AN: This is my SECOND rewrite of the prompt, but I'm posting it after the third rewrite, because I like them better in this order.

Pairing: Germany/Prussia

Also featuring: North Italy; Japan

Prompt: Person A has just moved to a new house and Person B is the asshole who keeps mowing their lawn at 8 in the morning.

Version: Neurotic!Ludwig and Mysterious!Gilbert

Light Through Clean Windows

Ludwig deeply enjoyed Sundays.

They were the one day of the week that he actually let himself sleep in and then relax for the rest of the day. Sundays were his weekly refuges, and he treated his time for relaxation with the same studious seriousness with which he treated his work.

Every morning, Monday through Saturday, he woke up at 05:00 sharp, brushed his teeth, made his bed, and got dressed for his workout sessions. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he would get his aerobic exercising by going on a run, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday he would get his anaerobic exercise by hitting the gym.

He would be back home at 06:30 to shower, grab breakfast, and get ready for his day at work.

Mondays through Fridays at saw him in his black BMW Z4 at 7:00 sharp, and he would arrive at his work in the city (he'd started working there almost immediately after graduating college with a major in Computer Science and a minor in Physics, and was still working there almost three years later) anywhere between 07:35 and 07:50, depending on the traffic, ready to start working before 08:00.

He was always the first one to arrive, so it was his job to open the place and turn off the security alarm. Most of his coworkers didn't arrive till 09:00 or 09:30, and Heracles didn't arrive till 10:30 most days, but Ludwig relished the time to himself in the early morning.

Lunch was from 12:00 to 13:00, though Ludwig was back at work as soon as he could escape the socializing, usually around 12:30. He would then work till 17:30, at which point Heracles kicked him out because everyone else had left half an hour previous and he wanted the workplace to himself for the next couple hours.

At Heracles' insistence ("You're already working overtime, Ludwig," Heracles said. "Go home"), Ludwig would leave by 17:40 ("If you really hate going home that much," Heracles said, "adopt a cat so you have something worth coming home to. Cats are cute and fluffy and irresistible") and be home somewhere between 18:30 and 18:45 ("I don't like cats, Heracles"), as the return commute tended to take longer than the morning one ("...There is something wrong with you, Ludwig").

He strove to eat dinner at 19:15, usually making himself something quick and easy or just grabbing some leftovers from a previous night.

By 20:30 he was usually done eating and washing the dishes and had started working again on some problem he hadn't been able to figure out yet or some new project he wanted to get a head start on. If he couldn't make any progress, he would vent his frustrations with more exercising, either at the gym or going on another run.

He made himself stop whatever he was doing and get ready for bed at 22:30, getting into bed by 23:00, at which point he would try to fall asleep. Usually he gave up after fifteen minutes of his mind driving him crazy with everything he needed to do. So he would either grab a book and read until he was tired enough to fall sleep without thinking too hard about anything, usually around 01:00. Or else he would get up and get more work done, and would get caught up in that and not fall asleep until around 2:00.

Which left him with three to four hours of sleep most nights, but he'd found that he could go about a week getting that little sleep before it started it have noticeable side effects.

Saturdays he would wake up at his usual time and do his usual morning routine, and then go shopping for the week, before trying to either get more work done or get some baking done before Feliciano invited himself over (sometimes with Kiku in tow, sometimes not). Feliciano usually arrived around 11:00.

Feliciano would then proceed to make pasta in Ludwig's kitchen while chattering happily or drag him out of the house to have lunch at the Italian restaurant his family ran. Then afterwards he would possibly drag him to a museum, or a park, or to see Kiku and drag him out somewhere as well, since Feliciano complained that he got out even less than Ludwig did.

Ludwig usually spent the time with his friends making sure that Feliciano didn't get hit by a car or fall over a railing or get hit by a random object someone had decided throw (all things that had nearly happened to the Italian so often that Ludwig marvelled at how Feliciano managed to survive the rest of the week without him), and making sure that Kiku didn't get left behind when he stopped to take photos of the things that caught his interest.

(The three of them were so different that Ludwig wondered at why they'd been assigned as roommates in college. Ludwig figured that the whoever was making the roommate assignments simply thought they wouldn't get along with anyone, and placed them all together because they didn't fit anywhere else. But Ludwig figured that was why they'd somehow, miraculously, become friends.)

He was usually out of their company by 18:00 (except for when they had movie nights, and stayed till about 22:00), at which point Ludwig was too tired to do much other than eat dinner, read, and fall asleep. After the long week of sleep-deprivation and stress, and several hours of interacting with Feliciano, Ludwig would usually be so tired he'd be asleep by 22:30, and his mind wouldn't bother him.

And then it was Sunday.

Gott, Ludwig deeply enjoyed Sundays.

He would wake up at 05:00 out of habit, but he'd stay in bed, and within ten minutes he was asleep again. Sunday mornings he usually didn't get up till around 10:00, having enjoyed about twelve hours of sleep to partly make up for the lack of sleep from nights previous.

After brushing his teeth, making the bed, showering, and eating breakfast (he skipped his exercise routine on Sundays, figuring that he did enough the rest of the week that he could take the day off), he would begin his day of relaxation.

He still had a schedule and things he wanted to get done, of course, but it was looser on Sundays, and the items on his to-do list were things like reading, cooking, cleaning the house, and gardening, four necessary activities he found to be very calming and grounding. He would usually cook in morning, wash his car in the middle of the day, clean his house in the afternoon, garden in the early evening, and then read books related to computer programming at night, because he was always looking to improve his work.

