Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Lovino was using his third cigarette to light a fourth when the lunch bell rang. He was tucked into one of the four corners of the courtyard, right up against the scuffed brick wall. His fingers were trembling which made it difficult to get the fourth cigarette to light. Lovino glanced across the courtyard at the metal tables—they were still deserted and would be for several more months. Lovino could hardly blame his classmates for wanting to eat inside today, it was practically Antarctic.

When the cigarette refused to catch for the fifth time in a row, Lovino gave up. He’d only been chain smoking like that to keep his hands warm anyway. Carefully, so as not to drop it, he put his unlit cigarette back into the pack. He snubbed out the other one, all filter now, and stuck his hands into his jacket pockets. Lovino was just thinking about going back inside when someone opened the courtyard door.

“Fratello,” was Feliciano’s only greeting, as he slid up against the wall until their shoulders were brushing—Lovino’s worn leather to Feli’s soft letterman.

Lovino rolled his head to look at his brother. Feliciano grinned lazily back, his hair messy and his eyes bloodshot. Lovino watched him blink once, slowly, before his eyes drifted.

“Don’t think I’ve ever been out here in the winter. It’s sad,” Feliciano said.

Lovino agreed. Even though he wouldn’t be able to smoke here in the upcoming spring months, it was unnaturally quiet in the courtyard without anyone else around. During the latter weeks of March, Lovino would begin the annual struggle of commandeering a table for himself, his brother, and his brother’s boyfriend Ludwig. He couldn’t say that he was looking forward to it.

Instead of voicing his agreement, Lovino scowled. His brother's red eyes were a clue, but correlation didn’t always equal causation and Feliciano was prone to spontaneously bursting into tears. The smell gave his brother away though, wafting around Feliciano. Lovino could almost see the cloud.

“You’ve been smoking," Lovino said. It wasn’t a question.

Feliciano tilted his head down, toward the abandoned pile of crushed cigarette butts. “So have you.”

“Whatever.” Lovino mumbled against his coat collar, ignoring Feliciano’s smug smile.

A moment went by where they didn’t speak—another sign Feli was high. He could never shut up sober. Like he was reading Lovino’s mind, Feliciano turned bodily to face Lovino, breaking the silence. “Have you heard from anywhere you applied yet?”

Despite the frigid air around them, Lovino felt his cheeks heat up. He didn’t make a habit of being embarrassed around Feliciano—they used to take baths together after all—but the topic of college in general made him nervous. Twitchy. He didn’t want to think about the applications he’d sent away earlier in the fall. He looked exclusively at state schools with relatively high acceptance rates, though Lovino still wasn’t guaranteed a spot. He’d only sent in the applications because of Nonno's prodding anyway, and he had yet to hear back. Yet. He hadn’t heard back yet.

It was wishful thinking that he might get in somewhere. Lovino had pretty much resigned himself to going to community college and living at home for the next four years, while Feliciano would be off at whatever big fancy art school he ended up at.

Speaking of—

“Well have you heard from that fancy ass art school in Chicago?” Lovino asked.

Feliciano shrugged, smirk shifting into a genuine smile as he looked off into the distance. He was probably dreaming about painting outdoors or doing yoga or making a bong out of clay in the art studio. Whatever it was they did at that stupidly expensive university.

Feliciano clearly didn’t want to talk anymore—or couldn’t talk anymore, with how fucked up he was. Their conversation stopped there. The two stood outside in comfortable silence, their breaths visible as they exhaled, until the cafeteria door opened again. Lovino heard, for a brief moment, the sounds of shuffling feet and chairs scraping against linoleum and the dull roar of everyone talking over each other inside, before the door slammed shut. Lovino sighed, chasing the warm draft of air that escaped the building.

“We have class in ten minutes,” a familiar voice said, though it was clearly not directed at him because Lovino, go to class?

Lovino glanced over his brother’s shoulder anyway, because he was curious, and watched Ludwig Beilschmidt shuffle around on the asphalt with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his black hoodie.

“Luddy!” Feliciano squealed, vaulting himself at his boyfriend so fast if Lovino blinked he would’ve missed it. Feliciano wrapped himself against Ludwig—whose expression softened but didn’t reach out to return the gesture.

Clearly he was too cold to even remove his hands from his pockets. What a pussy.

“Hey potato eater,” Lovino said, his fingers twitching, feeling empty.

Ludwig huffed as Feliciano disentangled himself.

“Oh, don’t be mean,” Feliciano whined, without force.

“I’m not. It’s not my fault that my Italian blood does better in this weather than his potato blood anyhow.”

Feliciano’s brow scrunched. Ludwig looked equally as confused—or Lovino thought he was confused, it was hard to tell under all that German stoicism.

“What does that even mean?” Ludwig asked. He shuffled his stupid steel-toed boots again.

“Shut up, you know what I meant.”

Feliciano giggled into Ludwig’s sweatshirt.

“I don’t think he does,” he said, before giggling again with a soft “ve”.

Whatever.

“Whatever.”

“Right.” Ludwig cleared his throat.

Why did he have to be so awkward around Lovino? All Lovino wanted to do was bash his stupid face in for ruining his baby brother’s innocence, after all.

“Class?” Feliciano said, sounding less dazed.

That seemed to break Ludwig out of his avid attempt to avoid eye contact with Lovino. Ludwig looked at Feliciano, who was still wrapped tight around his middle.

“Right. Ja, class. We have,” Ludwig shuffled around Feliciano to pull his arm out of his front pocket, glancing at his watch, “five minutes.”

Feliciano giggled again, latching his lips to Ludwig’s neck without preamble. Ludwig, bless him, pushed at Feliciano with frantic glances in Lovino’s direction.

“Feli—“

Feliciano linked their arms, pulling them toward the cafeteria doors.

“We have four minutes that could be spent in that broom closet, you know, the one you found yesterday by the art hallway… Oh! Bye, fratello!”

“If you get my brother pregnant, I’ll hunt you down, potato bastard!” Lovino shouted in return, ignoring the sound of Ludwig’s sputtering cough and his brother’s rambunctious laughter.

