A/N; This is revised...and dwindling. You know how you lurk around for years and then get a sudden inexplicable urge to make an account and write a story? No, this was not one of those moments. The Italies just won't leave me alone. :L
Disclaimer: If I owned them, the fandom would be doomed to creepy pairings.
The ceremony of ascension is well under way. The new pope would be elected in a matter of minutes, and then made to give a speech to the gathering masses outside the Vatican, anxiously awaiting the new head of church. Outside, the world is watching.
Not a nation doesn't know of the pope. This is an important day.
So where the hell is Lovino?
Feliciano sighs, adjusting his rosary carefully. His robes have been immaculately pressed and resemble the vestments the Pope himself would where. It isn't like his brother to blow off something so important. Inwardly, he feels his own frustration rise. Only his brother knows how to make him lose his patience.
He hears the familiar tapping of expensive leather shoes down the hall and turned around, fully intending to demand where his brother had been, but he stops.
The classic Versace suit Lovino wears is dripping with blood, not his own. Feliciano grits his teeth. His brother is getting blood on the floor of a holy place. He says nothing. Lovino shrugs. "The bastardo refused to die." He says by ways of apology.
His northern counterpart dismisses his excuse. "Get changed. Quickly."
In a way Lovino feels he's fortunate. As his brother puts his crucifix around his neck, he wonders at those soft hands. Feliciano is a painter, an artist, and while Romano also paints, he hasn't the interest his brother has about the topic. Farming is his strength, he has an instinct for sensing when fruits and vegetables are ripe and usually can speculate the how the weather will be for the area. It was probably why his hands are rough and his nails are short and usually caked with dirt (or, in this case, blood.)
Feliciano is also a perfectionist. He has known this since he first met the boy, perhaps even before that. He has always been unconsciously aware of what feels like a second existence. His brother is nervous. Lovino can see dark circles under his eyes, a sure sign that he'd lost sleep since the former Pope had taken his place next to God in heaven. He purses his lips but says nothing.
When Feliciano was young, when he lived with Roderich in his palace in Austria, he was always the better twin, the more talented child, the better liked child. Even his own Boss had wanted his brother over him. As far as younger Lovino was concerned, Feliciano had everything and Lovino had nothing. He remembers feeling envious of the younger, cuter, more polite child, (he still does, sometimes) but something changed one fateful evening, while taking a tour of Venice.
His younger self had approached his brother with the intent of giving out to him, when he noticed his little shoulders hunched over and his gaze ill and melancholy. Lovino called him. He turned, his face an alarming shade of white, then tears rose in his eyes and his lip quivered and he threw up.
Lovino realised then that his cheerful demeanour was a front. Feliciano has insecurities, too. He keeps up his front and toils at his work because that is what is expected of him. He throws himself into everything he does, and his true nature isn't something happy and hyper, but tired and almost tormented. Perhaps it was the burdens of an artistic mind.
But Lovino admired his brother as well. He couldn't give himself away fully (who could?), but he trusts easily. His allegiance with Germany and his loyalty to the Pope proved that. Lovino is too proud. He refuses to let himself be taken care and values his independence greatly.
And while, over the years, he'd developed an inferiority complex being compared to his hard-working, perfectionist, pseudo-happy brother all the time, but that evening in Venice, when he held his scared, shaking, ill brother who was sobbing profusely, bawling he couldn't take it anymore and that he felt like a dirty liar all the time, it made him realise that he was selfish when he thought that way.
He also knew that somehow he'd become independent. Feliciano needed him. And God knew that Lovino would let no one upset his beloved brother so much.
Yes, Lovino feels he is fortunate. He knows the Feliciano under the mask.
He is brought back to reality when his brother squeezes his hand. His tired caramel eyes are transfixed on the sky. Lovino looks up.
The white smoke has risen.
A/N: Anyone whose read the next bit (during the few hours it escaped /shot) it's basically the same thing. Keep in mind, I did say eventual.