After his peaceful day, he'd usually manage to fall asleep by 22:00 again, managing seven hours of sleep before waking up on Monday morning to go to work, ready to implement his new ideas.

Yes, Ludwig deeply enjoyed his Sundays.

Which was why, when he was woken up at 08:00 on Sunday morning by a very loud and continuous noise, he was decidedly pissed.

It felt like seconds after looking at the clock, seeing the red numbers 05:00, and then laying his head back down again that the noise started.

Cursing, Ludwig stuck his head under his pillow and pulled it down over his ears, waiting for the noise to stop.

It didn't.

His body felt heavy, his head was on the verge of aching, and Ludwig just wanted to sleep. What the hell was anyone doing making that much noise at five in the morning, he thought furiously as he threw his pillow across the room and sat up, only to see that his clock read 08:04.

Ludwig calmed down slightly. Eight in the morning was certainly better than five in the morning.

But he was still pissed. It was a Sunday, the one morning when he got to sleep in, and some asshole was—!

Stomping to his window, he ripped aside the curtains and threw open the glass pane hard enough to rattle the windowframe, glowering outside.

Somebody was mowing the lawn of the house next door.

Which confused Ludwig for a moment, because he knew that the 12-year-old son of the family that lived there (Ludwig was terrible at rmembering names—he was much better with numbers) mowed the lawn at noon on Saturdays with a push-mower for allowance money.

And then Ludwig remembered that the family had moved out, and someone (or someones?) else had moved in a few days ago, and he hadn't bothered to meet them.

Ludwig didn't note much about the person pushing the very definitely motorized lawnmower (other than the fact that they were wearing a dark red jacket) before he'd shut the window and pulled back inside, stalking over to his dresser to grab a shirt (he was already wearing sweatpants).

His usual insistence of appearing completely put-together would have to be sacrificed at the moment, because he couldn't let the roaring noise of that lawnmower to go on a second longer than it had to (and afterwards he wanted to try to catch another couple hours of sleep).

Pulling on a regular white t-shirt that he used for jogging or hitting the gym (it also had the advantage of being tight-fitting, showing off his muscles, which tended to intimidate people) and grabbing a pair of black socks, Ludwig stomped to his door, quickly putting on the socks and his black running shoes and stepping outside.

On the short walk over to where the person in the red sweatshirt was mowing their lawn, noise-canceling headphones over their ears, Ludwig reflected on just how much he hated lawns.

Unless you had children who need a space to play and run around in, lawns were a complete and utter waste of space. They served no other functional use. He didn't understand why so many people prided themselves in the manicured lawns they never used.

Lawns weren't even aesthetically pleasing. Ludwig didn't understand it.

The first thing he'd done after moving into his house and setting up his furniture was to tear out his lawn, plant a garden, and build a wooden fence around it to keep the deer out.

Gardens were both aesthetically pleasing and had a functional use. Ludwig used his, both in the front and in the back of his house, to grow fruits, vegetables, and herbs for his table (including the tomatoes that Feliciano and his brother loved so much), which also saved him money, as he then didn't need to buy as much fresh produce from the store.

He'd also set up a drip irrigation system that watered automatically in the early mornings, which saved water and meant he didn't have to worry about watering himself unless he noticed certain plants weren't getting enough. He just had to pull weeds, spread mulch and fertilizer when needed, remove any dead vegetation or diseased parts of plants, set up shade covers when it got hot, set up plant supports, harvest the fruits and vegetables as soon as they ripened, and disinfect his tools.

Ludwig didn't understand why more people didn't have gardens.

Exiting his gate and closing it behind him, Ludwig strode over to where his neighbor was mowing their front lawn, setting himself in their path on the grass, his arms crossed over his chest.

He knew he probably shouldn't be glaring as hard as he was and make a terrible impression on his new neighbor, but he was tired and irritable and it was eight on a Sunday morning and this person was mowing their lawn.

His ears were ringing with the noise by the time the man—he could see that the person pushing the lawnmower was a man now—stopped the lawnmower in front of him, turning it off, removing his headphones and looking up at him with a grin (iPod paused and tucked away into a jacket pocket, the words "Tim Bendzko" and "Ich Kann Alles Sehen" and "Wenn Worte meine Sprache wären" flashing across the screen).

The man was a few inches shorter than Ludwig's six-foot-two, maybe around five-foot-ten. He was lean, pale, sharp-featured, obviously young but his hair was white. The irises of his eyes were red, and made Ludwig pause.

"You must be Ludwig, hm?" the man grinned with a mouth that looked like the only kind of smile it could manage was smirkish, his voice sounding like it was designed for throwing taunts and insults. "I was told about you." He offered a hand, still smirking. "My name is Gilbert. Gilbert Beilschmidt."

He said his name like he expected Ludwig to recognize it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ludwig demanded furiously, uncrossing his arms but ignoring the offered handshake, his fists clenched at his sides. "It's eight in the morning on a Sunday. This is not the time for lawn mowing."

Gilbert's red eyes widened slightly and his smirk disappeared for a second, only for his eyes to relax a second later, a white eyebrow lifting, smirk once again gracing his features. "What, too early for you, Mr. I-go-on-runs-at-5:30-in-the-morning?"

Ludwig growled. "Sunday is the one day I sleep in."

"Really?" that white eyebrow raised higher, the smirk growing. "How lazy of you. And here I thought you were supposed to be German."

Glaring, Ludwig stepped closer, but Gilbert stepped out from behind the lawnmower and stepped closer as well, holding Ludwig's gaze, flaunting his unnerving red eyes the same way Ludwig was flaunting his daunting strength.

Ludwig suddenly had the mental image of alien scientists watching them and taking notes on human male showboating behaviors, and felt rather ridiculous.

