Hey guys! Emma here with her the first chapter of her first fanfic to be posted on fanfiction! (Man, that was kind of a mouthful, wasn't it?) I am ultra excited now! Although I'm trying not to get my hopes up, because if I do I'll go onto the page with the hits and reviews all excited and there'll be like one hit and I'll be CRUSHED.

You probably just want to know about the story though, right? Like, say, what the end pairings are? WELL TOO BAD. I'm not telling you. It takes the fun out of reading if you know how it's going to turn out, I think.

But there are going to be pairings GALORE in here. The only three that are off limits are Germancest, Itacest, and North American…cest? That's just because they're all related in this fic and I'm not a big fan of the incest. You will, however, be getting a taste of any other pairing that I can squeeze in here. But I do only mean a taste. They're not all ridiculous players in this fanfic, sorry. And I will tell you that I am set in my end pairings (mostly…there's a certain idiot who keeps squeezing his way in when he's not supposed to be there…) so I won't suddenly throw the whole pairings train in a different direction because I changed my mind. So, yeah, no whiplash for you! Oh, and There will be both slash and het so run if you can't handle one of those.

Hopefully you read the summary before clicking on this, because I'm not going to repost it in here. And Author's Notes won't be this long usually, but since it's the first one and I'm so excited…It kind of turned out looong…

DISCLAIMER: You know, I wished upon a star for it to be mine but apparently it didn't work. England had reportedly been suffering from a migraine, however. I also do not own Monty Python, Jolly Ranchers, Sour Patch Kids, Converse, She's the Man, and The Parent Trap.

WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Lovino's mouth, ridiculous anagrams, lying brothers, attempts at humor, and possibly incorrect Italian.

Without any further ado…here's GEMINI!

…

Sundays were Feliciano Vargas's DAYS OF SOLITUDE™.

His grandfather had insisted that he needed some time for himself every week. He still wasn't quite sure why. These DAYS OF SOLITUDE™ had first been enforced around six months ago, just after he had broken (by accident, he swore) the fifth pair of his brother's very expensive headphones. Lovino had started giving him these weird scary looks and muttering crazy things under his breath after that.

Honestly, he didn't get why cooping him up in his room was a logical response here. It was Lovi who seemed to need some alone time… Talking to yourself was never a good sign. Kiku had told him so, after all, and Kiku was like a medical genius or something. Feliciano had tried to help him study once but had ended up getting confused. So he had predictably looked for his white flag in his backpack. But it hadn't been there (he found out later he had left it in his room at home)! So, in response, Feliciano had started blubbering, and Kiku had started to quietly freak out because he didn't know how to deal with crying people and-

Feliciano lost his train of thought as he took another bite of pasta. Pasta was so yummy!

So. Anyway. Sundays were Feliciano's DAYS OF SOLITUDE™. His whole family was rather relieved that he had taken to it so well, as they really didn't want to deal with an enraged Lovino trying to commit fratricide. And Feliciano had taken to the days rather well, despite his initial reluctance. It was the perfect time to paint and make pasta and if he ever got too lonely, he could just call Kiku and talk to him for a while!

To interrupt him on any such day, it had to be pretty freaking important.

"Fratello, ho bisogno di parlare con te!"

What Lovino had to say was pretty freaking important.

His voice startled Feliciano, who had been steadily working through his third bowl of pasta. Startling Feliciano was never a good idea; he was too easily scared. And what made it even worse was the fact that his brother was speaking Italian. The only times that Lovi spoke Italian was when he was pissed beyond belief or when he needed something. And it was usually the former. I mean, come on, this was Lovino we were talking about. Think about it. So, really, it was only natural for Feliciano to conjure his white flag out of nowhere and start blabbering nonsense.

"I surrender! Lovi, I surrender! I'm sorry I used the tomatoes you grew for your second grade teacher in my pasta sauce when we were seven! I surrender!"

"What? No, I…" Lovino's confused expression quickly twisted into his usual venomous scowl, much to his brother's horror. "Wait, that was you? I knew it! Those tomatoes took a fucking long time to grow, damn it!"

