Chapter 3:

When Alfred had come downstairs to announce that Matthew was feeling unwell and was just going to sleep it off, Gilbert couldn't help but emit a boisterous laugh at the sheer absurdity. The kid was totally high out of his freaking mind! He was freshly stoned. That skunky scent was radiating all throughout the hallway. He did find it surprising that Liz was too though, given how uptight she seemed to be in second period. He was only joking around with her after all. He wasn't completely oblivious to the energy in the room. It was so obvious who Liz actually wanted to ask her to prom, and he couldn't believe that such a smart-looking guy like Roderich wasn't picking that up. If anything, that should have influenced Roderich to do it right away because if he didn't, then someone else clearly was going to.

"Boys! Dinner is ready!" Alfred's mom called from the kitchen.

Alfred hopped excitedly to the kitchen and pulled plates out of the top cabinet. He set them down on the counter with some forks and knives so that everyone could begin serving themselves. It was spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Not Gil's favorite but he wouldn't even dream of complaining.

As soon as they made their plates and sat down at the table, Alfred wasted no time shoveling forkfuls of pasta into his mouth. Gilbert took a respectable bite and smiled at Alfred's mom. "This is delicious Mrs. Jones. Did you make the sauce yourself?" It was very good, but the compliment was definitely made to get on her good side.

She returned Gilbert's smile, "Technically, Gilbert, I'm Ms. Williams. But please, call me Josie. And thank you, that's very sweet. It's from a jar but I always add a little extra love!"

"And an extra clove of garlic," Alfred stated matter-of-factly, with a full mouth.

"Yes! That too!" Josie laughed sweetly.

It was just now while Gilbert was seeing both Alfred and Josie in the same room, as well as getting a clearer view of Matthew's face (even if it was just five seconds), that he could start seeing the resemblances. Matthew and Alfred looked extremely similar. Alfred was maybe an inch taller than Matthew, and they were both several inches taller than their mother. Matthew seemed to take more features from his mother though, as Alfred's brow bone was slightly more defined and had a wider-set jaw. Gilbert wouldn't say that Matthew looked more feminine, but he did seem to inherit the more feminine features of his mother. Josie was a very pretty woman. Did that make Alfred and Matthew pretty as well? That thought would have made Gil chuckle to himself, but he didn't want to have to explain himself at the table. It was no denying that genetics was definitely in this family's favor. He wondered what it was like to look like the rest of your family. Honestly? Probably boring.

"So how was school today, boys? Gilbert? It was your first day right?"

Gilbert nodded, finishing his bite before speaking. "It was my first day. It was good," he shrugged, "Much smaller than my old school though."

"Gilbert's from the city! And his school is way bigger! I looked it up!" Alfred announced. Gilbert could tell that Alfred loved having a friend over. It felt almost like he was a shiny new toy being boasted about at show-and-tell.

Josie tilted her head in intrigue, "Oh really? How large was your class?"

"Um… I don't know the exact number but probably around five hundred." Gilbert noted Josie's expression shift from intrigue to surprise.

"That's a lot of kids," she laughed. "So this is a big change of pace for you huh?"

"Oh yeah. A much slower pace," Gilbert joked.

Josie chuckled along with him and Alfred, nodding knowingly. She always felt bad that Alfred and Matthew were being stifled by such a small town. In some ways she found it comforting though. She at least knew that if they were getting into trouble, they were getting into trouble with kids she knew the parents of. "Well, Gilbert. This town definitely needed a fresh face," she said, "And I'm very honored you chose to spend your debut in Hickory eating dinner with us!" She stood from the table and collected the empty plates.

Alfred stood up with her and helped collect the rest of the dishes. He carried them to the kitchen and set them on the counter next to her so she could wash them. As soon as he did his part, he pranced back over to Gilbert with a cheesy grin. "So what do you wanna do now dude? I have tons of video games! As long as we can use the T.V. Is that okay mom?" he called into the kitchen.

"Yeah of course sweetie!" Josie called back.

"I have Mario Kart, COD, Halo, Overwatch…" Alfred began his long list.

"Uh… I don't know man. I should probably get home." He didn't warn his father that he was going somewhere after school. The later he stayed, the longer the lecture.

"Come on dude! Just one race in Mario Kart! Winner gets to text anything they want to whoever they want on the loser's phone!"

