Footsteps
Every day, Feliciano asked the same question.
'Can I paint you today?'
And every day, Ludwig gave the same answer.
'Not today.'
It had become more of a teasing game than an actual request, and Ludwig suspected that Feliciano only asked him to see him turn up his eyes in exasperation and shake his head. But even so, Ludwig always responded, if only because it made Feliciano happy.
Hell, maybe one of these days he'd actually say 'yes'.
Maybe not.
Feliciano knew exactly what he was always going to say, and would look up from the chair where he sat before the canvas, sending Ludwig a cool, coy look, smiling airily, and only say, 'That's a shame!'
Ludwig only snorted.
In the absence of a modeling Ludwig, Feliciano would simply bring up his brush, and paint whatever came to mind. There was never any lack of creativity, it seemed, and, even after two years, Ludwig was sometimes still flabbergasted at Feliciano's hand.
The brush glided without effort over the canvas.
Feliciano could create whatever he felt like. Drift away wherever he wanted. Spain, Africa, China, Moscow, back in time, wherever he wanted. It was a little daunting to consider how Feliciano's hand would cast him, if he ever got his way, whether or not Feliciano would be able to spot some flaw or weakness as his eagle eyes flitted up above the canvas.
Vanity and self-consciousness were the driving factors in his continual refusal.
Lovino had teased that if Feliciano really wanted to paint Ludwig, all he had to do was get him drunk under the table and then speed-paint before he passed out because 'that's the only way you're gonna see the real son of a bitch anyway'.
Well, maybe that was true.
He'd heard a few stories about himself from the brothers about when he was intoxicated.
Not that he necessarily believed all of them.
He was pretty sure (even though he couldn't remember) that he hadn't burst into tears just because he hadn't been able to locate the chain-lock on the door to let Feliciano inside when the happy-footed artist had returned at midnight from the city.
Yeah...
That was probably an exaggeration.
Oh God, he hoped it was an exaggeration.
Anyway, it didn't really matter so much.
The important things were the things you could remember, and Ludwig was fairly certain that he would never forget the look of concentration upon Feliciano's face whenever he painted.
Absorbed completely in his creation.
A look that was easy to become fond of. A look that could be quite easily missed.
But never forgotten.
It had been a hot, muggy night in late June when the whole damn thing had started.
Too miserable and sticky and flushed to be comfortable enough to even sit in close proximity to each other, let alone drink, Lovino and Ludwig had sat as far apart on the couch as possible, surfing through static channels and bitching at each other as Feliciano, chiding them and trying to play both sides, created a new masterpiece across the room.
Shirt unbuttoned and fanning himself with a weary hand, Ludwig had finally tossed the remote into Lovino's lap in defeat, too hot to think and far too irritable to care about what drivel was on the television.
After a few minutes, Lovino concurred.
Only Feliciano seemed unfazed, a faint sheen of sweat on his brow as he had continued to paint away, lost in his own little world.
An hour or so ticked by before Lovino had grumbled a farewell and trudged up the stairs, peeling his shirt up from his damp skin and griping, and Ludwig hadn't lasted much longer.
Pulling himself to his feet, he drew his arms up over his head to stretch and had merely said, 'I'm goin' to sleep.'
Feliciano had looked up, and smiled.
'See you in the morning,' came the response, and with that, Feliciano had carried on with his painting.
The night had passed slowly in a humid, sweaty lurch.
When morning broke cool, Ludwig was relieved.
With a sigh, he pulled himself out of bed, stepping out into the hall, and when he passed into the kitchen, he froze still in a moment of complete astonishment.
Feliciano sat there, coffee in hand and humming to himself as he tinkered with the little radio on the table.
Ludwig came forward in a sleepy daze, and when Feliciano looked up at him and smiled a bit wearily, he asked in disbelief, "You're up before me, huh?"
"I'm still up!" Feliciano corrected, and despite looking a bit pale, the lack of sleep had not dampened his mood. "I was on a roll last night! I got two new ones done. I was so into it I didn't even get sleepy."
Sitting down with his own mug, Ludwig observed, "It'll catch up to you around noon. Just wait."
Feliciano merely waved a nonchalant hand in the air and said, quite primly, "I usually go back to sleep at noon, anyway."
Ludwig chortled, and, as he and Feliciano prattled over breakfast, the morning went on smoothly.
