Between the Lines (Prussia/Romano AU)

Gilbert Beilschmidt was, contrary to popular belief, a very punctual man. It was no surprise to people who actually knew him, as he'd grown up in a Military-run house. His father had served in the Military, and both boys had been subject to severe punishment if they didn't fall in line with the strict rules set for them. Gilbert also served for a time himself, right out of high school- though it hadn't lasted long.

After a few months in service, Gilbert had been dishonourably discharged for shooting at his superior office- and if he had managed to actually harm the man, he would have surely been put in jail. But due to the circumstances- which Gilbert had no desire to discuss with anyone, he was mostly let off.

However, despite his general punctuality, there were times when he was late. Sometimes when he was feeling particularly problematic, but usually when something else came up; and much to his displeasure, such a thing had happened today.

His younger brother, Ludwig, had invited Gilbert to lunch with his husband and brother-in-law, and Gilbert had said yes. The albino had planned to be there a bit early, but work had called, and a few revisions needed to be made to his most recent article- a waste of his time, he thought. The article he'd written was awesome, and didn't need anything except a few grammar and spelling checks- speaking German as a native language and working for a English-based newspaper made things hard sometimes.

However, since the article was supposed to run the next morning, and everyone was worried about not getting it done in time, he'd had to run down to the office and deal with the idiots. When he'd gotten the call he had been sure that he could still make it, but when they wanted him to rewrite half the article, he'd run out of time. Two hours, and he'd managed to finish but he was still a bit late. He'd done his best to give a somewhat non-disrespectful farewell to his co-workers- none of whom he was particularly fond of, and hurried out of the building,.

He narrowly avoiding being grabbed again by Elizaveta, a Hungarian woman who worked on the photography for the magazine. She was always bugging him about what pictures to use and how- but luckily, today she was too busy fussing over their boss, Roderich. It was a blessing in both ways, with the two of them busy, there was nothing to stand between Gilbert and the door.

As he got out, he opted for walking to the meeting place, instead of driving. It wasn't a long walk, and he was late anyway, a few more minutes certainly wouldn't hurt anything. Gilbert took the time to think over his brother and Feliciano's relationship.

He'd been sceptical at first. Ludwig had never been much for dating, and Gilbert had always been rather protective of his brother, so when Feliciano had shown up, Gilbert hadn't been very pleased. He'd been terrified that the Italian would break Ludwig's heart. However, the Albino had been able to see just how good Feliciano was for his brother.

Ludwig smiled, really smiled for the flighty Italian. Gilbert could overlook anything if it meant seeing his younger brother genuinely happy, and once he was able to do that- he found he really did like Feliciano- now if he could just bring himself to even stand the man's elder brother.

While Ludwig and Feliciano didn't know it, there had been several times during the wedding when Gilbert really didn't think it would happen- all because of something the older Italian had done. Granted, his Awesomeness had handled it, and made sure they didn't even know about all the interference. He just hoped that it stayed that way.

As he rounded the corner, and caught sight of the outside table Ludwig and Feliciano had chosen, he caught sight of the very man he'd been growing less and less willing to be civil with. The grin that had formed on his face while walking immediately faded, and he came up behind the two, resting a hand on each of their shoulders, and not bothering to really look at Lovino.

He greeted Ludwig in German, and Feliciano in English- his Italian was far from worth hearing, and took a seat next to Feliciano's brother, grudgingly.

No one missed how quick Lovino was to order his food. Taking a seat, Gilbert could already sense that the Italian was in a nasty mood, and that this lunch could very easily go down hill. He didn't really want his afternoon to be ruined by the constantly grouchy Italian though, so once the annoyance finished ordering- topping his meal off with a glass of red wine, which struck Gilbert as quite annoying, (the German man could drink his weight in beer, but even he waited until the end of the work day unless it was the weekend) Gilbert ordered his own meal. He skimmed over the menu, but ended up just ordering a BLT with fries, and a glass of water.

While the married couple chattered, Gilbert tried to reign his temper in. His day had been sorely ruined by being called in, and his lateness to something he'd wanted to do. As much as he'd learned to love Feliciano, and take the small Italian's flights of fancy with an easy going attitude, he had no such tolerance for the elder. Though the younger seemed to not notice the older's foul mood, it didn't go unnoticed by either German at the table. Gilbert could tell by the look that Ludwig shot him that he was aware of it, and concerned by it as well.

