A/N : I love crack pairings. What? I've got a thousand other things I need to finish? I know, but this story isn't very long, so it's okay. Really. It's okay if you don't believe me, as well. XD
Warnings! : AU. Human characters. Violence, language.
Pairings : Norway x Germany, past Italy x Germany and Denmark x Norway. A little side of Prussia and France, because fuck yeah. Don't know what else to say about this one.
10 chapters. Short and odd. This is extremely tame by my standards, but I still had fun writing it because Norway is insane. ALSO, I know zero about anything nautical, so if any of you are sailors or something, just humor me. Please. Thanks for reading, as always.
PRIVATE RADIO
Chapter 1
Ordinary Vanity
January.
The ships were frosted with ice. The water was well below freezing. The waves crashed white against the rocks.
Ludwig, through several different circumstances, had found himself on coast of the sea.
A beautiful place, sure, but getting here had been an ugly time.
Six years.
That was how long he and Feliciano had been in a relationship.
The first three had been exhilarating. The fourth had been alright. The fifth had dragged.
The sixth, Ludwig had woken up every morning and wondered how much longer he could take it before he went crazy.
Not Feliciano's fault.
His own, maybe. He couldn't say what it was that was nagging him, exactly, but he found himself enjoying his time alone more and more often, and when Feliciano was gone, he was the happiest.
It was a terrible thing to admit, it made him a horrible person, but he had gotten tired of Feliciano.
So many days.
So many years.
They had gotten together too young, perhaps. Attached to each other too quickly. Darted towards each other with declarations of eternity when they probably should have been experimenting with different people. They had been eighteen; ha, what had they known about anything back then? When they had first clasped hands, Ludwig was fairly certain that forever would be as enthralling as that day had been.
Hardly.
Adolescence turned into adulthood. Living together. Working. Paying bills.
Seeing Feliciano every single day.
Arguing, making up, arguing again, not talking to each other for days, making up again only to argue again. Fighting one night, fucking the next, looking at each other over the table and discussing bills, having to suffer each other's family.
It got old.
They had given each other their entire youth, and Ludwig was the first of them to realize he regretted that.
He wasn't content.
Restless, all the time.
Maybe because he had never given himself time to mess around before he had settled. Disaster, surely, waiting to happen. Getting serious too soon.
When he looked at Feliciano, he no longer felt that burn of adrenaline he had when they had first been together, and, god help him, when Feliciano rolled over on top of him at night, Ludwig had realized he was engaging in something that felt more like a chore.
Feliciano buried his face in Ludwig's neck as he crooned words of adoration, and Ludwig just stared up at the ceiling, and bit down the urge to sigh as he stayed dutifully in place.
He was a terrible person, but he couldn't really help it.
It made him feel awful, but he thought it anyway.
He was bored.
He couldn't bring himself to say it. He could barely even say, 'I love you', let alone open his mouth and try to explain that he wasn't happy. Trying to fumble words that were already bad enough on their own, but that coming out of his ineloquent mouth might have sounded harsher than he meant them to. Putting emotions into words wasn't anything he had ever been good at, so he had gotten out of bed one night after Feliciano had drank too much, packed his things, and hit the road.
It hadn't been right. He knew that. It hadn't been very mature. He knew that, too.
Still, he had done it, because it was easier for him that way.
Feliciano would have twisted the conversation around and forced him to stay, one way or another.
Trapped.
When Feliciano was staring at him, he always folded.
Didn't want to hurt his feelings.
Sneaking out was the only way.
After that, he had wandered around, aimlessly.
Gilbert was great, he really was, but Ludwig couldn't live with him, because being around Gilbert too much was something quite close to being in hell. Loved him to death, but he just couldn't. Couldn't stay with Roderich, not with the state of his marriage. Couldn't stay with Lovino, either. Too awkward.
So he'd headed out, got on a bus, and found himself on the edge of the North Sea, in this pretty place, in a little German village near the Danish border.
That had been a year ago.
Since then he had found a job and rented himself a shoddy little apartment, and he had called Gilbert a month after he arrived to let him know that he was alive and well. Gilbert had berated him, as a big brother should, but didn't really seem all that mad at him.
Gilbert, always so restless, surely could understand what it was like to feel trapped.
In the end, Gilbert had just said, 'Well. Guess it can't be helped. I'll tell him you're alright, 'cause he's been so worried. Call me if you need anything. Don't worry too much about it. He's pissed, but he'll get over it. I hope you find whatever you need. I'll come visit you when I can.'
