Association Socialistic
Another fic set in the college AU-that-I'm not sure-if-it's-really-AUverse. :D My second favorite pairing after SuFin, Germany/Italy(Veneziano). Not Italy(Romano), because that is for the lulz only.
Disclaimed.
Ludwig was almost painfully aware of the fact that he wasn't the easiest person to get along with (unless you were his brother, his brother's friend, his brother's friend's girlfriend, and so on and so forth), and that a lot of the people around him found his personality stifling. He talked down on people, was kind of bossy, and had a height advantage over everyone except that Russian psycho, Ivan. But Ivan didn't go to their university anymore.
So, it wasn't hard to see why he only had two friends.
"—so, for my project, I'm going to design a safer car," Kiku said idly, chewing at his salad. "I'd rather die than drive in an Italian car again—it was the worst experience of my life, frankly." A kitten purred on his lap, and Ludwig sneered at it. Dogs were so much better, and he had three, so he knew what he was talking about.
"Italian cars are great!" Feliciano insisted, pointing his fork at Kiku. A few loose noodles of spaghetti slid between the teeth onto the table, and Ludwig wiped it up with his napkin, sighing. "Everything from Italy is fantastic! Like, pasta and art and pasta and pizza and pasta and fashion and—"
"If you say 'pasta' one more time," Ludwig started in a growling undertone, glaring. "I'll let Francis Bonnefoy get you—meaning I won't stand in front of you next time."
"Eww!" Feliciano gagged, waving his hands in distress. "But, Ludwig, he touches me in bad places."
"At least it's not your vital regions," the German replied blandly, trying to push the thought of his disturbing older brother out of his mind.
The Italian snickered, poking Ludwig's nose with his fork. "Of course not there," he said, grinning. "I was saving that for you!"
Ludwig choked on the air—he never realized how lethal it was until then—and smacked Feliciano's hand away from his face, trying to resist the blush that always managed to show up whenever the Italian said silly things like that.
Kiku placed his fork on the table, looking at his two other friends. "I don't understand your relationship," he said, and this was not the first time they had this conversation. Ludwig looked at the Japanese man calmly, even though Feliciano kept rubbing his cheek against his arm (and he ignored the weird guy like a professional—he was well used to it). "You claim to not be homosexuals, yet Bonnefoy exhibits less public displays of affection."
"We aren't gay," Ludwig replied with ease. Now, he just needed the Italian to help him out by not saying something stupid.
Feliciano nodded. "We just love each other—right? Right?"
He failed. "Shut up, Feliciano." The German poked at the redhead's forehead, rolling his eyes. "Don't you have football practice or something?"
"What?" Feliciano replied, raising his eyebrows. "Oh, right, I do have practice! You do too, right Ludwig? But, then again…" he looked down at the table, obviously sad. "…you probably don't want to go, because your team will only lose against Italy. Again." He sniffled, twirling his finger in an unnecessarily long strand of curly hair. Was he seriously about to cry?
Okay. Ludwig scowled. That was unnecessary. They won some games, like, three or four out of the thousand and one they've probably played against each other. "You can't even cross the street without my help," he retorted. "What makes you think you'll win tomorrow's football game against me?"
"Because it's the championship," Feliciano answered easily, a smile lighting up his face. "And you always lose. But I still love you!"
"Shut up," Ludwig knocked his friend on the head, smirking. "You'll see, we'll be winning this time. Don't you think we can do it, Kiku?"
Kiku had to cough underneath his breath at that, looking away from the German and petting his kitten slowly. "…right…"
His faith was suffocating, and Ludwig meant that with as much sarcasm as he was allowed. "I hope your car design is called a Toyota and breaks down at every possible moment," he said, sniffing in offense.
"Well, in that case, I can assure you that the Germany team will lose against the Italy team tomorrow. Six to zero." Kiku was great at occult predictions—he must've got it from his overexposure to Alfred and Arthur.
It was official, Ludwig thought somewhat spitefully as Feliciano chattered on about something completely non-sequential and Kiku replied with cryptic statements about art and ghosts.
He needed better friends.
According to this manual, Association Football for the Mentally Slow (or American), it was mandatory that they stay in perfect physical shape in order to be better prepared for kicking Italy's useless ass.