He tried to ignore the feeling, but the alien scientists were still there, so he mentally punched them in their faces.

"I'm not the only one who likes to have peaceful Sundays," Ludwig told his new neighbor calmly (belying the fact that his mind was a mess), "even if I'm apparently the only one willing to get out of bed to tell you so. Please mow your lawn, which serves absolutely no function, either at 09:00 or later on Sunday, or at 08:00 on a different day. You should know, after all, that the law prohibits loud noises in this residential area before 09:00 on weekends and public holidays, and you should respect that law."

Ludwig let a smirk curl his own lips, having heard the Germanic accent in Gilbert's tone. "And here I thought you were German."

Gilbert laughed, then, a loud and grating "Kesese!" that almost had Ludwig backing up a step.

He didn't, though, and it was Gilbert who took the step back, glancing at his watch.

"Well, what do you know," he said, looking up and smirking, showing Ludwig the time.

08:18

"If you move fast then you can catch about forty more minutes of sleep before I turn on the lawnmower again," Gilbert said, a devilish glint in his red eyes. "You've won yourself that much."

Ludwig met his neighbor's gaze coolly. "Thank you," he said, and turned to leave, feeling Gilbert's eyes on him the entire way back.

If he shivered, it was only because he finally realized that it was cold.

He didn't try to fall back asleep. He was already too awake (he'd never be able to rest with his mind in its current state).

The next Sunday, he was woken up at 09:00 exactly by the sound of his neighbor's lawnmower.

At least he was punctual, Ludwig thought resignedly, getting out of bed to take a shower and start his day, over an hour earlier than he wanted to. It wasn't like he could complain, after all, no matter how tired he was. There wasn't any reasonable way he could ask Gilbert to mow the lawn at another day or time. And Gilbert did not seem like one who would easily back down.

Maybe he should just try to get some more sleep during the rest of the week.

(If only his brain didn't keep him up thinking about every little thing, distracting himself from what he really didn't want to think about by making lists in his head of what he needed to get done the next day, every possible mistake he could have made in his coding, what something confusing either Feliciano or Kiku had said could possibly mean, what he needed to say in the next meeting at work, what he could have said better in the last one, whether there was any way aside of yelling to get his coworkers to focus and keep the meeting on track, whether he'd gone a little too far with the yelling, what he needed to buy the next time he went to the store, what he'd learned in the last chapter of the book he was reading, how he could apply that to his job, why the hell Gilbert insisted on mowing his lawn as early as was legal on Sunday mornings.)

It wasn't until the next Saturday when Feliciano and Feliciano and Kiku were at his house and praising the Forest Berry Tiramisu he'd made that Ludwig had an idea.

Which just left the question of what cake to make. Ludwig considered making a Rehruecken Cake, since he had a hunch that Gilbert was from East Germany, but Ludwig wasn't a hundred percent sure, and Ludwig also wanted to win over Gilbert's housemates, so Ludwig wanted to bake a cake that would appeal to almost anyone.

(Ludwig had learned that Gilbert was renting the house along with his two friends, Francis and Antonio, since apparently none of them made enough to own their own place. "We're those total cliché college graduates that can't find a job in our majors," Gilbert had laughed. He'd pointed succession to himself, Antonio, and Francis, saying, "So now we're a bartender, a barista, and a waiter," and then burst out laughing at the expression on Ludwig's face while Antonio grinned and Francis smiled and winked, leaving Ludwig feeling lost and wondering how they were so happy.)

Ludwig settled on making a Black Forest Cake, as it was one of Germany's most famous cake creations, known all around the world. So the Spaniard and the Frenchman would both likely know it as well. Made with sour cherries, whipped cream, and a chocolate cake base, one couldn't really go wrong with a Black Forest Cake.

That Sunday, after being woken up at 09:00 by the roaring of Gilbert's lawnmower, Ludwig showered, dressed, made himself a quick breakfast, and then set about baking the cake, singing to himself lowly as he worked.

(There was something beautifully precise about baking. Preheating the oven to exact degrees, measuring out the exact portions of ingredients, mixing them together in a precise fashion; following the recipe exactly. Everything was already figured out; all Ludwig had to do was follow instructions. He found it incredibly calming. Relaxing, even. When he was baking, he didn't have to think about anything but baking; there were no worries, no doubts, no uncertainties, no memories or messes that were impossible to clean.)

A few hours later, the cake completed (decorated with whipped cream, pitted cherries, and chocolate shavings, exactly like the picture in the recipe book) and left to cool for an hour, the kitchen cleaned till it was once again spotless, showing no sign of the baking process, Ludwig cut the cake into six even slices, preparing three of them to take over to his neighbors.

He arranged the pieces on a white ceramic plate (to contrast with the dark chocolate shavings all over the top and sides and the dark chocolate cake batter, to make white of the whipped cream and the red of the cherries stand out layered in the center and decorating the of the cake on the wide edge—Kiku's idea, explained when he'd photographed the last Black Forest Cake Ludwig had made), placing a clear glass cover over it (so one could see exactly what it was—Ludwig's idea; he liked practicality).

Ducking into the bathroom to make sure his hair was still slicked back properly, Ludwig took a moment to adjust his black t-shirt that had ridden up slightly, frowning as he saw that there was some flour on his green trousers, carefully brushing it off. He made a mental note to clean the bathroom floor later, before amending the note, figuring that if he was going to clean the bathroom floor then he might as well clean the entire bathroom while he was at it.

Then he washed his hands and walked back to his kitchen, eying the three pieces of cake under the glass cover as he considered how he was supposed to deliver it, what he was supposed to say.