He loved Gilbert.
He had felt more than a little guilty, though, at the thought of Feliciano searching for him in a panic when he had been alright the whole while. Too late now to fix it. Feliciano had no doubt taken the hint, because it was a pretty goddamn big one. Up and leaving was the most obvious in the long checklist of bad breakup options.
Ludwig found himself now sitting at a desk behind the giant panes of glass, overlooking the rolling sea.
Ships coming and going.
Not bad scenery, but something always felt off.
He missed everyone.
Feliciano too, in certain ways.
Being alone wasn't as enthralling as he had always thought it would be. Away from home. On his own.
The job itself wasn't too bad. Guiding boats and ships through active waterways and keeping them from crashing into each other or dashing up on the rocks. He got a lot of languages through here, mostly Danish and Norwegian, German and Dutch, English, sometimes French and Spanish. He could fumble the English and the Scandinavian languages, but everything else he passed off to one of his coworkers.
He was getting the hang of it. Months and months of training under someone else.
He was doing it on his own now.
Nautical jargon was still a little hard for him, but he had a handle on most things by now. The guys he worked with were helpful, quick to correct mistakes and teach him new words.
They clapped him on the back when he did a good job.
Not bad.
Anyway, it was better than what he had before.
Couldn't help but be melancholy all the same.
Every day, he watched blips on a radar screen, headphones heavy over his ears, and spoke to captains, guiding them when they couldn't see or when their maps weren't up to date.
Nothing very interesting.
Maybe that was good, because he wasn't a very interesting person.
In early January, when the night sky was clear and the moon was full and the ocean was freezing, Ludwig watched the waves outside the windows, and a sight on his screen eventually caught his attention.
A little boat, creeping steadily towards a crop of rocks.
A little too close for comfort, and he had been quick to tune his radio and focus his wandering eyes. He flipped the stations with one hand, pressing the headphone closer to his ear with the other, and tried to get the boat's attention.
"Hey, ah—northbound. You hear me? You're headed towards the rocks. Port around, eight degrees. Over."
A short silence, and then the radio crackled.
A voice came over the waves.
Deep and somewhat dreamy, hardly a silvery rumble in Norwegian.
"Is this the coast guard? Sorry, I don't speak German."
Ludwig glanced up at the water, and promptly repeated himself in the preferred language, as best he could.
His Norwegian wasn't exactly stunning. Actually, it was really Danish, but they were all mutually intelligible anyway. So he called it Norwegian.
"Northbound. You've got rocks ahead. Port around. Check your map. Um, eight degrees."
Another silence, and the voice came back.
"Oh! Hello there. My map's not around. Say, it's a nice night, isn't it? I was just watchin' the moon when you called."
...what?
His head started aching around that time, and it would be a long time before it stopped again.
Ludwig held the button down, furrowed his brow and tried to gather up his words, and then he said, in his clumsy Danish, "Listen here, guy, do what I tell ya if you don't wanna ground yourself on the rocks. Port around."
A crackle of static.
And then, for some unholy reason, the voice on the other end of the speaker said, "Rocks? I don't see any rocks. Hey—you got a nice voice, you know? I'm sure you get that a lot."
Wha—what?
"No," he said, harshly, "I don't! Because most people are too worried about dyin' out there to think about my voice! You gonna listen to me or not?"
He let go of the button, waited, with his palm on the table and eyes scanning the rolling waves, and then the voice answered him.
Kind of.
"I'll be honest; I didn't really hear a damn word you said, but listening to ya sure is nice. Love that accent. Well, anyway, I'm headin' out. I have to get back soon. Hey. You work here every day? So I'll know when to come back."
Ludwig stared at the radio in his hand, chest tight with aggravation, and he wanted to say, 'So go and die then, you goddamn idiot, and see what I care!'
It was only the fact that he was being recorded and that he hadn't been doing this on his own for very long that forced him to grit his teeth and clench his jaw and hiss, "I'm telling you, change direction, sir, or you're gonna ground yourself—"
"—I might swing back next week. You'll be here next week, right? If not, I'll just keep listening for your voice until I hear it again."
The plastic creaked in his hand as he clenched it.
Deep breaths.
Calm.
He could stay calm.
"What's your name? I bet it's nice."