"They aren't that useless," Roderich commented as Ludwig pressed weights twice his size. He rolled his eyes, fixing his glasses with a single finger. "I mean, sure, I used to go to middle school with Vargas, and I tutored him—I honestly to God believe the only reason he didn't fail was because of my existence—and maybe he's a little off. But, not necessarily useless."
"He wrote me a song a few days ago," Ludwig replied, not short of breath in the least. "And, it was dedicated completely to my cooking and alcoholism. Apparently I love sausages and beer, just because I'm German." The bell was heaved up once more, and his muscles strained with the movement. "I'm not writing him poetry about how he eats pasta and does nothing but flirt and paint and whatever else Italians do."
"And?" the Austrian replied, cocking an eyebrow. "It's okay, Ludwig. You are an alcoholic, you do eat nothing but Wurst, and Italians are all the same." His voice was condescending, but Ludwig couldn't understand why.
"Ugh," Ludwig huffed, lifting up the weight one last time. He placed it on the hold, and stretched his arms. "You don't understand." And, he was not an alcoholic. He had a little more class than a drunkard (Arthur), please and thank you.
"You're right," Roderich agreed, sniffing in disdain. He took a step back, scrunching up his nose in disgust. "I can't imagine why muscle-heads—like yourself, of course—insist on exercising until your body odor is offensive. Really, I'm moments away from filing a complaint."
Ludwig didn't know whether to feel bad or to not care, because the entire time the pianist was speaking about how his smell was offensive, the German couldn't take his blue eyes off of that mole on his chin. It was so obvious and there. It couldn't have been rude to stare, because the mole on the Austrian's pale face just called for it.
("It's a beauty spot," Roderich had corrected the first time Ludwig stared at it, clicking his tongue in disdain. "But, you wouldn't know about one anyway.")
Well, there was nothing beautiful about it, and that was for sure.
"Are you done staring at my face?" Roderich asked, cocking an eyebrow. "I can completely understand why, but that doesn't mean that it disturbs me any less."
"I'm going to take a shower," Ludwig said, ignoring his brother's friend. He stood up; lifting up his arms in the motions of stretching again, and Roderich took an immediate step back.
"Disgusting," he commented, pinching his nose in an uppity manner. Ludwig didn't mind, since annoying Roderich had to be to best part of his day. (He never forgot the time where they went on that spring break cruise to Cancun and the jerk had taken the last pair of headphones and played his classical music as loudly as possible—or so he called it 'classical'. It sounded like Falco to him.)
Ludwig made a small wave as the Austrian walked off, nose pointedly up and hands behind his back.
"Oh," Roderich started, looking back. "Gilbert says that he's skipping practice—there's juicy gossip on campus. He's reserved a spot in the bushes in front of Heracles' flat—apparently he's having some sort of affair."
What? Ludwig looked at him, annoyed. "Tell him that I'll kick his ass," he replied, huffing. "He's not a nosy old lady—he's a nosy college student who desperately needs a life." His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Besides, it's mandatory that he come to practice. We need to beat Italy!"
"Right." Roderich had already pulled out his phone, and apparently Gilbert was on speed dial or something equally stupid. He already knew the man had his Hungarian girlfriend on speed dial as well, and Ludwig himself, and probably some other rich guys that shared musical interests with him, and so on so forth.
As he touched his own cellular phone that outlined in his pocket, Ludwig was definitely not jealous just because he didn't have enough people to fit on all the buttons of speed dial. Well, Voicemail counted too, right?
"…well, he's saying it's mandatory," the brunet was speaking onto the phone, checking his watch as though time was not even good enough for his presence. "I don't know, Gilbert. Why don't you ask him yourself? …He's your brother—no we are not homosexual lovers!"
Ludwig looked mortified, and Roderich mirrored his expression rather accurately. "I have a girlfriend—oh, now, you already know that Ludwig is in love with Vargas. The younger Vargas, Gilbert."
"I am not," Ludwig retorted, crossing his arms. "He's just my…my friend." Was it natural for him to feel a little giddy inside whenever he said that? Because, otherwise, he completely blamed his childhood if it wasn't.