"Ve~, I'm sorry! Don't kill me, Lovi!"

"You better be fucking sorry, you fucking-" Lovino cut himself off, raking a frustrated hand through his hair. Feliciano peeked out from behind his white flag, cautiously, but quickly hid again when he saw that Lovi was still frowning. "Whatever, I'll yell at you later. You're getting me off track."

Feliciano peeked out again, this time in curiosity. Once Lovino got on a roll, he usually wouldn't stop until you were a puddle of remorseful goo on the floor. Yet, here he was, pulling himself up short. It was almost unheard of. "W-What is it, fratello?"

"I…Damn it, I need to ask a favor."

Huh. It was just getting odder and odder by the minute. Lovi never asked him for favors! Usually he just ordered him to do something, no asking involved. Feliciano set his white flag down on the table, giving his brother his full attention. Whatever he needed, he didn't think it would be dangerous exactly. Then again, he had always suspected that his brother was a part of the mob or something, so he kept his hand close to the handle. You could never be too careful when there was a chance of the entire Italian mafia to descend upon your kitchen. He put a cheerful smile on his face. "Of course. Anything for Lovi!"

Lovino averted his eyes, taking a deep breath. His fists clenched in a way that looked painful and Feliciano could hear the way his teeth were grinding furiously. Finally, he looked back at his bemused brother and spoke. "I want you to switch places with me."

Feliciano blinked. Blinked again. Once more for good measure.

"Ve~?"

IN WHICH OUR STORY IS SET UP AND OUR MAIN PROTAGONISTS ARE INTRODUCED

(AKA: THE EXPOSITION, DUH!)

"Y-You heard me!"

Lovino's face was very slowly starting to turn red; a sure sign that Feliciano should say something really soon or lose his pretty little head. Unfortunately, his brother's last statement had managed to knock all the words out of him (which was an amazing accomplishment really).

The idea itself wasn't actually as farfetched as it first sounded. Lovino was his twin brother after all, technically older by only three minutes (not that anyone besides Lovino himself cared about that). They looked about as alike as any two fraternal twins could; people mixed them up ridiculously often. Lovino was about a centimeter or two taller, had a shade darker hair, and his eyes had a bit more yellow in them, but other than that they looked exactly the same. They even had the same hair curl, the one that wouldn't stay down no matter how much hair gel Lovi slopped on his head to contain it, although it was on different sides of their heads.

It was their personalities where the differences between them started to show. Feliciano was bright and happy and hyper while Lovino was sullen and angry and swore much too often. Feliciano was the sun, shining and bright in the sky, and Lovino was a storm cloud hanging over your head. Feliciano was a cuddly little bunny in a kindergarten class. Lovino was the carnivorous rabbit from Monty Python. Feliciano was yellow, Lovino was navy blue, Feliciano was a Jolly Rancher, and Lovino was a Sour Patch Kid.

Or, you know, something like that.

To sum up, their personalities were complete opposites. But they were both talented actors if they put their minds to it, so that wouldn't really be problematic either, if they had to switch personas. It was why Lovino was asking this that Feliciano was most preoccupied with at the moment.

He couldn't think of anything that had happened recently to upset Lovino, you know, besides the fact that Lovino was almost always upset anyway. His sixth pair of headphones was perfectly intact as far as Feliciano knew and his grandfather had just gotten him a whole crate full of tomatoes to eat. So, yeah, Feliciano was drawing a blank.

What to do?

"But, but, Lovi, why do you want me to switch place with you?" Feliciano asked, just in time. Lovino's fingers had begun to twitch in the direction of his neck.

His brother, startled out of his murderous thoughts, began to fidget uncomfortably, adjusting the fedora on his head to tilt down over his eyes. Hats were his newest strategy to contain the hair curl, but so far, it wasn't working. It just stubbornly wormed its way out the side. Fucking stupid thing.

He glared daggers at his feet, searching for words. Feliciano, wondering what was so interesting about his shoes, leaned forward and peered down at them for a look. Nothing jumped out at him as very exciting. Just regular Converse sneakers, of which Lovino had about five or more pairs of. Maybe these were his favorites? Hm…

Oh, Lovi was talking?