Lovino reached into his back pocket. Time for that fourth smoke.

Lovino stumbled into English class a half second before the final bell trilled over the intercom. He hadn’t been planning on coming today. After the chat in the courtyard with Feliciano and Ludwig, Lovino had smoked another cigarette down to the filter before sneaking back inside, in search of something to eat. The hall monitor caught him hovering by the vending machines in the basement. The kid—a freshman, Lovino assumed because he didn’t recognize him—walked Lovino to class. Which happened to be…English? Lovino wasn’t sure, it’d been a while since he’d even thought about coming to this class.

Now, he scanned the room searching for a place to sit. The seats were filling up fast. Shit, did they have assigned seats? Lovino couldn’t remember.

The teacher swept into the room, barely noticing Lovino as she brushed past him on the way to her desk. Lovino shot another frantic glance at his classmates. There weren’t any seats left at all, which couldn’t be right, because he was supposed to have a desk, right? That’s how things worked—there were always enough desks for each student to have their own. Unless he’d skipped so much that they thought he’d switched schools, or died, or something, and they’d removed his desk ages ago, and—

“Psst, Lovino?” came a whisper from Lovino’s left.

It was a guy. He had a feminine, weedy face—with wide eyes so blue they were almost violet and long blond hair pushed back save for one unruly strand. The desk next to his was thankfully empty, which Lovino must’ve overlooked even though it was right in front of his face. Lovino didn’t even bother responding to the guy as he threw his stuff down, claiming the desk as his own. 

The teacher—Lovino couldn’t remember her name—began to write on the board. Lovino couldn’t be bothered with following what she was doing, and instead turned to the guy next to him. He looked familiar, but Lovino couldn’t place him. He was writing in his notebook, face so close to the paper that he could only be to doing so to avoid looking at Lovino.

 "As we've been covering classic works from the twentieth century—"

“Do I know you?”

The pencil’s movement came to a halt. The guy tensed, his shoulders drawing up against his body as though expecting an attack.

“—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby—“

“You knew my name right? I haven’t seen you around.”

“—Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird—“

“Hey, I’m talking to you—”

 “Come on, asshole, I know you can hear me.”

“—John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath—"

“Hey, dumbass—”

 “—what do all these works of fiction have in common?”

Despite Lovino's needling, the guy was still avoiding him, shoulders up around his ears.

“They all suck major dick!” Someone shouted from the back of the classroom.

The guy next to Lovino groaned and dropped his head into his hands. There was a smattering of laughter, but the teacher was unamused.

“Mr. Jones. Detention.”

“What?!” The asshole in the back protested.

The guy next to Lovino was muttering something to himself. His hands covered his mouth, so Lovino could only hear the muffled sound of the guy talking to himself and not what he was actually saying. It was freaking Lovino out. Lovino scooted his chair toward the aisle. Hopefully he could make a break for the door if necessary.

“Speak to me at the end of class—“

“C’mon, it was funny Ms. H! Everyone thought it was funny! Mattie—yo, Mattie bro, back me up on this one—“

The guy next to him mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “should’ve stayed in Canada.”

“Mr. Jones, you have been a nonstop distraction since the moment you stepped foot in my class. You will stay after to discuss the extent of your punishment, but I think it’s safe to say that suspension is on the table.”

“What?!”

“And for the last time, Jones, it’s Ms. Héderváry. Do I need to repeat it, or do you think you know it by now?”

“…yes, Ms. Héderváry.”

She wasn’t an intimidating woman on the surface, short in stature with mousy brown hair and an open, heart-shaped face. Despite her unassuming appearance, Lovino definitely wouldn’t want to be on the end of that look she was giving Jones. She had an edge to her, Ms. Héderváry. Lovino decided that he liked her, maybe enough to show up to her next class.

Ms. Héderváry nodded and clapped her hands together once.

“Excellent,” she said. “Now, as I was saying, what do The Great Gatsby, How to Kill a Mockingbird, and The Grapes of Wrath all have in common? This can be related to themes, subject matter, characterization, anything! Just tell me what you noticed while you were reading these assigned works this past semester.”

A hand went up in the front row.

“Yes,” Ms. Héderváry said on a relieved exhale, a smile working its way onto her face. “Mr. Carriedo.”

“They all criticize an aspect of society which was a prevalent source of debate during the time period in which the author wrote the work.”

Lovino snickered, as subtly as possible, into his hand.

“Do you have something to say, mister...?”

Shit. Apparently, he hadn’t been as quiet as he’d hoped. Now everyone in the class was looking at him, with his hand over his mouth in an embarrassing way, too. There was no backing out now, he had to say something.

“Vargas,” he supplied his last name for her. “And I just don’t see what the big deal is about railing on society. I can do that right now. Society sucks. There, I’ve ‘criticized a source of debate’ or whatever.”

The guy who’d spoken—Carriedo—turned around so fast it was a wonder he didn’t get whiplash. He stared at Lovino from across the room, eyes wide and curious—it sent a jolt down Lovino’s spine. He hated to admit it, but Carriedo was hot. In, like, a nerdy way. He might have a jawline that could cut glass, but he was also wearing glasses for god’s sakes.

“Mr. Vargas,” Ms. Héderváry said, not unkindly. “While I appreciate your enthusiasm, I must admit that you may be oversimplifying…”

“But he’s right.” The guy next to Lovino spoke up at last. “It’s important to critique or discuss a source of debate in society, sure, but anyone can do it. Most books do, because they’re a product of their time. It’s hard to not write something about current society, or the way you think that society might be going, I guess, if you’re living in it while you’re writing the novel, and the novel takes place in your time, right?”

Ms. Héderváry had both her eyebrows raised. Carriedo wore a similar expression, although his cheeks were oddly flushed.

“Either way I think Antonio might have been too, er, vague himself when he made that connection.”

The guy next to Lovino straightened his glasses. Lovino wondered if he always sounded like he’d swallowed a dictionary.