"Of course," Roderich agreed sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Hmm?" He returned his attention to the conversation on his phone. "Oh, Ludwig's just saying he's not a homosexual. …Agreeable." He held out the phone towards Ludwig, sneering. "He wants to speak to you."
"Why the ugly face?" the German muttered as he took the phone from the bespectacled man's hand. "What, Gilbert?"
"Feels like you're in de-ni-al, West," Gilbert said, his voice as evil sounding as usual. Then again, when Ludwig really thought about it, his voice actually wasn't as evil as it was really annoying.
"Why aren't you coming to practice?" he replied, not giving his brother the satisfaction of a retort to his statement. "I thought I told you that the game is tomorrow."
Gilbert snorted over the line. "And I thought that I told you that the Turkish teach' and Greek freak are totally getting it on between the sheets." He sounded overly gleeful about this information. "I've cleaned out my camera just for this chance, and you are not gonna ruin it for me, West."
"Gilbert—"
"Besides," the Prussian continued, snickering. "Why should I come to practice when we're only going to lose? We always lose, West."
"…" The phone was beginning to crack within his tight grip. "We aren't going to lose."
"We so are." Gilbert whistled, and there was the sound of leaves rustling in the background. "Oh, yes, sorry West, but I've got to go. I've got a date with the shrubbery in front of the Homer building." He cackled, and the line went dead.
Ludwig stared at the screen of the phone. "…he hung up," he offered weakly, holding the admittedly nice phone out to Roderich. It had a QWERTY keyboard and everything—the cell phone must've cost a good amount of money, especially for a college student.
Roderich took the phone back with a grimace, pinching the edge between his index finger and thumb. "I could tell," he replied in disdain, and Ludwig had to wonder if he could express any other variation of emotion that wasn't disgusted. Besides, he was the only person in this entire university who knew how the Austrian looked in the mornings (as they shared a flat). Now that was something to be disgusted over.
The Austrian man threw the phone into the rubbish bin, wiping his hand on his pristine jacket sleeve as though he touched nuclear waste. "No offense," he said, shrugging. Ludwig cocked an eyebrow. "It was simply dripping with excess liquid from your sweaty hands." He walked out the door, at least gracing the German with a wave at his exit. "Have fun at your game, Ludwig."
Ludwig rolled his eyes, waving a hand in dismissal.
This really sucked, he mused while picking up his bottle of water from the ground. The game was only a dusk and a dawn away, none of the other players wanted to practice—they, the other players of the Germany team, called him, the captain, a 'Sports Nazi,' and they really needed to realize that a joke like that was really not cool—and his brother was embarrassing him again with his voyeuristic ways (although he called it 'gossiping,' the loser).
"I bet Feliciano's team has some sort of secret exercise," he muttered to himself, perking up. His manual didn't say anything about Italian methods (because, face it, the entire country was a mystery), and Feliciano must've had some sort of procedure to get his team to win most of the games they played.
Then, he almost crushed his bottle in his hand, because his genius was just so brilliant! They were playing right now—well, practicing, but it's the thought that counts. He should be able to catch a glimpse of them before they head back for some rest.
Then, it was official.
Ludwig was going to spy on the Italian football team!
Ludwig had an okay disguise, although his glasses were faker than hell and he was pretty sure that there weren't many muscular, 180 centimeter-tall journalists on campus, especially with blond hair so fastidiously slicked and combed back.
He sighed, walking quietly towards the gate encompassing the association football field. It was late in the afternoon, with the sun beginning its methodical setting slowly.
He spotted some bushes in front of the chain-linked fence, which, according to Gilbert, would be the perfect spot for spying.
(But, it was already kind of weird how his brother's voice echoed annoyingly in his mind like that, especially as he stepped into the leaves and squatted down for espionage.)
"Now," he whispered, pulling out a pair of binoculars. He held them to his falsely bespectacled eyes, smirking. "I've got you this time, Feliciano."
Although, when he got an actual look at the practice, the plastic shell of the binoculars just about cracked in his palms.
"This…!" His eyes widened at the sight before him.