The outburst came to less of a surprise to Gilbert or Ludwig, then it did to Feliciano. The question had been simple, one Gilbert expected would have been turned to himself, and eventually returned to the couple, in a normal conversation. But conversations with Lovino Vargas, in Gilbert's experiance, were never normal. They were always easily turned into a fight, and rarely had any purpose other then sending all participents blood pressure through the roof.

This didn't mean it didn't effect Gilbert. He'd been expecting it, yes, though he'd hoped it would take longer. They hadn't even gotten their food yet, and Lovino had essentially turned his brother to whimpering mess. Gilbert's eyes narrowed in on the Italian, and all his annoyance at having to deal with his boss and co-workers, at being late, and having to share his brother and Feliciano's attention turned to anger.

So, it shouldn't have been any surprise to anyone, that when Lovino finally turned his gaze on Gilbert, and snapped at him, the albino did not react calmly.

"I'm looking at the fucktard who's such a failure in life he has to make himself feel better by picking on his brother."

The words came out spiteful, but cold. He hadn't thought them through before they were leaving his lips, and it wasn't until the last one left his tongue that he'd realized he'd even said them at all. He heard the silence at that formed in the wake of his word, but didn't bother to glance at Ludwig or Felicano's nervous/shocked expressions. He kept his face mostly blank, though he arched a brow, challenging the other to say anything to him about it.

The reaction hadn't been expected. Gilbert had thought the, now cornered, Italian would yell at him, would throw a fit and tell him to back off. But instead, red wine hit him in the face, bitter and sour as it slid into his mouth, and soaked his clothes. Red wine was a bitch to get out, and he knew his shirt would be permanently stained red. The anger he'd felt skyrocketed, and for a long moment he just stared in almost shock at Lovino.

Then the Italian took off, running away. Gilbert went to follow, but was stopped when Ludwig grabbed his arm and jerked him back. The younger brother started to yell at him for being insensitive, and Feliciano looked like he was about to start crying again. Everyone around them was watching, the waiter looked properly stunned, and Gilbert's temper snapped a second time. He turned to his younger brother and yelled right back at him.

The two shouted at each other, until the waiter timidly asked them to leave, and Gilbert did so without needing to be told a second time. He threw some money on the table, and turned to Feliciano. Patting the watery-eyed Italian on the head, he gave him a short, gruff, good bye, and left. He could feel his brother glaring at his back as he moved, but didn't pay any attention to it.

In a few days his brother would call him, and they'd have a tense conversation, before they'd fall back into a comfortable pattern.

Using the walk back to his car, Gilbert managed to cool down. By the time he reached it, he was tired, wet, smelled like wine, and was ready to go home and sleep. Which is exactly what he did. As soon as he got in, he stripped out of his wine-soaked clothes, and collasped on his bed for a few hours to sleep.

When he woke it was getting dark, and despite his clothes being off, he still smelled like wine. It seemed like it had seeped into his very skin, so he took a shower, and had a beer, and kicked his still damp clothes into the corner to be dealt with later. He thought of maybe taking the shirt over to Arthur's. His drinking buddy had a skill for getting stains out, but he didn't feel like explaining it, so maybe he'd just throw the shirt out.

Dressed in a pair of worn out jeans he only wore to relax in, Gilbert laid out on the couch, turning on his laptop, and hoping on his website. The article he'd written earlier sat in his mail box, in case he chose to post it on his own site, but he didn't feel like even looking at it.

Instead, he skimmed over a few of his previous posts, and the comments that went with them. The most recent post he'd made, coincidentally had to do with the horror of brother-in-laws. He complained about how obnoxious, and rude they could be, how it seemed like they could never let things be easy. It had one or two comments on it, but nothing of any real interest, nothing worth commenting back.

Gilbert's site was fairly basic. He'd gotten a friend to help him design it. Not as extravagent as he might have liked, but it looked good for what he needed. Simple black and white layout, a chatbox to the side, and his posts in the center, a small 'about me' section on the other side with little to no information. He gave his location, and that he worked with a local paper, that he was originally from Germany, but other then that, it was pretty vague.

There was, much to Gilbert's surprise, someone in the chatbox on the side of the page. He hopped on that. His screenname was different than the one on the site. “AwesomeSauce182” was something his friend had actually jokingly picked out for him, and Gilbert used it when he wanted to chat without having to claim anything on the site as his own. It was better to get people's real opinions on. Every now and again he'd used his actual screen name on the site, but that was decidedly rare.

AwesomeSauce182 joined the chat

AwesomeSauce182: hey

He took a long drink from his beer, turned on the TV, flipping the channels until he found a Hockey game. He wasn't usually into sports, but the kid that worked in the mail room was a big hockey fan, and Gilbert figured he'd at least take a look at it.