“’Vague?' You're the one being vague—” Carriedo started to say, out of turn, cheerful voice hedging on indignant as he eyed the two of them from across the room.

“Well then, since you are in agreement, you two,” Mrs. Héderváry said, ignoring Antonio’s continued spluttering as she gestured between the two of them, with a smile on her face that was slightly too wide to be reassuring, “should be partners for the end of semester project.”

Carriedo sent him one last, non-scary look before turning back around. Lovino was almost sad to see his beautiful face go.

“I will be handing out partner assignments along with the project guidelines. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. Mr. Carriedo, if you would pass out…”

“So,” Lovino said, turning toward the guy sitting next to him, figuring that now they were stuck together no matter what. “I didn’t get your name?”

“It’s, um, it’s Matthew,” the guy said, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.

Matthew's voice had a hesitant lilt to it. He reminded Lovino of Feliciano—if Feliciano had been born with a filter between his mouth and his brain and a sense of self-preservation. Although, if the stunt a minute ago was to go by, Matthew didn’t seem to have those things, either.

“Nice to meet you, Matthew. You seem pretty chill for a guy who wears glasses.”

Matthew laughed weakly and said, “Thanks.”

Still curious, Lovino said, “Have we had classes together before? Just, how do you know my name?”

Matthew adjusted his glasses, pushing them up his nose until his eyelashes were brushing the lenses.

“Oh. Alfred… my brother, that is... talks about you sometimes. He’s in this class, you might’ve heard him earlier, I dunno if you know him or…”

Of course. Lovino should’ve recognized that stupid fucking voice. Alfred F. Jones—

(“The ‘F’ stands for ‘Fucking!'”)

—was the bane of Lovino’s existence. They’d been in classes together since freshmen year, and Lovino found him to be the most irritating person in the school by far. At least, that Lovino had encountered.

Jones played sports for their school year-round—he was quarterback of the football team in the fall, ran on the track team in the winter, and played first base on the baseball team in the spring. He never shut up about it, bragging in class about some awesome “pass” he made in football or “record breaking time” he ran in track. Jones was about as heteronormative and “All-American” as someone could get and, frankly, it was sickening. He drove a red pickup truck from 1982. He blasted country music in the front hall before class. He wore American-flag patterned shirts paired with neon socks. Jones had a posse of douchey sports friends that all hung around him for the popularity status. Jones didn’t have the teachers wrapped around his fingers, because he was always goofing off in his classes, but he did get nonstop attention from the students and coaches. Jones’ ego had to be huge at this point, and it really grated on Lovino’s nerves because Jones wasn’t a good person. He had proved that to Lovino time and time again.

“Um, yeah, so. We’re related, me and Alfred. Twins, actually, even though sometimes I think otherwise…”

Lovino hadn’t even known Jones had a brother up until now. It was like Matthew was a ghost, appearing one day from thin air.

“Sorry, yeah. That really sucks, how do you put up with him?” Lovino said.

“I don’t know,” came a voice from over Lovino’s shoulder. It was cheerful, nearly sickly-sweet. Lovino didn't trust it. “How does Feliciano put up with you?”

It was Carriedo. He had a stack of papers tucked into the crook of one arm. His smile was too-wide, just this side of disingenuous. 

“Who the fuck told you you were a part of this conversation?” Lovino snapped. “And how do you know Feli anyway?”

Carriedo didn’t even react. He just plowed on as though Lovino hadn’t spoken.

“Here’s your project rubric. Good luck!”

“We don’t need luck!” Lovino said, reaching for the papers that were still in Carriedo’s hand.

Carriedo stepped back in a single, crisp movement, leaving Lovino’s arm hovering awkwardly in midair.  

“Hm, sure you don’t,” Carriedo said. “Here you go. Matthew, was it?”

Matthew took the offered papers. He was responding, introducing himself, but Lovino wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy glaring at Carriedo, whose cheerful grin had melted into something irritatingly smug. Lovino wanted to punch it clean off his face.

“By the way, Lovino, you look so cute when you get all red like that. Like a tomate pequeño. It's fitting, right?”

Instead of justifying that with a response, Lovino flopped back into his seat with a hand pressed to his face self-consciously. No matter what, he was not going to let Antonio Carriedo, resident nerd and nobody, get under his skin.

“I hate Antonio.”

Lovino flopped face-first down on his brother’s bed. His Pokémon-themed bedsheets smelled like pasta sauce and the smothering Axe cologne Ludwig wore. Lovino didn’t even want to think about why his brother’s bed smelled like Ludwig, so he rolled over to face the ceiling instead.

“Carriedo?”

Lovino blinked, glancing at his brother out of the corner of his eye.

“What?”

“Carriedo? Antonio Carriedo? He’s in our grade, right?”

“Yeah, Antonio Carriedo. Do you know him? He namedropped you earlier is all.”

“Oh! He was in my art class last year, he painted tomatoes all the time and his artwork wasn’t very good but he was so nice, ve... and he's in my ceramics class this year! He's so bad at art, his stuff always breaks, but I guess he has a passion for it—“

Feliciano could go on like this for hours if provoked. They were kind of similar in that way, the Vargas brothers. Lovino figured it would be best to cut him off now.

“That’s nice Feliciano, but he’s a bastard.”

Feliciano, the quick little asshole, jumped onto the bed before Lovino had a chance to defend himself, tackling his brother.

“What the—“ Lovino shouted, the sound muffled by the soft cotton. Somehow, he’d wound up on his face again. “Fuck!“

“Lovi! Don’t! Be! Mean!” Each word was punctuated with a jab at his side, which was meant to be ticklish but wound up just being annoying.

“Ugh, get off.” Lovino snapped, pushing at his brother impatiently.

Feliciano got off.

“Wish you wouldn’t do that, Feli,” Lovino said, crossing his arms and trying to pretend that Feliciano wasn’t beaming at him from the corner of the bed.

“Ve, you love it,” said Feliciano, with one more jab to Lovino's side as he sat back on his heels.

