this is in the same 'verse as "Relationship Status: It's Complicated" but you don't need to read that story to understand this one. Just know that Matthew and Alfred are around 17 in this one, and Gilbert's a year older but in the same grade. Mattbert already have a pre-established relationship in here. I wanted to really write something in this 'verse again even if it was just this.

I think conventionally climbing through windows is something Prussia would do so I thought to change it up and...

Matthew Williams does not like Alfred F. Jones at all. Matthew dislikes Alfred because Alfred is the embodiment of everything a friend shouldn't be, therefore elevating him to the status of being Matthew's best friend. Matthew actually hates Alfred, to be honest.

But he likes Gilbert Beilschmidt. A lot. So much that he pined after him for almost a year before getting together with him. Something that Alfred had "helped" out with too.

Alfred should be happy that Matthew likes Gilbert a lot, because Matthew has mercifully postponed revenge to tomorrow instead of immediately.

"Do it again!" Alfred calls out from the bush where he's hiding. Matthew sighs, and lobs another eraser at the window. Originally he was going to bring rocks, but rocks break things and Matthew's sure that a broken window is not romantic.

Matthew and Alfred had a bet last week regarding Rupert, Matthew's mom's boyfriend. Given the fact that the man is practically living at his house nowadays, Matthew had expected to win the bet. He lost. Spectacularly. That's why the two are currently in the front yard of the Beilschmidt household, Matthew standing on the manicured lawn while Alfred hides in the small garden. It's like a scene out of a chick flick, minus the cheesy music and flattering lighting.

Why Alfred has tagged along, Matthew has no idea. Probably to torment him.

(And to make sure that Matthew holds up his end of the deal, but that's a rational reason for Alfred to be there and Matthew doesn't want any of those.)

"Can't I call him?" Matthew asks, and Alfred laughs.

"Hell no, dude! You gotta do this the old school way!" Alfred states. "And remember, roof! Bedroom window!"

Matthew curses under his breath and gives Alfred a sour look, even if it is one o'clock in the morning and too dark for Alfred to see.

Having run out of erasers, Matthew digs around in the pockets of his fall jacket. He pulls out a pack of gum, a bus ticket, some pennies, and his wallet. Matthew sighs. The bus ticket and pennies won't make enough of an impact, and he's not going to sacrifice a pack of perfectly nice and expensive gum. That leaves the wallet, but wallets are important and—

Oh.

Oh.

Matthew's wallet is a cheap pleather black thing he picked up at Wal-Mart eight years ago. This is a brown, worn down wallet made out of genuine leather. It's Alfred's.

Matthew grins to himself, and with all his might, throws it at the second-floor window. It makes a nice thunk against the window, and even if Gilbert doesn't come to the window, Matthew's gained some amount of satisfaction out of the night.

He sees the thick curtains behind the window shift a little, enough for someone to look through. Matthew gulps, and suddenly he's nervous about this whole thing. He's not sure why he wasn't before; maybe it was because he was busy being irritated at Alfred for making him do such a stupid thing.

The curtains are left open a sliver, and Matthew sees lights flood in the room behind them. They're then yanked open, and Gilbert is peering through the window. Matthew raises his hand in a meek wave, and can't make out the expression on his boyfriend's face from the ground. Gilbert fiddles around the window pane, then the window swings open and the teen leans out.

"Matt?" He calls out, and Matthew gives a nervous chuckle. "One and only."

"What are you doing here?" Gilbert asks. "It's kinda late."

"Yeah...I, um..." Matthew trails off, and hears Alfred hiss a "Tell him you want to come up!"

"Hey Gilbert, can I... um, come in?"

Matthew can literally hear the frown on Gilbert's face. "You alright, Matt?"

"Yeah, fine!" Matthew replies a little too steadily, and Alfred snorts from the bushes. "So...can I?"

"Sure, I guess. I'll come down and unlock the door." Gilbert makes to move, but suddenly Alfred shouts a loud "No!" and Matthew buries his face in his hands.

"...Matt? Is Alfred with you?"

"Yes- I mean, no. I mean, in spirit?" Matthew groans, Gilbert chuckles, Alfred snorts. "Gilbert, I'll get in myself."

"And how the hell do you plan to do that?" Gilbert's voice sounds a little too amused for Matthew's liking.

"Uhm, well..." Matthew scratches his head. "You ever watch Dawson's Creek?"

There is stone silence.

And then laughter. Muffled, yes, but it's there. Matthew turns pink as Gilbert laughs and thinks that sometimes Gilbert is just as bad as Alfred. It doesn't look like Gilbert's going to give up any time soon, so Matthew decides that the best course of action is to get into action.