"W-Well, school starts in like a week, you know," Lovino forced out, suppressing the urge to swear. "And you know how Grandpa is sending us to different schools like the fucking idiot he is?"

He'd managed to last a sentence at least.

"Don't talk about Nonno like that," Feliciano said automatically, but he had to agree with his brother on this front. He still didn't quite understand why nonno had felt it necessary to send them to two different schools. His grandfather had recently decided that they weren't getting the right treatment at their current learning facility (something that they agreed with him on; their current high school was comparable to hell) and had declared that he was going to send them somewhere else. And that would have been the end of the story, if he hadn't read some newspaper article with findings on how proximity to one's twin affected your ability to make other friends. Lovino had called it 'utter bullshit'. But no amount of crying or swearing could make Roma Vargas change his mind after it had been made up, and he had already decided to send them to different schools.

Their grandfather was their legal guardian, their mother having died in childbirth and their father four years later. Despite his initial grief, he had been truly delighted to have two adorable little boys to raise. Feliciano (and Lovino, although he would never admit it) loved him more than anything besides his brother. And he was eternally grateful to him for taking them in. Apparently their maternal grandparents were just, to quote Roma himself, 'a pair of stuffy old geezers', which didn't make Feliciano want to live with them at all. However, for all his good points, his nonno was rather overprotective of the both of them. Which, as in this case, wasn't always a good thing to be.

Anyway, Feliciano had managed to convince him to at least send them to neighboring schools. So, in just a week, Lovi would be sent to Higher Edgartown's Teenage Alternate Learning Institutional Acadamy (called Hetalia for short), and Feliciano would be at nearby school Marukaite School of Higher Learning. Which really, wasn't a very good idea. After all, Kiku went to Hetalia, where Feliciano was most definitely not going.

Wait.

"I'll talk about him however I want," Lovino snarled, causing his brother to immediately shrink back in his chair. It wasn't a conscious motion; Feliciano was still lost in his thoughts. But years of living with Lovino had taught him well. Defensive maneuvers came to him naturally. "He knew very well that I wanted to go to Marukaite, but he had to go and enroll me in Hetalia instead! 'They'll help you with your anger problems' he says. I don't have any fucking anger problems! It's not my fault the world is just so damn infuriating!"

Feliciano, sensing he was about to go off on a tangent, jumped in hastily. "But what does this have to do with switching places?"

He thought he knew by now, but he just wanted to make sure his reasoning was right.

Lovino's mouth snapped shut, and he turned to stare at the other. "I thought it was fucking obvious. I want to go to Marukaite. And, although, you don't ever do any fucking research so won't know this, Hetalia has a pretty badass art program, not to mention your buddy, Kiku, already goes there. Obviously we'd be better off at each other's schools!"

Feliciano thought about this for a moment. So he had been right. And his brother's logic certainly made sense to him. There was only one problem here. He glanced up, brown eyes concerned. "Do they serve pasta there?"

"Every day."

He made his decision. "Alright, ve~! Let's switch places, Lovi!"

…

Switching places, Feliciano concluded, was a lot less of a hassle than he thought it would be. Probably watching movies such as The Parent Trapand She's the Man too often, he had managed to get it into his head that switching places involved a lot of training and complications and over all mass confusion. But, in reality, they only had to get used to being called by the other's name. After all, no one at either of these schools knew them, so there was no need to adopt the other's personalities. They got similar grades, so there was no need to skew anything with that. And Lovino swore to not get in enough trouble to warrant a visit from their grandfather, and any trouble he did get in would probably just be attributed to Feliciano's obliviousness. Their grandfather wasn't even riding with them to school, so there was no need to trick him there either.

It really wasn't as exciting as Feliciano had expected it to be. He slid down in his chair, pout fixed on his face, pasta having been long finished by now. "This is kind of boring, Lovi."

