***A/N: I realized I forgot to mention that this is a human au, so I'll be updating the description of my story once I upload the chapter~

Thank you to those of you who have read this far! This is my second story I've ever published on this platform (I deleted the first one since it was... atrocious. I intend on rewriting it however) , so I'm still relatively inexperienced, but I'll be trying my best with this one! AmeAus is a pair that's been near and dear to my heart for years.

I tried using my (limited) knowledge of musical terms for the title so if it's horribly wrong please let me know so I can fix it~

I can't promise my updates will be on a normal schedule as I myself am not on a normal schedule, but let's hope for the best! Thank you for reading my story! ***

Chapter One

Molto Aditamento

I suppose the best way to go about this is to start at the beginning and fill in the gaps as we come to them. I'm not going to waste anyone's time here by explaining years of backstory just yet.

So, the beginning.

I was just finishing with tidying my kitchen following dinner, and as the last cup was placed in the cabinet I heard a knock on my door. Opening it, I was greeted with a dripping wet, heaving, just-ran-here-through-this-rainstorm-with-no-umbrella, Alfred.

"Hey, Rod- Roderich! Rodster! Man, I'm more out of shape than I thought," he said between pants, trying to catch his breath as he continued to get poured on since there was no awning above my apartment door.

Appalled at the amount of rainwater dripping off of him onto my freshly scrubbed and waxed floors, I opted to ignore his outlandishly inappropriate nickname for me and scoffed at him.

"Well, better tell me what you want. If you're here to borrow money again because you and my dummkopf brother spent yours already, I'm afraid I will have to decli-"

"Thanks for the offer dude, but that's not why I'm here. Can I come in? Thanks~" he said, cutting me off and ignoring me as he simply waltzed into my apartment, tracking more water across my floors.

As I began telling him off for invading my home like that, he simply ignored me and began taking off his shoes, at least having the decency to leave them on the doormat to dry before announcing to me that he was going to take a shower.

"It's alright if I wash my clothes too while I'm at it, right? Thanks Roderich, you're the best!"

"No, I never gave you permission to-!"

He shut the door.

Click!

And locked it.

Sigh…

Well, the only option I had aside from breaking my own door down and pulling him out of my bathroom was to clean up his trail of muddy water and wait for him to be done. And you could rest assured that Alfred would know the full extent of my wrath once he was done. Make no mistake about that. My anger was so great in fact, I may have even needed to break out the Chopin to fully express my fury.

Setting about my task of cleaning up the water, I could hear the shower running now, Alfred's voice soon piping up above the noise and drowning out my thoughts with a very poorly sung rendition of Country Roads. God, he was off-key. And off-tempo. John Denver must have been turning in his grave.

Something seemed… off about his voice though. Something I wasn't quite sure why I had picked up on. I'd heard Alfred singing before, several times in fact. Perhaps it was the noises from the washing machine and the shower distorting it? That must've been it. Now then, back to this mess...

As I put away my cleaning supplies, finally satisfied with my work of saving my precious floors, I noticed I wasn't hearing Alfred's voice in the shower anymore. Maybe the idiot had finally realized his vocal "talents" weren't appreciated here. And why was he here, anyway? Maybe he or Gilbert hadn't paid their water bill and it was shut off. I hoped that this wouldn't become a regular occurrence, what with them having moved into an apartment down the road no less than a month ago. Did this happen frequently when they were living near Ludwig as well? I supposed that was what happened when you put two completely irresponsible people together and expected them to pay bills on time.

As I turned towards the kitchen to put on some coffee since I assumed this would be a long evening ahead of me, I could hear the water no longer running and decided I would make a cup for Alfred while I was at it. Decaf for him, though. Lord knows I couldn't handle Alfred Jones any more hyper than he already was.

As the coffee started to brew I was startled out of my thoughts by the sound of Alfred walking into the kitchen behind me….

Completely nude, save for the small towel loosely wrapped around his waist. S-So loosely in fact, it may even have been slipping…

He noticed though, and caught it. Which was good. Yes. Yes, it… It was a good thing he caught it. It would have been horribly, horribly inappropriate had my stupid brother's boyfriend been caught naked in my kitchen.

"Like what you see, huh?~" he mused, yanking me from my thoughts again. "I know it can be hard to distract yourself from such heroic hotness, my friend, but I am already a taken man."

Turning away quickly, I scoffed at him. "No, I do not 'like what I see', I am simply disgusted by your lack of manners. It's not polite to stand naked in someone else's home. So please, put some clothes on or I will have no choice but to ask you to leave."