Lovino didn’t stop running until he had made it safely to his car and locked the door behind him. He gripped the steering wheel, panting hard and hardly able to believe what he’d just done. Even for him, it had been a bit extreme. But dammit, that bastard had fucking deserved it! Lovino had no regrets. In fact, now that he was safely secured in his car with no scary Germans chasing him, the Italian had to admit that he was even a bit…satisfied. An uneasy smile crept over his lips as he remembered the red stain he had left on the other’s clothes. Oh, that red wine was never going to come out. Lovino applauded himself on his drink of choice, and he hoped Gilbert’s shirt had been expensive.

The only thing that dampened his gratifying sense of revenge was the thought of how Feliciano must have been feeling. His younger brother had invited him out to spend time with him, and Lovino (with help) had managed to turn lunch into a disaster right before his eyes. He still couldn’t get the image of Feliciano’s hurt expression out of his mind.

“Dammit,” he muttered to himself. He had never meant to make his fratellino so upset. Lovino would have to suck it up and call to apologize later. Not for what he had done to Gilbert, but for snapping at Feli when he hadn’t deserved it. Then he could tell him the reason his mood had been so foul this afternoon and hopefully get some sympathy in place of the blame.

Lovino sighed and started the engine. No use sticking around here now. It wasn’t like he could go back as long as the Potato Bastard and his brother were still there. Lovino would pay Feliciano back for the lunch he had never gotten to eat later.

He finally arrived back at his apartment. The place was still an absolute mess which only served to further sour his mood. He didn’t mind clutter while he was painting, but coming home to this after such a rough afternoon just made him feel more trapped. Lovino usually wasn’t much one for cleaning but right now he just needed this crap gone.

An hour or so later, he cooked himself a big bowl of pasta (he was still hungry, dammit!) and settled himself down in front of the computer. Time to go back to job hunting…It was a tedious task, however, and after finishing his second attempt at lunch for the day and posting his resume on a few different sites, Lovino crawled back to his bed and took a much-needed siesta. He wasn’t even sure how long he slept before waking up again and making his way back to the desk and checking his mail. Nothing yet. This would be a long waiting game; he already knew it, but there was nothing to do now except keep applying.

Lovino soon became distracted by more interesting sites, though. He shunned most of the social networking sites his brother had signed him up on and instead looked at pictures of art, hoping to get some more inspiration for his own work. After a long session of procrastination, Lovino’s internet browsing finally landed him on a blog site he sometimes visited. He usually came here for one of two reasons- first to read about people with more interesting lives than his and dream about what he could do when his painting sold for thousands of dollars and he was free to travel the world, and second, to see if there was anyone out there more miserable than he was and upon finding them, feel less miserable himself. Today he was definitely here for the second reason.

Right now, what Lovino needed was a good dose of empathy. He needed someone that understood what he was going through, who he could agree with and feel less alone due to the fact that there were others out there with the same issues. He tried typing “unemployment” into the search box, but the blogs that popped up made him depressed so quickly that he quickly navigated back to the home page and tried again. What terrible thing could he read about to make himself feel better?

Brother-in-law.

A surprising number of blogs came up, and Lovino took a moment to decide which one to check out first. He quickly turned away from those that praised brothers-in-law, that talked about how great and wonderful they were especially when one lacked a true blood brother. Well Lovino had one of those, and annoying as he was, he would never trade Feli for any other brother in the world, much less a humorless potato. The Italian quickly grew tired of the rambling blogs and was just about to close the window and do something that was actually productive, when finally he came to a post that spoke to him. Yes, this person definitely had it right. They talked about how horrible and difficult brothers-in-law were to deal with, how they could take a perfectly good day and turn it into a mess. Just like someone he knew. Lovino considered commenting and pointing out that brothers of brothers-in-law were just as bad, but he felt kind of awkward doing so, so instead, he just went to the blogger’s main page and started reading through some of the other posts.

Either he was really bored, or this man was a decent writer, because the posts on this blog kept Lovino entertained for longer than he’d expected. Once he’d had his fill, he went back to the main page, intending to bookmark it and maybe come back later to see if there was anything new. His eyes scanned the page, looking down on it for its plainness (this guy needed some color), but at the same time admiring its simplicity. At least everything was easy to find. Lovino scanned the “about me” section and was surprised to learn that the blogger didn’t live far from where he did, but it also said that he was from Germany. Lovino made a bit of a face at that. Well at least this German knew a thing or two about obnoxious brothers-in-law. For a moment Lovino considered the possibility of Ludwig being the owner of these site, but then decided that no, it was impossible for them to agree on some of the topics he had written about. And besides, this person’s writing style was nothing like what Lovino expected the straight-faced German to be capable of.