He walks towards the front porch, which is conveniently located under Gilbert's room and has a quaint white fence around it. There's a pillar on the corner, and as soon as Matthew has perched himself upon the small fence, he starts to shimmy up it. Matthew's rather tall, so he doesn't have far to go until he has enough purchase on the roof to pull himself up onto it. He scrabbles a bit, Gilbert is still leaning out of the window with a smirk, and Matthew manages to steady himself.

Slowly, he shimmies across the roof, willing himself to not look down. It's not that it's a far drop down, but if he's startled enough, he'll fly and hit the ground and probably break something.

After what seems like an eternity, Matthew has crossed a few feet and made it to Gilbert's window. Gilbert's wedged it open wider, and when Matthew's close enough he grabs the blond by the forearm and hauls him into his room. They stumble back a bit but Gilbert manages to catch Matthew and prevents the two of them from crashing on to the floor and waking up everyone in the house.

"Woah there," Gilbert whispers as he steadies Matthew. "Don't want to wake the old man."

"Yeah, yeah sorry." Matthew manages to straighten himself up and wipes his hands on his jeans. He shrugs off his jacket and Gilbert takes it, tossing it on his bed. "Thanks for that."

"No problem," Gilbert replies, and they hear a loud rustling outside. Gilbert dashes to the window, and after giving a brief glance outside, wrenches it shut.

"To keep any unwanted people out," Gilbert explains after he draws the curtains and turns around. Matthew's ears turn pink.

"Sorry," He mumbles and Gilbert chuckles as he plops down on the wheelie chair by his desk. "No worries, kid. So to what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you?"

"Well," Matthew starts, and then stops. He's remembering all too late that Alfred's promised him not to reveal that this entire thing is a bet, under the threat of telling Matthew's mom the password to Matthew's locked porn folder on his laptop. Matthew's never had a porn folder, and when Matthew pointed that out, Alfred remedied the situation by planting one and not sharing the password.

Matthew hates Alfred.

"I, uh..." He starts again, and Gilbert starts to wheel himself over to where Matthew's standing. "Just... wanted to see you?"

"Couldn't stand to be away from my awesomeness for so long, huh?" Gilbert gives a rakish grin as he reclines in his chair and lightly kicks at Matthew's shins. Gilbert's wearing black boxers and a neon green shirt with plenty of skulls and bones and swords on it that Sadik had got him from a trip.

"Thought you'd come in through my bedroom in the middle of the night and ravish me, yeah?"

Matthew stares.

And stares.

Then it's his turn to laugh. Matthew stuffs his knuckles in his mouth to muffle himself, but his shoulders shake and his eyes crinkle and Gilbert looks pointedly unamused. He kicks Matthew a little harder, and the nervousness Matthew has dissipates. Matthew strides over to Gilbert's bed and flops down on it. He makes himself quite at home actually, swinging his legs over and stretching out over the sheets.

"Been helping Elizabeta with her creative writing assignments again, eh?" Matthew says as Gilbert wheels over to his bed. "Oof! Gilbert!"

Gilbert has lifted his feet up and has decided to plonk them down on Matthew's belly in favour of resting them. When Matthew protests, Gilbert digs his heel in a little bit, making the other boy stick his tongue out at him.

"Let me guess then," Gilbert says idly, edging his right foot up Matthew's torso. "Alfred put you up to this? I know I heard him outside."

"Can't say." Matthew replies helpfully, and Gilbert decides for some odd reason to stroke Matthew's face with his foot. "That's disgusting Gilbert."

"No it's not." Gilbert chirps. "I had a shower before I went to bed. Not that any part of my awesomeness is disgusting in the first place. So why did Alfred set you up to this?"

"Never said he did," Matthew tries to push Gilbert's foot away, and Gilbert decides to let his other foot join in on smooshing Matthew's face. "Gilbert, what the hell."

"That means he did." Gilbert struggles, because Matthew's caught both of his ankles in a strong grip. "And I am merely showing you affection, you ungrateful bastard. My face is too far away from yours, thus my feet will kiss you instead. Appreciate, Williams."

Matthew is a very reserved and polite boy, who barely talks out of turn and holds the door open for the guy who stole his lunch money in grade three. Therefore, the Matthew on Gilbert's bed must clearly be an impostor because he keeps Gilbert's feet captive and starts tickling them. Impostor-Matthew is taking too much glee out of seeing Gilbert suffer (not that Gilbert will admit to suffering at his hands) and squirm.

Eventually (by pure coincidence because Gilbert has not been flipped off his chair by Matthew) Gilbert ends up on the floor, having kicked Matthew's face by accident while squirming.

"Shit, Matt!" He hisses, scrambling to his knees. "Oh shit, hold on. I heard something"

The two are quiet, as they hear a door at the end of the hall creak open. Gilbert shoots to his bedroom light switch and flicks it off. Feet pad across the carpeted floor, and there's a knock on the door.

