A/N: So I'm going to inconspicuously slip myself into this fandom, because it's addicting, and I swear, it's so much like a drug it's not even funny. D: So anyways, it's finally actually storming here in southern California (finally finally finally ) and the other day my street went through a blackout, which was quite a bummer since I had tons of homework left to do, but that's not really relative. Anyways, as the blackout hit, and my dad came up with increasingly stranger ways to light our way through the house…the idea popped up in my head and wouldn't let me go for a good while.
--NarutoKyuu (I'm sort of nervous stepping into a new fandom like this…)

(Warnings/Notes/Etc. Uhm…AU, yes, very AU (okay, well, not terribly AU), because I find it difficult to even speak about them as countries; as such, human names are being used; coarse language, of course; poor attempts at humor; first fic in Hetalia…if I somehow manage to brutalize their characters, I'm sorry; …ah…enjoy.
Pairings The usual (predictable), ya know. Germany/(N.)Italy, Spain/Romano, Prussia/Austria (because I can…), UK/US/UK mentioned, a little Austria/Hungary mentioned)

((Are disclaimers really necessary?))

Blackout

It was a fairly normal evening for him. Yes, excluding the torrents of rain pouring from the skies accompanied with the occasional thunder and lighting, this evening was like many others before.

It was a normal night.

This was normal.

Spending his night trying to salvage his blackened pots and pans was perfectly normal.

Or so he attempted to tell himself as he sat at the kitchen table, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, trying his best to clean his formerly stainless steel cooking ware.

Ludwig had tried his best to hold in any groans of despair upon finding his kitchen an utter wreck, and had even been able to keep his emotions in check as he tried to not strangle his elder brother for whatever attempts he had made at cooking.

But now, now, he could barely hold back the tears because, after an hour of dedicated and uninterrupted scouring, he had only been able to save one pot.

And as he silently mourned over the loss of his precious cooking ware with a blank stare at the rest of his moderately ruined kitchen (he had decided salvaging was slightly higher on his priority list than cleaning), the lights decided to flicker for a brief second before they completely gave out, plunging the entire house into darkness.

Gently massaging his forehead, Ludwig started a countdown in his head.

Three…

Two…

One…

"Ve~" Feliciano yelled (screamed?) as he managed to stumble into the kitchen and tightly wrap his arms around Ludwig while burying his face into the blond's chest. "Ludwig, Ludwig, all the power is gone!"

"Yes, I know," Ludwig replied as he awkwardly patted Feliciano on the head in a way that he hoped was comforting.

"West!" Ludwig tensed and turned his head to face the general direction of the entrance to the kitchen, not that it helped, with absolutely no light in the room. He took the brief second of silence following Gilbert's loud shout to wonder, for the umpteenth time, how in the world his elder brother had ended up using 'West' as a nickname, but that train crashed as soon as Gilbert started shouting again. "Where the hell are you?!"

"The kitchen."

Gilbert was apparently already on his way over as he proceeded to trip, curse loudly, and then fall into the room while waving a dangerously blinding flashlight.

Withholding a sigh, Ludwig gently removed the (was he cowering or snuggling?) redhead from his lap and went to relieve Gilbert of the potentially dangerous weapon. He then purposely avoided pointing the light in the direction of the still messy kitchen and stepped over his brother to head towards the living room where he had left his cell phone.

"Where are you going, Ludwig?"

Ludwig was saved from having to answer as Feliciano's cell phone started to ring, and it rang rather loudly, causing the owner of the phone to visibly jump in the air and Gilbert to shoot up and hit his head on the counter.

Feliciano quickly apologized and pulled the phone from his pocket and answered it. "Hello, Lovi, what do you need?"

There was a quick splutter on the other side as Antonio's voice could be faintly heard to which Lovino sharply replied, "Glowsticks? Why the fuck do you have glowsticks?!" before he remembered that he was on the phone and he actually had a reason for the call. Lovino grumbled, "The power is out there too, right?"

Feliciano nodded and replied, "Yup, but Ludwig was going to go do something about it," he gave the blond a glance, "Right?"

Ludwig simply nodded as he quickly dialed a number he knew by heart. This action was questionable, considering the person he was calling was also on speed-dial, but the fact remained that Ludwig was used to dialing the whole number and, in some ironic twist, using the speed dial would have taken a few seconds longer.

Gilbert's face lit up as he realized just who his dear younger brother was calling, and he swiftly snatched the phone away just as Roderich answered.

Catching on just a few seconds later, Feliciano happily told Lovino that, "Ludwig's calling Roderich…ve, but Gilbert stole the phone so I don't know if he's going to let us stay over, but we need to stay someplace with power because I think Ludwig still wants to get some work done so–"

"Enough about the bastard, just tell me if you're going or not."

"Ve, do you want to go too, Lovi?" Feliciano excitedly asked as he ignored the struggle for the phone between Ludwig and Gilbert behind him, and before Lovino even got a chance to respond, Feliciano said, "I can have them ask Roderich about it, and of course you'll bring Antonio too, right? Okay, I'll call you back!" He promptly hung up. He then eagerly turned to Gilbert (who had recaptured Ludwig's phone and was glowing with triumph) and asked if he could speak to Roderich too.

Gilbert was all too prepared to say, "No," but upon looking down into Feliciano's expertly expressed, large, shining, amber puppy-dog eyes, he found himself inexplicably unable to refuse. In fact, he couldn't speak at all and simply relinquished the phone to the Italian.

Grinning widely, Feliciano chirped, "Thank you, Gilbert," before speaking into the receiver, "Hello, Roderich! You're going to let us stay, right?" Feliciano pouted even though Roderich would be unable to see it and continued, "From what I know the whole street lost its power because Lovi just called me and said that the power was out over at their house too, and there was something about glowsticks and anyways, I think Lovi and Antonio want to stay over too, so can they?"

Knowing that, even though Roderich would try to talk Feliciano out of his slightly unreasonable request (the Austrian's house wasn't that big and Roderich highly doubted Lovino wanted to visit him) for a few minutes, he would eventually relent to Feliciano's wishes, Ludwig silently slipped out of the kitchen, taking the flashlight with him, to go and pack up his belongings.

Ludwig's thoughts were confirmed when moments later, he could here Feliciano excitedly exclaim, "Oh, thank you, Roderich! Ve, Gilbert wants to talk to you…Oh, he hung up. Sorry, Gilbert."

The blond tried to not feel sorry as he heard Gilbert semi-blindly shuffle through the hallway to his room, but it was difficult because as Ludwig thought he heard is brother mumble, "That's okay, he'll notice my awesomeness sooner or later…Right, Gilbird?" he made it sound as if the bird he was talking to had died.

But that soon passed as Ludwig took a moment to reconsider the analogy he had used, because it was quite ridiculous, seeing as Gilbert was talking to the little chick and so the little chick could not possibly be dead.

Slightly shrugging his shoulders, Ludwig went back to stowing his work away into a bag. When Feliciano poked his head in asking Ludwig what to do, Ludwig took a break to find another flashlight for the redhead to use, told him to pack some things, and returned to his own packing.