He sighed, before walking to his study and grabbing a pen, writing out a quick message on a post-it note, pulling it from the pad and walking back to the kitchen to stick it to the glass, smooth the top to make sure it wouldn't come off on the walk over.

He stood back to inspect his work. The post-it note read plainly:

I made Black Forest Cake.
Consider this penance for not
providing you a moving-in gift.
Let me know how you like it,
and if you'd be interested in
more of my baking in the
future. -Ludwig

Nodding to himself, Ludwig walked to his door to put on his shoes, before returning to the kitchen table and carefully picking up the plate, preparing to deliver it.

The clock read 14:42.

He spent the duration of the short walk to his neighbors' front door trying to ignore the doubts that were needling at him like bugs in flawed coding that needed to be fixed.

He was at the door far too quickly. Taking a deep breath, he transferred the plate to one hand, reaching out with the other to ring the doorbell.

There was the sound of moving to the door, and Ludwig stared at the peephole in the wood when it didn't open.

Through the door he heard a muffled voice that sounded like Antonio, yelling, "Guess what, guys! Ludwig's at the door!"

"Gilbert's crush?" came what sounded like Francis's voice. "Ah, let me greet him!"

There was the sound of more feet, and then Gilbert's voice saying, "He is not my crush! And no way are you greeting him, you creep!"

By the time Gilbert pulled open the door, giving him a smirk, Ludwig's eyebrows had made an admirable advancement towards his hairline.

"Guten Nachmittag, Ludwig," Gilbert drawled, unperturbed and seemingly bored, before his red eyes landed on the plate in Ludwig's hands, lighting up in interest. "Oh hey, what's that?"

"Here," Ludwig said, pushing the plate into Gilbert's surprised hands, careful not to let the glass cover rattle. He could feel his face heating up. "Share with your friends."

Then he turned and left (too nervous to have even noted that Gilbert was wearing his shirt inside-out and his pants were wrinkled from their time crumpled on the floor, all hastily pulled on in his rush to get to the door, or that his hair was wet from just getting out of the shower). Behind him, Antonio's excited voice was audible saying, "Dios mío, did he just give us cake?! How simpático!"

When Ludwig got back inside, leaning against the door and heaving a sigh, the clock read 14:44.

How that entire ordeal had been only two minutes, he had no idea.

It was 06:29 the next morning, and Ludwig was just returning from his hour-long run when he found Gilbert leaning against his front door, waiting for him, a smirk playing on his lips.

"You always return at 6:30," Gilbert said, red eyes examining his nails. His eyebrows and even his eyelashes were white. "You're very predictable, you know. It would be laughably easy for an assassin to kill you."

Ludwig was panting slightly, sweat dripping down his face and sticking his white shirt to his skin. He wiped the water from his brow. "If an assassin really wanted to kill me, I think they'd be able to do so even if I had an irregular schedule."

Ludwig paused, his eyebrows furrowing. "Why would an assassin want to kill me?"

Gilbert was looking at him in amusement. "You're right," he said, smirkish grin growing. "They wouldn't kill you. They'd just kidnap you and make you bake for them."

"I don't think they'd be an assassin if they did kidnappings," Ludwig muttered, before the rest of what Gilbert said caught up to him. His eyes widened slightly as he met his neighbor's unusual red gaze. "So. You liked the Black Forest Cake, then?" He wiped more sweat from his face. It was dripping down his neck.

Those unusual red eyes glittered. "Francis and Antonio liked it so much they mercilessly shoved me outside into this cold morning air without a coat to tell you so," he said, making an encompassing gesture to their situation. "They said I have to tell you that we are definitely interested in more of your baking, or else they'd leave me outside to sleep in the yard like a dog."

Ludwig did his best to keep the feeling of triumph off his face (and his best meant that the triumph didn't show at all).

"Tell them that I'll bake you more desserts," he said, not missing the way that Gilbert's red eyes lit up at the proclamation, "on one condition."

"Oh?" Gilbert said, leaning back against Ludwig's front door, a smirk still curling his lips, crossing his arms over his chest (likely for warmth, seeing as he was only wearing gray skinny jeans and a black tank-top, his pale, defined arms and shoulders bare, and it was chilly out). "And what would that condition be?"

Ludwig felt a smirk curling his lips, and Gilbert raised a white eyebrow.

"You have to mow your lawn at legal on hours on any day but Sunday," he said, and Gilbert burst out laughing.

Ludwig wiped away more sweat as he watched the white-haired man double over, clutching his sides, his breaths coming in harsh kesese's.

He didn't think he'd ever before heard anyone with a laugh like that.

"You play dirty, Ludwig," Gilbert said when his laughing petered out and he straightened, looking at him with a grin. His eyes traveled over Ludwig's chest, and Ludwig suddenly felt very self-conscious of the white material sticking to his skin with sweat. "I like it."

Ludwig swallowed, and Gilbert's red eyes followed a drop of sweat down his throat. He shivered as the crisp, cool morning air started once again to chill him, the heat from his run fading.

"You didn't react satisfactorily to intimidation, so I had to try something else," Ludwig mumbled, wiping at the sweat that was starting to really annoy him. "I'm glad that bribery appears to garner a more favorable reaction."

Gilbert laughed again. "Very well," he said, pushing himself off Ludwig's front door, hands in his jean pockets. "I'll mow my lawn some other morning, just so you can have your lazy Sunday and feel amiable enough to bake us dessert." His eyes glittered, and he smirked, adding, "Every weekend."

"Fair enough," Ludwig shrugged. He enjoyed baking anyway, and he could never eat all of it himself.

