In private."
"No way." You laugh. Her eyes narrow before she speaks again.
"You're Zhe Rose correct? I am Zhe Iris, my partner zhe is vith me is zhe Zhorn." She whispers quietly so only you can hear. You wince at her horrible accent.
"I thought I was the only officer stationed here?" You snarl, and she makes a motion for you to calm down.
"Please, not here. Come speak vith us." You stand up reluctantly and a large trench coat was tossed into your face.
"Put zhat on and leave zhe blanket here."
"Yeah, yeah." You just wanted the woman to shut the hell up.
Following her out of the lobby, you follow her into the elevator and up to the second floor where the doctor offices were.
Going down a few more white hallways you end up in an isolated room. The door clicks behind you.
"Ve vork here, zhat is how ve knew about zhe taxi." The girl goes in her horrible German; you give the girl a glare.
"Do you speak English?" You snap... In well, English.
"Ja."
"Speak English." You growl taking a seat in one of the spare chairs.
"What, do you have a problem?" The person who called herself The Iris responded.
"Yup, your German is shit. I don't even get how you ended up here. Your partner in the taxi though? He was actually fairly good."
"Why thank you. Iris I brought lunch." The man from the taxi walks in, a bored look on his face. He tosses a sandwich to Iris, offering you one. You take it grudgingly, setting it in your lap you wonder if you could throw it into someones face and get away with it.
"So, Rose, you go by Y/N here? Is that your real name?"
"You can call me by my official name." You snap back. She raises a brow as she starts to unwrap her sandwich.
"Do you include Washington in it?"
"I meant Rose."
"Fine... Rose." She sneers, taking a bite of her food. This was getting nowhere.
"Good god, you know I think I'm going to leave." You mutter setting the sandwich down and rising to your feet. There is the click of a gun.
"You aren't going anywhere Rose."
"Then get to the point." You growl, turning around and leaning against the door.
"Move away from the door first." The male who Iris called Thorn replied.
"Chill out." You respond, sitting back in your seat again.
"Anyway, Rose, we're taking over your mission from here."
"Oh, so you're going to just kill me and take over. You'll not only lose your life but my brothers would most likely murder you and everyone you know."
"Using your brothers as a shield, we saw Germany save your life. You use your charms so you don't have to become dependent on others."
You have a 'seriously?' look on your face right now. Iris gives you a nasty smirk and you only respond with a nastier one.
"Are you running away from the rumored spy hunters?"
"So you've heard about them Rose?"
"Read the rumor way back, but yes, I remembered."
"Well, we are hunting them. And you're going to be bait." You take in Iris' red hair and simple brown eyes. Then Thorn's dirty blonde hair and muddy blue eyes. You would recognize them immediately if they ever messed with you again.
And you were going to hit them with your damn sandwich.
"From your attack on Ludwig I guess you're just aiming at random."
"We'll let you think that. But now we know Germany has a soft spot for you."
"So you've been stalking me, great."
"We were the ones in charge of the men that attacked you and the taxi incident. We also tried to attack without endangering such an important figure. But Germany's father ended up suffering instead of him."
"And I'm now regretting coming with you." You growl underneath your breath, Iris ignores you.
"Anyway, we still need proof so we are asking you to tell us if Germany and Prussia are the spy hunters. They did arrive here after the spy in the nearby city was eliminated. You're the only one in the area."
"I thought you were using me as bait?"
"If you discover that Germany and Prussia are who we think they are, light a candle and place it in your window sill. We will take that as a yes and move to the next step. You would then become expendable."
"Yeah, sure." You agree sarcastically. In your head you were literally screaming 'GO DIE IN HELL YOU BITCH!'
"Any questions then?"
"Yup, there's one problem here." You say nodding your head like an idiot.
"And what is that?" She falls for the bait and gets annoyed.
"It's the twenty-first century; I'm not going to have a candle just lying around."
"We'll give you one you idiot!" She screams. You get up taking that as a sign to leave. Thorn tosses you a candle which you catch and put into your pocket.
"I guess I'll be seeing you guys around. Even though I would prefer not to."
You through the sandwich for good measure, having taken the wrapper off it splatters all over. You missed, but it still splattered all over.
"I'm not hungry, thanks for askin' "
Walking out, you feel the waxy candle in your hand. All you had to do is light this, and maybe just the next day you would find them dead and gone. Or maybe it would be the next day. Or the next.
You would get up and wonder why you couldn't hear Ludwig moving around, or Gilbert wasn't ripping the covers off your head.
'Please don't be who they think you are, please, please, please'
"Oi, Rose, one last thing."
You turn around to see Thorn, his head poking out of the room. You restrain the fear that is about to explode from your eyes and the strong desire to chuck something at his face.
"You have until Christmas Eve, if you don't do anything. We will destroy your Christmas."
"What if he's innocent?" You manage to sneer through clenched teeth.
"Well, that is something we doubt."
"We're on the same side! How can you do this?!" You screech loudly, Thorn gives you a glare to tell you to keep it down.
"We are working together; we just believe you need motivation."
"Fuck you." You finally break, flipping the man off. You didn't feel like crumbling any more. You felt like you needed to beat the shit out of these people. Ripping off your coat, you ball it up and throw it at him. It doesn't go far but it helps your mood. Only a tiny bit though.
Turning, you stalk away. A dark shadow looming over you representing your mood, you jam the elevator button for the lobby.
It opens and you move in, the people already in there making a large circle of empty space around you. With a ding, you walk out on the first floor. Your scowl and anger evaporating as Ludwig runs up to you. You check the large clock hanging above the elevator behind you. You had been gone for more than just a few minutes.
"Y/N, I thought I told you to stay here?"
"Yeah, you did. I just didn't listen." You mutter quietly, pushing away his reaching arms.
You see Gilbert in front of you trying to hold back his tears; you smile at him and wrap him into a hug as the elevator door opens again.
Gilbert collapses into your arms and sinks to the floor, you watch as Iris and Thorn walk out of the hospital wearing a cap and shades.
You feel Ludwig's hand land lightly on your shoulder.
"Did something happen that I should know about?"
"Yeah," you mutter. "It looks like we'll have to wait a while to set up the Christmas tree. But look what I got from one of the doctors." You lie holding up the red wax candle Iris and Thorn had handed you.
Ludwig relaxes slightly at the stupid smile on your face.
"I'm going to bring our car around. I doubt I'm ever going to take a taxi again."
"Have the police come back to ask us questions yet?"
"No, they're considering it is an accident. I pulled a few strings to get us here as quickly as possible after, so as far as they're concerned only one person was in the taxi."
"But what about what people saw?"
"Rumors are just rumors; I will deal with it more thoroughly later."
"Okay." You whisper after him as he walks away.
The albino crying in your arms.
The blonde walking away in confidence.
You cannot imagine a world where they wouldn't always be there.
It was going to hurt like hell when this was finally over.
Maybe worse than hell.