They weren't even practicing! The players of his self-proclaimed rival team generally loitered on the field, chattering in assumed Italian and bouncing the football among each other for pure fun. He spotted a head of red hair on the field—although the curl looked a little misplaced from his angle—and he gritted his teeth. Feliciano was flirting with the cheerleaders—that idiot!
"Hmph!" Ludwig lowered the binoculars, noting how his hands slightly bled due to the plastic lodged in his palms. He was definitely going to win the game tomorrow—he'd teach Feliciano to underestimate Germany like that!
"If you were that desperate," and heated breath brushed against the back of his neck. "You could've called me instead of spying on your boyfriend."
Ludwig rolled his eyes. "Bonnefoy," he greeted blandly, not even looking at the Frenchman.
"Hitler," Francis greeted as well, grinning slyly. "That disguise would be so much more effective if you ditched the glasses, dyed your hair brown, and invested in a toothbrush moustache. Then, nobody would recognize you—well, never mind, you'd be exactly the same."
The German brought the binoculars back to his eyes. "My last name is not Hitler, Bonaparte," he replied, even though he should've just ignored the guy. But, he learned a long time ago, in the beginning of his tentative friendship with Feliciano, if you ignore someone annoying—they only get more annoying.
"Well then, what's your last name?" Francis asked, raising an eyebrow. "Because you and your psychotic brother both state that you have different last names."
"It's not Hitler, and that's all you need to know." Were they painting on the field? This was ridiculous. There should be rules against this kind of stuff.
Francis made himself more comfortable in the bushes. "You see," he started jauntily, giving Ludwig a look that supposed to be all-knowing, but came across as drugged. "This is the reason why the Espionage and Sedition Acts were passed in America. Because Nazis like you can't keep your nose out of everyone else's business."
"While I am pretty sure that you can't be talking about me being nosy when you exist," Ludwig replied in a deadpan. "I am even more curious on why are you bothering me? Shouldn't you be molesting Kirkland or fighting Jones?"
"Actually, you have them confused, as I'd never touch Arthur inappropriately in fear of catching his psycho," Francis replied. "And it's mandatory that I molest Alfred once a day, because he owes me this much."
"Here's an even better question: Didn't you graduate?"
"You don't graduate from university, Adolf," Francis said, standing up and brushing the leaves from his pants. Why would anybody wear leather at this time of day, Ludwig thought idly as he glanced at the Frenchman. "That's such an American way of putting it. Besides, I'm here for my Masters."
Ludwig sighed. "I really didn't ask for your biography," he said. "So, yeah. Go away." He looked through the binoculars again.
"Ugh, you're so boring." The older man sniffed, running his fingers through his medium-length hair. "Besides, I don't even know why you're spying so hard—it's not like you're gonna win."
"I could beat you up right now," Ludwig said, frowning. "And nobody would care—except for that Canadian boy. He's the only one who might like you."
"Okay?" Francis laughed haughtily, closing his blue eyes. "Despite popular opinion, at least I have friends—unlike you, Fuhrer."
"I have friends," Ludwig retorted, standing up at that. Was he really so disliked that even Francis could mock him for his lack of interpersonal relationships? "I have, well, I have three friends." Roderich should be honored that he's being included.
The Frenchman clicked his tongue. "Oh, right," he said, waving a hand as though Ludwig were but a bug. "I forgot all about Fellatio and Coco, sorry."
"Feliciano," Ludwig corrected in annoyance. "And Kiku."
"But, who is this third?" Francis mused aloud, rubbing the light stubble on his chin. He shrugged, grinning. "Never mind, I don't feel like looking for imaginary friends. Have fun losing," with that, the older man shot his hand in the air. "Seig heil!"
"I hope you get shot," Ludwig replied honestly, his eyebrow forming a bit of a tick.
"Oui, oui," Francis said mockingly, and he walked away from the bushes with a bounce in his step. Then, he stopped, a smile of glee on his face. "Vash! Zwingli baby!" The man skipped to the resident Swiss, arms wide open.
Ludwig had to smile. Vash Zwingli was well-known for being the only person on campus to keep a gun on hand, all the time. The man was lethal—and very short-tempered.