Gilbert nodded, seemingly satisfied, and brushed by, continuing down the walk through Ludwig's garden, towards his gate, tomato plants lining the stone path on either side (the plants with their green fruits that were just starting to redden, still orange, and had caused Feliciano to cry with happiness when he'd seen them two days before).

But Ludwig wasn't looking at the tomatoes, his eyes on the stitched designs on the back pockets of Gilbert's jeans, dark against the light gray material. He found himself staring at the way Gilbert's hips were swaying, noting that that wasn't the most efficient way to walk.

Gilbert stopped with the gate half-open, throwing him a smirk over his shoulder, before sauntering out, closing the gate behind him, and Ludwig's gaze was left on wood starting to darken from weather exposure, tomatoes starting to ripen with the warming temperatures of spring.

It was still cold in the morning, though, and Ludwig shivered from the chill of sweat evaporating from his skin and quickly entered his house. He needed a shower.

It was 05:43 on Tuesday morning and Ludwig was at the gym, wiping the sweat from his neck with a hand towel as he got ready to use the bench press when a voice that sounded just shy of mocking said, "Need a spotter, Ludwig?"

Ludwig turned to see Gilbert standing there in white gym shorts and a black tank-top, grinning at him.

"Gilbert," Ludwig greeted, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

The other man shrugged, though his lips were still quirked, red eyes glittering. "Being awesome. I had the day shift at the bar so I would hit the gym in the evenings after work, but a friend working a later shift begged me to switch with him, so I'm working the evenings now. So I figured I needed to start hitting the gym in the morning."

He gestured to the bench press, red eyes still alight. "I'll spot for you if you'll spot for me."

Ludwig narrowed his eyes, feeling like there was something mischievous in the tilt of Gilbert's lips, the line of his neck, the twitch of his fingers, but decided it would do neither of them harm.

He added another 45-pound weight onto each side of the barbell (he could risk lifting more with someone there to spot him; why was Gilbert laughing?), and lay down on the bench and grasped the barbell with both hands, waiting for Gilbert to get into position before lifting the weight towards the ceiling.

(When it was Gilbert's turn to lift, Ludwig found himself watching the way the lean, defined muscles of his arms strained, the way his face looked when he was concentrating, the mischief fallen away.)

The next morning he ran into Gilbert while jogging, and they ran next to each other for a time. There was no talking, just running and breathing, though Gilbert huffed a small laugh when the mourning doves on the telephone wire above their heads startled and flew away, murmuring in complaint.

(By the time they were done, Gilbert's bangs were stuck to his forehead with sweat, his tank-top plastered to his defined pectorals and six-pack, pale skin glistening, and Ludwig found himself staring, realizing that he must look much the same and feeling suddenly embarrassed.)

(When he looked away, Gilbert just smirked and kept staring, and Ludwig made a hasty excuse and retreated into his house, sure his cheeks were aflame, such that when he glanced in the mirror he half expected his blond eyebrows to have been burned black like Feliciano always teased him they would be.)

There was something beautiful about washing windows, Ludwig thought.

The windows always looked fine even before he started. He could see what was outside. But then, when he prepared to clean the window, stepping closer, he could see all the dirt that had built up, so insidiously that he hadn't noticed.

It made him feel tainted and used, when he noticed that his windows were dirty. Like he'd been violated, thinking that the light that fell onto his hardwood floor was clean and pure, only to see the flecks of dirt that caused speckled shadows that smudged the lines of the wood, a film of grime that deadened the colors, sapping the interior of his house of vitality in a way that bothered him all the more because it did not make logical sense. He hated the imperfection and the dullness that reminded him of his life before he was ever introduced to the concept of being alive rather than just living.

So he stood outside with the sunlight warm on his back and obscured the view with warm, soapy water (the less suds, the better), drawn over the glass with the long cloth head of a strip applicator, till the window was frosted over with (warm) white, the strokes of the strip applicator (making the glass look like it had been covered in a giant's fingerprint, Feliciano had once cheerfully pointed out, and Ludwig had looked at the window and wondered at where he saw that).

But it was the wiping away of the soap that was truly beautiful (Ludwig's concept of beauty was a plain one). Starting at the top left, pulling the squeegee over the soap pane in a reverse-S pattern, wiping the squeegee's blade clean with a lint-free rag at the end of each stroke, his heart feeling lighter with each stretch of transparent glass that was revealed, so clean one could walk into it thinking that nothing was there if one weren't paying attention (and Feliciano was often not paying attention).

It was incredibly satisfying to remove the remaining water at the edges of the glass with a damp, wrung-dry chamois, soaking up the wetness without leaving streaks and then drying the windowsill with a rag. It left him breathing easier.

("You panic whenever anything is dirty," Kiku had once noted, a question of 'why?' lingering unsaid in his tone. Ludwig had shrugged, and tried not to think of the house he'd grown up in and what it felt like to have no control over his life.)

But it was when he was back inside the house that the beauty really struck him, looking out through the windows at the organized planter boxes of his garden, perfect squares of functionality (Ludwig was not the one to notice that the planter boxes were filled with so many different greens, the magenta of rhubarb, the subdued green tongues of the arugula, the dark green and purple of romaine lettuce, the orange flowers of the pumpkin, the feathery leaves of the carrot, the climbing tomatoes clinging to their wire structures; the flowering fruit trees lining the fence (white for lemon, thin and star-shaped; white for apple, five white petals overlapping; light pink for the ornamental plum, punctuated by bits of darkness with the beginnings of dark maroon leaves).

