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Ludwig really did not know what to make of the human-shaped hole that presented itself upon entering the living room of his friend's beach house—situated on a remote island just off the coast of Florida, even—with the aforementioned American friend, named Alfred, in the lead.
Needless to say, the drops of their jaws could barely contain their thoughts and the two immediately collected themselves.
"You didn't tell me you allowed people to use your beach house as a cutout for life-sized standees." Ludwig dryly joked with the tact of a dung beetle about to roll its hundredth turd of the day.
"Shut up! This isn't funny. Whoever did that owes me a suitcase's worth of Benjamins! I mean, who willfully destroys another man's property and expects to get away with it?!"
Then came the aforementioned offender. He was pale even against the harsh sunlight and was screaming his lungs out, naked form barely concealed by a torn pair of green slacks.
He practically dashed through the hole from whence he exited with an alligator galloping after his rear, not halting even when Alfred commanded the alligator to stop its pursuit.
Ludwig only watched with even more shock, not knowing where to direct his heightened astonishment.
"Bloody hell! Was that reptilian beast your pet?!" yelled the Englishman—Arthur, who happened to be a mutual companion of theirs—that the alligator almost made a meal of.
"Um… yeah, and his name is Gwendolyn, you insensitive jerk! He's not a beast, he's a good boy. Also, what about you?! You not only broke into my property, but you literally broke a part of it!"
"That's irrelevant! Excuse you, but a man was almost eaten alive here!"
"And y'know what?! He kinda deserves it, 'cause uh… I don't know, he's a trespasser?! And he damaged my property?!"
The two bickered on for a length of time tolerable only to those who were patient. Ludwig was not who you would call a patient man, but his unamused expression despite the chaos of it all implied his reluctant familiarity with it all.
Perhaps his unchallenged forbearing was a feat on its own when he is surrounded by two idiotic men and a doggish alligator, while inside the partially damaged living room of his friend's beach house.
All the while in the blistering heat near the equator.
His last affirming serenity in a setting like this is the beer waiting for him in the fridge.
When he went to fetch the beverages, he didn't miss the doe-eyed look the alligator gave him and decided against his better judgment that it wouldn't hurt to feed the poor thing. Alfred would probably not mind a missing slice of Hawaiian pizza.
Except he would also come to regret that decision, as much as he already regretted this beach house invitation the moment Arthur bolted in with the alligator in tow.
That night, he booked a trip back to Germany after being painfully chewed out by a tearful Alfred who was apparently saving up the pizza he had sacrificed.