Title: Football Pitches and Heavy Metal Concerts
Genre: Drama/Romance
Warnings: Yaoi, Angst, Drama Swearing, Some Violence, Bullying and Genderbends
Pairings: Germany/Italy and Canada/Prussia with some very minor side-pairings (including Spain/Belgium, Romano/Fem!Spain, Greece/Japan, Austria/Hungary Russia/Canada Russia/Fem!Lithuania and Scotland/France)
Summary: An unexpected gay highschool romance between Ludwig Beilschmidt (The Goth) and Feliciano Vargas (The Jock) flares up. Needless to say very few people are happy about this. Can the relationship stand up to the drama the boys will face? Or will it collapse?
Prologue
The 24th of November 2010. That was a day which would always stick in Ludwig Beilschmidt's mind. It had been a good day, he had received high marks in all of his homework and been gifted with his third dog – a doberman called Berlitz – when he got home from school. For the first time in weeks Jones hadn't tried to approach Ludwig about joining the Football team (which always left him in an incredibly foul mood, although punching Jones in the face generally felt very good at the time). To top it all off that slightly irritating Bulgarian student, Nikola, hadn't turned up for classes – meaning he wasn't trailing Ludwig for the whole day.
Yes that had been a very good day; not just for Ludwig either.
Kiku Honda, Ludwig's closest friend, had received the shock of his life at lunch on that day. And it had been an incredibly good shock.
Just before Kiku and Ludwig had sat down together to eat their lunch Heracles Karpusi, an unusually handsome man of Greek heritage and a good friend of Kiku's had approached and looked straight at Ludwig. "Is ... it alright … if I take Kiku … to sit with me … today? We have … something to discuss." After a quick glance at Kiku, who clearly had about as much clue about what Heracles meant as Ludwig did, the German nodded with a casual wave of his hand. He watched as Kiku stiffened sharply when Heracles casually slipped an arm around his shoulders and led the poor boy away.
Knowing that his friend was perfectly safe with Heracles, Ludwig went about eating his lunch in silence, ignoring the chattering next to him from some of his other friends. He didn't need to respond as the others knew Ludwig only really paid attention when he was being addressed directly.
"Hey, Ludwig?" At the sound of his name, Ludwig set down his fork and looked towards Abel who was looking past him towards another section of the dining hall. "You might want to take a look at Kiku and his little crush." With a small frown, wondering just what the hell Abel was talking about, Ludwig followed his friend's gaze. He suddenly realised just how quiet the hall had become. As soon as he saw Kiku and Heracles he realised why.
Their lunches completely forgotten, Heracles had Kiku up against the wall and was kissing him intenseley. Kiku's slender fingers had tangled into the other man's shaggy brown hair, kissing back with an intensity Ludwig never suspected the Japanese boy possessed.
"Well good for him!" Ludwig heard Elizabeta comment. "He's liked Heracles for two years now, at least he's finally getting somewhere." Silently he did agree with her, he was happy for his friend. Of course he was. Something weighed on Ludwig's stomach, though. Something that prevented him from properly enjoying his friend's happiness.
From the next day onwards, it became all too clear just what that feeling had been about.
Kiku had never been a very talkative individual – but he would be far quieter than normal, even around Ludwig. On the rare occasion he was near his best friend anyway. Ever since the abuse started Heracles insisted on keeping the Japanese boy near him at all times outside of class.
Ludwig had heard whispers of plans to 'teach the freaks a lesson'. He could never pinpoint the source to punch the instigators in the throat so they wouldn't go through with it. Before all this Kiku had never missed a single class in all the time he had been attending the same school as Ludwig. Now it was commonplace for him to be absent roughly two days out of every week. Every time Ludwig tried to call him Kiku would apologise; say he was busy and would see the other at school. And they did see each other, for long enough to exchange quick nods down the corridor.
The whole situation had Ludwig completely on edge, hating the fact that he couldn't do anything for Kiku and his boyfriend. Anything physical that happened to them happened during their free periods while Ludwig was still in class. At least until the 15th of December.
As he left his last class of the day Ludwig felt an uneasy coiling in his abdomen. There was a low buzz in the air as the normal chaos of the corridors funnelled into hurried lines as everyone headed the same way. Knowing something was wrong Ludwig had followed the crowds, not bothering to apologise as he shoved through to get to the destination as quickly as possible. What he saw there made Ludwig freeze in a mixture of outrage and fear.
Heracles was lying unconscious and face-down on the floor, being kicked by cackling boys with cruel smirks on their faces. Kiku was struggling against the boys holding him up against the lockers, pleading with them to stop as they took it in turns to grope at his crotch, hissing about how much he must love it.
Ludwig was stunned, he couldn't move against the infuriating injustice of it all. Too full of anger to do anything more than tremble and yell at the boys to leave Kiku and Heracles alone. Luckily that seemed to be enough.
Taking advantage of the distraction Ludwig provided, Sadik Adnan forced his way out of the crowd and threw the boy holding Kiku against the lockers into one of the ones kicking Heracles. Within seconds Ludwig stomped forward and helped Sadik get the two boys away from their abusers. "Alright listen up!" Sadik barked, his eyes flashing with such dangerous fury that Ludwig was certain the rest of the student body were holding their breath for fear of provoking the man.
"I don't give a shit what you think or how you feel – these two are off fucking limits! I hear so much as a sigh about anything happening to either of them and I can promise you now that the ones responsible won't be coming back to this school. Am I fucking clear?"
Sadik had been suspended for three months, while Ludwig only got a few weeks of detention. After that day no one had bothered either Kiku or Heracles, though, so it was all worth it. The experience of it all had affected Ludwig just as deeply as it had his friend. One of the main things that they had in common was their taste in partners.
Kiku and Heracles were safe for now – nobody messed with Sadik or anyone clearly under his protection. Ludwig, however, was on his own. As such he resolved on the 15th of December that, for as long as he still attended his school, nobody – outside of Kiku, his older brother, and said brother's partner – would ever know Ludwig was gay.
A/N: First multi-chapter highschool thing! This is going to be full of drama and foul language. I will say now that if I do put smut into this then it will be quite late on in the story. Also my Feliciano in this is a spoiled popular boy so he won't take well to rejections and the like. He will still be our sweet, lovable, almost naive Feli - just with a bit of added attitude that will come with his background.
The romance itself will be fairly drawn out, if only because there are very few people who are actually totally in love when they first start dating. At least in my opinion.
Now let me just say that I love Kiku, really. Same with Heracles. It hurt me to write that about them but I needed something to set up part of Ludwig's reluctance to reveal his sexuality. Also I just don't think it would have worked with Sweden and Finland (neither would be close enough to Ludwig and let's face it the boys would have been too intimidated by Berwald to try something like that). Same goes for Scotland and France, Scotland would likely have kicked all their asses before they even got a chance to try anything. So unfortunately it had to be Kiku and Heracles that got it.
Anyway I'm going to stop talking now and just say thanks for reading and please let me know what you thought of it!
