Mathias scowled. He hated returning to neighborhoods where he had already 'worked.'
But it wasn't as if he had much of a choice. His landlord had evicted him, and Nikolai was staying in a dorm and couldn't let him stay for longer than a night. Which left him with the option he was now pursuing: his cousin Berwald. Though they may have hated each other, they were family, and thus morally obliged to help each other out of tight spots.
But that didn't mean either of them had to be happy about it.
,,
"I'm sorry Mathias, but you can't stay here. Find some other family member to mooch off of." Tino slammed the door. Berwald, reading a book in the living room, frowned at the noise.
"T'no? Who w's 't?" Berwald looked over Tino's head to peer through the peephole. Mathias smiled sheepishly back at him. "Wh't d'd 'e do?"
"His landlord finally got sick of him." Tino turned to leave.
"D'es 'e w'nt t' st'y 'ere?" Tino nodded. "We sh'd l't 'im."
Tino spun on his heel. "What? Berwald! What are you thinking? What about Peter?"
"Wh't ab't 'im? 'e's ol' enough t' kn'w b'tt'r th'n t' ac' l'ke M'thias." Berwald reached for the doorknob. Tino grabbed his wrist.
"You know he scares me, Berwald." Tino almost whispered. "Please?"
Berwald hesitated. "B't 'e's f'm'ly. 'm s'rry, T'no, b't I c'n't jus' leave 'im."
"I-I understand." Tino threw his arms around Berwald in a quick hug before dashing away, leaving the blushing Swede to handle his cousin alone.
,,
Matthew blinked. There was a car in his driveway. A large, neon-orange-with-yellow-racing stripes, monster of a car. From behind the wheel of his beat-up red pick-up, Matthew stared at it.
After a few moments, he sighed and pulled up on the curb.
"Hey Gilbert, I'm home." Matthew called into the house as he dropped his keys in the bowl that was supposed to be reserved just for them, but instead contained change, lint, and all manner of pocket vomit.
"Hey Birdie." Gilbert called back from the couch. "Okaeri."
"What?" Matthew was too confused by what sounded like some Asian language to comment on the nickname.
"Ludwig had a Japanese friend named Kiku, and I got him to teach me some stuff. It means 'welcome home.'" Gilbert explained as he continued channel surfing.
"Oh. Let's see, in French that would be 'Bienvenue à la maison'." Matthew shucked his coat, and draped it over the back of a chair, as his coat rack had yet to be unearthed.
"Francis tried to teach me French a couple times, but he gave up eventually. Anyway, in German it's 'Willkommen zu Hause'." Gilbert watched Matthew dig around in his pockets for a moment before producing a handful of spare change, which he then dropped next to his keys.
"Hm. Do you know whose car that is?" Matthew pointed at the obnoxious vehicle.
Gilbert shook his head. "It pulled in a couple of hours ago. A blond dude got out, and went over to the house next door, the one the new people just moved into."
,,
"Hello. Um, there's a car blocking my drive way, and I was told that the owner is over here?" It took all of Matthew's willpower to not run screaming from the giant of a man who answered the door.
"Mm.'ll go g't 'im." The intimidating blond closed the door in Matthew's face, and the sound of his heavy footsteps slowly receded.
Another tall blond, slightly shorter than the first, opened the door. "Yo. You the kid complaining about my car?" He leaned against the doorframe, his spiked up hair seeming to defy gravity.
Matthew nodded. "I had to park on the curb, and it's disrupting traffic. I don't know why you parked over there, when there's space here."
"…guess I'll move it, but only 'cause you're cute." The man winked at Matthew. Matthew stared steadily back. "I'm Mathias. Who're you?" He ambled over to his car, Matthew trailing after.
,,
"That has got to be the ugliest car I've ever seen." Gilbert mused as Mathias maneuvered it into the proper driveway. "Looks like some American piece of crap." He added absently, remembering his own car, a sleek black Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG that he had babied, and in all honesty taken better care of than he had himself.
"It is a pretty hideous car." Matthew agreed, slipping his shoes off and dropping them in a pile next to the door.
"How'd you get him to move it?" Gilbert turned to face Matthew.
"I don't know, really. It was easier than I expected. I think he was flirting with me, actually. Said I was cute." Matthew stretched as he spoke, and Gilbert had to disagree: Matthew wasn't cute, he was fucking sexy.
Wait, what did I just think…? Do I honestly think that Mattie's sexy? I guess he is pretty good looking, but sexy? Where the hell did that come from?
"Gilbert? Is something wrong? You just suddenly spaced out." Matthew frowned, and bit his lip worriedly.
"Huh? Nein, nein, mir geht es gut." Gilbert answered absently.
Matthew raised his eyebrows. "I've told you before that I don't speak German."
"Was?" Gilbert replied, still not paying attention to the language he was speaking.
"Parfait, qu'il en soit ainsi."
"What? C'mon Mattie, you know I don't speak French." Gilbert whined. Matthew rolled his eyes.
"It's not important, just pay more attention, 'kay?" Matthew smiled slightly. Gilbert was reminded of his earlier internal debate.
"Anyway, I'm hungry. What do you want for lunch?" Matthew found it odd that Gilbert ate. He didn't need to, but he still enjoyed doing so, usually when he didn't have to make it himself.
"I don't care. How about beetenbartsch?"
"What's that?" Matthew cocked his head.
"It's a kind of soup…I'll make it. I know we've got the stuff for it…" Gilbert wandered to the kitchen as he spoke.
Matthew watched him cook, strangely pleased with the scene in front of him. Gilbert hummed as he worked, a steady tune that made Matthew think of classical music.
"Could you get me the beef out of the fridge?" Gilbert asked, snapping Matthew out of his musings.
"Sure." Matthew passed the requested item, and Gilbert mumbled his thanks.
"Anarchy in the UK; It's coming sometime and maybe; I gi—" Matthew answered his phone.
"Hi Dad. What's up?"
..
I used Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols as Mattie's ring tone for dear ole Dad. In case anyone was wondering, Mathias = Denmark and Nikolai = Norway. Also, you wanna know how Mathy got kicked out of his apartment? I don't plan on including it in the story, so it's not like it's a spoiler, it's just something interesting I thought I'd share: he showed up, knocking on his landlord's door because he lost his key, singing the Danish national anthem at the top of his Viking lungs, drunk off his ass, at 2 in the morning. Ten times.
Nein, nein, mir geht es gut-No, no, I'm fine.
Was?-What?
Parfait, qu'il en soit ainsi-Fine then, be that way.
Let's see, what else… beetenbartsch is, according to Google, a traditional East Prussian dish. It's beetroot soup with beef…and something else I can't remember. I knew I shouldn't have closed that window. Also, a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG can go from 0-60 mph/97 kph in 3.8 seconds and has a top speed of 197 mph/317 kph. ChiCh—hold on a second, why do I keep signing off like that? I changed my pen name… Equilibrium out!