The light was bright, pure as a chaste kiss, gracing his house with the vivacity of some place loved and lived in (a feeling multiplied a hundred times over whenever Feliciano was over, flopping on the chestnut coach or matching loveseat, hugging one of the panda pillows that Kiku had given him when he'd first moved there, or hanging a new colorful art piece on the warm beige walls, or smiling and gently poking the bamboo palm in its pot on the coffee table or the spider plant and golden pothos hanging in the kitchen, or standing at one of the cabinets next to the flatscreen TV filled with Italian comedies and Japanese horror films. Feliciano and Kiku had brought all the warmth and life to Ludwig's house).

Ludwig didn't think he ever felt so warm and clean as when he'd just washed the windows.

Nothing compared to it, aside from maybe washing mirrors. Though while washing the windows let him see the beauty around him, washing the mirrors forced him to look at himself, and he was never too happy with what he saw. He preferred his reflection in store windows, Feliciano and Kiku beside him, smiling, their eyes alight with a delight that Ludwig could never quite find for himself.

He didn't look as stern or dull with them beside him as he did alone. Cleaning the mirrors, brushing his teeth, combing and slicking back his hair, straightening his tie—flat blue eyes in a stern face, blond hair he preferred out of the way, off his neck, out of his eyes that looked at the world like a math problem.

Alpha may be standing over point (-6, 2, 0), but his shoulder is 2 meters above the ground, at point (-6, 2, 2), so this is the starting point for the vector calculation.

"What color is a mirror?" Feliciano had once asked him, humming as he lay on Ludwig's couch, humming happily, arms behind his head.

Ludwig had paused, frowning, his mind going over the structure of mirrors and how they worked, the layers of paint behind the extremely thin, extremely smooth piece of metal behind the glass. Most objects absorbed some colors and reflected others, which was why people had the perception of the color properties of things: when light hit a banana, it absorbed every color but yellow, which it reflected, making the banana appear yellow.

The vector to his target is produced by subtracting the droid's position—point B at (7, 5, 10)—from the starting point A at (-6, 2, 2), giving us a target vector of (13, 3, 8).

Mirrors worked because they reflected every color in the visible spectrum, which they did because they were smooth on a microscopic level, which was why glass and calm bodies of dark water also produced specular reflections. If a strong gust of wind rippled the water, making the surface uneven, the reflection became diffuse and distorted.

So what color was a mirror?

Normalizing the vector produces a heading vector that can be used in time-based movement.

"A mirror is all colors," Ludwig said finally, and Feliciano beamed at him.

"Ludwig, you are so smart, ve~!" Feliciano cried, getting up off the couch and running over to hug him, chattering happily about how he used to think that mirrors were silver, but then he was trying to draw one and really looked at it and saw that the mirror wasn't actually silver, it only felt that way, but it was just reflecting all the other colors, and that that was the secret to painting mirrors because mirrors were a study in color, and Ludwig listened patiently.

Ludwig found himself smiling slightly in the mirror at the memory of the Italian's exuberance, and he quickly wiped the smile from his face with the same methodical way he was wiping the dust and water marks from the mirror.

He'd just stepped back, frowning at his reflection that was frowning back at him, when he heard the doorbell ring, watching surprise widen the eyes of his mirror image before its frown deepened.

It had been a couple years since anybody had rung Ludwig's doorbell (ever since he'd put up his gate and equipped it with a lock). Feliciano just waltzed in with the key that Ludwig had been obliged to provide him with, sing-songing, "I'm hooooome, Ludwig!" Kiku had a key, but he always called before he came over, so Ludwig would just unlock both the gate and the door. Even then, Kiku always knocked.

Ludwig knew that he hadn't left the gate unlocked. Kiku hadn't called, and it obviously wasn't Feliciano.

The doorbell rang again, and Ludwig strode out of the bathroom through the hall to his front door, opening it roughly with angry words already forming on his tongue, but when he saw who it was he stopped and just stared.

"Hallo," Gilbert grinned, wiggling his fingers in a wave. There was dirt on his hands and the knees of his blue jeans. He was wearing the same red sweater he'd been wearing on the day Ludwig first met him.

Ludwig suddenly remembered that there was a large maple tree at the edge of his neighbors' lawn, with branches that stretched over his own.

"You jumped my fence," Ludwig stated, shock making his voice flat.

Gilbert grinned at him, looking almost sheepish. It was still something of a smirk, though. "Your gate was locked." He lifted a white eyebrow. "You just paranoid, or what?"

Ludwig closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead. "That's to keep solicitors out," he mumbled. "It's more for their sakes than my own."

"Oh?" Gilbert's voice was curious.

"The last solicitor I'd had stuttered terribly and wet his pants out of abject terror," Ludwig muttered, opening his eyes and watching the other man's face to see if he'd believe it. "The one before that turned and hurried away without saying anything, only to trip on a garden hose I'd left lying around carelessly, scraping his hands and tearing his pants. The one before that had gone white as soon as I'd opened the door and then hurriedly excused himself and left."

Gilbert blinked, and then he narrowed his eyes, accusing, "Okay, you're totally bullshitting me. There's no way you'd leave a garden hose lying around carelessly."

Ludwig found his lips twitching upwards. "Believe whatever you want," he shrugged, leaning against his doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. "So. Why did you jump my fence and come over to ring my doorbell at," he glanced the watch on his left wrist, "15:26 on Sunday?"

Gilbert pouted at him. His lips weren't made for it, still resembling a smirk at the corners, the light in his red eyes till far too smug. "Didn't you notice that I didn't wake you up at 9:00 this morning with the lawnmower? I mowed the lawn on Wednesday, when you were off at work. So I've come to collect my just dessert." He wiggled his white eyebrows, breaking out in a grin.

