#dandelion’s hardly a stranger but he did that thing where your friend stops hanging out with you because they���re busy with their gf

[hanzajesthanza]

the headcanon that regis can hang from the ceiling to sleep or rest like a bat is funny on its own, but when i consider geralt and others in the hanza holding conversations with him like this, it’s made better by my understanding of this as just an advanced “neurodivergent sitting” technique

[ask-gilbert-and-ludwig]

Ludwig wasn’t sure what would be waiting for him downstairs, but he knew it would be a surprise of some sort. Seeing as how today was his birthday, and his brother and father always did something for his birthday.

What he really wanted was to spend his birthday with his friends, but seeing as how he didn’t have any, he couldn’t really do that.

Not that he didn’t enjoy spending time with his family, no of course not! Even if Gilbert was annoying more often than not and liked to pin him to the floor when they were fighting. Even if his dad didn’t have a set schedule for work and sometimes missed important stuff. He still loved them, but it wasn’t the same.

He wanted to be like the kids at school who held big parties and invited all their friends. Then talked about it the next day in class. Well maybe not the last part since he didn’t like talking to most people and most people didn’t like talking to him. But still.

He shook his head and looked at the clock.

I’d better get downstairs, he thought. Despite it being his birthday, he still had to go to school.

He didn’t hear anything as he left his room, but he did see streamers wrapped around the banister leading down the stairs. Noticing one pink amongst the blues and greens he sighed. Gilbert.

Once he’d turned the corner into the living room, he saw the set up surrounding the couch and chairs. A few presents of various sizes, a stack of birthday hats on the table, a banner saying ‘Happy Birthday’ hanging up on the wall, and a few letters.

Aster then trotted up to him, wearing one of the hats and rubbed up against him.

He giggled and took it off her. “I’m guessing that’s what you wanted?”

A loud noise then sounded coming from the kitchen. He looked over and saw Gilbert at the island with a noise maker in his mouth.

“Why did you get him those?” he asked his dad. A hint of desperation in his voice.

“He got them when I wasn’t with him,” he replied.

Gilbert blew into the noise maker again, much more loudly than previously, before proclaiming, “I’m sorry I didn’t want your birthday to be boring!”

“At least I wouldn’t have had a headache.”

“Whatever old man,” Gilbert sneered. “So how does it feel to be 7? Feel older?”

“Not really,” Ludwig replied as he made his way over to the island, “nothing’s changed from yesterday to today.”

“Except you’re 7 instead of 6 now! That’s a whole year!”

“Well I guess I’m taller than I was a year ago.”

Gilbert rolled his eyes. “You’re taller than you were a month ago. You’re like a weed.”

“I don’t know, your hair looks more like dandelion fluff than mine.”

Gilbert stuck his tongue out at him. Ludwig did so too a moment after.

“Alright, enough,” their father said. Both stopped but continued to side eye the other. “I made pancakes for breakfast, and I added chocolate chips too.”

Ludwig smiled. His dad was hardly ever home for long enough in the morning to make them pancakes made from scratch, and he only put in chocolate chips if he was feeling generous, or it was a special occasion.

“Thank you, Daddy,” he said.

“Ya thanks Dad,” Gilbert mumbled absentmindedly as he checked his phone.

Dad nodded. Setting two large pancakes in front of Ludwig before turning back to the stove. Gilbert quickly messed up his hair before their dad could see.

“Hey!”

Gilbert pretended to be absorbed in his phone. “What? I didn’t do anything.” But the smirk on his lips said otherwise.

“Don’t harass him too much today, okay Gilbert?”

“Not a problem, gonna be at school for most of it anyways.”

Their father sighed.

After finishing their pancakes both Gilbert and Ludwig got ready for school, despite being offered a ride, Gilbert still chose to drive himself to school. Why, Ludwig didn’t know, but at least now he didn’t have to listen to him complain about how much homework he had.

“So, what is it that you want to do today?” Dad asked.

Ludwig thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe take a walk in the big park with the swings instead of the small one near home?”

Dad nodded. “Nothing else?”

“If I get new toys, I’ll want to play with them I guess.”

