AN: You all deserve an explanation so... Here it goes. Remember how I was sick? It turns out that I had the potential to have this story kind of happen to me? Cancer scare. But now I'm a-okay! It wasn't cancer uwu ANDDDD I'm sitting next to my girlfriend :D So things are looking up.

Okay you've been waiting long enough for this. I literally just got inspiration though. At 10:40 pm. ANYWAY... Here's a reminder of what happened:

Lovino has three months to live. He doesn't want chemotherapy because he doesn't want to be a burden, but he wants to finish High School so he's asked Feli to bring his school work. Gil was visiting his adopted father- Fritz- who had a heart-attack at work and may not wake up when he saw Lovino and they made "nice" conversation where Gil attempted to cheer Lovino, and himself, up by being the loveable loser we all know he is.

Onward.

The next day, Lovino was hunched over his textbook trying to figure out where the hell anything was. How could there be a real number, and why were numbers suddenly complex? Ugh, he absolutely despised Pre-Calculus. If he didn't need it, he wouldn't have taken it.

You don't need it, you know. You're dying. He shook his thoughts away, huffing. He didn't need to think about that. He just wanted to graduate and if it meant suffering through numbers and matrices- whatever that even meant- then he'd damn well suffer. He could hardly focus though.. He barely slept, despite the exhaustion that had been seeping through his veins the entire night.

Feli was sitting by him, watching with sad, deep brown eyes. He was a bit better at maths than his brother was but he knew if he offered anything, he'd be snapped at and told that Lovi could do it himself. But he just hated seeing his brother so stressed. It couldn't be good for him after all...

"Lovi-" He started.

"No." Lovino didn't even look up from the book, his pen scribbling the wrong answer away. Again. Why was this so hard for him?

"Ma-"

"No."

"But I can help!"

"Fratello, per favore..."

Feli went silent, turning back to his art assignment, his pencil slowly blending dark colours that reflected his mood. Everything was sombre, melancholy. He could only pray that by some miracle his brother would be healed. Why was there cancer? He didn't understand...

It stayed quiet after that, the only sound coming from the scratch scratch of paper being written on and steady breathing coming from the brothers.

Gil followed his brother into the room. He was too tired to do this today. He just wanted to go home, but he knew if he did, and Fritz died, he would never forgive himself. Ludwig would never forgive him.

"Hey, Fritz,"he whispered. "Ludwig is here today. I would have come earlier, but he wanted me to bring him too."

Ludwig's blue eyes looked on sadly. It was true that he wasn't nearly as close to the male lying on the bed in front of him as his brother was, but it hurt that he may lose another family member. He was hardly ready. He wasn't strong enough to take care of his brother. He could see how much Gil was breaking, how strong he was trying to be. He couldn't bring himself to talk though. So he just let his older brother tell Fritz about their day. Ludwig wasn't sure how Gil knew exactly how his day went, but he didn't want to break the mood by asking.

"Oh!" Gil suddenly exclaimed. "Fritz, there's this kid here. I don't know why he's here, but if he follows you, will you take care of him? I feel like he'll need guidance in the afterlife. Though with his mouth, I doubt Lovino will be able to go to the same place you're going. He's not very pure..."

Ludwig's eyes widened. Lovino? As in Vargas? Feliciano's brother? How did-

"He has leukaemia." The words came out before Ludwig could push them away. He always was blunt, his words always had the cutting effect. He felt the air grow cold as he watched his brother take in the news.

"Then ja, Fritz. Take care of him, okay?" The white-haired brother stood up. Ludwig was relieved that, while he was pale, he didn't have the gene that caused Gil's pure white hair and bright crimson eyes. He often wondered how Gil took all of the teasing. He couldn't have missed the insults, "Freak" "Abomination" being thrown at him. "I promised that I'd go visit Lovi. Will you be okay here by yourself, Lud?" The boy's voice broke through Ludwig's thoughts. The blond nodded. "Great. I have my phone if there's a change."

With that Gil left, leaving Ludwig alone to his thoughts.

"I need to go, Lovi." Feli's voice broke through the silence. "I have to finish this and study for my history final..."

Lovi barely glanced up as he solved a problem. He had no idea how to tell if it was right, and with Feliciano leaving, there was no way he'd ever be able to know. Unless he called a nurse and asked her to check his homework. Is that abusing his patient status?

"Buonanotte," Feli whispered before pecking Lovi's cheek. He pointed at a problem, indicating that it was incorrect before walking out of the door with a tired smile. He didn't know if he'd be able to come tomorrow, but he'd sent Grandpa. There was no way he'd leave Lovi alone!