It wasn't until later, when Ludwig was driving them to Roderich's house while pointedly ignoring Gilbert moping to his bird in the back, half-listening to Feliciano's ramblings, and still attempting to tell himself that this was normal, that the German had to slightly acknowledge the fact that camping out at Roderich's house was perhaps, maybe just a little, out of the norm for him.

Roderich Edelstein was not happy.

He wasn't exactly angry, but he definitely wasn't happy.

The ringing of the phone that had interrupted his daily piano ritual was enough to make him slightly irritated, especially since he had been in the middle of one of his more favored pieces. But, having identified the caller as Ludwig, he told Elizabeta that he would answer the phone instead of letting her answer, since whenever Ludwig called, it was usually relatively important.

He was surprised to hear Gilbert's voice through the phone. Well, he knew that Gilbert was freeloading off of Ludwig, courtesy of Gilbert's inability to keep a job for more than a few months, but he couldn't begin to imagine how Gilbert had gotten his hands on Ludwig's cell phone (Roderich didn't think he wanted to know, either). However, he was feeling generous that night, and allowed Gilbert to continue talking; Roderich had even felt a little accomplished that he had been able to figure out the real reason Gilbert had called buried underneath all the innuendo Gilbert tended to throw at him whenever they spoke.

But, Roderich couldn't respond because soon after, he heard Ludwig say, "Hand over the phone, brother," followed by a rather loud, "No!" from Gilbert, and after that, Roderich wasn't too sure what happened, but he presumed that Ludwig started to try to forcibly take the phone away. Which, Roderich guessed, didn't exactly work when he heard Feliciano's voice moments later, thanking Gilbert.

Roderich almost made up some random excuse and hung up as soon as Lovino's name came out of Feliciano's mouth, but he couldn't because it was Feliciano, after all. That man never really meant any harm, and it was difficult to deny him anything. But…could five extra people fit in his house?

Roderich always thought he had a rather spacious house for the occasional two people it sheltered (occasional because Elizabeta seemed to come and go on strange whims of hers ever since they had divorced–Roderich preferred not to think about it too much), but he didn't really think that it was made to comfortably fit seven people.

He tried explaining this to Feliciano, but he was persistent, and Roderich gave in, pushing away the feeling that he was going to regret his decision.

Having Lovino and Ludwig (along with Gilbert) under the same roof wouldn't be too disastrous, right?

Roderich decided he had reached his limit when Feliciano mentioned that Gilbert still wanted to speak with him and ended the call. He then went to inform Elizabeta that there would be quite a few guests soon, and upon telling her who the guests would be, the Hungarian had looked positively elated at the news.

Deciding not to dwell on the matter for too long (Roderich knew more about Elizabeta's strange obsessions than he would have liked), he ventured back to his piano to savor whatever peace remained in his house before the imminent shattering of the calm atmosphere.

Lovino was furious with himself.

Why? Because if he hadn't decided to go to the bookstore that one cloudy day years ago, he would have never met Antonio (at times like this he liked to deny that he sometimes thought their chance meeting was some cheesy result of fate), and Antonio would have never fallen in love when he first spotted Lovino's "lovely hazel-green eyes" (or so the Spaniard claimed; Lovino didn't believe in such silly concepts), and then Lovino would have never met with Antonio for a second time (to return the umbrella Antonio had lent him, definitely not to see him again), and most importantly, Lovino wouldn't have been tripped by some sadistic other-worldly being into falling in love as well.

Lastly, that would mean that Lovino wouldn't be there right now, sitting on the kitchen table in absolute darkness, glaring where he could faintly make out the outline of Antonio (as if the blackout was somehow his fault), in Antonio's house where he had moved in almost two years go.

The indirect source of Lovino's anguish, Antonio, was currently rummaging through some drawers, only able to see because of the faint light his cell phone gave off, to find some other method of lighting the room because he had said, "Lovi, I don't know if we have any flashlights."

This had led Lovino to think, "What kind of fucking idiot, especially in this day and age, doesn't have at least one flashlight in their house?" and to say, "I don't care, just find some sort of light, bastard. Don't you at least have some candles or something?"

Quickly growing tired of being irritated at Antonio soon after (because it really wasn't his fault they were sitting in the near-dark with only a cell phone to light the room), Lovino reluctantly looked through his own cell phone to call his brother since Feliciano was currently inhabiting that other bastard's house, and said other bastard (was his name Ludwig?) just happened to live on the same street, and as much as Lovino hated it, he couldn't exactly do anything about it.

Lovino was distracted from responding to Feliciano by Antonio's loud exclamation of, "Aha! Lovi, look!" And look he did, curious as to what Antonio had found.

When Lovino spotted Antonio waving a glowing glowstick in one hand and holding a whole box of them in the other, he exploded.

Apparently, the man owned boxes (there was more than one?!) of glowsticks, but failed to stock either flashlights or candles. Why had he never noticed this?

Oh, then he remembered that he was still calling Feliciano. Oops. Well, that didn't matter because Feliciano was happy to rattle off about whatever was going on at the moment (something about Ludwig calling Roderich and Gilbert stealing the phone or something; Lovino could care less), but when Feliciano mentioned going over to Roderich's house, Lovino's thoughts had screeched to a stop. He wanted to deny anything that came out of his brother's mouth afterwards, but couldn't get a word in edgewise as Feliciano just kept talking and talking (Lovino didn't even want to question how Feliciano had come to the conclusion that he wanted to go over to Roderich's house), and when Feliciano hung up, Lovino was left sitting there, dumbstruck.

"So what did he say?" Antonio asked after realizing Lovino wasn't going to say anything any time soon. He had directly assumed Lovino was calling Feliciano, because Lovino only ever used his cell phone to call either him or his brother, and so Antonio was rather curious.

"We're going over to Roderich's, apparently."

"What? Why?"

Lovino closed his phone in irritation, stowed it in his pocket, grabbed a glowstick from the box, and as he activated it he explained, "Feliciano thought I wanted to stay over with them and I'm bringing you with me."

"Oh, so we'll be seeing Feliciano?" Antonio asked as his face brightened.

Eyes narrowing in annoyance, Lovino stormed off.

Several minutes later, as he was pulling a raincoat on, he yelled, "Hurry up and get whatever you need or I'm driving off without you, jackass."

"Wait, Lovi! You can't drive in the rain; you'll probably get into an accident! Let me drive," Antonio frantically responded as he made his way to the front door.

Lovino's jaw clenched in anger, but he didn't say anything about it because what Antonio said was true, though he would deny it if asked. "Then hurry up and get your ass over here, damn it!"

"Lovi, did you get the turtles?"

"Yes, they're in the car, and the car's running with the heater on, so unless you want the turtles to freeze or want the fucking car to stop running as well, get over here."

"You carried the tank by yourself?" Antonio asked as he finally appeared, still carrying a glowstick around.

Lovino didn't respond as they left the house and rushed to get into the car before they were soaked, although, he grudgingly acknowledged the fact that Antonio was right to worry about their dear turtles' safety, because Lovino himself had been quite worried. The tank was rather heavy, and when Lovino had been hauling it into the car, he had been afraid he would slip and accidentally drop it on the way there, but the fear wasn't enough to make him ask Antonio for help because he wasn't ready to be on speaking terms with the other just yet.

