ｔｈｅ ｂａｌｃｏｎｙ ｂｅｌｏｗ ｍｅ

[zombles]

Ludwig watched the other sprint away to grab on of the phones, lunging a bit when he heard the sound of the yelp coming from the other's bedroom. He was a little bit worried, not knowing what happened to the other and why he had yelled, though he could probably assume that he wasn't hurt. He didn't here any crying, that was a good sign. He soon his reply for wanting to clean and knew that Feliciano was fine.

After what seemed like a long time of Feliciano conversing with fast-paced Italian and the hearable irritated 'yelling' from the other line, the Italian addressed him. "You may want to be more careful though, Feliciano. Not everyone is trustworthy. If you do need help, just call me. You're lucky that I'm a police officer and not some maniac serial killer." Ludwig grumbled to the other, watching him snuggle into his sweater. He grabbed a sticky note from one its pad, ripping the top one off. He reached over and took a pen before scribbling onto the note and then holding it out to the other awkwardly. "My... uh cell number, if you need it."

[vault]

With a small squeak of happiness, Feliciano reached out and plucked the paper from Ludwig's hand. Immediately, he picked up his phone and programmed in a new contact. "Luddy!" Obviously. Swiping to his contact, he sent a quick text; "Hey! It's Feliciano~!" So the other would have his number too. His texts were strange and ill-timed to his friends, he was sure Lud would be thrown off by a haphazard, contact-less "Left you a note" or "we should have dinner sometime," during late-night hours, both of which he definitely intended to send.

He hesitated at that, hoping he really wasn't going to scare the other off, despite the reassurances. Feliciano did come on a bit overwhelming at times. However, the fact that Ludwig wanted him to call if he needed help really resonated with the auburn-haired italian. He'd definitely call. Text. Write. All of the above. Yeah, he had friends, but not friends. Not many people who would go out of their way to help him if he really did need it. He understood, really he did, people have things that are more important to them, that was fine, of course—but it made Feli's chest tighten a bit at the realization that Lud really did want to help, and so quickly after they'd met, at that. "I knew you weren't a killer!" He laughed at the thought, continuing, "But I'm glad you're not. Really glad. Super glad, because we can be friends without me dying."

[zombles]

Because he knew that Feliciano was texting, Ludwig rolled his eyes as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. "Yes, that would't be good..." The blond shook his head with a small smile before reluctantly pulling his phone from his pocket. His finger slide across the lock screen and then went to the other's text message. He glanced up at the other, his mouth parted as he calculated what he was actually going to say. "Just don't send me texts at like midnight to come do something because I need to sleep, and I don't sleep in late because I'm not lazy, like you." Ludwig commented, raising an eyebrow before letting a small smile slip onto his face for the teasing words he had added on.

In the contact he carefully typed in 'Feliciano Vargas'. That name looked way too formal. Basically the only five contacts he had in his phone were his mother ('Mutter'), father ('Vater'), brother ('Gil'), and his grandfather ('Opa'). He was happy to at least have someone in his phone he might be willing to text that he wasn't related to. But Ludwig held the phone up, turning on the camera and looking over at the brunet. "Smile, Feli."

[vault]

Breaking News: High-pitched wheezing noises coming from the back of my physics classroom rn

At first Feliciano looked surprised at the sudden request, but let out a short laugh and beamed ((like this, jk jk no)) at the phone's camera, holding it for a minute. "Ehe, sorry if that's not my best smile. It's still early~" He apologized after, carding his fingers through his hair. It was usually wavy, but today it was especially unruly. "I need to charge up every day." Reaching out, the italian put his hand on the other's wrist. "Beep! Charging." He joked, laughing mostly at his own sense of humor. "Friend charges! You're so useful."

Realizing that his new friend had a decent phone, he changed tune. "Hey, do you have snapchat? Because you should have snapchat." He whipped out his own phone again, opening the app. He scrolled through his seemingly-endless contacts list, selecting his brother, to which he stuck out his tongue and snapped a photo."There. Now he'll know I'm fine." He froze, looking at the other man. "Of course, you probably don't need another way for me to annoy you, right?" He murmured, smiling sheepishly. "I'll try my hardest not to disturb you at odd hours unless I'm dying or something." Going quiet, he wrapped a lock of hair around his finger. No wonder it was always curling.

