Thursday early afternoon, Gilbert found himself sitting in front of the TV in the apartment he shared with Ludwig. While Ludwig went to his business meetings and helped his company grow, Gilbert had a night job as a host. He didn't mind the job, even though his brother had other ideas. A bowl of half-finished cereal sat on the small table in front of the TV as a soap opera played. Gilbert had been invested in the show for quite some time since it was on when he woke up from his late night shifts. Of course he would deny any and all questions of him knowing about the show, even though he could tell people exactly what was going on.
At the moment, the show was revealing the important detail about who the father was for a child who was born during a rather strange love triangle that developed into that of a rectangle, when a piercing scream drowned out the answer. In fact, the scream had sent Gilbert from his seat on the couch onto the floor from shock.
"What the hell?" Gilbert looked around, wondering if it was just some sort of bad joke, or perhaps whoever screamed had found out the name of the father before Gilbert had. As he tried to regain his bearings, he heard several loud thumps against his wall and another particular high pitched scream.
Under normal circumstance people would have called the police and stayed the hell away from the source of whatever atrocious crime was being committed, but not Gilbert. He quickly grabbed his phone off the tablet sitting next to his bowl of cereal and texted his brother a quick message before sprinting to the door.
"No! Get away from me!"
The source of the screaming came from his next door neighbours who were relatively quiet. Gilbert was sure there was some sort of murderer in there. It had to be and his neighbour was certainly putting up a struggle. When he checked the door, he found the door unlocked and even slightly ajar. Taking the opportunity, he crouched as he snuck in the apartment.
The layout was similar to Gilbert's so he navigated himself quickly to the living room area to see a blonde hair man standing on the table, holding a hockey stick in defence and found nothing attacking him.
"Ah, I thought you were screaming because you were being killed." Now it was just awkward and Gilbert knew that, but without seeing an assailant he wondered what the hell the screaming was about. If the answer was something he didn't like, there would be hell to pay considering he was still in only his boxers and a tank top.
"You!" The blonde brandished the hockey stick around with a terrified expression to where even his glasses were askew. "Quick, get on a chair or something."
"What is wrong with—"
The problem was a very haired, eight-legged, spider crawling its way over to Gilbert, who quickly scrambled up on the nearest object, which was a recliner. The spider stopped its advance and just sat there for a moment.
"See." The blonde stared at the spider and pointed the hockey stick at it. "Every time I tried to kill it, it moved out of the way."
Gilbert glanced around to find a few small dents in the wall. When this was all over, he wondered what the landlord would say about it all. He shook his head and chuckled. When the spider moved, he quickly sobered up and stared at it. There had be some way of killing the spider, or at least getting it out of the apartment. Sadly, the spider seemed to have a different mind as it crawled under the chair Gilbert stood on. He tried to calculate if he could jump from the recliner to the loveseat. He would have to chance it.
"Don't! If you miss and on the floor…" The blonde looked distraught enough and seemed to genuinely think the spider was some mastermind criminal.
"Don't worry. I usually get into messes like this and do a fair job of getting myself back out. If anything I can still call my brother for back up." Gilbert wondered how Ludwig would react to being interrupted for a spider. Crouching, he nimbly jumped from the recliner to the loveseat. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to see if the spider had been spooked out hiding.
Nothing.
"You don't suppose it'll just stay there do you?"
"I don't know, I'm not a spider. Don't you have bug spray or something?" Gilbert asked, as the blonde tried to relax a little on the table.
"No. Al was supposed to bring some home from the store today but he forgot that's why he's not even home. I'm sorry for screaming and getting you caught up in all of this."
"No worries. It's not like I was doing anything important." Gilbert shrugged, playing off how he was going to check the internet as soon as this was done and over with to see who the father had been from his soap opera. "By the way, the name's Gilbert."
"Matthew, but most just call me Mattie." Matthew's grip on the hockey stick shifted a little. "Strange way to meet eh?"
"Very. But I've had other stranger encounters. Anyway, I have a plan to get that spider. You distract him long enough to where I can run over to my apartment and then I'll go and grab the bug spray." Gilbert pointed to the hockey stick and motioned for Matthew to touch the recliner with it.
"Right."
Matthew quickly followed Gilbert's instructions only to give a squeak when Gilbert jumped off the couch towards the hallway that would lead to the door and freedom. It was easy since he was still in shape and the adrenaline from the spider boosted his speed a bit. What he hadn't anticipated was what Matthew practically screamed behind him.
"It's following you!"
Scheiße. Of course there it was charging after him. What the hell did he ever do to the spider? Groaning, he quickly closed the door behind him, although why he still wasn't sure. It crawled right under and stopped as if in a confused stupor. Taking the chance, Gilbert fuddled around for his keys to unlock his own door to get a boot or the bug spray. Yet, just as he was about to get it unlocked, Ludwig opened the door.
"Bruder? What is going on? I kept hearing yelling from next door." Ludwig raised an eyebrow at his brother, who turned back toward the spider and then at Ludwig.
"Ah, there was this scream and then I went to see what was going on and now there's a spider. We need the spray!" Gilbert tried to get past Ludwig, there was just not time to wait for Ludwig to understand what was happening. Ludwig bared the way and look at the spider.
"Bruder," Ludwig said with a sigh. "Are you serious? It's only a spider."
Within a few seconds, Ludwig marched over to the spider, stared at it for a moment longer, before raising his boot and killing it. Gilbert could only stand there dumbfounded at how easy it was to kill the spider and how blown out of proportion the whole deal was. He hadn't even known if the spider was poisonous or not.
"Danke." Gilbert managed to say before knocking on their neighbours' door. "It's dead!"
A thud came from behind the door, before pounding feet grew closer. The door opened up to have Matthew fling himself at Gilbert. All he saw was a flash of blonde curls and felt the uncomfortable wire frames from Matthew's glasses dig into his shoulders.
"Thank you. Really, you have no idea how scary that was." Matthew hugged him tight, as he continued to bury his face in Gilbert's shoulder.
"A-Actually, Ludwig killed it." Gilbert pointed to his brother who stood there examining his boot and giving a displeased look at the dead spider.
"Oh." Matthew sniffled before letting go of Gilbert. "Sorry about that."
"It's fine." Gilbert shrugged. "Ludwig, this is our next door neighbour you saved."
"Nice to meet you. I'm Ludwig, his younger brother. I'm going to go and dispose of this thing. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?" Ludwig asked, as he held the book a little away from himself in case the spider fell from his boot, but Gilbert doubted it would considering how hard Ludwig had stomped on it.
"Oh yes, thank you. I'm just going to go and get changed then." Matthew said with a smile and nod of his head.
"Ja, all right. Bruder, you should get changed as well." Ludwig noted as Gilbert looked down. With a small note of recognition, Gilbert quickly made his way over to the apartment door to get changed. That was how Gilbert meet his neighbour, a spider who just had it out for them.