Lovino made it his mission to do his best to ignore Antonio the entire drive to Roderich's house even though he started to feel the tiniest hint of guilt when he had chanced a sideways glance at Antonio and saw a slightly hurt and confused expression because Antonio had thought that Lovino wasn't looking.

But, Lovino was able to convince himself that Antonio's confusion was enough of a reason to still be angry at him, even though he didn't want to be.

Several moments after stepping foot into the Edelstein household found Lovino and Feliciano locked in the guest bedroom that Elizabeta had been occupying until she had mysteriously disappeared after saying she needed to get her photography equipment. Lovino didn't want to know why, and couldn't be bothered to think about it because he was still angry at Antonio and the only reason Feliciano was with him was because Lovino didn't want his brother alone with Ludwig if he could actually do something to prevent it.

Feliciano was uncomfortable (but not unused to) the angry silence filling the room and so decided to fill it with a question. "Lovi, why do you always push Antonio away?"

It was a while before Lovino decided he wanted to respond. "Because he's always such an idiot and thinks he can piss me off and be oblivious about it at the same time."

"But…aren't you afraid he'll start to hate you?"

Lovino looked at Feliciano in confusion, wondering where all these questions were suddenly coming from (Feliciano had never seemed concerned before), but reluctantly responded, voice shaking just a bit. "O-Of course not." Lovino swallowed before continuing. "A-Antonio could never hate me, I mean, yeah, I guess he likes you more but he wouldn't have proposed and married me otherwise, right? And he's the one who tells me he loves me at the most fucking random times during the day…And…And…"

Afraid that Lovino would start acting even stranger now that he had stopped rambling, Feliciano smiled brightly and nodded. "Yeah, that's right!" After which the room plunged into another stifling silence.

Feliciano let out a long "Ve~" as he fell back onto the bed they were sitting on. Truthfully, he wanted to be outside with Ludwig, but when Feliciano had tried to leave earlier, Lovino had thrown a pillow at him and Feliciano decided it would be safer to just go along with his brother's wishes. Besides, Lovino looked sort of sad now and Feliciano wanted to distract him from that. "Lovi…do you think Ludwig hates me?"

"What?" Lovino snapped back.

"Do you think Ludwig hates me?"

Scowling, Lovino turned back to glare at the wall. "Why the hell would I know? You know I can't stand that bastard."

"I don't know…but today Ludwig yelled at me for letting Gilbert into the kitchen to cook."

"Why are you telling me this?"

Feliciano looked confused for a moment before answering, "Because you're my big brother so I can tell you anything!" His voice softened as he mumbled, "And you won't let me out of the room…"

Ignoring the second half of his explanation, Lovino glared at the wall as he reluctantly said, "Idon'tthinkhehatesyou."

"What?"

Face reddening, Lovino repeated, "I…don't think…he hates…you."

"Really?" Feliciano asked, eyes shining.

"Really. Now stop bothering me about it. Why do you care anyways?"

"Because I love him," Feliciano happily told Lovino.

It was Lovino's turn to splutter out, "W-What?" and look down at his brother with wide eyes.

Feliciano's smile softened as he dazedly stared at the ceiling. "I love Ludwig, Lovino."

Lovino stared at his brother for a little while longer before going back to glaring at the wall. "Fine. Whatever. But I swear, if he hurts you, I'm kicking his ass to Pluto."

"Thank you, Lovino!" Feliciano squealed as he hugged him.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

Feliciano jumped off of the bed and skipped to the door, happy he was finally free to leave the room, with Lovino's (reluctant) acceptance of Ludwig, too!

Before he could fully exit the room, Lovino called to him. "Feliciano."

"Yeah?"

"Do you think…" Lovino paused as he recollected his fleeing courage. "Should I be nicer to…Antonio?"

Feliciano's smile widened. "If Antonio doesn't mind, then there's no need," he replied before slipping out of the room and closing the door.

Roderich surveyed his crowded living room with disdain as he leaned away from Gilbert who he would have sworn was inching closer. Taking in his guests' faces once more, Roderich cleared his throat and decided that, since Lovino had finally reemerged from the guest room, it would be a good time to announce the sleeping arrangements–or lack thereof. "I don't trust anyone to sleep next to me but Elizabeta, so she'll be in my room. I only have one guest room, so you five will have to figure out who will be using the room and whoever doesn't will have to sleep on the couches, unless they want to sleep on the floor."

Gilbert immediately protested. "What? Why does that psycho bitch get to sleep with you?"

Roderich frowned and explained (again), "Like I said, I feel uncomfortable sleeping with anyone else–especially you, if that's what you were planning on." The brunet was about to walk off before he added, "And Elizabeta is not a 'psycho bitch.'"

"Are you kidding me?" Gilbert argued loudly while following him, intent on getting his way. "That woman uses frying pans as weapons of mass destruction!"

Stopping in the hallway, Roderich turned to glare at Gilbert. "Why do you have such a problem with her? Elizabeta is a nice, kind woman, and if you bothered to act civil around her, she can be quite lovely, or have you forgotten?" There was a pause before he continued. "And I think you deserved all those hits to the head."

"It's because I feel so lonely without you! I mean, I have West, and since Feliciano practically lives off of being around him he's around a lot too, but it's not the same! I don't know what it is about you, I mean, you're such a prissy, uptight prick, but I think I love you, but you don't know that and it hurts every time you ignore me and let her chase me out of the house even though I try not to and…" Gilbert's eyes widened. "And I…Shit." He ran a hand frantically through his already messy platinum hair. "Damn it. You know what? Forget I said anything."

Gilbert proceeded to turn around and walk away, leaving a very shocked Roderich in his wake.

Through an extensive and diplomatic game of rock-paper-scissors, it was decided that Antonio would get the bed, and since Lovino was sleeping with Antonio, the elder Vargas got the bed as well by default. Antonio had started to offer to share the bed with Feliciano as well before catching Lovino's irritated expression that was translated to a hurt expression (because Antonio had long since learned how to read Lovino's large collection of different levels of irritated faces) and changed his offer into a question of where Feliciano would sleep. Feliciano immediately remedied this by saying that he didn't mind having to sleep on top of Ludwig (because Lovino still didn't like Feliciano being anywhere near Gilbert), claiming that it wasn't as uncomfortable as it sounded. Any arguments made afterwards were immediately shot down as Ludwig reluctantly agreed because he didn't want Feliciano to sleep on the floor (since if he hadn't agreed, the younger Vargas would have insisted on Ludwig sleeping on the couch), and, although he would never admit it out loud, he slept a little better when Feliciano was next to him.

After that matter had been settled, Antonio and Lovino went to dote on their turtles for a little while before going to bed, Ludwig hastily went to look through the papers he had originally intended to work on but had never been able to start until now, and Feliciano alternated between watching Ludwig work and worrying about Gilbert who was, quite literally, sulking in a corner talking to Gilbird.

Finally taking pity on the oddly albino man, Feliciano crouched next to him and asked, "Gilbert, what's wrong?"

