A/N: I wasn't going to post this until I had at least three chapters pre-written, but here it is. This is just a little practice for stories with multiple intertwining storylines of different characters, as well as having the nice sitcom flare that I adore.
The POV is present time, though it might be a bit wonky because I'm not the best at writing in that format, but just bare with me. As it is, this is a Friends!AU with the Bad Friends Foursome and company. Won't this be fun?
I don't believe there is any other things I have to say, so I hope you all enjoy!
Pilot: In Which There Is Introductions
Their story was one that had started out with three c*appy New York apartments, a small coffee shop which is possibly the worst in existence, and two easily rattled upstairs neighbors. Really, that makes it sound like the normal life of any person living in New York, but all they know is that their crazy, meshed-together lives are anything but ordinary.
It had started out with three separate, dingy apartments, all of them situated just above an always near-empty coffee shop and below the living quarters of an easily pissed-off Austrian and his moody wife. Really, that makes their lives sound as normal as any New Yorkers', except for the fact that they're anything but ordinary.
It's a lot more like this:
Gilbert moves in first. His apartment (Which just so happens to be room number 13. It was basically doomed to be a living hellhole from the start) is universally known by everyone as the Worst. Still, the albino, self-proclaimed Prussian says that his 'awesomeness' is enough to make the room livable. He's more than just a little wrong on that. Every electronic and-or furniture item instantly breaks once brought into the room. Even a plastic school chair manages to crumble apart when introduced to the apartment. Gilbert settles for patched-up old beanbags as furniture and playing with a few old Tamogatchi toys (which cry out more than what should really be possible) instead of a TV.
Then Francis arrives. His living space (number 14) is better than Gilbert's, but not by much. His chairs actually manage to stay together and his television works, despite the horrible connection that leaves almost every channel a static-ridden mess. The only channels that actually work are the all-day news broadcast and some Spanish channel that only plays cheesy telenovelas or soap operas with no real plot. Francis chooses to watch the romantic telenovelas and, occasionally, the soap operas. Although he thinks the latter sucks.
It's a total mistake that Antonio is implemented into their lives. The Spaniard wasn't even looking for an apartment to live in, but somehow wound up being roommates with Gilbert. What made it all the more surprising was that the albino wasn't even looking for a person to room with him. None of them really remembers what happened, not even Antonio, but they just shrug it off and go on with their lives. Really, the brunette doesn't even 'live' in Gilbert's apartment. He just drifts from Gilbert's, to Francis', and occasionally winds up in the once-empty room 15.
That room became occupied, only two short months after the accidental inclusion of Antonio, by the whirlwind of chaos who crashed into their lives in the human form of one Lovino Vargas. Antonio had managed to (once again) get into room 15. (Again, another thing they can't explain about Antonio. Room 15 was always locked and the owner of the building had even lost the extra key a few years back.) Only to come back out with a bleeding lip and a missing tooth. It seemed that Lovino had just moved in the night before and Antonio had been clumsy and stepped on the Italian while the young man was sleeping.
Lovino makes sure they all know he hates them, but still joins their group almost every day.
After their main group of four is established, more people just keep appearing. A thirteen-year-old kid shows up in Gil's apartment one day, lounging on one of the beanbags in the room's farthest corner, playing on the albino's newest Tamogatchi and listening to music so loudly he doesn't hear Antonio's screams of surprise. The kid turns out to be Gilbert younger brother, Ludwig, who had never been mentioned before. They really have no idea how Ludwig had gotten into the apartment (after all, the kid didn't have a key, to their knowledge) or even if they had just never noticed him being there before. It wouldn't really be surprising. Ludwig is quiet, though he has such strange moments that they just don't question his existence as the third person 'living' in Gil's place.
No one is actually the true occupants of their own places. Francis wakes up to find Gilbert or Ludwig, sometimes both of them, cleaning his kind of messy place like maniacs, or Gilbert walks into the kitchen to see Lovino and Francis battling it out for their place at his stove (the only thing that really works in the d*mn apartment, but always makes the albino worry about it causing a gas leak because he swears that the pipes are rusting away.) They're more like an extended family living in a small space.