“Whatever.”

Feliciano moved to sit back in his desk chair he’d been occupying earlier. He had a contemplative look on his face.

“So, why do you hate Antonio all of a sudden? You haven’t ever talked about him before.”

Lovino settled back against the bed, ignoring the way his brother’s stare bored into him. It was creepy, was what it was.

“He’s in my English class, right? And this tomato bastard—“

Lovino ignored Feliciano’s giggle.

“—he was acting like such a know-it-all! Like keep that that honors shit out of here, please. I mean, excuse the fuck out of me, this isn’t Harvard! And he was just telling our teacher what she wanted to hear. Something about symbolism or criticizing society or something. I don’t fucking know, Feli, but it was goddamn annoying! Just annoying! So I called him out and then he called me annoying!”

“Annoying?”

“Annoying! The fucking tomato fucking bastard!”

Feliciano giggled again. Lovino ignored it, again.

“Hm, that doesn't seem like Antonio… you're sure he called you annoying?” Feliciano said with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Lovino looked away. Carriedo hadn’t used those words exactly but Lovino could read between the lines. He wasn’t even going to mention Carriedo’s “cute” comment. Not if he wanted to survive this conversation with his dignity intact.

“Oh, fuck off, Feliciano,” Lovino said. He positively ached for a cig. Except he couldn’t smoke in the house because then Nonno would find out, and there’d be hell to pay.

Lovino loved his brother, but the problem with Feliciano was he expected things of Lovino. And though Lovino could follow through on defending his brother or occasionally pretending to be Feliciano (for the really unobservant teachers) when Feliciano was too stoned to even sit up straight—Lovino was shit at actually holding himself to a higher standard for someone else. It was difficult when Feliciano expected him to actually be a good person, because Lovino wasn’t. He wanted to be, for Feli and Nonno, and even Mama and Papa—who were long gone—but he just couldn’t.

When Lovino looked back at his brother, Feliciano was curled in on himself in the chair. He had his head resting on his knee and was staring straight at Lovino. Feliciano was worrying his lip between his teeth, a sign that he was thinking about something. The small line that had formed between his brows told Lovino that his brother was upset, or disappointed, or a mixture of both.

That wouldn’t do.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that,” Lovino said.

This time when Feliciano joined him on the bed, Lovino didn’t push him off.

It wasn’t really in Lovino’s nature to care about schoolwork. He spent more effort avoiding it than doing it, and he couldn’t let all that time not doing work go to waste. Still, when Matthew texted Lovino to meet him in the library after school later that week, Lovino agreed. He wasn’t about to piss off his only partner for this project, not right away at least.

"I didn't even know our school had a library," Lovino commented, when he met Matthew in front of the entrance. (That was untrue, of course. Lovino had spent the majority of his after-school time here freshmen year. Not that he was going to tell Matthew that.)

“So, have you looked at the project rubric?” Matthew said a few moments later, as he set his books down at a circular table near the fiction section.

"Not yet," Lovino said. After that disastrous English period, he had shoved the piece of paper into his backpack and promptly forgotten about it.

"Me either." Matthew dug around inside his bag for a pencil, speaking over his shoulder. "My friend Kiku takes the honors class, and their project is to watch and review the movie version of a book they've read."

“Oh, you know Kiku? He’s a cool dude." Lovino had always enjoyed Kiku's company more than some of Feliciano's other friends, Ludwig included.

"Yeah, he's the best," Matthew said, distractedly. Pencil in-hand at last, he flipped open the book on the top of his stack and pulled out the rubric. "I'd much rather analyze a move than whatever this is going to be."

“No kidding. What do we have to do, anyway?” Lovino asked, staring down at the project rubric when Matthew set it on the table between them. He couldn't really read it, upside down like this.

Matthew looked at the paper for a moment before groaning and pushing his head into his arms. For a second Lovino thought he’d pissed Matthew off already, but then Matthew looked up and whispered in a horrified tone of voice, “There’s five parts to this project, Lovino. Five.”

A second glance at the paper told Lovino that there were indeed five parts of the project, each more complicated than the last.

“We have to write ‘individualized essays?’” Lovino said, flipping the paper so he could read it properly. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

"Yeah." Matthew pressed his palms to his eyes, pushing his glasses halfway up his forehead. "This project..."

“Is gonna blow so hard," Lovino said, hung up on the words interpretive play or dance on the paper in front of him.

“Like you’re gonna do to my dick later, amiright?” A gratingly familiar voice called from behind Lovino. Several shhhhhs echoed throughout the library at the disruption.

“'Sup, idiots,” Alfred F. Jones said as he threw his backpack on the ground. He settled in a vacant seat, tipping the chair back with his legs spread wide.

“Hi, Matthew,” said Carriedo, approaching the table. Carriedo was smiling at Matthew, and only Matthew, his pearly whites on full display. Lovino could almost see his tonsils. He didn’t even look in Lovino’s direction.

“Goddammit, no—“ Lovino muttered as Carriedo took a seat. This was his worst nightmare come true. 

“So, Mattie bro, what’re y’all talking about over here?”

Matthew glanced for a long, pointed moment at the papers spread out in front of them. Jones just stared at his brother’s face with growing wonderment.

“Matt, do you need to get your ears checked or something?” Waving a hand in front of his brother’s face as though Matthew were blind, Jones said, loudly, “Hello? Anyone home?”

“We’re working on the English project, dumbass,” Lovino said, pushing the project rubric across the table toward Jones.

Jones cast a disinterested look at the paper before shrugging.

“Oh yeah. We're gonna work on that too, right?”

“I didn't come here for the company!" Carriedo said. Even though he was smiling widely, eyes sparkling with amusement, Lovino suspected he meant every word.

"Harsh, man." Jones rolled his eyes. “One problem, I don’t have my books with me.”

Oh, yeah, Lovino had forgotten that he actually had to read the books. It was only November, how had they already finished three novels? Clearly Ms. Héderváry was trying to kill them.