"Nothing! Why would you think anything's wrong? It's fun being all alone with just Gilbird with me. Yeah, that's right, so you have nothin' to worry about, Feli…"

Feliciano frowned and attempted to look intimidating. "Stop lying to me, you're obviously very hurt. What's wrong?"

Unknown to the two in the corner, Ludwig had stopped working a long time ago and was interestedly listening to the conversation, wondering what had happened to make Gilbert sound so…heartbroken.

Gilbert smiled half-heartedly. "I'm not lying to you."

"Yes, you are," Feliciano cried, exasperated for once in his life. "It's never fun to be alone." He lowered his voice to a whisper and, even with Feliciano's abnormally loud voice, it was difficult for Ludwig to certainly hear anything. "I know because…ve, before Lovi met Antonio, even though he never said anything, I know he was really lonely 'cause I'd be the only one who talked to him at school as a friend and…" the Italian's voice grew even softer, "I'm always afraid Ludwig will realize he hates me and that he'll ignore me, and I know then I'll be really lonely too, because even though I have a lot of other friends, I really, really love Ludwig…So I know you're lying." Feliciano's eyes brightened when Gilbert didn't answer but seemed to cave in. "Ve, is it Roderich?"

Gilbert winced but nodded.

Ludwig decided to intervene. "He doesn't hate you, brother."

Feliciano tensed as he heard Ludwig's voice. Frantic thoughts chased each other around in his head, "He was listening?" "What did he hear?" "Does he hate me now?" However, Feliciano was unable to voice any of this as he was crouched frozen in shock.

Gilbert flinched and automatically stood up to look over at his brother. "What do you mean? Of course he does."

"He doesn't."

"He does!"

"He does no–" Ludwig froze as he realized he was being brought into a childish back-and-forth argument. He switched tactics and asked, "Why do you think he hates you?"

Gilbert moved to sit on the couch, leaving Gilbird to questioningly stare up at a still frozen Feliciano. "I tease him all the time, we're always arguing, and he hates talkin' to me in general. He doesn't even like me being in the same room as him, forget being in his house."

Ludwig briefly looked to the ceiling wondering why he had decided to intervene before replying. "He's never kicked you out before."

Gilbert frowned and said, "What does kickin' me out have anything to do with this? I can tell he doesn't like being around me."

"He doesn't know how to act around you, but he doesn't kick you out because he doesn't dislike you." Or so Roderich had complained to Ludwig once.

"That makes absolutely no sense," Gilbert grumbled as he kicked his shoes off and flopped down on the couch. Rolling over to face the backing after grabbing a blanket, he said, "I'm going to sleep. 'Night."

Used to Gilbert abruptly ending arguments, Ludwig responded with a simple, "Good night," and turned to look at the unnaturally silent Feliciano. Cautiously, he called out to him. "Feliciano…? Are you alright?"

"What?" Feliciano shot up and looked around. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he answered, a smile plastered on his face.

Ludwig hardly believed that Feliciano was okay, but he went along with it, not sure if he was able to deal with an emotional Feliciano. Feliciano brought Gilbird over with him and gently placed the little bird into his makeshift bed on the coffee table as he said, "Well, if Gilbert is going to sleep, we should too, right?" He looked at Ludwig before quickly adding, "If you're done working, of course. If not I can wait until you're done."

Ludwig mutely nodded as he started mindlessly shuffling papers and putting them away, wondering about Feliciano's odd behavior. Was it because of his early confession? Ludwig shook the thought from his mind as absently tried to brush his bangs that had been freed from the gel an hour ago away from his eyes. "I'm done," Ludwig verbalized when Feliciano didn't seem to understand him.

Feliciano nodded and fingered the bottom hem of his shirt as Ludwig went to turn off the lights. Extraordinarily, Feliciano moved his hands away from his shirt and just climbed on top of Ludwig, dragging the other blanket Roderich had set out with him, still fully clothed.

Worry increasing to the point where Ludwig could no longer ignore it, he asked again, "Are you alright?"

When Feliciano remained silent and hid his face in Ludwig's chest, Ludwig resolved to step out of his own comfort bubble to prod at Feliciano's. "Feliciano?"

"…"

"Answer me, Feliciano."

After another brief silence, Feliciano quietly asked, "Do you hate me now, Ludwig?"

"What? Why would I hate you?"

"You heard what I said, right? All of it?" Feliciano elucidated, but he still refused to look up.

"Yes, but I don't understand why that would give me any reason to hate you."

"You mean…you don't mind that I love you?"

"I don't."

Feliciano was shocked into looking up, eyes shining even in the dark. "You really mean it?"

"Yes."

Looping his arms around Ludwig to hug him, Feliciano brought himself up so he could faintly distinguish Ludwig's face from the rest of their surroundings. "Do you love me, Ludwig? As more than a friend?"

Blue eyes widened ever so slightly as a blush raced across his cheeks. Ah, he was caught. Even though he couldn't exactly see Feliciano, his eyes still nervously diverted to the side. "I…Yes."

Feliciano smiled and placed a small, chaste kiss on Ludwig's lips before pulling away and snuggling against him. Listening to the German's rapidly beating heart, Feliciano sleepily asked, "Don't tell Lovi that I told his secret, okay?"

Unable to form proper responses as his brain jumpstarted and as blood rushed to his face, Ludwig could only say, "Okay."

"Good night. I love you, Ludwig."

It was only after Feliciano had fallen asleep that Ludwig regained his ability to speak. He muttered, "Good night…I love you too…Feliciano," before falling asleep as well.

Lovino snuggled back into Antonio's embrace as they settled into the bed. Lovino would rather be locked in a room with Francis (one of Antonio's closer friends and a rather…affectionate Frenchman) for a couple of hours than admit it, but Lovino was so used to sleeping with Antonio next to him, he could no longer sleep without him; he even went without his habitual siestas that he'd had ever since he was a child if Antonio wasn't around to take a nap with him.

As Lovino mused over these changes, he ran his fingers over the back of Antonio's hand that was lying on his stomach. Lovino startled a little when their rings clicked together, but he quickly settled again, and as Antonio chuckled, Lovino could only give the darkness a feeble glare. Antonio allowed his timid lover (because despite Lovino's hot temper, timid he was) to play around with the ring for a few moments before asking, "What're you thinking about?"

Lovino was silent for a while, still playing with the band around Antonio's finger, before he reluctantly responded, "Do you…hate me?"

Shocked, Antonio quickly replied, "Of course not. I would never hate you, Lovi. What makes you think I would hate you?"

His face burned and he could feel tears that he really didn't want start forming in his eyes. "You're lying."

"Why would I be lying?" Antonio asked frantically.

Lovino entwined his fingers over through the backs of Antonio's and answered, "I'm always so mean to you, and…and Feliciano said that you might start to hate me because of that…and I thought about it and I realized that you really have no reason to love me, and you always liked Feliciano better, but because he doesn't like you that way you settled for me, and you really have no reason to love me…"

Antonio was quick to turn Lovino around to face him so that he could gently wipe away the tears that were slipping past the younger man's guard. "I love you for you, Lovi. Feliciano has nothing to do with this. It does kind of hurt when you hit me, but," Antonio stressed this as Lovino started to protest (or agree), "It's fun to be with you, Lovi. Well, I'm not sure if 'fun' is the right word, but it's exciting. Do you understand what I mean? I never know if you'll let me hug you or not, but it keeps things interesting. I love you, Lovi. I wouldn't have said, 'I do,' if I didn't."