Then, there is the couple on the floor above them. All they really know is that the two are young and recently married, as well as Roderich is working as a lobby pianist while his wife Elizaveta is, for all they know, a trained assassin who has mastered the art of using a frying pan as a weapon in such a way that Rapunzel from Tangled would be proud. They were the lucky ones who got the one full-floor flat that had accidently been constructed as a mistaken add-on to the building. Gilbert says that they're douches, but the rest of them know that he's just jealous of their pristine living quarters.
And, of course, there is the Queen's Coffee Shoppe built below their floor. They all have different opinions on it. Francis keeps trying to convince the owner to let him bake some real pastries; Gilbert dumps almost all of the shop's creamer into one cup of coffee, not because he thinks it tastes bad, but because he only really likes the creamer and just doesn't have the guts to drink it straight; Antonio has a personal vendetta against the owner for the time the Brit had smashed his model (toy) Spanish Armada to nothing more than splinters of wood and has been at war with the Brit ever since; Lovino, ever the optimist, simply says that both the coffee and the food taste like c*ap.
When Gilbert snarks to him about how does he know what c*ap tastes like, Lovino promptly shuts him up with the threat of a spork to the eyes.
Those two have a really odd relationship. Everyone does, really. Then again, they are all odd people.
Francis has tried to be more things then what should be possible for a twenty-four year old. He's tried to be a model, an actor, a musician, a painter, an auctioneer, a hairdresser, and a chef. So far his job as a chef has been the longest to last. He has this weird love-hate relationship with the British owner of the Queen's Coffee Shoppe, in which Arthur cusses Francis out and the Frenchman just says 'I love you too.' Yeah, Francis turns almost everything into a situation calling for love, even claiming to be everyone's big brother.
Gilbert is...he's okay. Egocentric and pushy, but okay. He can drink someone under the table and just keep going until a full keg is empty, then go onto the next. It's truly a miracle that he hasn't had alcohol poisoning yet. No one knows what his job is, except Ludwig, but it wouldn't surprise anyone if he was behind a bar counter cleaning the glasses. He doesn't sleep much, unless Ludwig or Francis force him into bed and make him stay there until he's slept a full eight hours. He doesn't like sleeping, unless it's the occasional nap to keep him running. There's just too much to do and so little time to do it.
Antonio...he's...Antonio. There's no others words to really describe him. He still hasn't fully grasped how to think in English and usually ends up blabbering in Spanish because his mouth runs faster than his brain. He's fun and open and cheery, but can be scary when he puts his mind to it. They know he's a part-time performer (for what, exactly, they don't know) and plays as a street musician most of the time. Antonio is, in general, a big ball of energy. (It also seems that he never encountered the crucial part of growing up where people actually grow up. He does some of the most embarrassing things and genuinely enjoys it.) Francis and Gilbert and him click like childhood friends, while Lovino thinks he's an idiot.
Lovino is blunt. Lovino is sarcastic. Lovino is...sometimes found sleeping with Antonio. Usually because Antonio still manages to get into his apartment and slips into Lovino's bed. They don't really care anymore, anything belonging to a person does not truly belong to that person anymore once they move into their little second-floor community. Except for Gilbert's bed. Gilbert has a weird thing about sharing his bed with anyone other than his little brother. None of them know what Lovino does for a living, but Antonio says that he has a lot of pistols on his walls. Empty pistols, but pistols all the same. (Gilbert is careful when going into Lovino's apartment, especially since Lovino doesn't like him for some reason.)
Ludwig is actually one of the more mature ones. Not the most mature, since he's still a teenager, but mature all the same. He doesn't have a real job yet, but he has a paper route and he's happy with it. There's something a little off about him, but none of them really care; there's something off about all of them. Ludwig doesn't cry much and Ludwig doesn't smile much; Gilbert says that his younger brother has his own brand of emotions, ones that don't show on his face much. Only Gilbert knows where Ludwig actually lives, but the kid is at the albino's place 99.99% of the time so no one really asks.
All in all, they have three apartments that have almost molded together into a single household, a prissy Austrian pianist and his scary Hungarian wife in the flat above them, a grumpy British 'gentleman' who serves what is arguably the worst coffee ever, but in a place where they still spend an alarming amount of time in.
It works for them. No one knows how it does, but it works all the same.