"Eh," he sighed, looking at his binoculars and ignoring the reverberating sounds of gunshots and Swiss curses. He was still ticked off that the Italian team was, well, anti-practicing. Like, practicing without the actual practice part. While him and his team were somewhat constantly in practice, preparing for the big game like this.
They were going to win, Ludwig decided sternly, fixing his fake glasses. He couldn't let Feliciano insult him by winning in this situation!
There was something about that big screen television in the football stadium. Something ominous, like nothing could escape it's all showing view—not to mention that it was very nice and was extremely useful when the cameraman wanted to do something ridiculous like a close-up.
"Ludwig!" Feliciano cried, latching to the larger man and snapping him out of his television trance. He grinned, rubbing his cheek against the man's right arm. "I called you last night, but you never answered! Why not?"
"I was practicing," Ludwig replied, placing a hand atop his friend's red hair. He ruffled the top playfully, smirking. "You ready to lose, Vargas?"
"What?" the Italian looked at him in confusion, and Ludwig really wished that he would just open his eyes sometimes, because it would probably be a big help. "Oh, no, we're not gonna lose. Sorry." He returned to nuzzling Ludwig's bicep, humming some inane song underneath his breath.
"Veneziano!" another player from the Italian team called, and the two friends looked to the side. Another redhead—one almost identical to Feliciano himself—trotted up, a football tucked underneath an arm. "What're you doing?" he demanded, cocking an eyebrow in disdain at Ludwig. "You're associating with the enemy!"
"No," Feliciano replied happily. "Ludwig's not the enemy—he's really nice and super awesome! He's the one that built me a doghouse, Romano!" The Italian tugged at Ludwig's football uniform shirt, grinning. "Ludwig, Ludwig, this is my older brother, Lovino. I think you guys might've met, though." His eyebrows furrowed in thought.
"I've seen him in the games," the blond admitted with a shrug. He held his free hand out to Lovino, trying to offer a smile. "I'm Ludwig, captian of the Germany team."
Lovino gave him and his hand a look. "Eat footballs, Mr. Potato Head," he snapped, waving him off like something unworthy.
(People were doing that to him a lot lately, Ludwig noted.)
"Romano!" Feliciano gasped, frowning. "Ludwig never did anything to you!"
"Uh, yeah," Lovino retorted, tossing the black and white ball in the air. He kneed it in its descent, and bounced it between his two feet with very little difficulty. "He exists, he's super muscular, and that's enough for me to hate him, the loser." He kicked the ball in the air one more time and caught it in his hand, smirking at the German as though he cared. "C'mon Veneziano—we've got a game to win." He grabbed his younger brother by the arm and dragged him away from Ludwig, with Feliciano whining and crying all the while.
"He's totally got a point," a familiar, annoying voice spoke from behind Ludwig, and the tall man turned around. "We're going to get our asses kicked, West."
"Shut up, Gilbert," Ludwig replied, knocking his brother on the shoulder. "We are going to win."
"Except for the part where we totally aren't," Gilbert retorted, scrunching his nose in disdain at the uniform he donned for the football game. "Why do I have to wear this uniform? I don't want to be associated with the suck that is Germany!"
"I forgot that you'd rather be associated with the failures that were the Teutonic Knights," Ludwig said, rolling his eyes. "Give it up, Gilbert. You're German, just like me."
"I'll never be like you!" Gilbert proclaimed, pointing a finger at his brother in accusation. "Just you wait—Prussia will return, and you will rue the day you made me play football in a tacky uniform like this!"
Ludwig knocked him on the shoulder again. "I'm still ruing the day you were born, and I'm younger," he replied. "Now, come on, let's go win a football game."
"—wow, you guys really suck!" the American announcer, Alfred, exclaimed. "And, by 'you guys' I mean 'Germany'. Holy—you guys blow more than your country did in both World Wars!"
"I'm going to kill that guy," Gilbert said cheerfully, wiping his sweat off of his brow with the back of his hand. "Join me, West."
"I'm going to push you into traffic at some point," Ludwig replied, gulping down a bottle of water with gusto.
It was probably obvious at this point, but whatever. The Italy team was destroying them, to be frank. Maybe yesterday was an off-day or something, because the entire team handled the ball as though it was born with them, kicked out of their mother's wombs or something disgusting like that.