When Lovino didn't respond, Antonio sighed and asked, "What else do I have to do to prove to you that I love you, and only you?"

When his question was met with silence, Antonio whispered, "I love you," and just before he captured the Italian's lips into a kiss, he continued on a breath, "Lovino."

Startled into a response by his full name that only left the Spaniard's lips once before (at the altar) since Antonio had refused to say it even when they first met, Lovino, hesitantly at first, then eagerly, kissed back. Alarms started ringing in the back of his mind when he could feel one of Antonio's hands in his hair, but Lovino ignored them as he continued to explore Antonio's mouth, looping his arms around him and pulling him closer.

Consequently, Lovino was expectedly surprised when Antonio's fingers wrapped around the one curl amongst many other dark auburn locks that refused to be flattened and gently tugged at it. Lovino's response was instantaneous as he pulled away from the kiss with an indignant shout of, "Ch-Chigi!" as his face reddened. Antonio tensed as he prepared himself for being pushed off of the bed, but the push never came.

"Lovi?"

"Sh-Shut up. We can't do that here, bastard."

"What do you mean, Lovi?" Antonio asked innocently, as if he didn't know what pulling the hair curl did. He never really understood how one strand of hair could work that way, but he had learned early on (when he had given into curiosity and touched the curl one day) what the overall effect was.

"You know what I mean!"

"Shh," Antonio reminded, giving Lovino a quick kiss to silence him. "You might wake someone up."

"And whose fault would that be?" Lovino grumbled, but he scooted closer to Antonio and made himself comfortable, anyways. "You're the one who was touching me like that."

"I'll be quiet if you are."

Surprised that his face wasn't glowing by how hot it felt, Lovino hissed, "It's not just whether we're quiet or not! What about the sheets?"

Antonio smiled a smile that translated into a smirk for him. "I'll be careful if you are," he whispered as he playfully tugged on Lovino's hair curl again.

"You-You bastard," Lovino groaned out; but he didn't say no.

Ludwig wasn't sure if it had been the flash or the quiet yelling that had woken him up, but all that mattered was that he had been. Being careful not to deposit Feliciano onto the floor, Ludwig slowly sat up and looked around the dimly lit room to see Elizabeta and Gilbert arguing. "What's going on?"

The arguing immediately stopped as Elizabeta and Gilbert both turned to look at Ludwig, who looked more than a little irritated.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Ludwig, did we wake you?" Elizabeta asked sweetly, as if she hadn't been close to hitting Gilbert over the head just a few seconds earlier.

Gilbert rolled his eyes, "Of course you did," before turning to Ludwig and explaining, "The flash from the she-demon's camera woke me up. I was only trying to protect my dear little brother's dignity, heaven forbid."

"You nearly attacked me!" Elizabeta responded, glaring.

Ludwig sighed and ran a hand tiredly over his face before saying, "It's in the middle of the night. Morning. Whatever. The point is, I really don't care what Elizabeta was doing, as long as she doesn't mass produce them," Ludwig silently prayed this wouldn't happen, "So I don't care whatever personal quarrels you have, brother. Just argue somewhere that won't wake anyone up."

Elizabeta smirked triumphantly as Ludwig lay back down and pointedly ignored anything either she or Gilbert did until it was a time when normal people were awake. Gilbert glared, but decided he didn't want to face the wrath of an angry Ludwig, and slunk back to the other couch to curl up and try to fall back asleep.

Grinning to herself, Elizabeta quietly danced up the steps to check the door of the guest bedroom. She wasn't too surprised when she found it locked, and she wasn't terribly disappointed either, since the picture of Feliciano and Ludwig was a treasure enough for the night. Elizabeta happily stole back into Roderich's room where she quietly slipped back into the covers. It was when she was just about to sleep that Roderich stirred.

"Liz?" he asked drowsily.

"Yes, Roderich?" she replied nervously.

Roderich sort of nodded and turned to have his back face her. "Good night."

Blinking in confusion, she replied with a shaky, "Y-yeah, good night," and didn't relax until Roderich's breathing evened out.

As Elizabeta started drifting between the land of sleep and the state of consciousness, she wondered why she had actually been worried that Roderich would ask where she had been. He had stopped asking after the first three times he had caught her, content to not know the details of her late night photography expeditions, so long as she never seriously got in trouble for it, but she supposed that they hadn't slept in the same bed for so long that she had forgotten, for a moment. Her last thought before she slept was, "Now if he would just get together with Gilbert…"

It was still early in the morning when Gilbert woke up again. He wasn't sure why he woke up when he did, only later on he would be thankful to whatever strange force had woken him, because when he woke up, he was able to catch a glimpse of Roderich walking down the hallway to, Gilbert assumed, the front door.

Gilbert was immediately off of the couch and pulling on his boots and jacket while he attempted to follow. It partly worked and after all of his limbs were accounted for, he caught up to Roderich just as he was stepping out of the door. "Where are you going, Roddy?"

"The supermarket. Why are you following me?"

Watching his breath form in the cold air before him, Gilbert said, "Are they even open this early in the morning? I'm making sure you don't get lost."

Pink tinted the Austrian's cheeks as he purposely looked forward. "I know my way to the supermarket."

"Well, if you're so sure about your sense of direction, then I'm protecting you from gettin' mugged."

"When have I ever been mugged?"

Gilbert shrugged and shoved his hands into his pocket to keep them warm. "It could happen."

"I certainly hope not."

"So why are you going to the supermarket so early in the morning?" Gilbert asked, looking for a change in topic."

"Feliciano told me last night that he wanted to cook breakfast, but I don't have enough of the proper ingredients for him, so I need to go and buy them before he wakes up."

Gilbert inconspicuously guided Roderich to the turn he almost missed before he offhandedly remarked, "We might want to walk a little faster, then. Feliciano went to sleep on top of West and West almost always wakes up at six. There are a few exceptions, but I don't know if he'll think Feliciano's need to sleep in a good enough excuse to not wake him up."

Roderich nodded and the speed at which they walked increased. They walked in a, surprisingly, relatively comfortable silence for the rest of the way to the supermarket. It wasn't until after Roderich had frantically found the proper food items and the proper amount and they were waiting in the line that for some reason was always there, no matter what time of day it was, that Roderich started up the conversation again. "What you said the other day…was all of it true?"

Gilbert looked away from the assortment of gum and candy he had been idly examining to look at Roderich, confusion clearly written across his face. Roderich was actually mentioning a previous conversation they had? A quick scan through his memories caused the already pale albino to lose whatever color he had. "I thought I said to forget about it."

Quickly reading the total price of the food, Roderich pulled the money out of his wallet as he quietly said, "I'm sorry, but, personally, I find it difficult to forget a conversation in which someone who I previously thought had nothing better to do in life than torment me quite blatantly gave me a love confession."