"That's a good thing," Lovino bit into his tomato that he had just grabbed from the kitchen. He wiped away the juice dribbling down his chin and sighed in contentment. "That way, there's less room for error. And if anything comes up, we'll tackle it then."

"And I can't tell anyone except Kiku about it either, right?"

"Right. Since he already goes to Hetalia, you have to tell him or this won't work. But that shit's easy-fucking-peasy."

"You really shouldn't swear so much, Lovi."

"I fucking swear as much as I fucking want. Now go continue with your solitude day and shit and leave me and my tomato alone. Our plan takes action in a week. Make sure you're all ready."

"Ve~! Lovi sounded like a secret agent there!"

"Shut the fuck up! Go away!"

Slightly terrified of the expression working its way onto his brother's face, Feliciano decided to follow his orders. He clutched his white flag close to his chest as he fled up the stair to his room, keeping an eye behind him for a rampaging Lovi. Thankfully, none came. Tomatoes always had a strange calming effect on him.

He made it to the sanctuary of his room without difficulty, shutting the door firmly behind him. There was a strange giddy feeling dancing the tango in his stomach. He hoped it would go away soon. It wasn't very comfortable for him to have tango dancers in his belly.

Plopping down on his bed, he dialed a long-ago memorized number into his phone. It rung only once before Kiku picked it up. His friend was very polite that way. Feliciano figured that it was just an inborn Asian trait to pick up the phone super quick (not that he really knew any other Asians besides Kiku, but whatever). After all, he never picked up the phone on the first ring, so it must be an Asian thing. He attributed most of their differences to their cultural backgrounds, actually. Or perhaps it was just a Kiku thing. Whatever works.

"Hello, Kiku speaking."

He always answered the phone like that too. Feliciano had never understood why; who else would be picking up Kiku's cell phone? Oh well. He rolled onto his stomach, balancing on his elbows and kicking his feet in the air like a teenage girl. "Kiku, Kiku, guess what, guess what?"

There was a paused where he swore he could hear the gears in Kiku's head churning. Feliciano hummed under his breath as he waited for him to finish thinking. It could take awhile sometimes; Kiku was a firm believer in giving only the most well-thought-out of answers for every question he was asked. "…Feliciano? Is that you?"

His humming cut off, a pout pushing its way onto his face. "Of course it's Feliciano. Who else would it be?"

"Well-"

Feliciano interrupted him, too excited to wait for Kiku's response. "Anyway, anyway, guess what?"

There was another pause from Kiku's end. "Did you cook a new type of pasta?"

"Yes! But that's not it!"

"Well then, did your brother have a civil conversation with you today?"

"Sort of. That's not it either!"

"Um. Did you get sneakers?"

Feliciano was the one to pause this time, looking sadly back at his slip-on shoes. He had trouble with laces. The last time he had attempted to tie his shoe they had somehow ended up wound around his neck. His grandfather had freaked out upon seeing his situation, convinced that he was trying to kill himself or some other crazy thing like that. Needless to say, Feliciano was not allowed to wear laced shoes following that occasion. "Nooo…No, I didn't"

"I see," Kiku said quietly, sounding a bit remorseful for bringing it up. "I afraid that I'm out of ideas. I apologize. Would you just tell me what it is?"

Feliciano perked up instantaneously, all sneaker related problems forgotten. "I'm going to Hetalia!"

There was silence. This one seemed to be from bemusement rather than a conscious effort to measure his answers. Feliciano waited once again. "…But I thought that Lovino was the one coming here, wasn't it?"

"Yep!" Feliciano chirped. "But now he's not!

"May I ask why?"

"Of course!" he nodded vigorously as he responded, choosing to ignore the fact that there was no way Kiku could see him doing so. He left it at that; his friend was always very literal about his questions.

"Why?"

"You see, Lovino told me that he wanted to go the Markaitawhatsit and that I would want to go to Hetalia if I ever did research, so we decided to switch places!"

There was another beat of quiet from Kiku. He was pausing a lot more than usual in this conversation. And that was saying something, because he paused a lot even as it was. "Lovino wants to go to Marukaite?"