Better yet: Every time Ludwig got the ball? Either Lovino or Feliciano stole it from him—and it always got him how Feliciano played football like a professional, instead of an actual college student. (If only he'd put that effort into his actual life, then the German wouldn't have to spend all of his free time tutoring the guy—not that he minded of course.)
And, now, it was half-time, and all of the players that were getting their asses kicked had very little morale at this point.
"We can't beat them," a dark-haired player insisted, stretching his aching legs. "They're, well, they're better than we are at football—you've got to admit it captain!"
He refused to admit it, instead drinking more water and throwing dirty looks at Feliciano, who trotted towards him with what looked like a bottle of wine.
Was this guy crazy?
"I thought you might want some," the Italian said cheerfully, holding it out to his friend. "I mean, we are kind of stomping on you guys like bugs, and I feel really bad about it because I really love you, Ludwig."
Why must he throw that word around…? Ludwig wondered idly as he frowned at Feliciano. "We're going to win," he replied, waving the redhead away. "I don't need your alcohol for that." He had his own beer in the cooler—and it was delicious too.
(He is not an alcoholic, and this is final.)
"Oh." Feliciano looked down, very disappointed. "Are you angry because we're killing you like your country did to Anne Frank's family? Because I—"
Seriously, if he didn't think the Nazi jokes were funny, then why did everyone else think they were? "I'm not angry!" Ludwig snapped, but then he covered his mouth as his first friend winced, sniffling. "I-I'm s-s—" You can get it out any day now, he thought spitefully. "—apologetic. I didn't mean for it to come out like that—"
"It's okay, it's okay," Feliciano assured, wiping at his eyes. He looked up at Ludwig with determined closed eyes, somehow. "I hate to see you sad—so I'm going to make it up to you!"
"What?"
"Really!" Feliciano poked his nose, smiling. "I'll make you feel tons better about losing!" He trotted away, cheering happily.
"Hey, West," Gilbert said, popping up in front of him with an evil smile. "I've got a super master awesome plan!"
"You always have a super master awesome plan," Ludwig retorted, craning his neck to see what the hell Feliciano was going to do. "And they always fail."
"I'm not talking about this football team, dummkopf," Gilbert replied with a scoff, rolling his eyes. "It's genius, I swear! Okay, so I got this nail—" He pulled out a point screw from his shorts pocket. "—and, this is the awesome part, we slam it into their football!"
The platinum-haired man beamed (evilly) at him, as though the blond were supposed to fall on his knees and sing his praises from a hymnal, his deep voice reverberating the heavens.
"…" Ludwig brought a hand to his forehead, and he rubbed at his temples to ward off a headache. "No."
"But—"
"No." The German held back an annoyed sigh. "Where the hell did you even find a screw like that?"
Gilbert's red eyes looked around in a really suspicious kind of way. "It's not from your car, so don't worry about it." He dashed away, trying to escape his younger brother's nonexistent wrath.
Well, it was very existent, but Ludwig couldn't afford to waste energy on anything that wasn't football or keeping up with Feliciano's endless supply of energy.
"Okay everybody, we've only got six minutes left in the half-time," Alfred said jovially, unwrapping what seemed to be an especially cheesy hamburger with a grin. "What does that mean? The hell if I know—this isn't even real football!"
"It is real football, twit!" a thick British accent shouted from somewhere in the arena.
"Ha ha," the American announcer chuckled, waving a hand in dismissal. "Nobody cares, Arthur." On the large television screen over the stands, Alfred's admittedly handsome face was honored with a close-up from the camera-man (although the image was slightly ruined by the way the man chewed and talked at the same time).
Then, Alfred was suddenly accosted by Feliciano tackling him over the table.
"I really need your microphone," Feliciano insisted in a whine, his voice resounding in the microphone near the American's mouth. "Pleease—!"
"Um, dude, back off!" Alfred shoved him, and Ludwig had to hold himself back from beating the living existence out of the announcer—he thought he made it clear in high school that nobody was to even think about bullying his friends.
Feliciano was stubborn. "Pleeease?" he asked again, stretching the syllable to almost irritating lengths. "I can, I can cook you pasta!"