Ludwig was almost proud, in some way, that Feliciano had been up and about before him.
He'd never thought he'd see the day.
Lovino came crawling downstairs sometime later, and when he saw Feliciano sitting there, wide awake and obviously having been that way for quite some time, the look on his face had been so stunned that Ludwig had promptly spit coffee onto the table in a very undignified manner.
Feliciano's howling laughter was only intensified when Lovino slapped him across the back of the head.
A normal occurrence on another normal day.
It was a little out of the ordinary not to have Feliciano turning to look at each of them in turn as he recalled in very vivid detail every dream he'd had the night before, but Ludwig and Lovino were surely in agreement that it was a little nice to have one morning without it.
Just a little.
Lovino went out to work, Feliciano wandered into the living room, and Ludwig cleaned up the plates and cups from the table and set to washing them.
When he looked up again, the clock was at noon.
The house was quiet.
Feliciano had probably passed out on the couch in the warm weather.
And so it surprised him, when he rubbed his hands dry on a cloth and stepped out, that Feliciano was up on a chair, rearranging paintings on the wall.
Ludwig, smiling, teased, "I thought you'd've gone to sleep by now."
Feliciano looked over his shoulder, and gave a short laugh. "Well, I'm not really tired, and I've been meaning to do this for a while."
He hopped down, after making sure that one was just how he wanted it, and placed his hands on his hips.
"Do you wanna go to the beach?"
"Sure."
As they grabbed up towels and roamed shirtless through the Venice streets, choked with tourists, Ludwig realized that he liked it when Feliciano didn't sleep so damn much. More opportunities to go out and take in sights, instead of just sitting at home.
At the beach, Feliciano didn't swim, throwing down his towel and collapsing on the sand, closing his eyes as he basked in the sun. Ludwig left him to sleep there, in favor of the water, and when the sun was lower and his shoulders were red and burnt from the sun, he came back to the shore to see Feliciano laying in the same spot.
Nudging the lightly dozing Italian's side with his toes, Ludwig watched as Feliciano opened weary eyes and looked blearily up at him, and Ludwig did not miss the quick passing of irritation across his face.
"Sorry," he was quick to put out, "Come on. You can sleep at home."
Feliciano pulled himself to his feet, tossed his towel over his shoulder, and trudged along silently.
Ludwig revised his opinion that he liked Feliciano awake more often. It wasn't quite the same when he was tired and a bit cranky.
When they crossed into the house and out of the sun, Feliciano turned to look at him and said, "I'm goin' to sleep. Don't let Lovino make dinner. He uses way too many onions."
Ludwig smiled, and only said, "Sure," as he shooed Feliciano off.
Tomorrow, after a long sleep, everything would be back to normal.
So, he and Lovino had spent the rest of the night by themselves, arguing quietly in the kitchen as they fought for possession of the stove, and when they sat down later on the couch to argue over possession of the television, Ludwig thought he heard, over Lovino's loud mouth, the creaking of floorboards from down the hall.
Footsteps.
He brushed it off as Feliciano getting up for a glass of water or to go to the bathroom, and when he turned his attention back to Lovino, he was so absorbed in his friendly argument that he didn't really notice that Feliciano never actually came out of his room.
The next morning, when he woke up at the break of dawn, another shock.
Feliciano was sitting in the kitchen, up again before him.
No coffee this time. Feliciano was drinking wine.
Laughing a bit throatily, Ludwig came in, and said, "Is this gonna turn into a habit?"
Feliciano snorted, and rubbed at his eyes as he sent Ludwig a pale smile.
"Well," came the scratchy response, "Maybe you're startin' to rub off on me."
When Ludwig sat down and saw him, really saw him, the laughter died down a little.
Just a little.
Pale and looking exhausted and a bit dazed, the dark circles under his eyes visible even from a distance, it was quite obvious that Feliciano hadn't slept the night before, either, despite retreating into his bedroom long before the sun had set.
Ludwig recalled the sound of footsteps.
"Can't sleep?" he asked, a bit more casually than he meant to, and Feliciano shrugged a shoulder.
"Not really." He took a swig of his wine, and tilted his head, eyes a bit distant in weariness. "I've been planning this big new project—a mural for that big church down the street—and I've just been thinking so much about it lately. I'm kinda worried about how it's gonna turn out. I guess I'm thinkin' too much about it. I just can't seem to get to sleep."