Gilbert was never one to turn down a challenge. And now that Alfred just upped the stakes it was completely irresistible. He really wanted to embarrass Alfred. Plus, it would be just one race. That was an extra five minutes at maximum. "Fine." Gilbert gave in, "Mario Kart is my jam though." Alfred really didn't know what he was getting himself into.

Did Alfred say one race? Well after he had lost the first one, he claimed that he initially meant one round. This turned into best two out of three, then best three out of five, then so on and so forth. Gilbert was the competitive type, and he didn't want to turn down the opportunity to kick Alfred's ass over and over again. He also completely lost track of time. He just knew that suddenly Josie was no longer in the living room, backseat gaming for her son. She retired to bed a long time ago. It was around 10 PM when Gilbert heard soft footsteps descend the staircase and approach the living room.

Without missing a beat or looking away from the screen Alfred spoke to whoever was standing there, "There's leftovers in the fridge. Spaghetti and meatballs."

"Yeah I could smell it," Matthew said tiredly, rubbing his eyes, "Can you guys keep it down just a little bit please? It's so loud down here." He turned and walked into the kitchen. Gilbert heard some shuffling from the refrigerator and then the soft purr of the microwave.

"Fuck!" Alfred dropped the controller into his lap and looked at Gilbert in distress, "How do you even do that?"

"Natural born skill baby!" Gilbert stood. He honestly had almost forgotten about Matthew before he came downstairs. Now that he was reminded of him though, he felt a strange tension in the air. Normally, Gilbert wouldn't care about the discomfort he was causing to anyone that wasn't his friend, but he was growing to like this family. That was more than he could ever say about his friend's families back home. They were all assholes. "I should head out," he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Hold on dude! You won! You can text anyone from my phone remember? Hold on, I gotta get it from my charger!" Alfred booked it up the stairs, presumably to his bedroom.

Soft footsteps approached the living room once more before halting at the doorway. Matthew stood there, staring at the corner of the room. It was almost like he was afraid to make eye contact with Gilbert.

"Hey," Gilbert gave a half-wave. "You still stoned?" he asked jokingly.

Matthew's face turned red. "I uh… I don't know what you're talking about." He walked over to the couch that was perpendicular to where Gilbert was originally sitting.

"I'm just messing with you dude." Gilbert grabbed his shoes and pulled them on without untying the shoelaces. He suddenly remembered that Alfred had promised to ask his brother about any connections. He wasn't surprised that Al forgot. "By the way… who do you buy from? You know I'm new here… I need a referral."

"I don't buy," Matthew said, finally making eye contact with Gilbert for what was definitely the first time. "My friends do. And they share."

Of course, Matthew wouldn't be able to help. That would mean Gilbert would have to ask Liz and given the way she reacts to Gilbert that is completely hopeless. "Alright," Gilbert nodded awkwardly. "Well thanks anyways." He grabbed his leather jacket from the arm of the couch he was sitting on. Alfred came sprinting down the stairs and handed his phone off to Gilbert.

"You can text anyone dude! Just not my mom though. Or if you do please don't say anything inappropriate."

Gilbert opened a new message on Alfred's phone and scrolled through the contacts to find the lucky recipient. Alfred's contacts list was surprisingly long for someone from such a small town. He probably knew everyone they went to school with and was probably friends with them all. He seemed like the kind of person that liked to be well-liked. The only people he recognized on the list were Matthew, Liz, and Josie. That sucked. He couldn't send anything funny to any of these people.

Gil eventually settled on Matthew's name, which opened up the thread of pre-existing messages. Most of it seemed to be Alfred texting Matthew memes and videos. There were no responses from Matthew. Gilbert typed out his message, hit send, and then handed the phone back to Alfred.

"Well I'm heading out," Gilbert looked between both Alfred and Matthew. "Whatever form of praying you guys partake in, send it my way. My dad's gonna be pissed," he laughed and then let himself out the front door.

"See you later dude!" He heard Alfred say as the door was closing.

Gilbert's walk home wasn't very long at all. He was still adapting to how tiny this town was and so far he didn't necessarily mind. It was a ten-minute walk home, and he lived just about 4 blocks down from Alfred and Matthew.

It was about 10:30 PM when he got to the front steps of his bungalow style home, he carefully browsed through his keys to the front door. All the windows in the house appeared to be dark, meaning his dad and Ludwig had to be asleep. He kicked off his shoes before entering so he wouldn't make a complete ruckus while making his way to his room, but as he got to the living room entryway a blinding light flickered on.