"Pasta?" the bespectacled man repeated, eyebrows raised. "Like spaghetti and Chef Boyardee and stuff? No way!" He shook his head. "What about hotdogs?"
"Hotdogs?" The Italian snuck a look at Ludwig, and he smiled brightly. "Ludwig is great at those!"
"I'd hope your Kaiser boyfriend is better at cooking than he is at soccer," Alfred replied with a nod.
Instead of deflating the football with that mysteriously obtained nail, Ludwig totally decided that him and his psycho brother should deflate the American's Ford tires.
"Microphone?" Feliciano tried again, grinning amiably.
"Hotdog!" Alfred held out the microphone to the redhead, and the Italian just about snatched it with a expression of suppressed glee. He scrambled up, stepping on top of the announcer's table.
"Everyone," he started, waving a hand in the air as though he hadn't caught the attention of the two thousand-odd people in attendance, plus the other viewers who were instead watching the game on television in their flats. "I've got something that I really need to say, or my best friend will probably hate me forever."
Ludwig felt a cold sweat begin. The Italian was about to do something ridiculous that would more than likely ruin his life, and all he could do was stare in absolute mortification.
Lovino got farther in life than he did. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded loudly, gesticulating in that wild way that Italians do and running all the way down the field from the cheerleaders.
(So he was the flirt, Ludwig mused. And, not that it couldn't have been Feliciano, but the German refused to think on that note for specific reasons.)
"I just want the world to know," Feliciano continued, making a sweeping generalization by assuming the university and all of its inhabitants to be 'The World,' but he was pretty close. "That I really, truly, completely love my best friend. He's really cool, and nice, and he beat up Francis in high school because of molestation or something, I can't really remember." Oh my God, Ludwig gaped, blue eyes wide. He was starting to ramble, and when Feliciano rambled, things happened. And they were rarely good. "He's always working out—you've might've seen him in the fitness building. And, I've seen him naked like a thousand billion times, so I know he's really muscular…"
Lovino was apparently trying to make Ludwig explode with the heat in his glare. "Why is he seeing you naked?" the older Vargas hissed, crossing his arms in an 'Oh, I want to hear this excuse' kind of way.
"I don't know—he just runs into the shower whenever I'm in there!" Ludwig defended himself weakly.
"Huh!" the Italian snorted, tossing his hair to the side in a way that made his long curl of hair bob. "Sounds more like you thinking with your head instead of your head, Potato Face."
"He's my friend, kid—"
"I'm twenty-two!"
Wow, he was older than Ludwig (whom of which was a mere twenty, barely into adulthood, and yet he looked thirty-five).
Don't these people graduate anymore?
"—and there was this one time where we went on Winter Break in the Sahara," Feliciano was still talking. Shit. "And I tried to make dinner, but we only had one canteen of water, so he had to carry me out of the desert—but then we were chased out because of homosexual policies in Egypt. Sorry, Gupta!"
"Can someone make him stop?" Gilbert asked loudly, sighing in his overdramatic way.
Ludwig was very sad to find out that his hard-earned muscles weren't doing a damn thing for him right now, with his entire body being frozen in shock and so on.
"There is only one minute left in the half-time!" Alfred shouted, making the Italian that stood atop his table pause.
"Oh, right!" Feliciano snapped his fingers in remembrance. "Now I remember what I was trying to say!" He coughed into a fist, grinning. "Ludwig, my best friend whose last name I don't know," he proclaimed into the microphone, and the cameraman zoomed in on his face. "I don't think I could've ever survived without you, since you're the best friend anybody could ever ask for, and I really, really love you. Like, love love. Ti amo, Ludwig!" His voice boomed in the stadium, and it felt kind of ominous.
Ludwig wasn't breathing. He honestly to, well, God could not live with the embarrassment that was just placed on his shoulders.
"West? West?" His brother's annoying—that cannot possibly be stressed enough, in Ludwig's opinion—voice broke through his internal mantra of German curses that were banned years ago. "You suffering heat stroke, West? Or…are you in love?" He grinned, poking at the taller man's forehead.
"Eurgh," Ludwig replied, as he vocal chords were twisted and he couldn't move.