Ludwig observed the bottle of wine, and raised a brow.
"Well, just keep drinkin' that. It'll knock you out."
Feliciano sent him a humorless, rather dry smile.
"That's the idea."
Ludwig snorted, and, even though Feliciano looked pretty bad, he wasn't worried.
Sometimes people just couldn't sleep.
He'd had insomnia before, when school had been more stressful than usual. And if Feliciano was really as worried and nervous about his project as he declared, then it wasn't really surprising that he couldn't sleep well.
It would run its course in a few days.
The time passed almost as normally as it always did, if only a bit more quietly for Feliciano's weariness.
The third morning, he was up again, this time in the living room, stifling yawns and sitting before a canvas, sketching with a pencil and a bit slumped.
Small talk.
Ludwig teased him a little, for looking like a zombie.
Lovino was quick to point out that Feliciano would be able to sleep a little better if Ludwig didn't snore.
Life as normal.
The fourth morning, Feliciano was up again.
He looked a bit worse every day.
Sleep wouldn't seem to come for him, and when it did, it wasn't for long.
But Feliciano, brimming with ideas and creativity and always thinking, wasn't really concerned about it. And neither was Ludwig; after all, an active brain sometimes meant little sleep.
An artist's curse.
It would pass before long.
For now, even though he was a bit weary and a little irritable, Feliciano still smiled, and carried on with daily life without great event.
He still sat up with Ludwig and Lovino on the couch at night and chatted away, even if his voice was a little scratchy and sometimes he mixed up words and clipped off a few consonants.
Sleep would come soon, and if not, no big deal.
A trip to the doctor would fix that with pills.
Ludwig was thoroughly unconcerned, and still smiled as they sat at the table in the evenings and challenged each other in drinking games. Feliciano drank as much as he always had, and Lovino didn't really seemed fazed by his brother's under-eye circles, focusing his attention on out-drinking Ludwig.
It didn't really occur to either of them, as they sniped non-aggressively and put back glass after glass, shoving each other gently as intoxication took hold, that no matter how much Feliciano drank, he never seemed to get drowsy.
And when Ludwig and Lovino were lying in a heap on the couch, still snitting as they drifted into unconsciousness, Feliciano sat cross-legged on the floor, holding a bottle of wine in his hand and staring off into the television with fixed eyes.
He didn't move.
When dawn broke and Ludwig woke up, untangling his legs from Lovino's as the nausea of hangover came gushing up, he saw (as he rushed to the bathroom) that Feliciano was standing off in the threshold of the kitchen, pacing back and forth and murmuring to himself and absolutely wide-awake.
Two empty wine bottles were on the carpet.
His nonchalant attitude became a bit more concerned, and he suggested, for the first time, that Feliciano go see a doctor.
Feliciano waved him off, looking like he'd crawled through hell, and only said, crossly, "It'll go away on its own."
Ludwig only 'hm'd, and let him be, as he stared vacantly into his canvas and tapped his foot.
Two weeks came and went.
Ludwig woke up one day, and realized that it had been many days since Feliciano had asked to paint him.
Two weeks without Feliciano relaying his dreams to them over coffee.
Because it had been two weeks since Feliciano had had any.
One afternoon, as Feliciano held the palette in his hand and painted away, Lovino came wandering into the kitchen where Ludwig sat, and sent him a strange look. Ludwig lifted his chin, set down the paper, and asked, "What?"
Lovino hesitated for a second, shifting uneasily, and then said, very lowly and quietly, more of a whisper, "Go look at what he's painting."
Ludwig, curious, stood up, and passed quite casually through the foyer, pretending to retrieve something as he walked behind Feliciano.
His stealth was unnecessary.
Feliciano didn't really even seem to hear him.
And when he saw the canvas, he couldn't help but tilt his head and furrow his brow.
Feliciano's style had always been bright and vivid, a stickler for tiny details and grand buildings and a love for flare, using cheerful colors and capturing victorious, proud moments in time as though he were looking right at them.
So to see this canvas, slathered in grey and black and red and looking a bit sinister, was a little unnerving.
Looking over to see Lovino standing in the kitchen frame, arms crossed above his chest, Ludwig cleared his throat and asked, amicably, "What are ya painting?"
