Feliciano's sentence on death row was pushed back another month because the prison didn't have enough funding to kill him. He considered himself lucky for that; he had to continue teaching Lovino how to draw before he died, after all. It was similar to what Lovino had said before.
He didn't want to die without people remembering him for at least something—anything—so long as it was good.
When he told Lovino about the death sentence being pushed back, the man beamed and nearly jumped out of his bunk because he was so happy that he could resume their drawing lessons. He was doing much better too, so with more time for them to practice, the better he would become.
Yet it was awkward to think about the death sentence as a good thing. He was going to die in the end anyway, so why bother with celebrating the fact that he was only going to have another month to live? His time was short; he only had another year left to live, and with him being in prison for that year, he couldn't exactly check off everything on his bucket list.
All Feliciano could do for the rest of his short life was teach someone else how to make their own short life worth living for the next year or two. Who knows if the death sentence would be pushed again and he'd have all the more time to teach Lovino how to draw. It didn't sound too bad, but again, he was dying at some point.
At least he was living for something. Someone.
Even if that someone was another person on death row with him. It counted for something, right?
He never really had anyone to inspire like this. While he had many acquaintances, people pretty much avoided him; saw him as that 'freak with the paintbrush'. When people called him annoying, he had stopped trying to fit in, and pretty much became a loner. At least he had his paintings. He also had a stray cat that he'd visit every day on his way home. But now he didn't have any of those things, except for the drawings and… and Lovino. But how much longer would he be able to keep them?
Come to think of it, Feliciano had no idea how long his cellmate's sentence was. He had only assumed it was a couple of years but he wasn't sure. Nor had the other man told him.
When he asked him one morning, the redhead shrugged and said, "Until they get tired of seeing my immense beauty."
At least he had a humor about it.
Maybe Lovino was teaching him something too. Feliciano just couldn't quite place it though.
He asked again and this time Lovino actually gave him an answer. "About… um… I think they said it was scheduled to be around a year and a half from now. Looks like you're stuck with me until then, but I guess that's not really a punishment, is it?"
And not a second later did he wait to flash his cocky smirk again like he always did whenever he was a smartass, only this time it caught Feliciano by surprise and had his cheeks turning red. He had no idea why he was blushing since he was already used to his smirks and grins and teases, but he couldn't help it this time.
Why am I blushing? Why am I blushing? Why am I blushing? Stop blushing!
Feliciano internally slapped himself out of blushing, but with how long it seemed to take him to stop, Lovino could have seen his red cheeks at any point of time. But did he? He couldn't tell due to the fact that Lovino was on his bunk again, sketching.
Maybe he wouldn't say anything. With the one night of seeing Lovino's private sketches, it was already awkward between them. There was no need to make it even more so.
So he climbed into his bunk and laid there with the ceiling above his head, bored out of his mind now that a certain cellmate had decided it was time to stop talking again.
Lovino wasn't much of a talker despite it appearing as though he could talk all day long until he ran out of things to say if that were even possible for him. He was vague and acted as though he didn't care about dying or anything else as a matter of fact. Maybe he just didn't like to talk about anything but his looks. Or maybe he was afraid to. The girl in the sketches from that one night—she was drawn with warm memories in mind, it was obvious in how Lovino drew her. Maybe Lovi was just afraid to get close to anyone again.
That was when Feliciano got the idea.
"Hey, Lovino?" he called softly, flopping over to hang his upper body off of his bunk to look down at his friend below on the bottom bunk. "I have an exercise for you and your drawing."
The man craned his head to look up at him. "What?"
Feliciano smiled. "Do a visual diary. Draw how your day was—your thoughts, feelings, what you saw and liked about the day, what you didn't like... and if you want, I'll only look at the least-private stuff so I can see how you've been improving."
The idea seemed to make Lovino tense a little and there was a small wave of different emotions on his face that made this the first time Feliciano had ever seen so many reactions out of the older man at one time. It was a little overwhelming and the boy had to glance away for a moment.
After what seemed like forever, Lovino responded quietly with a question. "Only what I want you to see, right? You won't be looking at the other stuff like you did that one night?"
Again the pang of guilt hit Feliciano as he was reminded of how he had intruded on something pretty personal of his companion's. But he nodded—he'd keep that promise; all he wanted was to get a little communication out of the other man.
"...okay, I'll do it," he heard Lovino reply, a bit of resignation in his tone.
Unable to help it, Feliciano's smile spread across his face until he pretty much beamed down at Lovino. "Really? Oh good!" he cried happily. Finally he was going to get a chance to know more about this man he'd come to be friends with.
"Yeah."
He barely caught the light blush on Lovi's cheeks before the southerner dropped his head again to focus on his doodling. And he would never admit it, but seeing him of all people blushing like that was a little funny and also a tiny bit adorable.
No, it was downright cute and made him smile. He truly couldn't help himself when it came to finally letting his emotions out.
"Are you going to keep staring at me or am I going to have to smack you?" Lovino asked accusingly, peeking up at him from where he sat in his bunk.
Immediately, Feliciano hid himself and tried not to giggle.
He could hear Lovino grumble to himself about how weird it is to stare at people while they're trying to concentrate on something important and some other nonsense that made no sense to him, but seeing him blush was definitely worth the grumbling.