Whether he was calm or not was may not have been the issue anymore, since he was pretty much screaming when he slammed his fist on the desk and cried, "Port, man, port!"
The blip drew ever closer to the rocks.
He'd be goddamned if he lost a boat on his watch. This fuckin' job was all he had right now.
Nowhere to go if he lost it.
And yes, he was absolutely more concerned with the state of his damn job than he was with the well being of the psycho in the boat.
Bad person? Yup.
The radar beeped. Dots floating along. He watched the screen, tensely, and gave a 'hmph' when the boat made a sharp turn at the last moment and avoided the rocks.
Stubborn bastard.
"Whoa! That was a close one, huh!" came the voice over the speaker, and Ludwig shook his head to himself.
"You're welcome," was all he muttered then, and was content to leave it there.
The guy? Not so much.
"Whew, I gotta tell you though, it was almost worth slamming into 'em just hearing you scream at me. Almost made me crash there, with that voice of yours. Let's do this more often."
When the boat was starting to go out of his range, the static increased, and there was one final transmission between them.
"I'll get your name next time. Wait for me. Next week!"
The radio went silent, the dot disappeared, and the boat floated out of his sight.
He slumped back in his seat, blew air through his teeth, and leaned his head backwards.
Christ almighty. What a whacko.
The guy at the desk next to him looked over suddenly, a leer on his face, and said, "Well! That was interesting. Looks like someone made a friend."
Aw, fuck.
Ludwig sent a foul look over, turned his eyes back down to the map beneath him, and hoped to god that he wasn't blushing.
Probably was, though.
Goddammit.
The rest of the night, they giggled about the weirdo in the boat, and Ludwig found himself the office joke. Every time one of them communicated with a ship, they looked up afterwards and called to the room, 'He didn't like my voice, I guess. Didn't crash.'
Laughter.
Ludwig lowered his head, pressed the headphones into his ears, and could feel his cheeks burn every single time.
He should have gotten a tan before he came here. At least then they couldn't see him blushing so bad. He hadn't really anticipated being put on the spot like this so often. Hell, this was the most attention anyone other than Feliciano had paid him in a long time.
Not the worst thing in the world.
Nice voice, huh? Ha. Coulda been worse.
Days came and went, the odd boat didn't come back, and Ludwig pushed it from his mind. As much as he could, anyway, for his coworkers' relentless teasing. Every day, they were quick to remind him.
'Hi, Ludwig! Damn, your voice is even nicer in the morning.'
'Better watch the ships extra hard today, guys. Ludwig's gonna make a couple of 'em crash.'
On his day off, he came in the next evening to, 'There he is. We had to go without a siren yesterday. Didn't even lose a single boat.'
Motherfuckers.
It was like living with Gilbert all over again.
...not a bad thing for his ego though, if he were honest. It was kinda nice to be teased for something pleasant rather than the old stuff he was used to; his shyness, his awkwardness, 'holy shit, look how red Ludwig's face got when you asked if he had a girlfriend,' all of that blah, blah.
He could be vain, too, in certain ways.
The week was coming to an end. Ludwig assumed the ordeal was over.
It was Sunday when the boat finally came back.
Ludwig noticed it first because the boat was drifting a little on the snug side to a gigantic ship.
Not even considering the possibility, Ludwig tuned the radio, watched the radar, and said, swiftly, "You're getting' too close to a cargo ship, southbound. Keep an eye out."
He waited for a response.
A crackle of static, and then a smooth croon over the waves.
"Hello there! Told you I'd be back. Miss me?"
Ludwig stared at the radio for a moment, feeling his face falling, and he heaved a sigh as he thunked his head down onto folded arms when he recognized that voice.
Son of a bitch.
Absolute mortification.
Cackling and breathless howling all over the room. The man beside of him slapped his palm on his desk, giggling so hard that he started crying.
Ludwig was pretty sure then that he would rather have just jumped out of the window and onto the rocks below.
He was never going to live this down.
They cackled all night.
Ludwig might have cracked a smile, somewhere down the line, as the boat crept slowly along the waterway and the voice kept trying very hard to get his attention.
Just a little smile. Wouldn't admit it, though.
So he just stayed cool, answered the prodding voice only when he had to, and flipped a coworker off every time they giggled too hard.
Vanity was a strange, if not pleasant, sensation.
Exhilaration.
His veins had been flooded with adrenaline the whole while.
He had almost forgotten how that felt.
The damn boat seemed to come by every other day after that.