Of Sleep and Chivalry
Summary: Feliciano's been acting weird lately. And when Ludwig thought that he was harboring only unrequited love, he soon finds that in the darkest recesses of the Italian's mind, love towards him was actually possible. AU; dun wanna spoil it but it's basically GerIta in a way.
Chapter 1: Case Reassignments
The scene that he came to was like something that came out of your everyday cop or detective soap opera series. Police cars were parked by the crime scene. Yellow tape was stretched out around it as a border from the public, the nosy citizens and the authorities. Red and blue lights flashed through the night, illuminating the scene in consistent flashes and overpowering the streetlamp that shone down upon the very reason why he was summoned here on this cold, ungodly hour of the sixth of October.
A good distance from the onlookers and the yellow tape lay a man in his own blood and some dead leaves, facing the dark four forty-five morning sky. It was fairly cold and cloudy that morning and it looked like rain might fall soon, threatening to erase the vital evidences that might have been scattered just about the area of the crime scene.
Ludwig Beilschmidt walked towards the vibrant red of the blood on the middle of the sidewalk. As he marched, he could already see his fellow agents standing in a small half circle a couple of meters away from the body. The man in the rightmost side, blond, bespectacled and a little taller than the usual American, noticed him and smiled widely. "Ah, Luddy, early as always," he said, waving to him in greeting.
"I try my best," the addressed said in response. Alfred Jones, a strange American who always seemed to be awfully hyper and upbeat, was appointed to be the leader of their investigation team. And while Ludwig was the uptight, clean and orderly kind, their work together was smooth and fluid and was scarcely allotted with problems—except for the first few cases that they worked together when they had still not gotten to be in tune with each other.
"Guten Morgen, Brüder," the man standing beside Alfred said with a huge grin that matched the brightness of Alfred's smile. He stepped forward and slapped Ludwig's back with less power than the usual. Ludwig mumbled repeated the greeting to his brother, Gilbert Beilschmidt, unit leader of his own investigation team. He had pale-blond hair that almost always looked white and his eyes, in contrast to his younger brother's deep blue, were a very deep brown-red color that they almost always seemed to be red. And despite being younger, it seemed Ludwig has still grown a few more centimeters taller than Gilbert. The same could be said for their muscle mass since Ludwig had once been part of the military.
Lastly, the man closest to Ludwig gave him a nod in greeting as well. Ludwig returned it, too. He was the tallest in the group (and second tallest in the whole bureau) and had the same blond hair like the ex-military, but was bespectacled like Alfred, and had the personality opposing Gilbert's. He was known as Berwald Oxenstierna, a Norwegian who is part of Gilbert's unit and would only talk in his thickly-accented, condensed English if he only needed to.
"So I just got the call and it seems that the Beilschmidt unit will be handing us this case," the American said.
The younger of the German-rooted brothers looked at the older one with confusion in his eyes. Gilbert gave a sour smile and reached up to rest his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Don't worry. We're not simply giving away the case. Another bigger one's being pushed onto us. And the higher ups want it done pronto," he reassured. "Besides, I'm pretty confident in your abilities. And I'm referring to you as a team."
Alfred visibly smiled from Ludwig's peripheral vision. "Thanks, dude," he said. "Don't worry, we'll finish this in no time. After all, you've already given us everything we need. Now all we gotta do is catch this killer and put him behind bars."
"That's good to hear then," Gilbert said, turning to the American and dropping his gloved hand and shoving it into his thick coat pocket. As he spoke, a man came up to him, blond and only a few inches shorter than Oxenstierna but still taller than the rest of them. He walked up to Gilbert, hunched into his thick layer of clothing and scarf and all, and waited for the pale-haired man to turn his attention to him before speaking.
"Boss, I just got a call from the people they've stationed to watch Dickson's house. Says they heard gun shots. They already secured the area," he said. Then he turned to the rest of them and dipped his chin up in greeting. "Mornin', Al, Ludwig."
"Good morning to you, too, Kohler," Alfred replied, his too-early-to-be-cheerful smile back on his face. Ludwig only did as he'd done in greeting mostly so far, he nodded.
Gilbert turned to the two other people not on his unit. "Well, I'll see you around, Brüder. Bya, Al. We'll be off catching some unawesome crooks who dare break through our security." And with that, he turned away while the other two blonds followed him off the scene and into their unit cars before driving away.
Just as the two were watching them leave, a woman came through the yellow tape, thickly dressed like the rest of them. Ludwig recognized her flowing brown locks even from afar. Her name was Elizaveta Héderváry, a Hungarian who was naturalized when her family immigrated into the states back when she was fourteen. This case would be her sixth yet in the team and in her whole career as a police detective as she had just recently graduated and was therefore treated as the 'baby girl' of the group—or so that was what Alfred referred her as once, which unfortunately earned him a hit in the head despite his superiority.