Gilbert didn't reply for a while as he subconsciously took the heavier bags to carry on the way back to the house. When they were halfway towards their return destination, Gilbert finally spoke up. "Yeah, I was tellin' the truth."

Roderich was silent as he turned this new information around in his head. The German (well, Prussian by Gilbert's claims, but no one else thought so since the country wasn't exactly a country anymore) walking next to him was all too happy to continue walking in silence, red eyes wandering everywhere but to Roderich.

"I'm sorry," Roderich finally spoke up.

"For what?"

The brunet shifted uncomfortably as he awkwardly replied. "For hurting you."

Gilbert shrugged away the apology as if he hadn't cried before he slept more than once, because that just wasn't an awesome thing to admit to, for his pride, and because that would only accomplish making Roderich feel even guiltier. "It's not like you knew."

"Elizabeta was always trying to set us up," Roderich admitted. This was news to Gilbert. He had known Elizabeta was rather fond of male-on-male activities, and had been caught as a voyeur more than once, but he personally thought she started hating his guts somewhere along the line for some reason and wouldn't let him anywhere near Roderich. "She didn't tell me, but I think she knew," Roerich continued, musing more to himself than speaking to Gilbert. "She probably found out when lurking around Ludwig's house."

Gilbert stuffed his pride into a box for once (finding it rather enjoyable to have a relatively normal conversation with Roderich) and said, "It's great you thought so much about it, but you're wrong." When he received a confused expression, Gilbert felt obliged to explain. "I told her a while ago, when I couldn't stand the thought of you two dating anymore."

Roderich's eyebrows rose in surprise. "For that long?"

Gilbert shrugged. "I guess? I don't think I really knew what it was when I told her I had started to hate her for no reason at all. She seemed to know what it was, though she never bothered to tell me, and I was too busy hating her to find out."

Roderich silently took this information in and filed it away for later as he opened the door and stepped inside the delightfully warm interior. As they both stored the food in the kitchen, Gilbert quietly said, "It was actually nice talking to you, Roderich."

The brunet in question allowed himself a small smile, since he was currently facing away from the albino, as he bit back a retort, knowing Gilbert was purposely lowering his defenses to test the waters. If Roderich thought about it long enough, he figured that it was Gilbert's own way of asking permission. It was strange, but Gilbert was a strange person. "You're surprisingly an interesting person when you want to be, Gilbert," Roderich replied, playing along.

His hopes fell when Gilbert said, "After all these years, finally, you admit I'm awesome," but they were saved from shattering when he softly added, "Thanks, Roderich."

Breakfast was a noisy affair.

Before the dish had been set on the table for no longer than a few seconds, more than half of it was already split up more or less evenly between Feliciano, Lovino, and Gilbert; that left the remaining four surrounding the table to frantically scramble for whatever was left before any of the former three felt the need to obtain a second helping.

This resulted in Antonio having a frying pan introduced to his face when Ludwig accidentally elbowed Elizabeta in the side and Roderich letting out a stream of curses few of them thought he knew as he was knocked back into Gilbert's lap by a waylaid arm (probably Antonio's).

"Uhm…Specs?"

"I've told you not to call me that. What is it?" Roderich angrily responded, irritated that his tirade full of his rarely used vocabulary had been cut short.

It also became noticeably quiet around the table, all eyes drawn to the brunet and the albino–with the exception of Lovino and Antonio, and even then Lovino's concerned questions were barely a whisper and Antonio was content to silently let Lovino fawn over him, since it was such a rare occurrence.

"You're sitting on my lap."

Elizabeta and Ludwig tensed, waiting for the outburst that never came.

Feliciano positively beamed when all Roderich said was, "So?"

"You're not going to get off?" Gilbert asked, completely confused and out of his element.

Gilbert only managed to look even more bewildered as Roderich gave him an irritated scowl which only seemed to be enhanced by the glare sliding on and off of his glasses. "Do you want me to?"

Mind whirling, Gilbert could only blurt out, "No, of course not."

Roderich nodded, "Then it's settled." He then proceeded to free Gilbert's fork from his lax grip and steal a few bites from the albino's plate, as if this was completely and utterly normal and he had done this for years.

Following the confused silence, Elizabeta found herself holding her frying pan up threateningly. "Who are you and what have you done with Roderich?!" she asked shrilly as panic started to fill her brain.

"What in the world are you talking about, Elizabeta?"

Her hand shook as she couldn't decide whether to whack this…this stranger or to unquestioningly accept Roderich's bizarre and sudden change in attitude.

It seemed as if everyone chose the latter, choosing to go back to the food before it was wasted and only sparing a few questioning glances to Roderich who was comfortably sitting in a still confused Gilbert's lap.

It wasn't until Gilbert's brain started fully functioning again hours later that he realized that Roderich had managed to beat him at his own game because, despite Roderich's strange behavior at the table, when Gilbert approached him an hour or so later, Roderich was back to his old prissy self. However, it wasn't until Gilbert had stared at Gilbird for another hour did he finally understand that Roderich had been giving him the permission to try to sweep the Austrian off of his feet that he had been asking for earlier.

Upon this realization, Gilbert had broken into a wide grin, excitedly twirled with Gilbird in his hands before placing the chick on his head, and run out to the driveway where Antonio and Lovino were preparing to make their leave. While Ludwig and Feliciano were going to stay around for a few more hours (forcing Gilbert to stay there as a result), Lovino had wanted to go home after breakfast, since he hadn't even wanted to stay over at Roderich's in the first place.

"Antonio, wait up!"

A smile stretched across tanned skin; Antonio turned to face him from where he was trying to place the turtle tank safely in the back seat. "Yes?"

"Don't suddenly let go, bastard!" Lovino cried out as Antonio's grip on the tank slackened.

"I just figured out something really awesome, not as awesome as me, of course, but pretty damn close!" was Gilbert's excited reply as he completely ignored the death glares from Lovino.

Shifting his hands to support most of the weight of the tank once more, Antonio humored Gilbert. "What is it?"

Gilbert was about to enlighten Antonio to his not-as-awesome-as-him-but-still-quite-awesome realization before another brilliant idea struck him. "Wait! I've got to tell Francis too!"

Growling, Lovino snapped, "What the hell does that have to do with Antonio?"

Gilbert waved Lovino's anger away like a pesky fly and replied, "I just need to borrow him for a few hours, and then you guys can get back to whatever you do during the weekend."

Before Lovino could attack, Antonio said, "I'll drive him over to Francis' and then we can go home, okay, Lovi?" The Spaniard plastered on a charming smile before continuing, "It won't take longer than an hour, I promise." He sealed the promise with a small kiss.

Face turning red, Lovino quickly grumbled, "Fine, jackass," and ducked into the passenger seat. He still wasn't allowed to drive because he tended to speed and the roads were still slick with rain.

There was a small struggle as several attempts were made to cram both Gilbert and the tank in the backseat, and once that had been accomplished, Gilbert was still uncomfortable with the tank pressing up against him, but for once he couldn't bring himself to care. In Gilbert's mind, Roderich had practically begged the Prussian (German, really) to steal his heart, and Gilbert wasn't planning on letting his pretty Austrian down.