(But, if he could move, be aware that he would've most likely wrapped his hands around his brother's neck and choked him.)
"Thank you, Italian Guy," Alfred said, taking his microphone back with a slightly disturbed expression. "Um. Wow. I hope all of you had TiVo!"
"What's a TiVo?" Lovino demanded.
Gilbert shrugged. "Some American kind of thing," he replied, waving a hand in dismissal.
"—and, since half-time is over, now we can get back to this game of soccer!" the American exclaimed happily, flashing a thumb up at the camera.
"It's not called soccer, nitwit!"
"It's funny because nobody cares yet, Arthur!"
Ludwig forced himself to twitch a leg. And, there it was, he could move again!
Now, it was absolutely mandatory that they win this game, if only so he could have another thing to scold Feliciano for.
They were destroyed.
"Don't cry, Ludwig," Feliciano said, embracing his arm with a frown. "We didn't mean to completely kill your team six to zero."
"Shut up, Feliciano." Ludwig replied, sighing. They sat on a bench on the walk in the campus, and it was no small matter of Feliciano's impromptu speech.
"I really admire your bravado," Antonio, the Spanish journalist, said with a wistful tone. He smiled softly. "I've been wanting to tell your brother the same thing—but, you know, he'll—"
"Kill you?" Ludwig offered, ignoring the swat that Feliciano gave his bicep. "Disembowel you? No, even better, he'll actually give you a chance."
"Yeah, that's actually the basic problem," Antonio sighed, shrugging. "But, life goes on. Oh!" He beamed, waving an arm. "Lovino! Lovino! I came to see your game!" He walked off with a skip in his step, chattering in Spanish, which Lovino could apparently understand, because he snapped something in Italian back.
Ludwig sighed himself, smacking his forehead and dragging the hand down in a show of exasperation. Even if he thought of himself as not well-liked, there were a lot of people that knew his name for some inconceivable reason. Elizaveta had already cornered him in the locker room (how did she even get in there?) and proceeding to coo and pinch his cheeks as though he wasn't a good foot or two taller than her, without mentioning the muscles.
Kiku just nodded at them with that crazy mysterious smile of his.
And, for the record of really bad days: Ludwig's car frame broke down, as well. Apparently, it was missing a vital screw.
"I'm sorry," Feliciano said, pressing his cheek to his best friend's shoulder. "I didn't want to embarrass you—"
A large hand was placed atop his thick red hair, and Ludwig ruffled the locks.
"It's okay," he replied, attempting a small smile. "I, uh, I like you too."
"Like, love like?"
"Sure, why not?"
Feliciano laughed, poking his rock hard stomach. "Come on, say it!"
"I already said it, though!"
"Nooo, you agreed with me—" When did he learn how to use valid arguments like that? "—but, I get really insecure sometimes! You know this!"
"But—"
"Come on, Ludwig," the Italian huffed, pouting. "Say it, please?"
"Okay!" Ludwig covered his face with his free hand, finding his rapidly spreading blush to be ridiculous. "I, I, Iloveyoutoo."
"Louder!"
"I love you too!"
A couple giggled as they passed by the two, and Ludwig blushed even harder. Why was this happening to him?
"Thanks!" Feliciano smiled against his skin. "You're the best."
Ludwig snorted, but he was unable to resist his smile. "Yeah," he replied, leaning back in his seat. "So are you."
END
And this was so much fun that I might do it even more.
History! A lot of the allusions were extra obvious, but anyway. Adolf Hitler was the leader of the Nazi party of Germany, and he did a lot of messed up stuff. Anne Frank was related to the race of which he messed up. Napolean Bonaparte was the MOST AWESOME French general that conquered the hell out of shit. But, then he was owned by the British and a trap hole, apparently, but he's still awesome. The German association football team has a track record of losing against the Italian team, but they have won several times over the years. Falco is an Austrian pop/rock/rap artist from the 1980s, famous for his hit "Rock Me Amadeus" which is not classical, no matter how hard I try to listen to it differently.
And, I've decided that I'm going to call this college AU(?) series something really gay, like "Univeritalia" or something. :D
(oh, Ludwig, I would totally be your friend—my love for Germans knows no bounds)