Ludwig blinked at him. He'd never met anyone like this man before, and he wondered for a moment if he was going insane, a character from one of Kiku's manga, come to life in a world where he couldn't possibly actually exist.

The white hair. The ever-present smirk. The perfect body. The red eyes that always seemed to know something that nobody else was aware of.

"Don't tell me you forgot," Gilbert said lowly, a pitch to his voice that was either threatening or sultry, but Ludwig would be the last person to be able to tell which one it actually was. The effect of either was much the same.

Ludwig found himself looking away, cheeks heating up and hating how obvious it must be. (It was always obvious, with his complexion.)

"Kesese!" Gilbert was laughing.

"I didn't forget," Ludwig muttered, moving from the doorway and stepping inside, silently asking for Gilbert to follow him, nodding for him to take his shoes off at the door. "I was going to bring it over in a bit."

Gilbert followed him to the kitchen, but Ludwig paused in the doorway, blocking his view.

"Uh," Ludwig said, turning around, scratching his neck and smiling sheepishly at him. "It's not quite done yet, actually. I was cleaning the house while I left it to cool, and I still need to put on the topping…"

Gilbert raised one of those white eyebrows at him.

"Uh," Ludwig said again, shifting his weight uneasily. "Would you mind… waiting in the living room for me to finish? I don't like people to see my unfinished work." He cleared his throat, looking away. "You can turn on the TV, if you want. Or there's books on the book shelf… most of them are about programming, but I think I might have ended up with a few of my friend's manga…"

When he looked at the man again, Gilbert was smirking (there was always a smirk on those lips).

"I suppose the awesome me can wait for a little while," Gilbert drawled, and Ludwig wondered at his word choice. He gestured down the hall. "The living room is that way, I take it?"

"Ja," Ludwig said, and Gilbert laughed at him before strolling down the hall, disappearing into the doorway that led to the living room.

Relaxing slightly, Ludwig slipped into his kitchen, the cake cooled and waiting for him on the counter.

He carefully chopped chocolate and dissolved it with coconut oil in a double boiler over warm water. He coated the cake in the glaze, before sticking the slivered almonds evenly spaced in the cake so that it could be cut into 18 pieces.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Ludwig walked to the living room, where he found Gilbert sitting on the couch with the first volume of Tokyo Ghoul in his hands, looking rather immersed.

Ludwig felt his lips quirk. "Careful with that one," he warned, and Gilbert looked up at him, blinking those red eyes. For a moment, his face was open and earnest, curious, confused. He looked younger.

Ludwig suddenly wondered if Gilbert without a smirk on his lips felt as vulnerable as Ludwig felt without his hair slicked back.

"My friend was in something of a daze for a few days after reading that series," Ludwig explained. "I'm pretty sure he left them here in the hope that they'd stop haunting him if he wasn't constantly looking at them."

The smirk was back, then, the mischievous glitter back in those red eyes. "Yeah," Gilbert said, carefully closing the manga, "it looked like it was going to get pretty dark. Ghouls that have to survive by eating humans? There's no way a story like this wouldn't become fucked-up."

"I haven't read it," Ludwig shrugged. He scratched at his neck, unable to hold the gaze of those red eyes (stunning). "I, uh, did finish the cake, though."

Gilbert's eyes lit up, but his movements were careful and controlled as he put the manga down on the coffee table, standing and stretching, his back popping.

"Lead the way, oh fearless leader," Gilbert said with a grin, and Ludwig fought the urge to roll his eyes, turning and walking to the kitchen, the soft padding of Gilbert's socked feet behind him.

They entered the kitchen, and Ludwig gestured to the Rehruecken Cake, his nerves attacking him full force at the way Gilbert stared at the dessert.

"I, uh," Ludwig's hand was at the bag of his neck, tugging at the slicked-back strands of hair. "It's a Rehruecken Cake. I just kind of guessed that you were East German, and would appreciate that. But, uh," he could feel himself starting to panic as Gilbert didn't say a word, didn't move. "I'm sorry if I was wrong. And if you don't know what that is. Or if I offended you in some way. It was stupid of me to assume. I should have asked. I—"

His nervous rambling was cut off, and it took Ludwig a moment to realize it was by warm lips on his own, and that warm arms had snaked around his neck, holding him there.

Ludwig was frozen, eyes wide open (Gilbert's eyes were closed, white eyelashes against pale cheeks).

Just when Ludwig had closed his eyes and started to relax into the kiss, hands coming up to flutter at Gilbert's lithe waist, the other man pulled back, grinning up at him.

Ludwig had never seen eyes so alight (red, red like fire).

"If I were a ghoul, I would eat you," Gilbert proclaimed.

"I haven't read that series," Ludwig said automatically, before the meaning of the statement hitting him a moment later and left him breathless.

"I'm sure you heard enough about it from your friend," Gilbert shrugged, smirking like he knew he was right (he was).

"If you were a ghoul," Ludwig said, his breath trickling back into his lungs, "I would be the only thing edible to you in my house. And you wouldn't be able to eat the Rehruecken Cake I baked for you."

"That would be a shame," Gilbert agreed, fingers wound in the hair at the back of Ludwig's neck. He was grinning. "Good thing I'm not a ghoul, huh?"

"Considering that it doesn't sound like I'd survive if you were a ghoul," Ludwig murmured, unable to meet those red eyes, his heart pounding in his chest, "yes, I'd say that it is a good thing."

Gilbert laughed ("Kesese!") and kissed him again.