As far as Ludwig knew, she was a rather cheerful girl who only became wary whenever his brother was around and bashful whenever Gilbert's other colleague, a Mr. Roderich Edelstein, was in her presence. She could be aggressive, too, but honestly, what kind of woman wouldn't be so if they weren't insulted? This morning, however, she didn't look like she was in her usually nice mood.
"Mornin', Liz," Alfred greeted, smiling at her with his blindingly bright smile. "How's the morning call?"
"Was hoping to get a good night's sleep after finally finishing last night's case. Turns out it was too much to ask," the Hungarian said with an almost yawn. She looked around before asking, "Where's Kiku?"
"Dunno," the superior agent said with a shrug, also searching for the last unit member who usually handled the 'geeky stuff'. There was an awkward silence before he decided to shrug and get the gears going. "Anyways, let's start up already. We've already lost enough time. We don't want the evidences to freeze up and disappear in this cold."
"Though the freezing part would be much beloved depending on which evidence you mean," Elizaveta mumbled as she turned towards the body.
"Liz, you go and take down your own observations about the body. Luddy, you check the area for other evidences. I'll start the witness interrogation," Alfred instructed them. The two nodded before going off to do their work.
Kiku Honda reported to Alfred with a flurry of apologies a few minutes after Alfred's instructions before he was given his own duties. After about an hour in which they finished the gathering of evidence, witness statements, observations and hypotheses, Alfred gave them each three hours to get home and catch up on sleep.
Ludwig knew that the American wouldn't be following his own instructions, and that, despite being pretty heroic in its own little way, was also a little stupid. After all, what's the use of staying up for the rest of the time if the investigation's on hold anyway? So the taller blond stayed even after Elizaveta and Kiku had already left.
"What's holding you, Luddy?" Alfred asked as they walked towards their parked cars.
"I know you won't be getting sleep even though you tell us to. So I'm here to tell you that myself," Ludwig said. The American stopped just outside his car and turned to look at Ludwig with a warm smile.
He chuckled and nodded. "All right then, Beilschmidt," he said, raising his hands in surrender. "I'll go home and get some sleep and I'll see you in three hours. Satisfied?"
"Ja. I'll see you later, Jones," Ludwig answered before he turned and left to get into his own car. He started up the engines and drove off first, waving to Alfred as he turned and disappeared down the curve.
He knew that the bespectacled blond would go and get his sleep now. This episode had already happened a few times before after all. At first, he'd only been telling Alfred to do what he himself instructs as a colleague. But now, he's doing it as a friend as well.
After four years of being in the same bureau, they've become not just good friends, but partners and colleagues and a boss and his subordinate and were now in a unit, which Alfred also loved to call his 'work family' sometimes. And even if sometimes Alfred's crazy antics annoy him, Ludwig has learned to get used to it just as the other has become accustomed to his obsession with cleanliness and order.
Ludwig sighed as he reached his apartment. Finally, he could climb out of his car, get to the elevator to take him to his floor, unlock his 'front door', reset his alarm and just flop into bed—that is, of course, after he's shredded off his clothes and piled them up neatly—which he all did in less than five minutes. And the next thing he knew, sleep was welcoming him back warmly and the covers were protecting him from the cold.
If Ludwig were twenty years younger, image of the man's bloody pose would haunt him and keep him awake for hours to come. However, after serving the military for a limited time and going to wars in that time, and after hearing many war stories from his grandfather and after years of being in this field, it was something he had gotten used to. Ludwig had also expected the nightmares when he saw his first body. He had already seen the effects of seeing cadavers when his brother stirred and screamed and cried in his sleep due to the terrifying dreams he had crossed in his line of work—though he would reassure Ludwig that it was nothing to worry about.
Well, normally, a heavy, deep, dreamless sleep would be what Ludwig would go through at night. But tonight, after seeing a bloody piece of work after a long time of just solving shooting and poisoning cases, Ludwig found himself seeing flashes of the image in his mind. Disturbing images.
The next couple hours, after hearing his alarm go off in its usually high-pitched beeping and remembering the case the unit just got, Ludwig knew that it was going to be a long day ahead of them.
AN: I'm not one for police or crime scene stories. I know that yet I struggle to widen my scopes and limitations. And since I'm writing this stuff up anyways, I might as well let y'all know that I only have one source of reference. And that would be the ever-awesome The Mentalist (still waiting for the whole of the fifth season to become available in our part of the country).
I know Alfred and Ludwig are speaking more formally here compared to how they did in the previous chapter. Well, I just thought they probably should when at work or something.
Hope you like it.