“Well,” Carriedo said, spreading his arms wide to gesture to the nearby shelves. “We are in a library.”

Matthew nodded in agreement, saying, “He has a point, Alfred.”

Jones narrowed his eyes. With his face all scrunched up like that he looked like a pouty baby teetering on the edge of a tantrum. Not that Jones wasn’t always on the edge of a tantrum. Or falling off the edge and losing his mind over something stupid. That was just how Jones was.

To Lovino’s surprise Alfred didn’t start yelling at Matthew. Or even storm away. He just sat back in his chair, brow unfolding, smoothing back over. He crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head slowly.

“I expected it out of these two but from my own brother? You're being really fucking gay right now, dude.”

Lovino would’ve preferred them to be yelling at one another, honestly. Jones’ tone was dripping with aloofness, but his emotions played across his face without Jones realizing it. The open, wounded look was that of genuine betrayal. Lovino raised his eyebrows at Carriedo across the table—Carriedo, who was finally looking at him—as if to say can you believe this shit? Antonio shot him a small, tight smile and looked away.

Ignoring how hot that little gesture made Lovino, and the awkward tension that settled between all four members of the table, Lovino said, “And you call us gay, Jones? That line belongs in the shitty storyline at the beginning of a bad porno. 'Man gives it to twink husband after walking in on husband fucking brother-in-law.' Jesus.”

Jones, Carriedo, and Matthew (and several other people at neighboring tables, because Lovino wasn’t exactly being quiet) all stared at Lovino. Then, Carriedo threw back his head and started to laugh.

A symphony of shhhhhs followed but Antonio didn’t seem to hear. He just kept laughing, deep and low. Even Matthew was chuckling, despite the glares they were still getting from other students. It didn’t matter. Lovino didn’t know any of them and he wouldn’t care even if he did.

Jones’ reaction was the most satisfying. His mouth, previously open, snapped shut with an audible click as his top and bottom teeth clashed together. The pinched baby tantrum look was back, directed at Lovino this time. It was probably meant to be intimidating or something, but it just made him look constipated. Lovino choked back a laugh.

Seriously, if anyone told Jones that this look was scary they were fooling him. Someone should really let the poor guy know.

“Jones, are you okay? You kinda look like you have to shit, like, really badly,” Lovino said with mock concern.

Antonio, who’d just started to quiet down, burst into hysterical laughter again. Matthew turned a dangerous shade of red with how hard he was laughing behind the hand over his mouth, a poor attempt to smother the sound.

This time, Jones didn’t just look stupid. He said, stupidly, “I never said you both look gay, just that Matthew was acting gay. Though we all already knew that about you, right, Vargas?”

Lovino wouldn’t let it get to him, it was the lamest comeback he’d ever heard. He wouldn’t let it get to him. He wouldn’t—

“Shut the fuck up you stupid, one-note, neon-wearing bastard!”

Lovino stared down at Jones—down? When had he pushed away from the table, when did he stand up?—chest heaving. Carriedo stopped laughing. Matthew was silent as a wake.

“Come on Matthew,” Lovino said. “Let’s go work on this somewhere else.”

Lovino ducked beneath the table to grab his stuff. He wiped away an errant tear or two as he did so—he wasn’t crying because of Jones, that would be stupid. He wasn't crying, period. He didn’t need Jones thinking that was the case though.

Lovino was the one ignoring Carriedo now—their eyes caught when Lovino stood up but Lovino looked away. Jones was typing quickly on his phone, no doubt telling all his friends about how Lovino’s crazy little outburst. Antonio was still watching Lovino as he walked away from the table with Matthew at his side. Lovino almost wanted to look back, but he had control of himself.

They wound up at Lovino’s place, a two-story townhouse near their school. Lovino parked the car he and Feli shared on the curb. The engine always stalled when Lovino braked too hard, so he made sure to skid to a slow stop. Matthew wasn’t holding on for dear life and Lovino counted that as a win.

“Here it is,” Lovino said as he cut the engine, “what would Carriedo say? ¿Mi casa es su casa?”

Matthew shook his head and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Antonio speak like that ever.”

“In Spanish?” Lovino asked, pushing the car door open.

“Nah,” said Matthew. “Like someone with a bad Spanish accent.”

Lovino climbed the steps, skipping over the one with the chunk of concrete missing. Lovino pushed the door open with his shoulder. He was only halfway surprised to find it unlocked. Lovino wasn’t surprised, though, when he almost tripped over Ludwig’s combat boots sitting just inside the door. Great, so Lovino could look forward to being forced to spend more time with his brother’s boyfriend. Lovino kicked the boots toward the couch so they were out of the way.

“Anyway, welcome in. You want anything to drink?” Lovino asked, holding the door open for Matthew. He waited until Matthew took a couple steps into the front room before closing the door behind him.

“Nah, that's okay. Thank you though,” Matthew said, turning to look at the décor.

There wasn’t much of it. Several family pictures hung over the fireplace, including a couple from Lovino’s elementary school days that he wished didn’t exist. His haircut had been so bad back then, but thankfully he and Feliciano had looked nearly identical at that age. Only their family could tell who was who in the photos. Hopefully, Matthew wouldn’t notice them at all. A variety of Feliciano’s paintings lined the far wall like soldiers marching into battle. Lovino was grateful for the paintings, they distracted from the terrible pictures.

“These are so good,” Matthew commented, zeroing in on Feliciano’s paintings right away.

He approached the far wall to analyze Lovino’s personal favorite, a red, green, and purple medley of cacti. It was one of Feliciano’s more realistic pieces, but it still maintained a dreamlike quality that was so Feliciano. Feliciano liked to paint normal subjects into strange shadows and figures. It was his signature style.

“Did you paint these?” Matthew said, turning to look at Lovino.

Lovino could never make something so beautiful. Feliciano had talent, sure, but he also had drive. Ambition. He sat at an easel and practiced for hours, something Lovino had not the patience nor the inclination to do.

He was flattered, though, so he didn’t jump down Matthew’s throat. Instead, he said, “No, no. Feli did them.”