Feliciano straightened up, and, without looking back, merely said, "Nero's Rome on fire."
"Oh."
Feliciano's brush carried on in strange, lurching motions, creating flames and smoke, and he said, voice distant and far-off, "You know, they say Nero played the lyre when Rome was burning. That's not true. But everyone thinks that he started it and left, coming back later to play hero. Of course, he built a new palace in a clearing created by the fire. Grandpa was a historian, did I tell you?"
Lovino shifted again, looking a little irritated at the mention of their grandfather.
Ludwig, trying to make light of the morbid painting, said, as Feliciano set a fleeing Roman's robe on fire and struck another one down, "Well, I guess you learn something new every day."
Feliciano stayed silent.
Ludwig and Lovino shared a look, and finally retreated, leaving Feliciano to his work.
Lovino muttered, "I hope that's not what he's gonna paint inside the church."
Ludwig only shook his head.
Some days passed.
The paintings became strange.
Mottled. Unclear. Unfocused.
Dark.
Feliciano didn't really talk so much now, and usually just stared off into space, breathing shallowly and always, always, his foot was tapping. He was clumsier now than ever before, and frequently dropped plates and glasses when he held them and sometimes tripping over his own feet.
The concern grew.
Ludwig, feeling a bit uncomfortable and finally starting to really worry, finally sat down next to Feliciano on the couch one day, and said, in an effort to bring some kind of vibrancy back to his exhausted friend, "Hey, if you still want to paint me...here I am."
Feliciano, one large hand gripping a fistful of his hair, looked over blearily, and tried to smile.
His foot tapped the floor.
"You mean it?"
Ludwig nodded.
And he would regret it.
A few minutes of shuffling later, as Feliciano retrieved his supplies and as Ludwig sat on the couch in mortification and awaited what was surely to be a very humiliating experience, and then the canvas was set up, and Feliciano was almost smiling.
A brightness in his face that had been lacking.
That was worth the embarrassment.
Ludwig waited, wringing his hands in his lap nervously and feeling vulnerable.
Nothing seemed to happen.
A second of anxious shifting.
He waited.
But Feliciano just sat there, brush in hand, and the look on his face was strange as he glanced up in frequent intervals from behind the canvas, squinting as though struggling to focus and shifting back and forth.
Shaking his head as though to clear it, Feliciano finally brought up the brush, and set to work.
"Sit still," he said, and Ludwig obeyed.
A few minutes later, the brush fell still again, and Feliciano's brow was furrowed as he glanced up at Ludwig, looking a bit frustrated, as though having some difficulties.
Ludwig didn't move.
Moments of the brush across the canvas, and then another pause.
The look of concentration that Ludwig was used to seeing was not there.
Just frustration, and a little helplessness.
Feliciano shook his head again, muttering to himself under his breath, and tried to carry on.
It didn't last for long.
Finally, Ludwig asked, tentatively, "What's wrong?"
No answer.
Feliciano's face fell.
So did the brush.
And then, burying his face in his hands as the brush rolled across the floor, he burst into tears.
For a second, Ludwig sat still.
The feeling of helplessness was horrible.
He didn't know what to do.
It was then, seeing Feliciano stifling sobs of frustration within his hands, that Ludwig had decided, with Lovino's backup, that Feliciano was going to the doctor, whether he liked it or not.
But, like so much else in life, that hadn't really turned out quite like he had expected.
He remembered more clearly than he would have liked standing there in the hospital another two weeks later, Lovino at his side, after the sleeping pills the town doctor had prescribed had had absolutely no effect, and Feliciano laying down in the bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to play off their worry with calm words as they waited for results.
He remembered, too, his weak laughter dying down and Lovino's smile fading when the doctor came back in, shuffling his feet and brow stern behind his glasses.
He remembered the feeling of lead sliding down into his stomach.
He remembered the way Lovino's smile had come back up; an attempt at appearing unfazed.
He remembered the way the doctor's eyes had avoided meeting Feliciano's dull, exhausted gaze.
And he would always remember the first time he had heard that name uttered.
He remembered the doctor standing there for a moment, hands straightening down his coat and clearing his throat, and then finally saying, in a low voice, "Well, we've finished the tests."
A long pause.
The doctor turned to Feliciano, and, maybe delaying the inevitable, asked, "Has this happened to anyone in your family before? Not being able to sleep?"
