APH - Gravitational Effect Ch. 3

I REALLY SHOULD NOT BE WRITING WHEN I HAVE TWO LABS TO DO AND A PAPER TO WRITE OH GOD WHYYYYYYYYYYY…

But here it is anyway. Have fun.

.o.

Ludwig sat and tapped away at his laptop, eyes focused intently on the faintly glowing screen. The faintly grey light streaming in the windows wasn't at the right angle to create much glare, but it was making it a bit hard to see. Sometimes he would reach to the side into a desktop organizer and either pick up or discard various stacks of papers. Next to the three-tiered organizer were a few personal items - a stuffed Peep that his brother had given him, a small but delicately painted model U-Boat from Kiku, a standing frame with a picture of his family. He pushed the glasses he occasionally wore for reading up his nose, sighed, and continued his routine.

So relaxing, routine. He could just fall into the measured click of computer keys, the comfort of letters and numbers and rules and regulations, the gentle almost-silence of work getting done, and be happy. All was normal. Except, of course, for the intense, purposeful almost-silence of art getting done on the other side of the room. He let routine fall to the wayside for a moment and paused in his tap-tap-tapping, instead to glance up and look over to where a brown-haired boy with paint-spattered arms sat perched upon a stool.

Not many would have recognized the Italian in his current state of concentration - his silence and gaze of unerringly singular intent was uncommon for one generally prone to bouncing around a room with manic energy and making enough noise to inform an entire corridor of his presence. Ludwig could see the canvas bend ever so slightly as Feliciano leaned forward into every brushstroke. It was part of what made his paintings come alive - the mark, the texture. Feliciano's art stood out from the canvas, refusing to be contained within its paltry boundaries. Of course, this meant it often stained the floor and anything around with myriad shades of acrylics, oils, or whatever else was being used to paint with - and just as often stained Feliciano as well.

Ludwig was abruptly pulled from his contemplation when the artist in question suddenly flailed, waving his arms about madly and nearly falling off of his stool.

"NO! No, no! Stay! Put, stay put - keep doing what you were doing! No, do not look at me - look at the computer! The papers! Wa, how do you expect me to paint you if you move? Go back to your work!" The flustered Italian shook his hands at Ludwig, drops of dark blue paint flicking off the end of the paintbrush he still held as if to scold his taciturn German friend.

Ludwig's eyes flicked back down to the laptop screen. "Don't you have practice in ten minutes?"

The brush froze.

Amber eyes glanced quickly to the wall clock and Feliciano let out a high wail, "Aahhh! I will be late - why did you not tell me sooner? Capitano is going to kill me!" and rushed around to cap his tubes of paint, hurriedly cleaning the brushes and making sure the canvas was placed securely against a wall to dry. He grabbed his sports duffel and popped over to Ludwig's side for just a second to slip in a quick peck to the cheek before rushing out the door.

"Wish me luuuuuck!"

And Ludwig could not help but smile.

.o.

.o.

There was a commotion outside the second-floor science room window.

Alfred sighed and closed the window from where it was cracked. Generally he liked to keep it a bit open to let in a breeze - it could get pretty stuffy inside sometimes, and it had only just begun to rain a bit before. Nothing hard or driving, and that wouldn't be enough to stop what was going on below anyway. He tried to ignore it for a time - throwing himself into his duties as Teacher's Aide, planning out next week's physics lab, and getting ahead in his own studies - but as the sounds from below, now muffled by the glass and only faint, drifted up to where he could hear it...

...he couldn't help it, couldn't help it!, but... Alfred paused, Erlenmeyer flask in hand, and glanced out the window, into the grey-blue sky, the light drizzle of rain despite the sun. Below, the soccer team continued on unperturbed. His eyes searched - there, there he is - for Arthur. He watched as the captain spun, arm flung wide - watched the water slick down his arm, a spray of droplets thrown from his hair - to send the ball back to Miguel on defense. He didn't bother to follow the ball after that, his entire attention devoted to Arthur as he ran, cleats digging into the turf, legs pistoning, sending him flying down the field.

Alfred's mind blanked as he watched - all remaining thoughts of fractional crystallization, lanthanides, shear stress, combustion equations, system efficiency, anything he would normally have running through his head - poof! Gone. Instead, his mind deigned - no, delighted - to present him with entirely different questions. What path would that rainwater take down your bare chest, Captain Kirkland? What would you look like with my hands snarled in your hair, pulling you close? What would those gorgeous legs feel like tangled with my own? Would your too-green-to-be-real eyes be closed or open as you leaned in to kiss...

He forcefully wrenched his train of thought back onto its tracks with a shake of his head. No! No! This is Arthur you're thinking about, got it? Caterpillar eyebrows, grouchy, lit nerd, disaster in the kitchen - and the lab, he recalled, wincing at the memories - soccer jock, control-freak, and all-around more-superior-than-thou Brit! Not your type, bud, not at all.

.o.

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