That time, Ludwig actually kissed him back (he'd never kissed anyone before, and he was sure his attempts to reciprocate were incredibly clumsy—Gilbert's kissing felt so practiced—but it came easier than he would have expected, and Gilbert didn't seem to mind), his hands finally settling on the other man's hips, pulling him closer.

How is this happening? Ludwig wondered, as Gilbert deepened the kiss. You're not real.

When they pulled away again, they were both panting for breath, and Gilbert looked triumphant.

You shouldn't be real, Ludwig thought, thumb tracing over the other man's hip through his jacket, his lips swollen slightly from kissing.

He cleared his throat, feeling suddenly very awkward, realizing he had no idea how he'd become trapped in the ellipse of Gilbert's arms (a planet trapped in orbit, and gravity didn't want him to leave; he was falling farther and farther towards the sun).

"I'm glad you're happy about the cake," he muttered, eyes down (the sunlight was too bright; too bright), only to look back up when Gilbert started laughing incredulously.

"You…!" was all Gilbert managed, before peals of laughter caused him to lurch forward and cling to Ludwig, face in the larger man's chest, leaving Ludwig no choice but to hold him up, feeling lost and confused (what was funny about suddenly finding yourself stranded in space?).

When Gilbert's laughter finally stopped, he raised his head, grinning up at him (those lips were always smirking). "Be my boyfriend," he said, more statement than question.

Ludwig looked down at him, brow furrowed. His hands were resting uncertainly on the other man's hips.

"I don't understand," he said honestly, feeling his cheeks heat up. "I don't… why would you…?" He ducked his head, cheeks on fire. "I don't have much experience with this kind of thing. And you… I…" his fingers were burning where they rested on Gilbert's hips. "We don't even know anything about each other."

If I say yes, what will that mean for you? he wondered, and tried not to breath. (It might make Gilbert's life worse.) If I say yes, what will that mean for me? he wondered, and felt slightly dizzy. (It might make his life better.)

There was a cool hand on his cheek. "I know that I like you, Ludwig," Gilbert murmured, and Ludwig didn't look, but the man was probably still smirking (there was the smug lilt of a smirk in his voice; those lips were always smirking). "I know that you like the awesome me. And I know that the awesome me wants to know more about you and your no doubt very mysterious and fascinating past."

(Again, Ludwig wondered at the man's word choice.)

A kiss was pressed to his jaw, and he shivered. "You have to start somewhere," was murmured against his skin.

Gilbert's breath was warm, and his fingers mussed slicked-back hair, working out the crunchy stiffness. The aroma of chocolate and cake permeated the air. "And I'd say this is a pretty good place to start."

"I don't know," Ludwig murmured, feeling more than seeing Gilbert pull back to look at him. Ludwig allowed himself to smile slightly. "I think it would be a better start if we were eating cake."

"Kesese!" Gilbert laughed (it was quickly becoming Ludwig's favorite sound). "I like the way you think, Ludwig."

Gilbert took a bite of the cake (pale lips dragging over silver prongs) and gave a scandalous moan, eyes fluttering closed (even his eyelashes were white).

He swallowed, pink tongue flicking out over pale lips, wiping away dark traces of chocolate. He opened his eyes, then (nobody real should have irises so red), and said, "I am so glad I'm not a ghoul," and his voice was filled with vehemence.

And Ludwig felt like maybe he'd be able to fall asleep without utterly exhausting himself, like maybe he wouldn't need to stay up trying to get his mind as clean and organized as his garden, his workspace, his house (everything in its own little box, compartmentalized, labeled and tucked away; dirt swept under the ornate rugs and into dark corners in lieu of the absent trash bin, hiding all the things he wished he could forget, because otherwise it was distracting clutter, clutter, clutter, and everything was covered in grime, and the light didn't filter right through the windows).

When Ludwig chuckled, Gilbert's eyes lit up (red was quickly becoming Ludwig's new favorite color), and Ludwig felt warmth spread from his chest all the way down to his toes, making them curl against the cold tile floor.

Gilbert grinned as he started recounting how his "awesome self" and his two "not-as-awesome" best friends had come to rent the house next door, and Ludwig found himself thinking that maybe, just maybe, he'd found something that could be worth coming home to.

END.

AN: Rehruecken Cake ("Sweet Venison" Cake) is an East German chocolate frosted cake favorite, bristling with almonds to look like a wild deer hide.

"Sweet Venison" is so popular in East Germany that you can even buy baking pans specifically for this cake that are molded with ridges imitating transverse ribs. If you pounce upon a cake made in one of these pans, and you'll find the hind of this beast bristling with spikey almonds.

The two italicized sections about programming were borrowed from the book Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame: From Novice to Professional by Will McGugan.

ALSO, if anyone wants to know what the hell is going on in Gilbert's head in this chapter, I highly suggest you go listen to "Ich Kann Alles Sehen" by Tim Bendzko, and that, if you don't know German, you look up the English translation of the lyrics; ALL WILL SUDDENLY BE MADE CLEAR.

Also a note on the scene where Gilbert and Ludwig were ribbing each other about being German:

Ludwig ribbing Gilbert about not following the law is based off what I mentioned in the author notes of the Chapter 4, the Jaywalking AU, about Germans having "a legendary reputation for sticking to the rule book."

Gilbert ribbing Ludwig for sleeping in was lightly playing off the fact that Germans are generally thought of as being hardworkers, but this particular doesn't really have much basis in fact or make much sense since I'm pretty sure that Germany and other European countries actually value vacation and downtime, and that it's America where people are known to work all the time and not get vacations or days off. Gilbert was just giving Ludwig a hard time.