Feliciano hesitated, gathering his muddled thoughts, and began, slowly, "Before my grandpa died, he didn't really sleep much."
"I see," the doctor said. "How long did that go on?"
Feliciano answered, "I don't know. I only knew about it a few months before he died."
"Grandpa wasn't sick," Lovino piped up from the corner, agitated and looking a little hostile. "He died because he was old. He didn't get sick."
Feliciano opened his mouth, and fell silent.
More silence.
And then, finally, the doctor's hands fell down at his sides, and he said, "Well, I don't really know how to... We've figured out what's wrong with you, and why the pills don't work."
Another strange pause, and Ludwig shifted, anxiously.
"It's a hereditary genetic condition called Fatal Familial Insomnia."
The words had been pronounced very slowly and very sternly, as thought the doctor were trying to tell them just through the name what was going to happen.
And Ludwig didn't really need to ask what would happen.
The outcome was right in the name of the affliction.
Fatal Familial Insomnia.
Fatal.
Wait—that didn't make sense!
It didn't really click.
Maybe his mind was just refusing to connect the dots and paint the picture.
Ha!
Feliciano was so young—they were all so young—and young men didn't just die.
Not just like that. It didn't happen. That was stupid! Feliciano just had some insomnia. That was all.
Just a little insomnia.
Who died from not being able to sleep?
With a very dry throat, he stood there in the corner, arms crossed above his chest, and asked, weakly, "So—so what now? I mean, are you going to give him some stronger pills or something?"
Lovino nodded his head in detached, nearly dazed agreement.
He wasn't smiling anymore.
But as Feliciano stared up at the doctor with the weariest eyes he'd ever seen, Ludwig's hope was dashed as quickly as it had come.
A headshake.
"Well, I'll give him some, of course, but they won't work like you're thinking they will." The doctor sent Ludwig a look of regret, fingers straightening his coat compulsively as he added, "The body might appear to be asleep, but the brain just keeps on firing. It won't ever shut down. There's nothing to stop it. The brain doesn't appear to be able to go into hibernation, no matter what. We could induce a chemical coma, and it wouldn't help. It won't sleep. We still...don't know much about this. Once the pills don't work, we'll stop them—there's evidence that they actually speed up the progress of the disease."
The progress.
What was the progress?
He was afraid to know.
But he had stood there stark still nonetheless, listening dutifully as the doctor explained in rather grim detail the four stages, as he called them, of the condition.
Stage one : persistent insomnia, which was where Feliciano sat now.
Stage two : hallucinations and panic attacks from lack of sleep.
Stage three : deterioration and drastic weight loss.
Stage four : dementia, followed by death.
Feliciano seemed to take the doctor's words in relatively good stride, but then again, maybe he was just too fuckin' tired to really even comprehend what was being said.
Lovino had turned away, staring off out the window.
Ludwig felt numb.
This didn't make sense.
It wasn't right.
Couldn't be. There was no way.
Too dumb and dazed to really let it sink in, Ludwig had only grabbed Feliciano's arm in a firm grip the next day when he was discharged and sent home, and the journey back had been crushingly silent. Ludwig found no words and Lovino just stared out the window of the car, and Feliciano, who probably should have been the worst off, just glanced up at them every so often, and tried to smile.
Days passed.
Ludwig sat at the computer for hours on end, searching compulsively for any more information about this mistake of a diagnosis.
Had to be a mistake.
But the more he found, the more the pieces started to fall into place.
He refused to finish the puzzle. He couldn't bring himself to admit it.
Feliciano went to the doctor every two weeks, just to check in and monitor his blood pressure and check his pupils. He failed the reflex examinations and simple questions.
The denial was obvious.
All of them.
Feliciano played it off, saying no matter what that there was always a little bit of hope, even if the doctor never smiled, and that his failing the exams didn't mean he was sliding down; he'd always been 'a little ditzy, remember?'
Lovino refused to accept the diagnosis, and when Feliciano would mention their grandfather and the similarities in the last months of his life, he was quick to shoot any and all connections down and berate his brother for being an impressionable idiot.
'Grandpa died because he was old,' was the constant reminder, and Feliciano would only shake his head.
'He was sick,' came the response, and Lovino, stressed and unwilling to bend and so frustrated, would only stalk out.
