He had to admit, given the name and the time of year, Iceland was a lot greener than he had expected. They landed in the capitol city of Reykjavík, and from the moment they landed, Ludwig couldn't relax. There were soldiers everywhere. They weren't British, as Emil had mentioned, and were instead United States Marines, which had been sent to occupy Iceland in Britain's place, but since the United States had joined the Allies, the Marines had been called into action and more standard soldiers were coming in to take their place one section at a time. Although Ludwig no long wore his uniform, or anything that would have identified him as a German, he felt as though it was obvious to everyone who looked at him, especially the way some of the soldiers just stared. Thankfully, Emil seemed eager to get on the move as soon as they had eaten, and the young Icelander arranged a car for them seemingly without any effort at all. As they loaded it up, however, Ludwig found he kept tilting back and forth, and realized his body still thought he was on the boat. That was rather annoying.
They all climbed in the car in what was a now practiced order, but they didn't leave Reykjavík immediately. Emil quietly told Berwald that he first had to speak to someone, and directed him to the northern part of the town. When they stopped in front of an inconspicuous home, Emil bossily ordered everyone to stay in the car, and went to the door alone. Even Tino rolled his eyes. Emil disappeared inside the house for at least ten minutes before he returned and got back in the car. He nodded to Berwald without saying anything more, but Ludwig saw him holding a ring of keys.
After that, the drive became strangely dreamlike, and it took Ludwig much longer than it should have for him to realize that he was occasionally dozing. Once, when they hit a bump hard enough so that his and Mathias' foreheads knocked together with enough force to wake them both up, he remembered looking out the window and seeing endless, flat fields of grass, only stopped by a distant wall of dark mountains. The sky was persistently grey with only brief hints of something more colorful, and after a few more hours and a few more naps, they arrived at a building that had seemed to have risen up suddenly.
The house was as uninteresting as the rest of the land, but somehow he found that was almost comforting. They unpacked the car and Emil headed to the front door with his ring of keys. It seemed to have been well maintained, and suggested someone else might have actually been there before them. Ludwig wondered if that might have been why Emil had waited to bring them here. The house had two stories, but was fairly low to the ground. Inside, there was a small kitchen that led to an equally small dining room, but passed that there was a living room that felt about the same size as the previous one. On the second floor there were four bedrooms, two of which held beds large enough for two, one of which contained two separate beds, and the room at the beginning of the hallway held only a bed for one.
Their rooms were decided when Berwald and Mathias both stepped forward, eyed each other, and each tossed their bags in the rooms they chose. Naturally, this chose rooms for Lukas and Ludwig, and left Emil and Tino to awkwardly go and set their bags down as well. Tino took the room with a second bed, and Emil took the room with only one. After that was finished, they all headed back downstairs and looked around again before separating to test out the couch and various chairs, as well as explore the kitchen and the back of the house.
Ludwig trailed behind Berwald for a bit as he went into the kitchen, but remained inside when he headed out. When he headed back to the living room, he found Mathias obnoxiously sprawled out on the couch, and immediately went to plop down beside him. He was received with enthusiasm. The Dane cheered and threw his arm around him, yanking him roughly until they were both slouching low, Mathias trying to rest his feet on the table, which was just out of his reach. Lukas was already almost upside down in one of the chairs, and when he saw Mathias trying to stretch for the table, he reached out and got a hold of the rug the table was on, and tugged it towards him, pulling it even farther from Mathias' feet. Mathias frowned and Ludwig and Lukas snickered.
"No feet on the table." Lukas told him authoritatively, immediately losing his smile to speak, but then laughing again when the Dane swore.
Mathias stretched his legs out pointlessly farther, leaning until the only parts of his body on the couch were his elbows. Lukas then pushed the rug, which put the table close enough for him to hook the heels of his boots on. Ludwig began to grin, already able to see what Lukas intended to do, but also able to see that Mathias had no idea what was coming next. He was like that though. It reminded him of his brother.
"I said," Lukas muttered in a low voice. "No feet on the table."
With a sharp yank the Norwegian pulled the table out from under his feet, dragging him far enough forward that he slipped off the couch and the table simultaneously, and he hit the floor with a loud thump.
"Ow!" he yowled from the floor dramatically.
Ludwig laughed while Lukas grinned smugly down at him, releasing the rug and sitting back in the chair.
