Berwald decided to leave Lukas alone; he seemed to have something on his mind, and there were already two broken dishes. He remained in the main room, tensely, until he heard the irritated Norwegian head upstairs and shut the door to his bedroom. Then he finally let out his breath. Lukas wasn't cruel, at least, not to anyone but Mathias, but it still wasn't a good idea to willingly move within his immediate reach. Or sight. Or throwing range.

Once he was safely settled in the armchair, he tried to direct his attention to his book, but it kept returning to the window. Tino and Mathias were out, Emil had disappeared for the second time that week with only Lukas knowing where he went, Ludwig was upstairs reading, and Lukas had locked himself away for now, but still, he didn't feel quite right. He felt as though there was something he had left undone. He fidgeted, he adjusted his glasses, reread the same three lines and then sighed and sat back.

He wasn't home.

More than that, he found didn't want this to be home.

He wanted to go back to Sweden, back to his own house, and to sit in his own chair to read. He wanted to sleep in a bed that he properly fit in, and to see blue sky when he looked out the window. Berwald moved his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He didn't like change, even with little things, he was sensitive to it, but now he felt as though his life was practically unrecognizable. He missed knowing every type of tree, bird, and animal he saw, and being able to tell what kind of day it would be just by watching the sunrise. Being in a different place with different trees and a different sunrise made him feel like he didn't belong. He was out of place. A stranger.

There was some kind of small commotion above him about where he gathered Lukas would be, and he cautiously resettled his glasses. He hoped Ludwig wouldn't be so unfortunate as to stumble into him at a time like this; he had already shot him once, after all. He wondered if he should go warn him, but then worried that them being together with Lukas as the only other person in the house just might grate even worse on his nerves, and decided against it. If things got bad, he could probably get up the stairs before anyone got shot, again.

Absently, he thought that if they were back in Sweden, Lukas would have taken off into the forest by now. He could be gone an entire day before returning just as the sun fell. Berwald never knew where he went, but he had no intention of asking. Lukas didn't need to justify what he did to him. Sometimes though, if he was still in a sour mood after a day of being alone in the forest, Berwald would take him and they would go fishing together. It didn't matter if they caught anything, and sometimes they didn't say a word the entire trip, but it usually seemed to help a little, and the next day he would be back to himself. He began to wonder if that would work for when Ludwig got upset…Not that he had thought to bring any kind of fishing gear. Damnit.

He just wanted to go home. Berwald tipped over a bit in the chair, falling until his head came into contact with the arm rest, and then made a face at how far he had to bend his back in order to reach it. He envied the way little Tino seemed to be able to curl up just about anywhere and sleep easily. He barely fit in the damn bed. Stubbornly remaining in the awkward position until his back threatened to crack, he grumbled under his breath about small chairs and beds before removing the book from his lap and standing with a deep breath. Looking around the room, searching for nothing in particular but a decision, he sighed and decided that he would go see Ludwig after all. If Lukas got upset enough, he'd to talk to him. Until then, however, he couldn't bear to force himself to read any more.

Berwald climbed the stairs, being as quiet as he could, at least. Then, he traveled down the hall to the room he shared with the meticulous blond, and saw the door was opened about half way. He approached slowly, feeling himself want to smile at the calm scene of Ludwig beside the window with a book, scanning the pages almost as if he were checking it for errors. Those hard eyes, accented by intense eyebrows, fell across each page with a perfectly steady pace, moving back and forth with more precision than a metronome.

With the slightest sound of scraping, he slid his middle finger beneath the right page, and then after his eyes moved left to right exactly two more times, he turned the page with more control and grace than the inner workings of a clock. He caught the page with the thumb of his left hand and smoothed it before he resumed his perfect pace. Berwald finally actually began to smile when he realized by watching his chest, he could in fact see that his breathing was timed at an inhale every line and a half with deeper breaths coming during the third paragraph of every page at the four line.

He wasn't sure why, but he felt that he could have watched him like that forever and treasured knowing his pattern of breathing.