Ludwig, feeling somewhat dazed, like he was walking through a constant fog, kept himself at Feliciano's side, even if he still couldn't really come to terms with what was going to happen.
He was as much in denial as Lovino was, although less vociferous about it.
He just tried to convince himself that the doctor was wrong. Medical misdiagnosis happened all the time.
All the time.
Nights passed.
Ludwig wasn't sleeping so well now, either, spending most of his time feeling sick with worry and staring at the clock.
Footsteps broke the silence of the night.
Feliciano was never still.
Always walking around somewhere, when lying in bed with no result just became too much.
Pacing.
Summer faded into fall.
Ludwig's marks in school were lower than they had ever been. He couldn't focus, and when he was finally in danger of flunking everything completely, he decided to drop out temporarily.
Just until Feliciano was better.
He had to get better.
People didn't die from insomnia.
November.
Over four months now since the first sleepless night.
Feliciano's state began to decline a little more.
The first panic attack—brought on over a dropped glass—had been a terrible blow to Ludwig's delusions, and it had been that day, grabbing Feliciano around the chest and patting him firmly on the back as he struggled to breathe, that he had finally allowed himself, for the first time, to accept it.
He finally admitted it.
Feliciano wasn't going to get better.
He tried to talk to Lovino about it, but was shot down. Lovino, lips pursed and brow always low, only shook him off and sent him foul looks, spitting angrily, 'You're as stupid as he is!'
The dismay was overwhelming.
He didn't know what to do.
What could he do?
Powerless.
Helpless.
The worst thing, not to be able to overcome something just by the determination and stubbornness and perseverance that he had always prided himself on.
None of those qualities could fix Feliciano.
December.
The sounds of the radio were constant in the living room, as Feliciano, clinging to the last shreds of sanity, blared out opera and tried to follow along, murmuring the words to himself under his breath as Ludwig stood in the corner, watching.
All day long, just opera.
Lovino was visibly irritated, but said nothing, proving himself respectful despite his gruff attitude and declarations of his brother's stupidity.
Every minute, opera.
Maybe it helped Feliciano relax a little and find some kind of meditative state; when he was listening to the music, the constant tapping of his foot was a little less furious.
Ludwig recognized a few arias here and there, La Mamma Morta, Addio Del Passato, Canzonetta Sull'aria, mostly Italian pieces, sometimes German, sometimes French.
It didn't matter.
He wasn't even sure, sometimes, that Feliciano really heard it.
When he wasn't sitting on the couch and holding his hair in his hands, he was up and pacing. Feliciano always paced. In the kitchen, back and forth, they could see him from the living room, every day.
Pacing back and forth, back and forth.
Always.
A constant loop. Chewing his thumbnail and breathing strangely and bumping into the table at intervals.
Lovino would quickly turn his gaze back to the television, drawing his knees up and flipping angrily through the channels and shaking his head.
Ludwig never argued with him anymore. He was too disheartened, and when they did occur, the arguments were no longer friendly; Lovino aimed for the throat now, with every intention to really wound, and sometimes he lashed out physically now, too.
A simple spat over whose turn it was to drive Feliciano to the doctor had resulted in a black eye for Ludwig.
Nothing was the same.
Close to Christmas.
Ludwig tried to put on a brave face, if only for Feliciano's sake.
He put up the tree and hung the lights as Feliciano, on the couch, directed him to, no matter how high he needed to climb.
Feliciano never painted anymore. The canvas sat unused in the corner.
Lovino hardly came downstairs now. He didn't speak with Feliciano unless it was to berate.
Ludwig couldn't bring himself to be angry with him.
Lovino might have been handling it badly, but who could blame him?
Sometimes, Ludwig just wanted to lose his composure too.
It was hard to keep it steady at times.
Times like now.
It was sleeting outside.
Ludwig sat back there on the floor in front of the couch, legs spread out straight, and in between them sat Feliciano, leaning back against Ludwig's chest and pressing the back of his head into the offered shoulder. Ludwig, in a desperate attempt to just bring on some sleep, ran absent fingers through Feliciano's hair in strong, straight motions that a mother might use.
So long now without sleep.
Five months without hearing Feliciano describe with eagerness his dreams.
He tried to instill some kind of relaxation. But it didn't really help like he wanted it to.