“Alright, but if you think of anything while you’re at school just let us know.”

“I will.” Ludwig then felt the car come to a stop.

“Have a good day at school Kleiner.”

Ludwig grabbed his backpack and left the car. “Bye!” he said, waving as he walked towards the school.

****

Finally, it was the end of the day and he could just go home. While he loved learning, sometimes school just felt like a punishment and not an actual place to learn. Especially when he kept getting reminded that no one in his class cared that it was his birthday.

As he walked to the front of the school where his bus would be, he saw Gilbert and his friends standing there waiting for him.

“How’d you get here on time to pick me up? School finishes at the same time for you as it does for me,” Ludwig pointed out, wondering why on earth he was there.

“We weren’t doing anything important so when I told the teacher what I was gonna do she just let me go early,” Gilbert explained.

“I just said I had an appointment,” Francis said.

“So, did I,” Antonio added.

“But why did you bring them if we’re just going back home?” While Francis and Antonio did sometimes come over to give him presents, they usually didn’t stay for long, not wanting to make the day about Gilbert instead.

“Because we’re not going home right away, and I need them to distract you.”

“Distract me?”

Francis nudged him. “And it was our idea.”

“Oh, ya that too.”

Ludwig tilted his head. “Where-”

“Come on!” Gilbert urged, pushing him towards his beat-up old car. Getting into the backseat squished in-between Francis and Antonio he couldn’t help but question why Gilbert couldn’t have just asked Dad for him to buy him a better one instead of forcing himself into buying an old used one.

As Gilbert checked his review mirror he said, “You idiots better be clipped in, and no I don’t mean you Ludwig, you’re the only one in this car that has more than one brain cell.”

“Of course, we are!”

“I am!”

Ludwig couldn’t make out his brother’s facial expression as he replied, “Alright good, then we’re off.”

It was slow getting out of the parking lot, while they had been talking the buses had started to pull out, along with every other parent who was picking up their kid.

“So where are we going?” Ludwig asked. Knowing Gilbert, he probably wouldn’t get the answer he wanted.

“Half the fun is the surprise!”

Of course not.

“Hey, you two are supposed to be entertaining him,” Gilbert chastised.

Antonio turned to Ludwig then. “So, how was your day?”

“Uh, it was okay, we had a quiz in math though” Ludwig recalled.

“Oh, that sucks! A quiz on your birthday?”

Ludwig shrugged. He kind of liked math. “It wasn’t too bad.”

“Did your teacher give you a gift or did anyone give you cards?” Francis questioned.

“No one gave me any cards,” most of them don’t like me enough to even remember my birthday, “and ya my teacher gave me a cupcake with gummy worms, but she does that for everyone’s birthday.”

“Still it must be nice,” Francis said, “I never got anything for my birthday at school.”

“Quit complaining,” Gilbert called from the front, “at least you get your birthday off every year. I once had a project due on mine!”

Ludwig remembered that. He had wanted to read with him before he went to sleep and give Gilbert his card early, but he had been too busy finishing the project. Ludwig was glad when he came home finally done with the stupid thing.

“Yes, but everyone is always on holiday on my birthday, so I can never be with friends. So, I am all alone.”

At least you have friends.

“Francis, we were both here this year for your birthday,” Antonio pointed out.

“Ya French fry, do you not remember the thousands of selfies we took on your phone and posted to Snapchat?”

Francis huffed. “I hate when you call me that.”

Gilbert breathed a laugh. “That’s exactly why I call you it.”

“Fine Snow White.”

“Snow White has black hair, I clearly don’t.”

“Yes, but your skin is as white as snow, and you are dumb enough to eat a poisoned apple offered by a stranger.”

“Guys,” Antonio sighed, “do you always have to have this same conversation every time?”

Ludwig tried to look past him out the window but got pushed back into his seat by Antonio before he could guess where they were.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“If he would stop calling me French fry, which aren’t French by the way, then we would never have this conversation.”

“So, it’s okay for Gil and you to call me Puppy but not okay for him to call you French fry?”

Gilbert snorted.