“They’re good,” said Matthew.

Lovino couldn’t disagree. He nodded, stepping away.

“Yeah. He’s hella talented. If we didn’t look so much alike I’d wonder if we were even related, ha.”

Matthew frowned and looked away. Lovino jumped to change the topic.

“I’m gonna go grab my laptop so we can start typing up an outline or whatever. I’ll be back.”

Lovino bounded up the stairs two at a time to get away from Matthew’s sad, imploring eyes. On the landing he leaned heavily against the wall and took several deep breaths. Not wanting to linger, Lovino made for Feliciano’s room.

The laptop wasn’t on his desk, or under his bed, or in any other weird hiding place. Lovino double checked his own room to make sure that Feliciano hadn’t put it there after he was done using it. It wasn’t there either. That left the basement, where Feliciano was most likely hanging out with Ludwig and, if Lovino was lucky, Kiku. If Kiku was there it was less likely that Feliciano would be making out with Ludwig on the couch, or worse.

“We need to go grab the laptop from Feli,” Lovino said when he walked down the stairs. “They’re probably in the basement.”

Matthew, who’d been sitting on the couch, stood at Lovino’s arrival.

“'They?'”

Lovino started walking toward the kitchen, waving his hand to indicate Matthew should follow.

“Yeah. Where my brother goes, Ludwig goes.”

At Matthew’s blank look, Lovino elaborated, “Ludwig’s his boyfriend. The potato eater?  I’m surprised you don’t know, TBH. They’re all over each other in school, to hell with the dicks who get in their faces about it.”

Matthew smiled. “Good for them,” he said, his expression melting into something more neutral as he continued. “But no, I didn’t know. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly keep up with who’s fucking who.”

Lovino chuckled, opening the basement door.

“Shit, alright, Matthew. What would your mom think if she heard you using that fucking language?”

Even though it was a joke, Matthew didn’t seem amused. He answered with a small, pinched frown. Maybe that was just his resting expression, Lovino hadn’t spent enough time with him yet to really know. It didn’t seem like Lovino was going to get an explanation, either, as Matthew remained tight-lipped.

Shrugging it off, Lovino stepped down onto the staircase. The speakers were on and playing something, in English, so Feliciano was probably with someone. A battlecry—from the speakers—echoed up the stairwell.

Lovino’s wish that Kiku would be with Feliciano and Ludwig came true; the kid was leaning forward in an armchair with a controller in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. He was shouting frantically into the headset he was wearing as he tried, and failed, to play the game and eat at the same time. Kiku’s game was violent, Lovino could tell that much, and difficult. Kiku barely even noticed when Lovino and Matthew walked in, he was so absorbed in the battle his character was fighting in.

“Oh hey,” Matthew whispered to Lovino. “Kiku’s friends with your brother?”

“Yeah. Go tell him hey for me,” Lovino said. “I think he just died in that game.”

Lovino watched Matthew walked over. Kiku looked up when Matthew stepped in front of the screen and then did a double take, smiling and offering a fistbump. The two started talking quietly, and Lovino, satisfied, turned to his attention elsewhere.

“Feli,” Lovino said, marching over to where his brother was sitting. “I need to borrow the laptop.”

Lovino’s brother and Ludwig were curled up on the couch. They were both fully clothed, thankfully. They were also sharing a joint, something that their grandfather would murder them for if he ever found out. Nonno hated any kind of smoking in the house, and even stepped onto the back porch to smoke his own cigarettes. Lovnio rolled his eyes at his brother’s stupidity.

Feliciano blinked lazily up at him, before handing the joint to Ludwig. With a lethargic hand wave, Feli said flatly, in Italian, "Okay, but delete my search history. Luddy and I were looking at BDSM porn for inspiration.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I hate you,” Lovino snapped, thoroughly disgusted. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to think about his brother getting off to any kind of porn. Nope nope nope.

“What did he say?” Matthew asked, sliding up to stand beside Lovino.

Lovino scowled and shook his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Fratello, the world is so… small,” Feliciano said dreamily, staring at a point behind Lovino’s left earlobe. “The universe is so big and… black.”

Then, of course, Ludwig had to ask, in an extremely serious tone of voice, “Feli, does space turn you on?”

“Okay!” Lovino shouted, throwing his arms in the air with exasperation. “We just need the laptop please!”

Feliciano nodded, holding up a finger. He dug around under the couch for a minute before pulling out the laptop. Lovino took it from his brother and tucked it securely under his arm.

“Thanks,” he said. “Matthew, we’ve got the goods! Let’s do this.”

Matthew waved goodbye to Kiku, which Kiku returned even as he yelled into his headset. They left the three of them in the basement. When they closed the door at the top of the stairs, Lovino took a deep breath of fresh air.

“It reeks down there,” Lovino commented, sniffing experimentally at his shirt. It still smelled fresh, like the summer breeze laundry detergent that his Nonno loved so much. Thank god, the smell of weed always gave Lovino a headache.

“I didn’t know Kiku smokes,” Matthew said. “That’s weird, right?”

Lovino shrugged and said, “Who knows. My brother’s the biggest pothead on the planet and they’re always together. Doesn’t seem weird to me.”

Matthew looked uncomfortable but didn’t comment further. Instead he jerked his chin toward the laptop that was tucked under Lovino’s arm.

“We cracking that thing open or what?”

Matthew and Lovino worked in the kitchen for a few hours. The first part of the project, they discovered, was to analyze the history of the author and the time period in which each novel was written. That required a lot of research on websites that neither Lovino nor Feliciano frequented often. Matthew, the more experienced database surfer of the two, took control of the laptop. That left Lovino to take paper notes.

By the time they hit hour three they were just getting to book two. Lovino slumped against the table, propped up only by his resting elbow. He had been procrastinating for the better half of an hour. What he had written was almost illegible, as his handwriting got worse and worse as he went along.

Mathew had been hard at work but even he was slowing down. He kept rubbing his palms with his thumbs, as though they needed a massage from all the typing. For the second time in as many minutes Matthew stifled a yawn. It made Lovino stifle his own yawn and then they were caught in a weird game of back-and-forth yawning.