Feliciano babbled lowly under his breath, his words disjointed and confusing and barely making sense, carrying on even though Ludwig remained silent and still.
"We'll go to Rome next summer. Like it there. Grandpa lives there, you know. He always snores so loud... We'll go play in the coliseum. You'd like that, I think..."
And then, head falling back completely, Feliciano's voice died away, and he closed his eyes.
Light breathing.
He was asleep.
But Ludwig knew better than to even feel a stir of hope.
Because, five or six minutes later...
A movement as Feliciano awoke with a start, eyes blinking open and voice carrying on as though there had never been any interruption at all.
"...wouldn't you, Ludovico? My grandpa's gonna be really stuck on you. I know he'll like you."
Despair.
That's all he ever felt now.
Those few fleeting minutes of sleep that came to Feliciano were just a cruel torment; a tease. He couldn't stay asleep long enough to slip into REM, and that was what he needed.
A few minutes of nothing. Just prolonged agony.
In the kitchen, out of sight and voice strangely thick, Lovino cried, angrily, "Grandpa's dead!"
Feliciano only scrunched his brow in thought, but whatever memory he tried to pinpoint just wouldn't come, and finally, his face relaxed and he murmured, "He'll really love you."
Oh.
This was too hard.
A shatter of glass from within the kitchen.
Lovino, taking his hurt and frustration out on hapless ceramic mugs.
"I'd like to see Munich and Berlin, afterwards."
Nearly choking, Ludwig finally managed a brave, "We'll go, after I've had my fill of Rome."
Feliciano smiled, grabbing one of Ludwig's hands within his own.
Ludwig looked down, observing Feliciano's hands with a sense of hopelessness.
It was still so hard to accept that soon, these large, gentle hands wouldn't be there anymore to reach out in friendliness and support and playfulness.
Feliciano's hands.
The New Year came again.
He walked Feliciano out onto the porch, but Feliciano's wandering gaze couldn't seem to settle on the fireworks for long before shifting away. His night vision had all but disappeared; a side-effect of no sleep had caused his pupils to be constantly constricted, the black barely even visible, letting no light in.
He bumped into things a lot now.
He barely spoke.
Towards the end of January, Ludwig noticed a new activity.
Sometimes, Feliciano laid down on the couch, head turned down as if staring at something, and his lips were moving, even though no sound was audible. He reached out with a weak, pale hand, and grasped air.
Ludwig realized that he was hallucinating.
Speaking to someone who wasn't there.
The despair was becoming suffocating.
Ludwig found it increasingly difficult to get out of bed in the mornings, and some part of him hated himself for being able to sleep so easily when Feliciano was pacing back and forth down the halls in the dead of night.
He stressed his body by forcing himself to stay awake, trying in some way to sync himself with Feliciano, sitting there with him on the couch and shaking his head constantly just to keep from drifting off.
When he finally succumbed to sleep, awaking later to see Feliciano still wide-awake, the guilt was overwhelming.
But Feliciano only looked over at him, and said, with a ghost of a smile, "Don't make yourself sick, Ludovico."
Everything was guilt.
That what he couldn't fight off was what was killing Feliciano.
That he was healthy and Feliciano was not.
It wasn't fair.
Feliciano, a good person and a brilliant mind and a loyal friend, deserved far more than he had been given, and oh, God, if he had been given the chance somehow Ludwig would have traded places with him in a heartbeat.
He would have done anything.
Anything at all.
Feliciano only got worse, and there was nothing he could do.
If it had been cancer, Ludwig would have given marrow. If it had been kidney failure, Ludwig would have given one. If it had been internal bleeding, Ludwig would have given blood.
But how could he give sleep?
Lovino didn't really eat much anymore, picking halfheartedly at food and looking almost as bad as his brother.
It wasn't fair.
February.
The dementia came.
Ludwig didn't realize, at the beginning so long ago, that it would be this hard.
He didn't realize that something as simple as a name could cause such hurt.
Because, oh God, oh God, it hurt more than anything else when Feliciano abruptly cut off conversation one morning to furrow his brow and cradle his forehead, and then turn up exhausted eyes to Ludwig to ask, voice slurred and low, "I'm sorry—what's your name, again?"
It hurt.
He had nearly lost it when he reached out and took Feliciano's hand, barely managing to whisper, "I'm Ludwig."