"They seem to be settling in just fine," Tino suddenly said, giggling from the doorway as he looked at Mathias, but he was speaking to Emil.
Emil grumbled unintelligibly from somewhere in the kitchen.
The dark came on faster in Iceland, and the days weren't very bright, even when the sky was clear, which was rare. Slowly, it began to take a toll on Ludwig's mind, even worse than England had. He thought more of his brother and his grandfather, and found it harder to stop. Slowly, he could feel himself laughing less, and wanting to be around the others less because he felt strange not being able to laugh with them.
Berwald noticed the change almost immediately, and made every effort to cheer him up. Ludwig could usually only offer a sad smile, but he usually rejected his offer to talk. What was there to say, anyway? It was nothing new. The homesickness certainly wasn't new, the feeling of guilt wasn't new, and they wouldn't go away, so he felt there was no sense in talking about any of it now. It was done, he was a traitor by all accounts, and he had failed his grandfather. What was there to say?
Still, Berwald held him closer at night. Sometimes, though, Ludwig would wait for him to fall asleep, and then pull away to sleep closer to the edge of the bed. He feared his feelings would somehow infect Berwald, and the last thing he wanted was for anyone to be sad because of him. He could deal with this on his own, it would just take time.
Each week came slower than the last, but with a strange jolt Ludwig realized that four weeks had passed since they had arrived on Iceland. It was getting harder to get out of bed, and to eat. Tino would sometimes bring food to him in his room where he pretended to read but instead just stared at the pages unseeingly, and he always thanked him, but he never finished it. It felt as though even hot food turned cold before it reached his stomach. He checked his temperature and pulse occasionally, but other than the fact he was losing a bit of weight, his physical condition seemed fine.
Still, the days were colored with a heavy sense of fatigue, and at night he lied awake for hours, unable to fall asleep despite his exhaustion. This made the long nights feel even longer. As the weeks had progressed, every time Ludwig turned down Berwald's offer to talk or to go out and do something together, he noticed it would take him longer to ask again, until, on the fourth week, they hardly spoke at all. He still tried to hold him at night, and would run his fingers along the back of his hand if it came within his reach, but Ludwig couldn't bring himself to reciprocate the actions. He knew it would be possible for Berwald to get the wrong idea about how he was feeling, but he convinced himself that he would be better soon, and then he could explain the situation to him clearly.
That time always felt another week away, however.
Then, one night while he was sitting on the couch with Mathias thinking about heading upstairs to be alone, the Dane began talking to him. He wasn't even looking at him, and was instead focusing on the wall across from them as though he was seeing the setting for his story, but even when Ludwig tried to shift like he was going to get up to leave, Mathias just kept talking. He told him a story about his brothers, when they all went on a boat with their father, and when Ludwig realized he wasn't going to be able to escape without either offending Mathias or being relentlessly pursued, he sighed and forced himself to pay attention.
For some reason, although a story about family and home should have made him feel worse, by the time it was over, he was laughing. Every time Mathias told him about how one of his brothers went toppling off the boat he was able to imagine it perfectly. After all, the image of a sibling angrily glaring up from the surface of the water was a reminder of countless summers. Unlike the others, with the exception Tino, although he almost never spoke of it, Mathias knew what it was like to have brothers, and although Ludwig only had one, it was something that seemed to connect them more than he had expected. They both understood a relationship that was practically out of their own control, and knew the kind of love that encouraged fist fights to go alongside respect and the utmost loyalty.
Absently, he thought about how much Mathias reminded him of his brother, but in his own way, Mathias was just characteristically brotherly. In essence, Ludwig thought that he could easily find a reason to punch Mathias, but if anyone else punched him, he would knock them out. Ludwig began to smile at the obnoxious Dane. His grandfather had once told him that blood was important, but it wasn't the utmost important. Maybe this was what he had meant.
The rest of the evening was spent exchanging stupid stories of getting into trouble and finding countless, futile ways to try to escape punishment, and when it was time for dinner, he caught a glimpse of Lukas smiling at them affectionately. It made him wonder if Mathias had unintentionally forced him to listen to his stories. After all, Mathias was so unobservant that sometimes Ludwig wondered if he would notice if he went blind, but Lukas noticed an awful lot. It wouldn't surprise him if Lukas' way of making sure people were taken care of was through others.
At dinner that night, Ludwig was able to eat everything on his plate.