Lovino was mid-yawn when the garage door slammed open. Lovino’s Nonno stood in the doorway, a bag of groceries in each hand. A fine dusting of snow was settled onto Nonno’s head and shoulders. He was also smiling incredibly wide, and he looked all the more youthful for it.

“Romano!” Nonno shouted, dropping the bags just to swoop in and give Lovino an (unwanted) hug. Lovino found himself crushed against his Nonno’s wool coat with an open mouth—he had been mid-yawn, after all.

“Nonno!” Lovnio also shouted, for an entirely different reason, pushing at his grandpa desperately. “Please get off.”

Nonno pulled away. He ruffled Lovino’s hair once, saying, “Aw, is my grandson shy? He’s too big for a hug, is he? Well! It’s snowing, Romano, you should go out and play.”

Lovino felt his face grow warm and tingly, like he’d swallowed a hot pepper whole.

“I’m not a child.”

“You’re never too old to play in the snow! Even I was out there, and so was Gilbert. Soon we were throwing snowballs at one another and I lost track of time.”

Nonno turned suddenly to Matthew, who was staring intently at the laptop screen.

“But where are my manners! Is this why you’re so embarrassed? You have a special friend here with you.”

Matthew’s head seemed to disappear into his sweater with how high his shoulders came up. He slumped down into the seat, hiding behind the open laptop screen. The tips of his ears—still visible over his broad shoulders—were strawberry pink.

“No, Nonno!” Lovino rushed to correct. “This is Matthew, my friend. Only my friend. We are just friends.”

Lovino had to pause and take a breath, because he was assuming things again. He and Matthew had barely hung out at all, almost all of it to work on this stupid English project. Could he even consider Matthew a friend? 

When Lovino looked back at Matthew though, he straightened up in his chair and looked relieved. He mouthed “thank you” to Lovino when they made eye contact, as though Matthew was just as embarrassed by Nonno’s assumptions as Lovino was.

“Oh, I’m sorry. It is lovely to meet you Matthew,” Nonno said, giving Matthew a clap on the shoulder.

“Nice to meet you too, sir,” Matthew said, regaining his confidence.

Nonno frowned, not unkindly, and chastised, “None of that in my house. I am just Roma to you. Say, are you two hungry—hey, what are you boys doing?!”

From the depths of the basement at last burst Feliciano, Ludwig, and Kiku. They were tumbling over one another in a frantic rush to get… something out of the fridge, seemingly not realizing that Lovino, Matthew, and Nonno were all in the kitchen with them. They all froze when Nonno yelled, looking over their shoulders with matching sheepish expressions.

“Er, hi, Mr. Vargas,” said Ludwig.

“Nonno!” Feliciano yelled.

Kiku, who was standing very close to Feliciano’s face, jumped a little.

“Don’t start eating now, boys, you’ll spoil supper. Speaking of, why don’t you go grab the groceries out of the trunk, Romano, Feliciano? I can’t wait to catch up with your friends.”

Lovino watched his brother share wide-eyed looks with Ludwig and Kiku before gulping exaggeratedly and stumbling out the door. Of course, Nonno didn’t notice Feliciano’s behavior, too caught up in the conversation he’d struck up with Ludwig, Kiku, and Matthew.

Lovino caught his brother’s shoulder in the garage. Feliciano jumped, which made Lovino jump a little too.

“Feli, it’s just me,” Lovino whispered.

Feliciano turned around slowly. Lovino’s hand was still positioned on his brother’s shoulder.

“Oh hey, sorry,” Feliciano whispered back.

Lovino didn’t know why they were whispering, the door to the house was closed. Feliciano was paranoid, though; he tried to avoid being fucked up around their grandfather at all costs. Even in the dim lighting Lovino could see how bloodshot Feliciano’s eyes were. He was still out of it.

“Dude, you’re fucked up,” Lovino voiced his thoughts, clasping his brother on the shoulder for emphasis.

“Yeah so?” Feliciano hissed, eyes narrowing. “If you tell Nonno, I’ll tell him about your chain smoking.”

It really wasn’t like Feliciano to be so aggressive, especially when he was high like this. Lovino took a half step back, letting his hand fall. He could feel his heart thumping too fast in his chest. Feliciano was glaring at him. Feliciano didn’t glare, especially not at Lovino. In the face of such open hostility, Lovino would usually respond with a few jabs of his own. But this was Feliciano, and Lovino could never be mean to his brother.

“I wouldn't do that, Feli, c'mon,” Lovino said, averting his eyes. He pushed around his brother to the still-open trunk. He could hear Feliciano’s regretful “Fratello…” behind him, but Lovino didn’t listen.

Thankfully, conversation at dinner was taken up by Nonno’s questions. Most of them were directed at Matthew, since Nonno knew both Kiku and Ludwig already. Lovino could tell that Matthew was tired of being the center of attention early on, but he took it like a champ.

“So, Matthew, do you have any pets? Romano used to have the cutest goldfish, but he overfed it, poor thing…”

“No, I don’t.” A pause, and when Nonno didn’t say anything, Matthew continued. “We used to have a dog though. Her name was Delilah.”

“That’s precious, isn’t that precious, Romano?”

Nonno kept sending Lovino significant looks across the table. He would look pointedly at Matthew after every question he answered as if to say look at this nice boy, he’s so polite. He dresses well and had a Pomeranian once. When’s the wedding, Romano?

If they both survived this dinner, Lovino thought, he and Matthew would be bonded for life. Like war veterans or children from the same orphanage or something.

At least the food was good, it always was when their Nonno cooked. The tortellini for tonight’s dinner had already been prepped from scratch that weekend. Lovino had helped his Nonno make the pasta dough and stuff the tortellini when it was done. Tonight, Nonno had cooked the sausage and sauce, sprinkling in fresh spinach at the end. The end result of several days’ labor was well worth it. Despite his stomach’s protest at being full, Lovino took another bite.

