Willow (Completed)

Chapter 15

January 25th (almost 3 months)

For the past week, every day at noon Ludwig would meet up with Feliciano at the café. They would discuss their project together and continue their research while Snickers either sat on their papers or Feliciano's lap. Over the past week, Feliciano noticed that Ludwig had been becoming less stiff and had started to loosen up around him once again. He was so happy that this could possibly be the beginning of a renewed friendship.

"Did you find where he was born yet?" asked Ludwig.

Feliciano flipped through some of his notes, "Yeah, Zundert, Netherlands."

"Where did he die?"

"Auvers-sur-Oise, France."

Ludwig looked up from his papers, "Bless you."

"No, no," Feliciano laughed, "that's where he died, Auvers-sur-Oise, France."

"Oh," said Ludwig, a slightly embarrassed smile spread across his face. That was one of the things that he had started doing again, smiling like that in front of him. Before it always seemed like he was trying to hide his emotions, but every once in a while Feliciano would see him slip up, whether it was on purpose or a mistake he didn't know.

With each shy smile that escaped Ludwig, Feliciano could feel his heart flutter tenfold. It was like since he hadn't felt these emotions in such a long time, every time it happened it was just that much more of a feeling.

Ludwig though, he knew that he was slipping up and he knew that he was losing his grip on his emotions, but every time he looked at him his heart would stop or his mind would overflow and swamp out any decision-making skills. He was trying his best to keep his distance from him, but he knew that it would come to a point where he couldn't stand to be away from him, like how they used to be, and that time was going to come soon. He knew it was.

The days passed and day after day they would meet up and work on the project. The thing was, once they had gotten to the new month of February, they had run out of things to work on together, yet they still came as an excuse to see each other without admitting it.

"Maybe we should look over the essay again to see if there is anything more we could add to it," said Ludwig.

"Good idea," agreed Feliciano, but neither of them reached into their bags for the paper. They just continued to sit there, not doing anything, as Snickers continuously attempted to climb up Feliciano's shirt.

"What is he trying to do?" chuckled Ludwig.

Feliciano finally broke and burst out laughing, "I don't know," he said and helped the cat climb his shirt to the point where he just sat on Feliciano's shoulder. It was hard to laugh and keep still at the same time.

His laugh was infectious and Ludwig caught on quick. With each day the two of them grew closer and closer once again. In Ludwig's mind, no matter how much he could have told himself that he couldn't get close to Feliciano again, he knew that at some point it was bound to happen.

"Get him off of me!" Feliciano cried out, laughing with slight pain from the cat's claws buried into his neck.

Ludwig stood, laughing, and walked around the table and picked the cat off of Feliciano's shoulder. Feliciano reached up and rubbed his neck, which caused the few scratches there to begin to leak blood. When he withdrew his hand, his laughter had stopped and he cringed when he realized what the cat had done.

Ludwig reached down, still laughing, and dipped a napkin in his glass of water and began to dab at the scratches on Feliciano's neck. At first, he thought that he was going to wave him off and say that he was fine, but no, he let him tend to his neck. With every brush of Ludwig's hand against Feliciano's neck sparks were sent down his spine and up through Ludwig's arm.