[zombles]

"It's good enough," Ludwig grunted. He rolled his eyes at the small comment, though it was mostly silly and pretty cute about 'friend charges'. He set the photo as Feliciano's contact, raising an eyebrow as he study it. Good thing Feliciano hadn't taken a picture of him, because he most likely would reject the idea. He did not like to be taken in photos and mostly hide his face every time someone attempted to. If it was Gilbert who was taking the photo, he had take it when the blond least expected it. It was horrible.

The blond blinked, tilting his head to the side in question of a snapchat. That was an app- right? He leaned over Feliciano's shoulder, watching the other scroll through his contacts quickly and sending a quirky photo to someone. Seeing him trying to cover up his disappointment and assumptions of Ludwig, he handed the other his phone. "That's an app, right? I mean, I don't have it, so, if you want me to have it... But you're going to have to set it up. I'm not doing that." He crossed his arms so the Italian couldn't hand him back his phone. Ha. Though his whole phone was German, he was sure that the other could figure it out with ease.

[ shoot, i think like luddy has like six other brothers like hesse and bavaria ughhh ]

[vault]

Oh man, that's your choice. :3 Include them or not, I don't mind! Haha oops, seborga too. Also vatican and san marino, but shh. shh

Gladly taking the other's phone, he nodded fiercely. "Yeah, it's a free app. You can send pictures, like texts. It's super easy." Searching the store, he downloaded and installed it as fast as possible before Ludwig could change his mind. Noting the other's hesitation, he quickly added an addendum to his previous comment. "You don't have to take selfies though, it uses the front camera too." You can just be like 'this is my plant.' I bet your brother has it." He brightened, the metaphorical lightbulb turning on. "Like, if you see something really pretty, you can send it to me, and I can sketch it! That's always lovely."

Feliciano hesitated after he'd booted up the app. "Oh. You need a username. What do you want?" He smiled, adding, "I could choose, but I want you to be comfortable with it." He laughed softly. "I can't believe you just agreed to this so fast." Waving his free hand, he corrected himself. "I-I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, it's not bad. Just it's funny. You don't have one."

[zombles]

[ i kinda of want to, but i'm not sure if i want to haha. ]

Ludwig bit his lip at the other's remark, keeping the blush from appearing across his cheeks. Maybe he was too desperate to actually have a relationship enough to have a silly app named snapchat just to keep in contact with Feliciano. He didn't want to mess this up, not like all those times he tried to have friends but honestly they had never understood him. It was upsetting.

"What did you have in mind?" The German raised an eyebrow, turning his head to look down at the app. If it was stupid, he was probably going to say no. Well... It depended if the brunet managed to charm him into liking it... That may make it different.

[vault]

[ I totally understand. Well, extended family *wink* Christmas *wink wink* ]

"It's going to be fine, don't worry. And if you really hate it, you can just get rid of it! No pressure. But it's fun because, see, I won't expect anything from you in return, that's not how I use it. And I can send you, say, a painting I'm working on, or a picture of a cute dog, and you don't have to reply—but maybe It'll make your day happier!" Realizing he'd been explaining far too much, Feliciano paused to breathe for a second. "And I can only send pictures on data, I can't send you them over a text—so snapchat works really well. But you can reply over text, right? And only if you want to. That way, you don't get overwhelmed.

"Oh, and well"—He waved his free hand in embarrassment—"My username is 'feliciva' right, because, well, that's some of my name, but colloquially "felici va" is close to saying "be happy" and I just really like that, so..." he trailed off, giggling. "Oh man, you could—but it'd only be funny in Italian, which I suppose is good for you, but—" he flushed a bit, nervous of making the other too uncomfortable. "Well, see, if you put your first and last name together, really carefully..." He typed it in, "I mean, you'd get beillu." Feliciano was now deliberately avoiding eye contact. "You know, like bello." Hastily, he added, "But if you don't know Italian well you won't even notice because it's clearly your name and if you are Italian you'll just think it's cute and people will like you because that is a good pun, so win-win." Ha. Italians. Damn right Feli thought it was cute. Trying to diffuse his bluntness, he joked, "I mean, you could do ludwigbeilschmidt but that is very long and personal."