In his thoughts, he ran into someone. "Mi dispia- Ah Gil!" His eyes brightened at seeing his boyfriend's brother before dimming again. "How is Fritz?"

"The same as always," Gil informed him quietly. "Is your brother still awake? I saw him yesterday on my way out and I figured he needed company."

"Sí! He's working on his homework. You've graduated right? Can you help him? He isn't understanding and his... His wish is to graduate."

That surprised Gil. He figured the Italian was lazy and didn't care. "Ja, I'll help him. You stay safe on your way home." With that, Gil walked past the boy and slipped into the room.

He stood in the doorway, eyes fixated on the boy who was growing more and more frustrated. He knew he should step in but he couldn't help but watch. Why did Lovi care so much if he couldn't go onto university? Was he into torturing his mind that much? Was his work merely a distraction from the bigger picture?

Lovino slipped out a curse and laid back on his pillow, rubbing at his temples. He didn't understand anything. How was he supposed to graduate...? Would the hospital even let him leave to take his exams at the end of the year?

"Need help?" A voice jolted into his thoughts. He immediately recognised the voice and his hazel eyes shot a glare at the owner. "Hey! Your brother said-

"Unless you know what a derivative and an exponential is, you can leave." Lovi was in no mood to deal with the obnoxious German. It's not that he hated them; he just had a slight aversion to them. It was completely coincidental that it started when Feli started befriending the other one!

"A derivative is a measure of function changing when its input changes, and an exponential is the function e, where e is its own derivative," Gil recited to the brunette in front of him, walking over to see exactly what he was working on.

Lovi just stared at him. What kind of language is he speaking? I'm fluent in Italian and English, and because of my stupid brother, I know German too. What is he even saying...?

"Yeah, what?" He sputtered aloud. Gil laughed, and it caused Lovi's eye to twitch. How irritating.

"Here. The exponential is a function that quickly grows. It's where 'e' is an irrational number... I'm certain you were taught what functions were and already know what an irrational number is?" Lovino nodded his answer. It still sounded like gibberish to him, but at least it almost made sense. Gil continued. "Because the number is formulated as an infinite limit, in this problem right here, the exponential X is to the Nth power."

Lovino's head hurt. He wanted nothing more than to throw the book and forget about maths. "And what's a derivative?"

"A derivative is exactly as it sounds: a measure of how much a function changes when its input changes." Seeing the brunette's confused face, Gil tried a different tactic. "It's merely a way to display the rate of change, the amount by a function changes at one given point. It's the point on the slope of the graph where the tangent and function meet." He picked up a pencil and drew a crude graph to show the example with pictures. "Here is the point. To get the answer for the derivative, you simply write DY – the difference in Y—divided by DX—the difference in X—and then solve."

…. Oh.

Lovi felt stupid.

His head still hurt, but it was easing steadily. He went back and changed his answers, with much more understanding than he ever had before. It still took him a couple of hours, but he eventually got it, and forced his newfound personal tutor to check the work for him. He may be dying, but he still wanted to show he could do stuff.

As it turned out, he still got a couple of questions wrong, but he decided to leave it. If he started submitting completely correct assignments, his teachers would accuse him of having his brother do his work for him. It wouldn't be the first time.

He felt proud of himself, and he knew Gil was, though neither would acknowledge that fact out loud. No.

"Thank you," Lovino muttered setting his book aside. He still had an English assignment to work on, but that wasn't due the next day like his maths was. The brunette laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes.

"You're welcome." Gil stood up stretching. He wasn't sure how late it was, but he knew he shouldn't have left Ludwig alone so long. At least there wasn't a call... "I need to go. Do you want me to get you some food from the kitchen?" He left out the question of "Are you allowed to eat regular food?" He had some tact at least!

"Ah, no, thank you. There's nothing appetising in the cafeteria." Lovino knew exactly what Gil was doing, and he appreciated it. Sort of. He didn't want to be babied though.

Gil just shrugged before bidding him goodnight and leaving to go get his brother.

Ludwig looked up at him, blue eyes dark with questioning. His older brother shook his head though and whispered goodnight to the sleeping man in front of him. They left hand in hand, a bit less melancholy before. Gil because he actually got the Italian to forget about his problems and do a good job, without being a pain, and Ludwig because he hadn't seen his brother quite so relaxed since before their parents' accident.

AN: SOOOO. This is about all I can do right now, I'm so sorry. Things will speed up from now on. I'm not going to go every day in Lovi's life because wow that'd get boring. And of course, I'm no mathematician. I used so I don't know if any of that is explained very well.

Oh well.

I'll try to continue but my laptop decided it wanted to die on me while I was writing this so now I'm using Tay's. Buh.

Until next time.