“French fry is historically inaccurate; Puppy is extremely fitting.”

Ludwig looked at Francis in confusion. “Why do you call him that?”

“Oh, he gets excited really easily, he follows Lovino around everywhere he can, and is loyal to a fault.”

“Not to mention he licks people,” Gilbert added.

“Only when they’re being annoying,” Antonio defended.

Ludwig felt the car park. “Oh, thank God we’re here,” he whispered.

They filed out of the car, Ludwig following close behind. Just as he was about to look around hands placed themselves over his eyes.

“What are you doing? I can’t see!” he complained.

“We gotta get you there first!” he heard Gilbert say right above him. It must have been him who was covering his eyes.

Ludwig sighed. He knew he wasn’t strong enough to get out of Gilbert’s grip anyways. “Fine.”

They started moving, slowly, as to avoid cars in the parking lot he assumed, towards the surprise. We probably look strange, he thought. Three teenagers leading a blindfolded child to wherever it was they were taking him. Hopefully nobody was staring at him.

When they finally stopped Gilbert said, “Guys do a drum-roll!”

Ludwig then heard what was probably Francis and Antonio attempting to mimic a drum-roll by slapping their thighs.

“I don’t need a drum-roll.”

“Yes, you do!” Gilbert said before taking his hands off of his face. “Ta-da!”

Ludwig let his eyes adjust to see that they were in a bookstore.

“Pick any three books you want,” Gilbert declared, spreading his arms wide.

“Shouldn’t you check them over to make sure they aren’t filled with,” Francis cleared his throat, “stuff.”

Stuff? What stuff? Books that have swearing?

“I doubt he’ll go anywhere near those sections, but...” Gilbert turned back to him. “I have to look them over first though okay?”

“Alright.” Ludwig didn’t understand why he needed to. He didn’t think there’d be any swearing or whatever in the history or fantasy books he wanted.

“Okay so run free but try and not take too long cause we need to get back in less than an hour, or Dad will think I kidnapped you.”

Ludwig breathed a laugh before running off to where he knew the history section was. He skimmed through the books until he found one on mythologies. While he knew the basics of some mythologies, he wasn’t very knowledgeable in them, and ever since he had met that weird frog, he had been more curious about them.

He then made his way towards the children’s section, making sure to hold his new book close to his chest, not wishing to drop it. He wanted to find a collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. He had already read some of the more famous ones such as; The Little Mermaid and Thumbelina, but he had yet to read the lesser known ones that he had just recently heard about; The Nightingale and The Wild Swans.

Ludwig made his way down the row, checking the books for the authors names, until he came across Andersen’s. There were two different collections.

He held the two in his hands and thought about which he should choose. While the one had more stories and had a much prettier cover, the other was cheaper, and although Gilbert had a job of his own now, Ludwig didn’t want to force him to spend more than he had too.

But I really want it, he thought.

Deciding that he would just ask Gilbert if it was okay to get the more expensive one, he put the cheaper of the two back.

As he was about to speed off to another section, he heard a book fall off the shelf. Not wanting anyone to step on it, he went and picked it up.

Turning it over to look at the cover he saw that it was one he recognized. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Someone must have gotten lazy and left it here instead of putting it back in the French section where it belongs, he thought.

Looking at the cover he couldn’t help thinking about when he had read it in class. Although he had had a bit of trouble following along, he had gotten the gist of the story, and he had surprisingly liked it.

Instead of putting it back, he put it with his other two books and went to go find his brother. He found them standing a bit off from the line to the cash register, talking animatedly about something.

“You done?” Gilbert asked as he took the books from him.

“Yes.”

Looking them over Gilbert pulled out The Little Prince. “You sure you want the French version? I think they might have it in English.”

Ludwig shook his head. “No, I want it.”

“Okay.”

“Is it okay that I get this collection book of Fairy Tales or should I get the one that’s cheaper? I wanted this one because it has more stories, but I’ll go back if you want.”

“Nah it’s fine,” Gilbert reassured, “Antonio and Francis are chipping in anyways. It’s their gift to you.”

“Well thank you.”

