GerIta

Chapter 5

Me: "So this one's a shorter one because I really just have one giant chapter written in the Word document for this fanfic, so I'm dividing these up on the fly, and I felt like this excerpt didn't go with any of the surrounding excerpts, so it's on the shorter side." *Shrugs* "Doesn't really make a huge difference if you ask me."

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Ludwig did not dare to hope, as he made his way to the mailbox today, for another rose envelope, but his heart told him to go screw himself and raced anyways. And, yes, incredibly, there it was: a rose envelope.

Ludwig retreated to his study with it.

"Herr Beilschmidt," it began the same way.

"You did not ask me to call you by your given name, so I will call you 'Herr Beilschmidt,'" Ludwig was surprised to feel a teeny, tiny laugh bubble up from him at the Italian's unnecessary statement which was plainly a complaint and so poorly disguised, "However, you called me Feliciano, and so I cannot be cross with you," Ludwig was silent again, wondering if that did things to the Italian, like compel his stomach to do purzelbaums, "Elizabeta, who assures me she made your acquaintance at your table yesterday," the hostess? And was it his table, not merely the table he was using? Ludwig found himself deconstructing every word choice of the Italian as though there was some code to figuring him out, and after you cracked it, the creature made sense, "tells me that I must never be cross with you because you look like one big, buff, fluffy marshmallow—except she said it in her native tongue, so it might've actually been something lewd (she is always saying the lewd things)—and that if I am ever cross with you, I will squish you—or suck you? I am really not so good with the Hungarian—and you will be ruined. Actually, I no longer know if she was telling me to be nice to you or to do something I really shouldn't write about in a letter because she was smiling so evilly the whole time and now I am lost."

Ludwig nearly threw the letter over his desk and onto the floor where hopefully it would slide very, very far away. He decided he did not want to meet this 'Elizabeta' again, and he would forgive Feliciano and keep reading only because he seemed too clueless to be held accountable.

"I managed to call Lovino, my brother, on my break after you left and tell him about you. He was very angry, which shouldn't bother you because he is always angry, until I mentioned our date on Sunday, and then he started asking for GPS coordinates and things, and I think he thought I was asking for his help to make sure I do not go missing! I told him to go take a nap, and then I did something very brave—I hung up on him. This means of course that you will have to come with me the next time I return home and protect me, or I am fairly certain I will die. You owe me." Italy? Would Ludwig ever go?...Yes...Yes, he was rather sure he could be talked into it.

"Ludwig. There, I wrote it," Ludwig smiled a tiny bit, "Can I call you Ludi, though?" then shook his head indulgently, "It would seem it's going to storm tonight. The way the leaves tremble on the trees outside reminds me of how your body quakes when you are mad," Ludwig trailed his fingertips over the words—there was something very intimate about that sentence, "Actually, I feel you everywhere in this land: the rolling hills, your sculpted muscle," he would never admit it, but Ludwig flexed a little, "your German lake, something about your mouth—I haven't decided," the muscles in his chest tightened, "a holocaust memorial," Ludwig's brow furrowed gravely, but he did not flinch away, "a scar somewhere on your body that I haven't found yet, never forgetting, always remembering, and the harshest of German winters, I can imagine, would be an upset look from you—the frost, your very gaze when you are heartbroken...So because you are here in a way, I know I will feel safe even if the power goes out tonight. Still, I hope that it does not go out, and I wish you were actually here."

"P.S. It actually didn't storm that bad! Yay!" Ludwig scoffed to himself—the Italian should learn how to check the weather report.

"Senza la Domenica, non sono niente,

"Feliciano"

Ludwig looked up from the letter, frowning now, in thought. One of his questions was what the slight change to the farewell at the end meant. He googled it again while still pondering other, less easy to figure out matters.

Without Sunday, I'm nothing.

Oh. Well, it was really much the same as last time, wasn't it? Unless Ludwig was being conceited and Feliciano was referring to his beloved church. That was another matter to worry over now.

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Me: "Hi, you've reached my answering machine, and I don't know why I said that. For something actually worth saying here, that whole bit about Ludwig's body=Germany," *Pauses to facepalm at self* "was inspired by this one amazing but fucked up USUK fanfic. The author of that one, at one point, was comparing France's eyes to the trenches in...Was it WWI? I think? Lol, the US education system? 'Cause I think there were trenches only in WWI? Anyways, that description just floored me, and I had to go for the sincerest form of flattery--aka, imitation. See you in the next chapter!"