"Gilbert?" Gilbert's grandfather calls out in a faint and slightly irritated voice. "Are you okay there? Sounds like something heavy fell."

"I'm okay!" Gilbert replies with his best sleepy slur. "Jus' fell of the bed, that's all. Sleep walkin' habits showin' up again and stuff."

"...And stuff."

"Yeah, stuff."

There is an audible sigh from the other side of the door, and the feet pad away. The light is turned back on and Matthew waits till they hear the soft click of a bedroom door closing before starting to complain.

"I think y' broke me," Matthew moans as he cups his nose. "Don't worry 'bout it though."

"I didn't break you, you big baby." Gilbert huffs, trying to wrench Matthew's hands away from his fence. "Let me look."

Grudgingly, Matthew allows Gilbert to see his face. Gilbert pokes his nose, Matthew frowns, Gilbert laughs, Matthew frowns some more. Gilbert leans down and presses his lips to Matthew's, Matthew kisses him back, and Gilbert makes a comment on how Matthew smells faintly like feet.

"It's your fault, eh?" Matthew pouts and then they're kissing again.

Gilbert has clambered on top, and many stereotypes about teenagers and their hormones are held true as the two start to mack in earnest. They don't get a chance to do this at school or anywhere else outside without people antagonizing them for being too affectionate or too public or too gay (the last to which Gilbert had actually once decked the person who brought it up) and the two aren't much for public displays of affection anyways.

After all, the last time they tried to hold hands Gilbert had swung Matthew around recklessly just to get a good laugh out of it, and Matthew still swears he had dislocated his shoulder during that day.

"Hey, do you want to stay the night?" Gilbert murmurs against Matthew's neck and Matthew nods. "The old man has an early shift tomorrow and Ludwig's not important, so no one will notice us."

"Yeah, sure." Matthew grins at Gilbert. "Technically I'm sleeping over at Alfred's, but if I go back to his place I think he's going to make me do more stupid things. It's safe here."

"I'm not sure about safe," Gilbert manages in a low tone, and is about to nip at the skin of Matthew's neck until they hear a loud knocking.

It doesn't have the dull thud thud thud quality of a hand against wood. It actually sounds like someone's knocking against the...

Immediately, the two jump apart, Gilbert rolling off the bed as Matthew flails. Automatically, Gilbert grabs a baseball bat that's hidden under his bed and Matthew jumps to his feet. Nervous and tense, the two slowly approach the curtains.

Ten seconds pass as the two stare at each other, trying to silently decide who's going to open the curtain. Then Matthew remembers who accompanied him this night, and rolls his eyes. With much less trepidation and much more annoyance, Matthew stomps over and pulls open the curtains. He doesn't even jump when he sees a certain blond leaning against the window (and finds it kind of sad that he's that used to Alfred F. Jones).

"Go away." Matthew mouths to Alfred, who mouths back with a "Are you getting lucky?"

"Screw off." Matthew narrows his eyes, while Gilbert snickers.

"You are!"

"Go away." Matthew repeats. Alfred licks the window, leaving a trail of spit forming the word 'NO'. "Yes!"

"Suck my dick."

Matthew gives him the finger, Alfred ignores it, and Matthew does the next best thing. He draws the curtains over the window. There is some muffled protests, incessant tapping, and Matthew's phone buzzes once or twice. Eventually, Gilbert picks the phone up and instead of telling Alfred to fuck off like a normal human being would, offers to buy him a huge lunch at Mc Dick's if he leaves them alone.

Surprisingly, this works.

"Next time, let me climb in through your bedroom window." Gilbert suggests as he hangs up. "I won't have any extra baggage. And my baggage I mean Alfred."

"He means well." Matthew says, then shakes his head to contradict himself. "I lied. He doesn't. Ever."

"I know that." Gilbert starts maneuvering Matthew away from the window. "But let him think he helps. It's good for his ego."

"No it's not, it's almost as big as yours."

But really, Matthew may thank Alfred after all.

(Except that when he goes to pick his stuff up from Alfred's the next afternoon, he sees twenty bucks missing from his wallet as a 'matchmaking fee'. Matthew points out that he and Gilbert have been together since before the bedroom-climbing night, Alfred shouldn't be taking anything. Alfred tells Matthew to kiss his ass, Matthew tells him to get his head out of it first, and after an arm wrestling match, Alfred remembers that he had already spent the twenty at a garage sale in the morning.)

Yeah, just something silly I felt like writing because some stuff is being blehhh for me. Personally I have never climbed a roof but I have climbed balconies. Mc Dick's is an affectionate term for Mc Donald's, which I have been craving through writing this entire thing.

Reviews are really appreciated :D