Francis and Antonio smiled.

“No problem, I love giving people gifts!” Antonio replied.

“It’s your birthday! Of course, we’d get you something mon petit!” Francis then proceeded to run their hands through Ludwig’s hair.

Ludwig batted his hand away.

“Let’s get in line before it gets too long,” Gilbert said.

****

Gilbert had first dropped off Francis and Antonio at their homes before driving them back to their house. Now they were parked in their driveway and Gilbert was trying to convince Ludwig to set his new book down.

“You can read it later, now we’re gonna have cake and presents!”

Ludwig looked up from his book on mythologies and put his new bookmark in it.

“Good, now I don’t have to take it from you and put it on a high shelf.”

Ludwig glared at him and held the book closer.

Gilbert held the door open for him as they went inside. “We’re home!” Gilbert yelled down the hall.

They then walked into the living room to see the same spread of decorations, with just a few more presents added to the table.

“How was school?” their dad asked as he continued to prep dinner.

“It was okay,” Ludwig replied.

Gilbert set his bag down next to the bookcase. “Oh! You guys need to hear this! Today Arthur actually wore colour. It was horrifying.”

Ludwig had heard of Gilbert speak of Arthur and how he only wore black or wore mostly black with a bit of colour. He had called him ‘emo’. Ludwig still had no idea what that meant.

“Really? What was he wearing?” Ludwig questioned.

“He wore blue jeans with rips in them and a green shirt. It was so surreal! I had to ask Antonio if I was having a stroke.”

“Did you find out why?” Dad asked.

“Well Francis went up and complimented him, then said that maybe he wasn’t completely hopeless after all. Then Arthur got defensive and said it was because most of his clothes were dirty. So, this is probably just a onetime thing.”

“He could have been lying because he was embarrassed,” Ludwig suggested.

“Could be.”

Gilbert had told Ludwig all about his friends’ crushes. How Francis really liked Arthur and Arthur probably really liked him back because of how he acted towards him, but they were too stubborn to tell each other. Didn’t want to be the first to admit it. Ludwig had said that the logic of teenagers was dumb. Gilbert hadn’t agreed.

“Dinner will be ready soon if you want to come sit,” Dad interrupted.

Both boys went and sat at the island.

“So, what’re we having?” Gilbert said watching their father.

“Sauerbraten, potatoes, red cabbage, and knödel.”

“Hell yeah!”

A glare was sent his way.

“Sorry,” Gilbert mumbled in a tone that suggested he wasn’t.

Dad didn’t bother berating Gilbert for swearing further than the glare. While there was a no swearing rule Gilbert didn’t take it seriously. He was only easy to control if he wanted to be.

“We don’t have hats on!” Gilbert suddenly exclaimed as he jumped out of his seat. He came back a few seconds later and forced a birthday hat on both Dad and Ludwig.

Ludwig reached to take it off, but Gilbert stopped him.

“I’ll force you to wear two if you take this one off. It’s not that big a deal, just until you’re done unwrapping your presents.”

“Fine.”

****

After dinner Dad put the cake, a delicious looking one with blue icing with star shaped sprinkles, in front of Ludwig and lit the candles.

As always Ludwig felt awkward as his family sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to him. He really didn’t like being the center of attention and this was the worst kind.

“Make a wish!” Gilbert said once they had finished singing.

I wish I had just one friend.

He blew out the candles.

“What did you wish for?” their dad asked.

“You can’t ask!” Gilbert exclaimed. “It won’t come true if he tells you.”

“Alright. Well I hope it comes true.”

I hope so too.

“Of course, it will! Ludwig’s great! He deserves it to come true.” Gilbert leaned down and hugged him.

Ludwig struggled to get him away. “Let go.”

Instead Gilbert picked him up and carried him into the living room.

“Put me down! What about my cake?”

“I’ll get you a piece so we can eat it while you’re unwrapping presents.”

“Why can’t I just eat the cake then do presents?” he implored.

His brother set him down on the couch. “Cause I’m getting impatient. I want to see your reaction to my gift.” He jogged back over to the kitchen and grabbed two slices of cake. Then came back, their dad following much more slowly behind him, and gave Ludwig the bigger of the two slices.