"Actually, I came out here to ask if I could borrow some of your clothes. I can, can't I? Man, thanks, you're the best! I really owe you one after this, pal!"

And once again deciding for me, and ignoring my protests, he took off in his towel and locked my bedroom door behind him.

No, Chopin would not be nearly enough to display this rage. Even Tchaikovsky was cutting it close. I may have even needed to resort to physical violence, but that was so exhausting…

Hearing the door knock again, frantically and annoyingly, my headache growing with each pound, I groaned as I made my way to open it.

And behind it was a dripping wet, heaving, just-ran-here-through-this-rainstorm-with-no-umbrella, Gilbert.

"Is Al here?" he yelled, before I had a chance to say anything.

"He is, yes. Are you here to collect him? Because I've had quite enough of bein-"

"What the hell are you doing here, Beilschmidt," I heard Alfred's voice behind me, cold and angry.

I turned towards him, seeing he was wearing my only pair of sweatpants (I had been planning on ridding myself of the horrid things for months, so I suppose it was alright if he wore them) and one of my solid, button-down shirts, only half buttoned as he attempted what I could only imagine was to glare lasers through Gilbert's skull. Turning back to my brother, I could see his expression was much the same.

Not wanting to get myself caught up in whatever… this was, I stepped back from the door to let Gilbert through, pretending I didn't notice all the mud and water he was tracking onto my floors that I had just cleaned…

Resigning myself to my fate, I sighed and decided to simply wait until the two bumbling morons were gone to clean my floor again.

As I stepped out of the room and into my kitchen to get coffee, I could hear loud, angry bickering from Alfred and Gilbert. So Alfred had come here because they were fighting? Why hadn't he gone to one of his own brothers' houses? They lived in town, I thought. Why hadn't he gone to Ludwig's? Or anywhere other than my own home? I had been planning a very relaxing evening of baking and scoffing at others' terrible fashion senses online. Taking a sip of my coffee, I could hear their voices becoming louder and more emotional.

"Well, it isn't my fault!"

"Yes it is, you albino jackass! You even admitted it yourself like, two seconds ago!"

"Whatever, because running away to my prissy brother's house is the least heroic thing you could do!"

"Yeah? Like coming here just to argue with me more is something cool people do, I guess!"

And it continued like that, back and forth. Mein gott this was exhausting…

As I took a glance at my long-since cold coffee, I could finally hear their shouting coming to a close. Looking over at the clock, I wondered how many hours of my life I had wasted sitting here waiting for them. Only two? Well, it certainly felt more like twelve…

I could hear shoving and one last shout from Alfred before my door was slammed so hard I was surprised it hadn't come right back off the hinges. Then there were footsteps, getting quieter until I heard a soft thud indicating someone sat on my couch. I'd assumed it was Alfred that was still here, although I'd have preferred for him to have left too. And as I stepped back into the living room to tell him so, I was beaten to it when Alfred saw me and smiled.

"Sorry about that! We were just having a bit of a disagreement! Hey, you're cool if I crash here for a few days, right? Nice! Thanks, buddy! Now I'll really owe you one!"

"No, you most certainly can not 'crash' in my home for a few days! You have your own apartment just down the road! Go continue your screaming match there, because I've had enough of all this commotion today! It has been extremely tiring, and I would like to resume whatever few seconds I have remaining of my evening in peace. So, if you could kindly get your clothing, I'll be happy to escort you to the door!"

"Haha, silly Roderich! I don't live down the street! Gilbert does! And I need a place to stay! So thanks for letting me crash here, dude!"

Even back then, though I barely knew him at the time, I could hear something desperate in his voice. And as I took a long look at him, it struck me just how exhausted he looked. Like he was putting every ounce of effort he had into not falling apart. Like he was scared, even. And confused.

And so, with a heavy sigh, I caved.

"Oh, very well. But don't you have brothers of your own you could stay with? I'm afraid I don't have much room here."

"Well Francis is on his honeymoon in Paris right now, and the bus that goes near Artie's house doesn't run this time of night."

"I see… Well, as long as you don't make a mess and stay out of my way, I suppose you can sleep on my couch tonight. We can discuss you staying any longer once it's morning."

"All right, thanks dude! I promise, you won't regret this!" and he grinned, already stretching himself out across my sofa.

As soon as I had cleaned up the water again, I laid a spare blanket and a small pillow next to him on the coffee table, already tired with the whole situation as I bid him a good night and went to my own room.

And faintly, faintly… I swore I could hear him crying until he fell asleep.