Eventually though, perhaps due to the feeling he was being (intensely) watched, Ludwig glanced up as he took a deep breath on the third paragraph at the fourth line, and spotted him in the doorway. He blinked in surprise, but didn't squeak like how Tino always did when he caught him staring.

Instead, a smile began to cross his lips. "How long are you going to stare at me?"

Berwald smiled back, blushing a bit at hearing his own words repeated back to him, recalling the morning Ludwig had woken up and simply stared at him until he had gotten up.

Entering the room, he walked over to him, placing himself behind the chair tactfully.

"What are you-?"

He then bent down, putting his hand on the book and pushing it down into his lap dismissively as he tilted his chin up with his other hand, and kissed him. He made sure to tilt his head so it didn't feel like and awkward, upside-down kiss, and after recovering from being surprised a second time, Ludwig smiled charmingly and began to kiss him back.

When they parted though, he hadn't realized he had moved his hand away from the book, and Ludwig simply smiled at him before returning his attention to the volume. With his precise way of reading, he wasted no time in finding his place and continuing down the page. Berwald frowned. He was above simply taking the book and tossing it out the damn window, but not by much. He wanted Ludwig's attention, and wasn't going to have a piece of literature to serving as his rival.

So, he walked around to the front of the chair and dropped to his knees. Ludwig's reading hitched as he watched him from his peripherals, but didn't look up fully. If he was trying to tease him now, Berwald had no intention of playing along, and removed his glasses before pushing the book out of the way and laying the upper part of his body across Ludwig's lap.

The German chuckled and set the closed book aside before he began to run his fingers through his hair.

"You made me lose my page," he told him, but there was no honest scorn in his voice.

"You'll find it again," he told him with his eyes closed, melting against his legs as he had failed to estimate how good it would feel to have someone play with his hair.

He laughed again and leaned over, pressing a kiss to his temple as his fingers lightly ran across his scalp to the back of his neck, and then down his back and shoulders a little ways. He shuttered and wrapped his arms around Ludwig as best he could, not wanting him to stop.

"Where did the others go?" he asked.

Ludwig never sounded curious when he asked questions; he sounded like he was requesting a report.

Berwald grumbled incoherently, communicating that he didn't know. He thought that Tino might have said something about a walk, but then Ludwig's fingers ran back up his neck into his hair and he lost his train of thought. No one ever touched his hair, but then again, most people couldn't usually reach.

After a moment, however, he realized that he was actually almost never touched at all. Lukas didn't like to touch very much, sometimes wouldn't even shake people's hands, Tino had clearly been too nervous to do anything of the sort, and Mathias' main form of contact involved throwing his arm over people's shoulders and yanking them. He didn't really appreciate that, and by now the Dane knew better. He quietly thought that he rather liked being touched though, especially by Ludwig. Especially his hair.

"You're back's going to hurt if you fall asleep like that," Ludwig informed him after a moment, sounding like he was smiling.

"Worth it." he told him after a moment.

Ludwig chuckled again and gave him another kiss. "Come on; go lie down on the bed,"

"Better not take that damn book," he warned with a smile as he moved off of him, stealing another kiss as he stood up.

By the time the door opened downstairs signaling the return of Mathias and Tino, Ludwig had nearly put him to sleep. He tirelessly ran his fingers over his back and down his arms, curving under them to brush the sensitive underside of his wrists and palm. It made him shiver, but it also made him feel incredibly relaxed. Sometimes he let his nails lightly scrape the back of his neck when they trailed across it, causing his skin to ripple with chills all the way down his body. Ludwig occasionally spoke, but only muttered things about how calm he looked, or how he liked the shape of his face. It made him blush, and if his arms hadn't been so relaxed he would have hidden his reddening cheeks. Yet, by not covering up he earned a few kisses to his cheeks and forehead, and that made it worth it to him.

He wondered how often he could get Ludwig to do this, and realized that it would take all of his self-control not to go lie on his lap the next time he saw him reading.