While Lovino sat in his bunk, a sudden thought hit him, and a rather sad one at that. He had no idea where the thought even came from, but it was possibly the emotions he felt while drawing, almost like what he had been asked to do by communicate through his sketches. His concentration then left the pencil and paper so his head was lifted and nose was pointed towards the top bunk where Feliciano lay.
There was a silence between them that followed.
"I never really thought of twelve as middle aged," he blurted suddenly, not even expecting such a thought from himself. Really, he was optimistic about the situation he was in, but thinking about the girl and his home and the years he spent playing around with old friends who probably didn't want anything to do with him anymore… he never would have guessed those years were not childhood, but the half of his short life.
The air thickened in their tiny cell once again as it did practically every few hours or so. Feliciano sat up and repeated the earlier procedure of hanging his head over the side of the mattress to meet Lovi's gaze.
"I never thought of that either… I didn't think I'd end up in prison to begin with since I-I…" He coughed and shook his head. "Never mind that."
"Still not comfortable with talking about it?"
Slowly, the boy nodded and sighed, though it was true that he didn't want to talk about the past—the bad things. It hurt to know that his being in the wrong place at the wrong time meant his death.
"You're not either," he retorted, though he was hoping that Lovino's art would at least hint so that he could help the guy better. It was better to know what was going on inside someone to understand what their art is about. Otherwise, no one would be able to see the beauty of the art.
A genuine smile on Lovino's face caught him off guard yet again.
"Yeah, I know," Lovi said. His smile slowly turned into another smirk when he noticed Feliciano's blatant blush. "You're so weird." He rolled back over to continue working. "They must've thought it was a crime to be as weird as you and wanted you off the streets."
Feliciano huffed and picked himself up, flopping back onto his hard mattress, hearing a chuckle from the bunk below him.
"There's no need to huff about it. I was only speaking the truth," he teased, resting his head down on the pillow for the moment so he could take a break from doodling. And he wouldn't say so, but Lovino was absolutely frustrated again, and maybe teasing Feliciano would get rid of some of that stress for now.
The younger folded his arms defensively and ignored him, throwing another huffing fit as his cheeks burned brighter. He continued to wonder why it was so easy for Lovino to embarrass him. Of course he thought he was weird—everyone back home thought he was weird and that's why they stayed away from him—but hearing it from Lovino made him self-conscious and guarded.
Yet somehow Feliciano being defensive meant that Lovino would let his own walls down so he could tease him.
"You're weird too," was the best comeback Feliciano could think of. He nearly smacked himself on the forehead but let his pillow do it for him, willing himself to shut up. He was embarrassing himself enough.
There came another chuckle from underneath the bunk, which meant Lovino thought his stupid comeback must have been hilarious. His cheeks burned brighter than before, embarrassed and humiliated with himself for saying something idiotic and childish in front of him. He shut his eyes and wished that his life would end already if it meant he wouldn't have to die of complete humiliation.
And then he heard Lovino's chuckling turn into a scoff.
"I know I am."
Those two amber eyes opened again and stared at the ceiling. For once, Lovino's tone actually sounded… lonely. He had heard him be frustrated or happy or sad or arrogant, practically every other emotion besides loneliness.
Feliciano wanted to tell him that he shouldn't feel lonely because he would be here in this cell until they decided it was time for him to die. He wanted to say that he felt lonely too and maybe that loneliness would go away after awhile. It already had since he had arrived in his cell, though that one night of seeing his drawing was an exception. He wanted to let down all those walls so there wouldn't be a reason to feel so lonely… so sad, lost, and confused.
He hung his head over the side once more so that Lovi could actually hear him clearly when he would speak all those thoughts, but he stopped when he saw a tear rolling down the man's cheek, yet it was never meant to be there.
"Maybe you're right," he mumbled, "maybe I am a little weird. But so are you. You're cocky and arrogant and think you're all that… but you're funny."
Lovino glanced up this time after that one tear had fallen so it seemed that he had not cried. His eyes showed no red in them nor were there more tears to be seen. It could have possibly been his imagination that he was crying, but then again, Lovi was great at hiding his feelings.
"Please don't cry."
Lovino pouted at him. "I'm not crying. I saw my reflection in the metal and it was so beautiful that I couldn't help but tear up a little."
Feliciano only snickered.
"I'm going to bed anyways," he informed, sitting up and flicking the poor boy in the forehead, of course resulting in him whining.
Their eyes were locked on each other afterwards, trying to find any signs of emotion from only a moment ago. It felt like a moment ago anyways; time flew by when all one could do was stare at the ceiling for a meaningless amount of hours.
Lovino barely leaned forward and let out a sigh… only that sigh twisted into another one of his famous smirks. Feli glared at him for teasing him again, but nonetheless, he returned to lying on his bunk with the stone ceiling above himself.
"Goodnight," he heard his cellmate mumble under his breath, the sound of him shuffling onto the cold mattress rattling their entire bed.
"Goodnight," he replied sleepily, letting his eyes slip shut for the rest of the night.
Another mumble came from beneath his bunk, but Feliciano ignored it because it was probably Lovino sighing or yawning, possibly sleep-talking if he was that tired already.
Everyone in that prison was tired of waiting for death already.