"Gilbert… Are you drunk?" A deep voice emitted from the large chair that faced the television.

Gilbert practically hit the ceiling and dropped his gym shoes, which made a loud thump on the ground comparable to a jet engine taking off. "Jesus, Dad. You could have given me a heart attack!"

"Are you drunk? Stoned?" His father asked, his tone becoming slightly annoyed.

"I… No… I went to hang out with my friend after school."

"And you're aware it's a school night."

Gilbert's head dropped slightly, "Yes… I am aware. I swear I didn't even realize I hadn't told you until I was leaving their house. It felt too late at that point."

His father sighed and he slowly approached Gilbert, arms crossed in the typical disappointed-parent fashion. "Don't do this again, please. It's a new town. New people. New school for you. I was worried."

Gilbert raised a shoulder sheepishly and nodded, "Sorry, Dad."

The man nodded and patted Gilbert on the shoulder. "It's okay. This just can't happen again. Goodnight, son." He walked past Gilbert to his bedroom, which was on the first floor.

Gilbert clutched his chest and wiped away imaginary sweat from his brow, "Phew," he said under his breath. That really was a close one. If this had happened back at Gilbert's old town, the house locks would have already been changed and he would be trapped outside until he came up with an eloquent speech about how withholding information can be considered dishonesty. His dad let him off easy this time, probably because he had much more to worry about. Gil shut off the living room light and made his way to the stairs. His brother Ludwig's room was at the very top of the steps and Gilbert's room was at the end of the hall.

Ludwig's light was still on, which wasn't in character for him. He always went to bed at 9:30 PM and woke up at 6 AM sharp. Gilbert had to investigate. Without knocking, he slowly cracked his brother's door open, peeking inside. Ludwig was laying on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling with his headphones on and turned up loud. That didn't stop him from seeing Gilbert out of his peripheral vision though.

He raised his headphones from his ears and gave Gilbert a glare. Mostly a "You really need to learn how to fucking knock" type glare. That wouldn't ever happen though. "I'm still adjusting to a new room." He stated flatly.

Gilbert nodded and leaned against the doorway, "Yeah… me too. How was your first day of school?" he asked. Gilbert knew he didn't come across as a family type, but he cared about his little brother more than anything. He appreciated his father too. Even though he was a hard-ass, he did what he could for them.

Ludwig shrugged, "This whole school is behind in the lesson plans. My classes were chapters ahead at the old school."

Gilbert nodded, "Hey… Easy A though right?" He grinned.

Ludwig rolled his eyes, "They need to put me in the honors courses. I won't learn otherwise. I'm speaking to the superintendent tomorrow."

Gilbert couldn't help but roll his eyes in response. He knew Ludwig would present a good enough case and probably get the right placements. He just didn't understand why Ludwig didn't want to coast through. What was the point in trying when school would be over in a few weeks? "I wish you the best, bro." Gilbert said. He grabbed the doorknob and started pulling the door shut.

"How was school for you?" asked Ludwig before the door was fully closed. He already knew what the answer would be.

"Well, it's high school. So, it was pure shit," Gilbert shrugged, "Made lots of new friends though. Bet you can't relate," he teased.

Ludwig rolled his eyes again and pulled his headphones back over his ears, but not before giving his brother a very slight, barely-there smile. That was the best Gilbert could get out of him most of the time. He didn't mind it though.

Not smiling was a trait that Ludwig inherited from his dad. Gilbert inherited his emotive nature from his mother. That turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because he was much more approachable than his brother and dad were. A curse because, well, emotions could be exhausting as a teenager. That's why he liked to smoke weed. He didn't rely on it by any means but it mellowed him out. Man… he wished he had saved some for after the move. It was the perfect kind of night to crack the window in his room, roll up, chill, and then pass out. You don't always get everything that you want in life though. A 10-milligram melatonin would just have to do the trick.

Gilbert walked to the bathroom that was in between his and his brother's room and took the value sized bottle of beautiful little sleep aid pills out. He dry swallowed one, shrugged at himself in the mirror, then dry swallowed another. Double dosing wouldn't hurt. He had built up a tolerance over the years anyways.