Lovino played around with the site a little more, even popping into the chatbox just for the heck of it. It wasn’t like he expected anyone to come talk to him.

But to his surprise, someone did.

AwesomeSauce182? What kind of stupid name is that? Lovino thought critically, but he was just curious about who this person was. For a moment, Lovino considered not answering and just closing the page, but doing that would mean getting back to job hunting…The Italian wasn’t exactly in a hurry to do that. Instead he typed a simple response to the message he had received.

BounoPomodoro: Hey there.

His gaze drifted to and from the TV as someone made a goal. He didn't even know the teams, but there was an off hand chance that there might be bloodshed, and that was generally something of interes. The person on the chat box wrote to him, and Gilbert took a moment to try an think on the screen name. He didn't recgonize it, so it wasn't one of the usual readers. Maybe someone new. Sweet.

AwesomeSauce182: first time on the site?

Lovino wasn't really sure he wanted to start up a conversation with a stranger right now- he was usually the kind of person who kept to himself online- but this seemed like a decent distraction, and he really just needed someone to talk to, even if it wasn't anyone he could spill his guts to. It was still too soon after "the incident" to call Feli and complain to him. His little brother was likely still out with that idiot husband of his and maybe even the white-haired bastard too. Also, knowing his brother, the younger Italian was probably mad at him. It was hard for some people to imagine Feliciano being angry, but Lovino knew what his sibling was like, even if the anger was usually short-lived. Best give him more time to cool down a bit.

Lovino sighed, feeling a bit lonely, and began to write his reply.

BounoPomodoro: Yeah. It's not bad, I guess. I read a few of the posts.

"Not bad," Gilbert repeated to himself quietly, mulling over the words, and trying to decide how to take them. Were they an insult? Or was that a good review from this person? He wasn't very impressed by it, if it was. "Tch."

AwesomeSauce182: it is pretty good. wich posts did u read?

Couldn't hurt getting the persons more indepth oppinion, if he could wrangle it out of them, that is.

Lovino frowned at the computer screen, trying to remind himself again why he was wasting time to talking to this person. That's right- to avoid work. Nothing wrong with answering a harmless question, right? Though it was true that the Italian wasn't really one to feed compliments or be too open about his opinions in general unless he was criticizing something. It was just his nature. When he was a child, everyone had always given his brother so much more attention and praise that Lovino had grown jealous and resentful. He wouldn't give what he never got, and even now, so many years later, that much hadn't changed.

BounoPomodoro: Just random stuff. Some of it was boring, but the one about brothers-in-law was decent. Maybe the guy knows what he's talking about a little.

It was probably the closest Lovino was ever going to get to a good review.

He couldn't help twitching a little at the word 'boring', his work was awesome. Who gave this person the right to call his writing boring? Gilbert took a second to take a long gulp at his beer, and glared at the tv to calm himself down, he couldn't let himself get so riled up over someone over the internet. He was usually tougher then that. Deciding he was just over sensitive after the day he'd spent, and the stress of dealing with his annoying boss, and aggravating brother-in-law.


AwesomeSauce182: got an annoying brotherinlaw urself? their not much use most of the time, r they?

He wondered how the other would take that comment. But if Bouno had liked Gilbert's posts on the horror of brother-in-laws, then he likely did. They were passiionate posts, usually written in the heat of the moment. Always when he was still furious with Lovino for something, flames fanned by Feliciano's sorrowful brown eyes and the strain that was often obvious in Ludwig as well.

Lovino gave a long sigh of agreement. Brothers-in-law were useless, and brothers of brothers-in-law were much worse. It was almost enough to curse Feliciano for ever getting married. Lovino had never wanted to have any relation with that damn potato-eater or his annoying brother, but now it seemed he was stuck with them for life. His brother might have been happier, but Lovino was just plain miserable.

BounoPomodoro: Yeah, I do, unfortunately. The guy's a damn bastard. I'd be happier if I never had to deal with him again.

Usually he was more polite when talking to strangers who had done nothing to offend him, but right now Lovino just needed to get this frustration off of his chest. Here was someone who might listen to him and actually understand what no one else seemed to get. The incident of today was going to keep bothering him anyway. Lovino might as well rant to someone he would never have to see face-to-face. Still, he was determined to keep this conversation general, and not spill the finer details of his life to the stranger.