"You are absolutely sure?" Francis asked, eyes shining just as much as Gilbert's once he had received the news.

"Positive," Gilbert reassured with a wide grin on his face.

"Congratulations!" Antonio happily cheered, pulling Lovino a little closer to him as he caught Francis' momentary leer towards the Italian. To his credit, Lovino remained silent, despite the violent shade of red his face had turned, and simply continued to glare at anyone who happened to give him, or anyone at the table he was sitting at for that matter, a strange look before carefully examining each and every turtle in the tank next to him that they had managed to smuggle in without the manager's notice.

The way the three friends were acting, any random passerby might have thought that Gilbert was getting married, or something to that effect. In fact, that was what many of the people were thinking as they sat in the restaurant where Francis worked. Even though Gilbert was most certainly not betrothed to Roderich, it was all the same to the albino; he had been attempting to grab Roderich for years, especially after Roderich had finally divorced Elizabeta (for whatever reason that Gilbert didn't care too much about), and he had finally be given the okay. In Gilbert's mind, that was about the same level as having a proposal accepted; and the feelings were definitely shared with his friends who had been forced to listen to him whine and complain for years on end.

"So," Francis started innocently enough, "What are you planning to do to your dear Roderich?" but he ended his inquiry with a devilish smile.

Francis and Antonio were rightfully confused when all that happened was a dimming down in Gilbert's happiness.

"What's wrong?"

A small frown stole onto Gilbert's face and he looked at the table thoughtfully. At length, he said three words that managed to shock Francis and Antonio into a long silence. "I don't know."

To rewind, Gilbert always had had an idea of what he wanted to do with and/or to Roderich before, whether it was short-term or long-term, and he had always been boasting about his next new plot. But now, when being with Roderich was finally plausible, Gilbert was actually scared of screwing things up and ruining his chances forever.

Francis slung an arm casually around Gilbert's shoulders as he spoke, "Now that simply won't do. You have always known what to do around dear Roderich, no?"

Francis took a sip from his glass as he thought of a solution, but Antonio beat him to it. "Isn't Roderich participating in a big concert soon?"

Face brightening, Francis added in his own thoughts, "Our dear Antonio has a point; you have had that date marked on your calendar for months, have you not?"

That was true, now that he thought about it. Ever since Roderich had mentioned it in passing, Gilbert had marked it down on every single calendar he owned. Now, he hadn't exactly decided if he was actually going to attend, but he figured the date would be there if he sporadically decided to attend the day before and had to sneak in because he would be too late to buy a ticket.

Gilbert flipped his cell phone open to scan through his calendar, his face losing all color as he saw the very date prominently marked. All he could say was a small, quiet, "It's next week."

Before anyone could comment, Lovino had kicked Francis hard in the shin for the hand he saw wandering under Antonio's shirt. Francis jumped into the air and almost knocked his head against the lamp hanging over the booth as he yelped in pain.

Antonio immediately turned to Lovino and asked, "What was that for, Lovi?"

But by then, Lovino had lost his courage when he realized that Francis could possibly get angry at him for kicking him in the shin, and mutely tapped his watch while trying to muster up an impatient face.

Face brightening in realization, Antonio quickly said, "Oh, I'm sorry, Lovi." He smiled to the others and said, "I have to get going, but good luck with getting into the concert, Gilbert!" He was forced to hastily pull his jacket on and grab the tank full of turtles in order to run after Lovino who had already started leaving.

After determining that, yes, there would definitely be a bruise on his shin in the morning, Francis told Gilbert, "I apologize, but I must also get back to work." As he stood up, he added, "But, you might be able to talk to Arthur about your issue." Francis laughed to himself as he walked away and said over his shoulder, "I know that he has secretly snuck into concerts before, and although it is not the same, it is close, no?"

With that piece of advice, Gilbert found himself calling an old friend with a phone number he actually very rarely used. Simply put, Gilbert preferred to randomly show up upon doorsteps demanding companionship most of the time.

"…Hello?" came the unsure answer from Arthur.

Grinning brightly and running his free hand gently over Gilbird, the Prussian replied, "Hey, Arthur! Are you up to a few rounds tonight?"

Arthur grumbled something unintelligible before saying, "I'm sorry; I have plans, could we meet tomorrow night, perhaps?"

Smirking, Gilbert drawled, "Have fun with your little American; I'll see you tomorrow," immediately hanging up afterwards before he got an earful of indignantly angry Briton.

Gilbert pocketed his phone and stretched as he stood. He placed Gilbird on his shoulder before sneaking out the back door of the restaurant and settled in for a long walk home.

Gilbert drummed his fingers impatiently on his third mug of the night. On most nights, by the time Arthur had arrived, Gilbert would have already gone through five or six (maybe even seven if he was having a bad day), but a small part of him recognized that he had to be at least relatively sober to create a plan that would actually work, so Gilbert held back, just a little. Also on normal nights, Gilbert and Arthur would usually start out at the bar and see what happened from there as the night wore on and the mugs piled up, but since he wasn't planning on getting smashed, Gilbert had gone and taken a table.

Arthur finally appeared through the door and stalked to the secluded table Gilbert was at, fixing his tie and collar with a red face. Watching Arthur's movements with obvious amusement, Gilbert silently handed Arthur the beer he had been nursing and Arthur finished it gratefully as he sat.

Taking note of Gilbert's expression, Arthur scowled and grumbled, "I doubt you're in much of a position to be taking amusement in my situation."

Gilbert slowly frowned as Arthur waved down a waiter to order more drinks. It was true that even if they had met to drink just for the sake of getting drunk in the past, nowadays they never met to drink unless one of them was having problems and needed to vent.

Feeling the new mug in his hands with vague interest before taking a large gulp, Gilbert asked, "So how was yesterday?"

Arthur's scowl deepened as a red tint appeared across his cheeks. "Aren't we here to talk about your problems?"

Gilbert shrugged. "I guess…" There was a heavy pause until the glare Arthur was sending him finally made him talk. "Remember Roderich?"

Arthur rolled his shimmering green eyes. "How could I forget? You've been pining after him for years. Has he finally had enough of you?"

Gilbert grinned. "Actually, I think he's finally staring to like me!"

Arthur nearly choked as his eyes widened. "What? Since when?"

Gilbert thought. "Yesterday morning-ish?" He waved his hand. "It doesn't matter. The point is, Roderich's in a concert this upcoming week, but I can't get in."

"What am I supposed to do about it?"

Grinning, Gilbert said, "You've snuck into concerts before, right?"

"Absolutely not," Arthur lied, "Who told you that?"

"Francis."

As Arthur cursed the Frenchman, Gilbert asked, "So will you help me?"

Arthur stared at his whiskey in thought. "I suppose…"

A couple of hours of intensive planning later, Gilbert was walking home with an extra spring in his step. After bidding farewell to Arthur (with the sly remark of telling him to "relax a little and have fun with his American" to which Arthur had actually replied with "I might take that into consideration" instead of blushing and scowling) Gilbert was convinced that nothing could stop him from seeing Roderich perform; even if he didn't like classical music, he figured he could endure a few hours of it since Roderich was the one playing.