[ I spent so much goddang time. trying to make. a. pun. because. I am so bad. at puns. I just figured Lud probs knew what bello (handsome, not fighter/war—just clarifying oops) means cause he likes Italian (heh, or maybe he isn't that alert this morning and figures it out later, it really doesn't matter omg, either way my goal is to embarrass the ever-loving-heck outta these babies). Also, Feliciano has no filter, let's be real. It's like, he'd definitely try to make Ludwig as desirable and witty as possible in the social world for Lud's own sake and then get super melancholy and internally jealous when—not if—people flirted with him b/c Feli is an emotional idiot no matter what he thinks ]

[zombles]

[ thOSE WERE MY EXTACT THOUGHTS. Do I want even more family members to totally embarrass Ludwig??? Or what?? IS Gilbert capable of producing that much emotional embarrassing trauma?? Or does more family members need to provide that? ]

Oh man, did Feliciano like to ramble or what? Ludwig wasn't sure if he should be thankful... or annoyed? At the moment, he was sort of feeling both. 1. That meant he didn't actually have to contribute much to the conversation. 2. He got to learn more about Feliciano, which didn't really bug him that much. 3. But what bugged him was that Feli tended to get off subject. A lot. 4. It was overwhelming. Maybe over time, something would kick in though and things wouldn't revolve around Feliciano's continuous talking. Like some other activity... being in love. Or Ludwig would man up and actually get on board with babbling as much as the brunet still talking about... Replying to his photos over text. He would have to remember not to use up the other's cellular then. "Ja, ja, I got it." He rolled his eyes before listening to him go on again.

Though he wasn't as into the name suggestion as Feliciano, Ludwig felt a guilt sink in for not. It would probably make the other happy but the blond liked maybe a funny one that Feli would say like 'Lud's wig'. Okay that was stupid. He wasn't the most creative person on the planet, so don't judge. Once the brunet's fingers typed the name into the little box, one of Ludwig's eyebrows went right back up in question and until he explained bello. Thank the lord that he knew what that meant (okay- maybe it was better that he didn't know?), because his cheeks flared up in heat at the compliment. How was he suppose to respond to that? Was Feliciano trying to his brain overload? It felt as if he was a computer and just a tad over-heated from just everything this morning. Ludwig needed to slow down for a moment.

The blond clear his throat a bit, avoiding eye contact as well. Good thing Feliciano suddenly seemed interested in the cursor and the blank screen. Much better than getting even more embarrassed over just a small word. One small, silly word. He sighed, putting the palm of his hand under his chin and resting his elbow on the table. His own blue eyes flickered up to the brunet's glowing amber ones before down at the computer screen, trying to make a decisions. "...Okay... Fine. beillu. Just don't send me those snapchats making fun of it." He commented, feeling his cheeks regain a little bit of their reddish tint again and glancing away.

[ omg yes just yessss the ultimate goal is to have embarrassed babes on their WEDDING DAY hngggggg <3 this rp is literary gonna to kill me with all this cuteness. will be my death. rip. ]

[vault]

[ Gilbert is so, so capable of that trauma—especially because he and Feliciano get along so well—but ALL OF THE FAMILY LET'S BE REAL ]

Giving Ludwig a winning smile—he had won, after all (man, he needed to stop with the puns, though), he pushed the phone back towards the other. "You have to choose a password, Everything else is set. I can't do that for you." Wanting to give the other space to think, he pulled his legs up from where they were dangling off the chair, and wrapped his arms around them for warmth. The room settled into quiet, but, for once, Feliciano was comfortable with it. Usually, silence meant one of three things; either it was art class, time to sleep, or someone was refusing to talk to him, and the last was usually accompanied by anger. Feliciano really did not like anger. Even though it wasn't silent for long yet, Ludwig's silence was strangely warm, not hostile. Feli wasn't used to thoughtful silence. He much preferred to think with distractions like music or tv, or he'd get... well, he'd describe it as lonely. As if nobody really cared whether was there or not. And maybe that's why he talked so much, just to feel like he was making a difference somehow. But Ludwig acknowledged him even when it—he, really—was quiet, and what was the Italian supposed to do with that? Apparently, stare.

"You're really different, Ludwig. I mean, than people I know." Determinedly meeting the other's eyes before he went on. "I think that's really nice. I bet I can learn lots from you." A little put-out, he pouted. "And I'd never make fun of you for something, no matter how silly I seem." He gestured out at the cityscape. "Out there, people are mean just to be mean. Everyone should be encouraged to be honest and to make others smile just by being themselves. Deliberately mean is not what friends do." He began, jaw set. "If I upset you, Lud, I'm serious, and I don't properly explain why it's positive and, just... hit me or something. I would feel terrible." He quieted again, waiting.

[ It takes all of my self-control not to respond with "yee" or various other incoherent excited words. ]