There was a note of incredulity in his friend's voice that made Feliciano frown in concern. Kiku was usually so controlled, usually allowing only positive emotions to be apparent in his speech. He didn't understand why his brother's choice in schools brought out the emotion in it. Maybe it was just lingering shock from being told about the switch? He nodded to himself firmly; yeah, that was it. Nothing else really made sense after all.

"Yeah! Why, is that weird?

"It's just that…" Kiku's voice trailed off. "Nothing. I was just a bit taken aback. What do you mean you're switching places?"

Hah! So he had been right! He began to ramble on, smile back in its rightful position. "Yeah. Lovi was the one who suggested it! Lovi's so smart, isn't he? Much smarter than me anyway. We worked it all out in only an hour too! Switching places in real life it so much easier than they say it is in the movies. But! You're going to have to call me 'Lovino' when we're at school so people don't get confused and stuff. You can call me Lovi though! Lovino doesn't like it when people do, but I think that it's cute! Oh, and…"

So accustomed was the babbling Italian to his friend's silences, he somehow didn't notice how troubled this one was.

…

Lovino (not Lovi, damn it, stop referring to him as such!) was lying to his brother.

Well, not lying exactly. But he was most definitely withholding information from his brother, and that was basically lying. After all, Lovino didn't particularly want to go the Marukaite School of 'Higher' Learning. He didn't really care what school he went to, to be perfectly honest. No, what he really wanted was for Feliciano, his precious, stupid, naïve, little brother, to not go there.

There. He said it. He didn't want Feli to go there. And he has reasons for it too, which he'll get to in a moment.

First though, he had to say a few words about his grandfather. You see, Roma Vargas, despite having only the best of intentions for his darling grandchildren, was at heart a very lazy man. And, being a lazy man, he hated doing research more than anything in the world. After he had first decided that their current academic facility was not the best place for them, he had done extensive research, wanting to send his grandsons to only the best of the best. He had eventually chosen Higher Edgartown's Teenage Alternate Learning Institutional Academy, a more than perfectly acceptable school for both of them. In fact, it was almost a perfect fit. It focused towards the arts, while still holding a high rank in academics and housing a prestigious soccer team. It was a match made in heaven and everything had been great; until his grandfather had read that article. That idiotic article that had coerced him into immersing himself in research again, trying to find another wonderful school for his precious Feliciano. And he had found it. But there was one problem, and that was that it was in a whole other state than Hetalia. He had to have expected the tantrum that Feliciano had thrown and the storm of curses that had crawled out of Lovino's mouth. So he had had to go back to find another school. And, by that time, his inherent laziness and hate of research had kicked in. So, he had found the closest school with the phrase 'Higher Learning' in its name and enrolled Feliciano there, without even consulting either of them.

And that was how his brother had wound up going to Marukaite, the most rundown, delinquent-filled, shoddy school on the East Coast (and that was only a bit of an exaggeration). And that was when Lovino had decided that there was no way he would allow him to attend.

He had tried being reasonable about it at first. He had talked to his grandfather, begging for him to pick a different school, but it was a no go. It was already too late to back out of it; the payment had been sent in and everything. And then he had tried…Well, actually, that was all he had tried. He couldn't think of anything else to try. He would have attempted hacking, but he didn't know how to do that and he didn't know anyone who did, not to mention the fact that Roma would have flayed him if he found out. So, that had left no other course of action but to embark on the craziest plan he had ever thought up.

And Lovino had thought up some pretty crazy plans. But that's not the point here.

He left it to the last minute before broaching the subject with Feliciano, just to make sure that his bird-brained brother didn't get it into his head to do some research on it. Kiku wasn't an issue; he trusted that he would choose to leave it be and not fill in his brother on the reality of the situation. Unfortunately He couldn't say the same for the other students at Hetalia. But, by then, it would be too late for Feli to back out. As for his grandfather, he doubted that he would even be mad if he ever managed to figure it out. Feliciano had always been his favorite after all. He would probably commend Lovino on a job well done, protecting his younger brother like a good boy should. There was really absolutely no way to go wrong with this.