"Oh, that's right," had come the simple response.
But the next day, Feliciano asked again.
Lovino just couldn't handle it, and took up drinking far more than he used to.
Sometimes, Ludwig joined him.
Being drunk was a little easier.
March.
Feliciano had trouble walking.
A once impressive form became rail-thin.
The doctor wanted to try something different; a last ditch effort.
Chemical coma.
No one held much hope, not even optimistic and confused Feliciano, who had said to Ludwig in a rare moment of clarity before going under, 'If my brain won't sleep, wake me up. Please wake me up, I don't wanna go out hooked up to a goddamn machine, wake me up so I can go home.'
He promised he would.
Even if some part of him didn't want to, and prolong the misery.
They waited with dreary expectancy, and nobody was really surprised when the doctor just shook his head and said, mostly to himself, 'Still firing. It's all still firing. He's not sleeping.'
Ludwig said, despondently, 'Wake him up.'
Lovino turned to the window and pinched the bridge of his nose, and didn't make a sound.
But Ludwig knew he was crying.
Feliciano was awake the next morning, and Ludwig, returning from the city, brought him a vase of flowers as he came to pick him up.
'Thanks,' was all Feliciano had said, smiling wearily, and Ludwig grabbed his arm, and helped him to his feet.
'They're from Lovino,' he lied, in an attempt to engage absent Lovino in some part of his brother's waning life, but Feliciano, even through his delirium, saw right through him.
'You chose pretty ones.'
He only smiled.
April.
Nine months.
Feliciano lasted nine months.
A cool, windy day in April.
Ludwig woke up to the sound of silence.
No footsteps.
Feeling the numb sense of dread and resignation sliding down his throat, Ludwig had pulled himself out of bed, gasping in a great breath before pushing open his door.
A search of the quiet, still house resulted in everything he had dreaded, and nothing he hadn't expected.
Feliciano, laying on the couch, a cold mug of coffee on the floor beneath him.
Finally asleep.
Ludwig stood there for a moment, frozen in a moment of uncertainty, and thought about waking Lovino.
He decided not to.
And maybe that was for the best, because he only made it two paces forward before he had burst into the tears that he had denied himself for months and staggered back into the kitchen, falling down into a chair and gripping his hair and kicking the table-leg as he clenched his teeth to keep his cries from waking Lovino.
He stayed in the kitchen for hours, pressing his forehead into the kitchen table and sobbing more than he ever knew he could, and he thought he had drained himself dry when he heard footsteps on the stairs.
He fell deathly still.
A creak on the floorboard.
Silence.
A terrible silence.
And when Lovino suddenly shrieked, a horrible, shrill wail of devastation, Ludwig threw his arms above his ears, pushed down the nausea, and cried some more.
The next days passed in a bleary daze.
They let Feliciano's art associates and the church handle all the arrangements. They didn't know how, and Ludwig was too numb and Lovino too despondent.
They didn't talk much.
Neither of them ate.
The house was too quiet.
Lovino sometimes stared over at the couch, a passing of longing upon his face, but it quickly faded back into indifference, and he would only turn away, and find something to do. And even though he had spent so many years declaring that he didn't really love Feliciano and most certainly had never needed him, the words didn't really matter; Lovino never smiled again.
A few months of awkward silence passed.
Ludwig, sensing that he was no longer welcome, packed up his things and stayed in a cheap motel until he reinstated himself in the university.
Everything he did was halfhearted after that. He didn't feel like moving at all, but he did anyway.
He couldn't think of a good reason why.
Falling into ruin was tempting.
Still, he slept at night and woke up in the morning, a luxury that he almost wished he didn't have, and sometimes, he stared at the phone, and thought about picking it up.
Just to see how Lovino was doing.
In the end, he only withdrew his hand, and resigned himself to solitude.
That whirlwind friendship had ended.
Vibrancy faded back into the dull monotony that he was used to.
It was hard to let go of it, but there was little else to do. He couldn't bring himself to go back out into the city and try to smile.
He didn't want new friends.
He wanted the old ones. He wanted everything to be the way it was before. Good things never lasted. Change was inevitable, no matter how he clung to memories.
Every day was a routine. Crushing boredom. Solitude. Restlessness.
Depression.
He carried on.
Another year.
It was another year before Lovino finally called him on the phone.