Gilbert flung the door to Ludwig's house open wide, loudly proclaiming, "The awesome me is home!"

After receiving an unsatisfactory, "Welcome home~" from Feliciano and no reply from Ludwig, Gilbert wandered into the living room to spot an envelope sitting on the coffee table.

Following the line of reasoning that, if it was sitting out in the open he could snoop through it even though it still might not be for him since Feliciano could be an airhead, Gilbert swiped the envelope off of the table and looked through it.

Once his brain restarted from the shock, he yelled, "West! What the hell is this?"

Upon receiving no reply (again) Gilbert stomped off to Ludwig's room, and since he never had to knock before he saw no reason to start the habit now, and flung the door open. "Damn it, West, why aren't you answering m–" Gilbert's eyes widened as he took note of the situation.

Feliciano seemed to be making a feast out of Ludwig's neck, and Ludwig seemed far from hating it.

Ignoring the way Ludwig was covering his face in embarrassment, Feliciano asked, "Ve, can you yell at Ludwig later, Gilbert?"

Gilbert blinked a couple of times before replying, "Y-yeah," and shutting the door loudly as he exited.

He then proceeded to stare at the wall across the door for a few more seconds.

Well.

Shaking the thought of the injustice that his younger, uptight, no-nonsense, younger brother was getting laid before he was (even though Gilbert had been silently complaining about the tension between the two before) from his mind, Gilbert looked back into the envelope and a paper he hadn't noticed before fell out.

Note in one hand and envelope in the other, Gilbert sidled away from the door to his own room and slowly read the note that was addressed to him.

Gilbert,
Since I know you would have forgotten about it, I took the liberty of buying some tickets for you. You're welcome.
Ludwig

Oh. That explained things. Gilbert figured it would have saved him trouble had he noticed the note earlier, but he guessed he had some more blackmail material on Ludwig for now, so it wasn't all too terrible. Gilbert grinned as he refilled Gilbird's food bowl. This was great, even if Gilbert couldn't use the awesome plan Arthur had devised for him, he was still going to be able to see Roderich perform, even though he thought it would be more fun do to so illegally.

"Isn't this great, Gilbird? I'm going to sweep him off his feet."

Gilbert smiled as the little bird chirped in reply.

Gilbert quietly whistled as he attempted to climb over Roderich's fence. It took some struggling and a few scrapes and bruises in uncomfortable places for a good hour, but Gilbert finally hoisted himself over the ornate fence and rolled into Roderich's backyard. As he picked the lock to the back door, Gilbert didn't even mind all the injuries he was sustaining; he was having one of the best days in his life so far.

He had finally found another job, and after not immediately being fired on day one, he had managed to stay awake the entire concert, plus when Roderich had bowed to the audience, he could see the brunet's pretty amethyst eyes pause for the briefest second on him.

Changing his whistles into a low hum as the door unlocked, Gilbert carefully picked his way through the dark of the unlit living room. After spending years lazing around this house, Gilbert had devoted the layout to memory and had taken note of each and every furniture change that had ever occurred. He paused for a second to tell himself that, no, he wasn't being overly stalker-ish and creepy, and continued his way to Roderich's room, hoping that Elizabeta had decided to sleep in her own house that night.

He grinned as he quietly and slowly opened the door to Roderich's room and found that the Austrian had his back to the door. Gilbert snuck up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist, but his happiness was short lived as he was flipped over and slammed onto his back.

Blinking away the stars at the edge of his vision, Gilbert's eyes widened and then clenched shut as a fist came his way in a collision course with his face.

"G-Gilbert?" Roderich's shocked voice suddenly asked.

Tentatively opening his eyes and trying to look past the fist that was centimeters from his nose, Gilbert looked up at Roderich's confused face before grinning (despite his near run in with Roderich's fist).

"Yes?"

"What are you doing sneaking around in my home?" he asked, still pinning Gilbert to the carpet, much to the albino's chagrin.

"Well, I kind of figured that you wouldn't let me in the front door," Gilbert explained nonchalantly while trying to reverse their positions.

The action didn't go unnoticed and Roderich shifted his weight to press more firmly against Gilbert. "Well you figured wrong."

Masking his surprise and frustration, Gilbert smirked and asked, "Really now?"

"Yes," Roderich huffed as he stood up. "Now what do you want?"

"You," Gilbert sang as he swept Roderich into his arms and deposited him onto the bed. When Roderich tried to sit up and ask just what Gilbert thought he was doing as the albino moved to the light switch, Gilbert simply told him to "Stay put."

Grinning as Roderich inexplicably listened and obeyed, Gilbert turned the lights off, kicked his boots away, and jumped onto the bed over Roderich.

"What do you think you're doing?" Roderich asked indignantly as he felt Gilbert's breath ghost across his cheek the same time he felt a hand push under his shirt.

Gilbert gave him a quick kiss, answered, "You, hopefully," before attacking Roderich's lips again.

Roderich would deny any sounds of pleasure that had escaped him, and he would definitely deny any claims to him having been out of breath and wanting more as he weakly resisted. "G-get off of me. Now."

"But the fun's just startin', Roddy," Gilbert purred as he ran a hand through neatly styled, brown locks, effectively mussing them up.

Roderich reluctantly let Gilbert softly kiss him and ran his fingers hesitantly along the side of Gilbert's neck, surprised at Gilbert's sudden tenderness, because of all the adjectives Roderich had collected for Gilbert over the years, tender was certainly not on the list.

As Gilbert moved to lightly press kisses against his neck, Roderich entangled his fingers into platinum locks and quietly asked, "Why did you watch today?"

"I already told you," Gilbert answered, stopping his ministrations but not removing his face from Roderich's neck.

"Have you?" Roderich retaliated

"I have," Gilbert muttered, lips barely brushing against Roderich's skin.

"Look at me."

Gilbert was silent as he stayed where he was.

"Gilbert, look at me."

He gave in and brought his face away to look at Roderich, faintly able to see the ridges of the Austrian's face in the moonlight. Gilbert fought the urge to tell him that he was absolutely gorgeous in the soft light and asked, "What is it?"

"I want to hear you say it again," Roderich mumbled, suddenly embarrassed.

Gilbert chucked and whispered, "I love you, Roderich." Before he leaned in for another kiss, he continued, "Let me sweep you off your feet."

"Idiot," Roderich breathed, "I already have," as he met him halfway.

A/N: Man, I'm finally done writing and proofreading this monster. I just hope that it was worth it, and I didn't do too horribly. But, I guess if you made it far enough to be reading the author's note, it wasn't mind-blowingly terrible, right?
Ah…I was having trouble with deciding what Feliciano would call Lovino and vice versa. :/ I hope…it isn't too out of character? …I think Gilbert was the most out of character here…and I noticed I enjoy writing long sentences…are they difficult to read? And I noticed too late…I forgot Ludwig's dogs. D: I don't know how, but I did. Uhm…let's just say…he doesn't have them yet? Yeah. That's it.
This was supposed to be a short, silly, little one-shot…what happened?
--NarutoKyuu