But the monsters in his stomach were slowly chewing their way through all of his internal organs. So, he took that statement back. There was no way for him to go wrong, unless the weird guilt he was feeling devoured him from the inside out before this thing even began.

It was a possibility that seemed to get likelier with every passing hour.

…

The following week passed at different speeds for the Vargas brothers. For Feliciano, the week seemed to fly by, as he had chosen to put thoughts of the switch away in favor of cooking and painting and other such trivial pursuits. For Lovino, on the other hand, it felt like the day would never come. Every second was a minute, every minute was an hour, every hour was a day. No more than he deserved for lying to the ones dearest to him. It was justice for every false word that left his mouth, he supposed.

"Are you sure you don't want nonno to come with you?" Their grandfather asked as he dropped them off at the train station, concern evident in his expression.

"We're sure, Grandpa!" Lovino said hastily, standing on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. Unexpectedly, Roma pulled Lovino into a tight embrace, which he reluctantly returned, posture stiff and uncomfortable. "Addio, nonno. Ti amo."

"Ti amo, bambino," His grandfather whispered into his ear, kissing Lovino once more on the top of his head. He released his grandson after a few more moments (Lovino hastily backed away), turning to shoot a teary eyed Feliciano a warm grin. "Come here and give you nonno a good-bye kiss, Feli!"

Feliciano practically launched himself at Roma, clinging to him in a desperate hug. His grandfather chuckled pulling the wailing boy closer to his chest. "Mi mancherai, nonno! Ti amo!"

"Ti amo, mio ragazzo dolce," their grandfather chuckled, ruffling Feliciano's hair lovingly. Lovino looked away pointedly, swallowing down the tight feeling in his throat and pointedly ignoring his burning eyes. It didn't matter. This didn't matter. "Mi mancherai."

"The train's going to leave," Lovino said shortly.

Feliciano disentangled himself from Roma after one last kiss to his cheek. He grabbed his bag, hastily moving to walk behind his brother as they headed to the train. He schooled his gaze forward, fixing his eyes on his brother's bobbing curl, because he knew that he would fall apart if he looked back now. He wiped his eyes furiously on his sleeve, removing evidence of the few tears that has escaped from him.

"Ciao, Feli! Ciao, Lovi!" Roma called from behind them.

As they reached the door to the train, Lovino turned back to him. His eyes seemed darker all of a sudden, the usual gold turned molten in the heat of his gaze. Feliciano gulped noisily. "Are you ready, fratello? Are you ready to become Lovino Romano Vargas?"

Feliciano could still hear the calls of his grandfather echoing behind him, and the boiling pits of his brother's eyes were scalding into him almost painfully. His hands clenched.

Maybe it really was just as complicated as it was in the movies.

"…Sì."

END CHAPTER 1

…

I'm almost halfway done with chapter two, too! Yipee for not procrastinating! There will probably be weekly updates on this fic (forgot to put that up top), at least until school gets rolling again. Then, it will probably turn into an update every two to three weeks. I promise not to leave you hanging for more than a month though. Forcing out word count will be good for me.

Except, I'll probably post like nothing in November if I'm going to do National Novel Writing Month again…

…

I'll get back to you on that.

Please, please, please, pretty please with a tomato on top, review! Reviews make me feel loved and they make the monsters in Lovi's belly go away. So review!

Oh! And feel free to correct me on my Italian. I'm relying on Google Translate for all of this (By the way, there won't be this much foreign language in later chapters. Only when it's necessary will I put it in, and I felt it was necessary here. Again, feel free to correct me at any time)

Italian

Fratello, ho bisogno di parlare con te- Brother, I need to talk to you

Nonno- Grandpa

Addio, nonno. Ti amo- Farewell, Grandpa. I love you.

Ti amo, bambino- I love you, baby.

Mi mancherai, nonno! Ti amo!- I'll miss you, Grandpa! I love you!

Ti amo, mio ragazzo dolce- I love you, my sweet boy.

Ciao- Bye

Sì- Yes

That's it! See ya next chapter! Review!