“We grow spinach in our garden out back in the summer,” Nonno informed Matthew, with another significant look over his shoulder at Lovino—although what about, Lovino hadn’t a clue. “But I have to buy it in the winter. It’s never as good from the store.”

By the time they’d inhaled their meals, it was almost nine o’clock. The snow was still falling softly outside. Lovino did kind of want to go out and play in it, but it was far too dark and cold now.

“Is that the time?” Nonno said, double taking at his watch. “Let me drive you boys home.”

“Nonno, I can drive just fine—”

“No, please, Mr. Vargas—”

“Sir, don’t—”

“Nonsense!” Nonno said, and even though he was still smiling there was a sternness to his voice that brooked no argument. “There's plenty of room in my car. Someone will need to stay behind, though. Feliciano?”

Feliciano, who was all but asleep sitting up, jolted at the sound of his name.

“Please clean up the kitchen while we’re gone,” Nonno said, addressing Feliciano. “Come on boys, grab your coats.”

Ludwig lived just a few blocks down in their neighborhood. Feliciano and Ludwig had met at the middle school bus stop—for some reason, they’d been on different ones for elementary school and had never crossed paths. (Now that Lovino thought about it, he couldn't remember Ludwig attending their elementary school at all.) At first Feliciano didn’t think that Ludwig liked him, even just as a friend, because Ludwig was so serious. Little by little, in part because Feliciano could wear down even the strongest man with his incessant begging, Ludwig began to spend time with Feliciano. They became friends and then, after Feliciano’s gay freakout freshmen year when he popped a boner while platonically cuddling with Ludwig on the basement couch, they became something more.

Ludwig was by no means Lovino’s favorite person. He would always believe that Feliciano could do better. But, as far as people at their high school went, Lovino supposed that Feliciano could do worse.

Ludwig thanked Nonno incessantly when he got out of their car. The windows of the Beilschmidt household were all dark, as usual, although someone had left the porch light on. Nonno waited until Ludwig had closed his front door behind him before they drove away.

Kiku’s parents lived in a single-family home a few miles away. That didn’t mean that a single family lived there—relatives, friends, and what seemed to be random strangers often inhabited the spare bedrooms in the Honda household. Lovino didn’t even think the Hondas did it for the money, they seemed to have plenty if Kiku’s gaming systems were anything to go by. Whenever Lovino asked Kiku about it, he just shrugged.

“My parents know a lot of people,” he always said.

Even when they dropped him off, the front door opened and Lovino could see at least five heads watching them from behind the screen door.

“We should hang out soon,” Kiku told Matthew, fist-bumping him again. “And Lovino, you too. I just picked up Death Destroyer IV and it’d be awesome to break in with you sometime.”

Lovino didn’t have the heart to say that he didn’t really want to play Death Destroyer IV, whatever that was. Lovino watched Kiku run up the path through the snow, leaving a trail of footprints behind him.

“Alright, Matthew, where to?” Nonno asked, eyeing him in the rearview mirror.

The address Matthew provided turned out to be on the other side of town. Lovino kind of wondered why he even went to their high school, it seemed like it was out of their district. He watched the houses change from small family homes into McMansions as they got closer to Matthew’s place. When they turned down the street Matthew lived on, Lovino’s mouth dropped open.

He couldn’t see much with the snow still falling and it being so dark out, but by the light of the streetlamps he got a good enough idea. High fences with gates blocked off expansive front lawns. Three and four floored houses decorated in stone sat atop hills. In preparation for Christmas, some houses already had big light displays out.

To Lovino, it seemed like Matthew’s house was the biggest. Unlike a lot of the others, his house was dark, and it loomed over the street like a shadow.

“This is it,” Matthew said, almost sheepishly. “Thanks again for driving me, Mr. Vargas.”

Nonno parked next to the gate house, his eyes going very wide as he surveyed the house. Even he seemed stunned.

Lovino respected that his Nonno didn’t let this show in his voice, though, instead saying evenly, “Didn’t I tell you to call me Roma, Matthew? And it’s no trouble, I could hardly let my grandson drive in this weather!” With a big smile plastered on his face, he turned to the backseat and added, “I hope you have a good evening.”

“Thanks Mr. Vargas… Roma. You, too. I’ll see you at school, Lovino?” Matthew said, voice higher than usual.

“Of course, dude,” Lovino said, also spinning around in his seat to look at Matthew. “Catch you later.”

Catch you later? What was Lovino even thinking?

Matthew just offered him a kind smile and opened the car door. Lovino watched, still somewhat baffled, as Matthew entered a passcode into the callbox by the gate. There was a loud beeping sound, and the gate swung open. Matthew stepped inside, only to turn around and wave. He was still waving when the gate closed again, sealing him behind the iron bars. Then, backpack slung over one shoulder and hood down, he walked up the path to his house.

The table was still covered in dirty dishes when they got home. Feliciano was slumped over his own plate, pieces of tortellini caught in his hair.

Had it been Lovino, Nonno probably would have yelled. As it was, Nonno approached Feliciano on his tiptoes, as if he were afraid to wake him. He shook Feliciano’s shoulder gently.

“Wha—Nonno. I’m sorry,” Feliciano said, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“Shush, Feliciano,” Roma said. “Go upstairs and wash up, your brother and I will take care of this.”

The last thing that Lovino wanted to do was do chores that had been meant for his brother. Nonno let Feliciano get away with everything, and it wasn’t fair. Lovino bit back a scream.

Feliciano shuffled past. He offered Lovino a sympathetic smile, but Lovino couldn’t even look at him. He turned away, staring at the ceiling instead.

“Lovino…”

“Shut up,” Lovino said out of the corner of his mouth. At the sink, Nonno turned the water on. The plates, collected from the table, were stacked on one end of the counter, waiting to be washed.

“Come on, Lovino,” Nonno said, soothing Lovino’s temper slightly by referring to Lovino by his preferred nickname. “You can dry.”

Lovino rolled up his sleeves and got to work.