He waited for the medicine to kick in as he played around on his laptop. He decided he could go for some more cyberstalking of the Hickory residents. He visited Alfred's profile again, seeing that he was definitely active at the moment. He was up sharing videos from pages about funny cats and dogs. Very in character. Then, Gilbert had a moment of realization. Was it Elizaveta who had responded on the post about Gilbert moving to town? If what he was remembering was accurate, she had politely corrected some folks about the term albinism. Gilbert quickly made his way to her profile and proved his suspicions correct. It was kind of funny. He felt like if she had known him then, she would have ignored the post entirely, or probably would have posted a long rant about how she didn't care if he was albino or not, he was still an asshole.

He decided it was time to do some snooping on his new best friend, Liz. She seemed laid back for a teenage girl. And it looked like she had everyone added from the school (except for Gilbert of course) and followed pages about cooking, funny pets, and a couple pages about politics. She posted pretty rarely. When she did it would be pictures of recipes she tried, drama club updates, the occasional rant about traffic, and selfies of herself and Matthew.

Oh… Matthew. Gilbert quickly clicked on Matthew's profile through the tagged link on the photo. Now this kid seemed like he never posted. This didn't surprise Gilbert at all. Matthew was quiet and shy. He definitely didn't have a bubbly online persona that was for sure. He followed pages about hockey, the same cooking pages as Liz, and of course, funny pets. People eat that shit up. Including Gilbert. Most of Matthew's feed was all shares from these pages. He definitely wasn't the kind of person to make personal posts. This intrigued Gilbert. It made Matthew mysterious in a way.

After skimming the first few posts on Matthew's wall, he went to the photo album. The first picture that came up had been posted months ago in October. It was of him and Liz at the homecoming football game. Matthew was wearing his marching band uniform and Liz was wearing regular attire. They were sitting next to each other on the bleachers and appeared to be laughing, unable to sit and smile nicely for whoever was taking the picture of them.

"Go Prairie Dogs" was all the caption said. Liz was tagged and so was that Polish kid from the class where he was teasing poor Elizaveta and Roderich. This indicated that Feliks was probably the one who took the photo.

Gilbert didn't know why, but he felt something stir up in his gut while looking at this picture. It was just so damn endearing. Gil never went to football games at his old school. They seemed overrated. Why go to the game and exhaust yourself when you can just go to the afterparty full of energy? He just wanted to free booze anyways, he didn't care how his school was doing.

This picture almost made Gilbert want to be there though. With Liz and Matthew. They seemed so personable here. Liz wasn't annoyed and Matthew wasn't hiding. For a second, Gilbert found himself wishing that he was the one who was making Matthew laugh as hard as he was in the photo.

"Ah… shit," Gilbert murmured to himself, "Look at me, I've gone all soft," he rolled his eyes and shut his laptop. He wanted to be friends with Matthew. With the way things were going, it didn't seem possible. Plus, he only had a few weeks left before Gilbert would move back to his old city to go to the community college.

Gil was finally getting drowsy. He put his laptop on the floor next to his bed and shut off his bedroom light.

Even though he was really tired, he still felt restless. It didn't feel like he was trying to sleep. It just felt like he was laying on his back and keeping his eyes closed tight. It was obnoxiously uncomfortable. Gilbert shifted onto his side, then to his other, then onto his stomach until he finally decided there was no use. He sat up and let out a loud huff while rubbing his eyes. It wasn't exactly Gilbert's nature but he really wanted to get to school on time. At this rate, there was no way he would get up early enough. It wasn't that he was afraid of Mr. Braginski holding him back from graduating. He knew an empty threat when he heard one. Most high schools wouldn't admit it, but they just want students out of there. And if tweaking a report card was all it took to get students like Gilbert out of their classrooms then by golly they were going to pass. Gilbert mostly wanted to see Matthew, and if he would send any form of acknowledgement his way after their interactions from today.

Then, as if Gilbert were psychic, his phone vibrated, signaling he had just received a text message. It was from a phone number he didn't recognize:

"Hey. It's Matthew…"

Hey everyone :3 I changed the title of the story bc I heard a song that made me think of where I want things to go (Dizzy on the Comedown by Turnover) Hope it doesn't confuse anyone!

I think so far this chapter is one of my favorites that I've written! I'm really liking the way chapter 4 is going too ;)

Enjoy! Leave a review if you feel like it :) Be gentle.