Good.

First Gilbert gave him his card. Strangely it wasn’t a joke card, for once it was sentimental. “Thank you.”

“I haven’t even given you your gifts yet. You can thank me after.” Once he was done looking over the card Gilbert then grabbed a present wrapped in black wrapping paper with white paw prints printed all over it. “This ones from me!”

“I guessed.” He took the present from him and started to unwrap it carefully, not wanting to make a huge mess. Not unsurprised to see that it was clothing. Two shirts to be exact.

Gilbert took one of them and held it up against his chest to show that it said ‘big brother’ on it. Every year his brother got Ludwig and himself a new matching set of shirts with something along the lines of ‘big brother’ and ‘little brother’ written on them. It had become a sort of tradition. This year the words were in big white letters written in cursive over a blue shirt. A number two on the back of his.

“When will you stop buying these for us?” They didn’t even wear them all that often. They always wore them the day after his birthday, then maybe if Gilbert remembered they would wear them again a few more times. Ludwig usually just shoved his in a box in his closet.

“When you finally stop growing. Then they’ll be pink and have crowns on them.”

“If you do that, I’m donating them.”

Gilbert smirked.

“What’s the real present you wanted to give me?” Ludwig asked, trying to change the subject.

Gilbert reached into the pile again and this time handed Ludwig a wrapped-up box with a bow.

Ludwig untied the bow, then once the paper was off, he opened the box and pulled out a frame. Looking at it he saw that it was a picture of him and Gilbert on the swings in the park wearing their raincoats, laughing at some dumb joke Gilbert had made.

He smiled fondly, if he remembered the day correctly this had been a few months ago back in April when all three of them had gone to the park. Gilbert had challenged Ludwig to see who could swing the highest. Gilbert had obviously won, what with his legs being much longer. After wearing themselves out Gilbert had tried talking but his voice had cracked. What with him being winded and the added change to his voice it sounded silly. Instead of getting bashful as most would Gilbert had pretended to be a dying bird.

Ludwig leaned over and gave Gilbert a hug. “I really like it.”

“Ya, Antonio helped me carve the frame and Francis helped me pick out colours for it. But the idea was all mine!”

Ludwig looked at the picture again and payed more attention to the frame. It had a little rain cloud carved on one side. The blue of the frame matching Ludwig’s coat and the cloud matching the clouds in the picture.

“It’s really good.”

“Thanks, but you know me, I’m shit at art. Most of it was Antonio.”

“Music is art so you’re not all bad at it.”

Gilbert shrugged and handed him another present. “This is my last one then Dad’ll give you his.”

Ludwig unwrapped it to find a husky webkinz.

“Whatcha gonna name him?” Gilbert asked making room on the couch so Dad could sit with them.

“Snowy.”

“Coolio.”

His dad sat next to him and handed him a gift along with a card. This one was also in a box, but it was bigger than the one Gilbert had given him. Ludwig opened the envelop and read the card before he unwrapped the gift, discovering that it was a toy airplane that he had to build.

“It comes with a few paints so you can choose what colour it’s going to be.”

“Thank you.” He couldn’t wait to make and play with it. Maybe he would try and paint it like one of the planes from his history books.

Dad then handed him another present. “This is the last one.”

“Okay.” He opened it and saw a light brown bear wearing a blue shirt that said, ‘Happy Birthday’, blue jeans, and green and grey shoes.

“Thank you, I really liked all of them.”

Gilbert messed up his hair again. “Good!”

Ignoring his brother, he opened the letters on the table. All from his family in Germany, except for one from Roderich and his parents who couldn’t come today. All signed from family he had never met or was introduced to once when he was too little to remember. The entire process felt more like a formality then a genuine gift. At least Gilbert knew who all these people were.

After telling him happy birthday once more his dad went upstairs to work on paperwork and Gilbert moved to the small love-seat and started playing some game on his phone.

As he sat there on the couch, he started to feel very tired all of a sudden. Taking off his birthday hat he laid down and wondered if and when his wish would come true.