Hey! Here's the LietPol side-pairing chapter while I try to get my notes organized.

Warning: Alcohol! and a lot of angst!

I didn't upload a chapter yesterday because I was plotting out the next chapter with Ludwig and Feli- I'm not giving anything away, but it will heavily involve Lovino, possibly Alfred, and most likely Matthew (canada).

And since I didn't make the regular update, I made this one EXTRA LONG! It's almost 900 words over the target length. Whew! Hope you enjoy!


Pain burst through his head, behind his skull, between his temples. For a moment he was just gone; there was blackness, pain and the smell of alcohol in the air. Then, suddenly, he was back in first grade. There was a hand wound around his, small fingers interlaced between each other. They were sitting on the swings; yes, that's right… the swings, he remembers. The green ones that the big kids said could swing the highest. He was wearing khaki shorts and had Band-Aids on his knees from falling on the wood chips yesterday. He could hear the sound of kids yelling as the daily four-square tournament went on; he heard that a girl in his class, Rachel Curtis, was just the best there was. He was smiling, looking over to the person who held his hand, at his best friend through green eyes.

'Feliks, do you take Toris as your lawfully wed-did husband?' The kid in front of them had asked. He was fairly sure that wasn't a word, but he wasn't gonna question this kid. This was playground marriage, they'd given this kid three jolly ranchers and a Hershey bar to do this for them and make it official. He'd sworn on the grave of every dead cat in the neighborhood that it would go down in history. Feliks grinned wide, showing off his missing front teeth.

I do, I do! Oh, Toris. Like, of course I do!

"I do…" He was mumbling as the blackness appeared again, swallowing the image in a swirling torrent of pain in his frontal lobe. What had he done again…? It was hard to remember why his head hurt so much. Someone… someone was shaking his shoulder. He pawed them away, batting his hand blindly in the air and hitting nothing. Instead, his arm just flopped back down onto the hardwood floor, making a thud that seemed way too loud.

"Feliks? Feliks, wake up!" He heard someone shout. Well, maybe not shout, but it sounded like it in his own head. Everything was magnified a hundred times louder right now in his pounding head, the ringing in his ears not making anything better.

"Whasaya w'nt?" He drawled slowly, still not opening his eyes and trying not to move his aching head.

"Feliks, you had another party. After I specifically told you not to anymore!" The voice was clearer this time, more in focus, but still too loud. Much too loud. He could tell who it was now; it was Toris. He cracked open his right eye to look up at the brunette, but immediately regretted it as the sunlight shined in the house from the open blinds. He could've sworn he shut those last night—"Feliks!" He'd been letting his mind trail.

"Mmmm, Toris. M' s'rry. There wern't that m'ny people there… You should've cooome…" There had only been, what, forty people at the entire thing? At least there was beer. And vodka. And rum… ooh, the rum was what got him. He shouldn't have drank so much of it…

"No, Feliks! Look at yourself!" Feliks, of course, couldn't really look at himself, because damn was it bright in there, but if he could, he would've seen a terrible hung-over mess. "C-come on, get up. I'll help you get to a bed."

Feliks didn't say anything as Toris wrapped an arm around his skinny torso and hauled him off the ground. They (mostly Toris) hobbled across the house to Feliks' tiny bedroom, and the blonde was dropped into the plush mattress. He instinctively grabbed onto Toris' shoulders of course, and the brunette came down on top of him as he groaned from the impact to his head. Toris pushed his arms off of him before anything else, standing up in a hurry. "F-Feliks. I think you might have a real problem with these parties. You need to stop, please. For me?"

Feliks wanted to say yes, he wanted to do anything to make Toris happy, but he knew he wouldn't be able to.


Later, Toris had left his house in a huff, and Feliks' head had still hurt too much to protest. The blonde had passed out on the mattress just shortly after, too out of it to get upset. It seemed he couldn't react the right way at all today.

His parents had been out of town for the weekend, a stereotypical reason for a teenager to have a party, but he'd gone and had one anyways. They'd gone to attend his great-great-grandfather's or someone's funeral in Poland, get on the will, get some inheritance shit. Whatever. It wasn't like they didn't have enough money or anything. His father was a decent politician; he'd run for governor two times, but lost, and settled for some other city position and now he worked with the mayor.

The thing about Feliks was he was terribly in love. He was uncharacteristically shy when it came to these matters, however, and winning over the heart of his best friend would be a difficult challenge that he seemed unprepared for. See, he'd run into the same problem as guys who've been 'friend zoned', the term being loosely applied. He didn't want to mess up their relationship, wanted to be close to Toris as much as possible. He wanted everything to be the same as it was already, except with the physical things; the kissing, the intimacy. And less drinking.

The drinking, he found, brought out the real flirtatious personality he had. It brought out the flirtatious personality in everyone else, too. He could flirt with the girls and with the guys, and feel confident because everyone was too drunk to care anyways. He felt like a creature whose habitat was at a party, and the rest of the time he was a fish out of water. Somewhere he hid behind his clothing and behind his books.

The only thing about it was that Toris didn't like it, but that was sort of the point. The parties weren't really interesting unless Toris was there being his especially tiresome self, worrying about him at some point or another. He liked it, sort of, when Toris worried about him, because then it gave him an illusion or a glimmer of hope that he'd one day get the courage to tell Toris how he felt.

He still remembered that day on the playground when their tennis shoes thudded on the blacktop to race to the swings, hearts pounding, because they were gonna get married. And here, ten years later, he still thought about it. How long they'd been best friends. He wondered when he started thinking about Toris like that; the first desire for his touch. It must've been some time in middle school, but he liked to pretend that middle school didn't happen. It was too embarrassing, for everyone, that it was generally a taxing endeavor for all involved. He assumed Toris had forgotten about the playground, though, and about the silly dreams he and the blonde had when they were just kids. He had forgotten about it, right?

It didn't matter anyways.

Feliks stood up from the mattress almost 6 hours later, on a Saturday. It was later in the afternoon, maybe 3:00. He walked into the kitchen and immediately grabbed something to drink; it looked like vitamin water but it could've been Gatorade or something else. The taste in his mouth was awful, like he'd swallowed tar or something.

Once he'd chugged an entire bottle of vitamin water and a glass of tap water, he went to go look in the mirror in the bathroom now that he could stand. He probably looked like a wreck. Oh, and that he did. His blonde hair was tangled and knotted in the back, static making it stand on end as it frayed from its usual position. He forced a brush through it; probably harder than he needed to. There were dark circles under his eyes, but he ignored them.

He heard the phone ring from back in the kitchen (still too loud; his head faintly pounded) and he walked painstakingly over to pick it up.

"Hey. This is like, Feliks." He grumbled, trying to sound at least half-alive just in case it was someone important on the other end.

"Uh. H-hey." Came the unsteady reply. It was Toris' voice. "I'd hoped you were awake by now. Are you doing okay?"

Huh. Toris was calling? He was concerned for him! That made the blonde feel a bit better. But he also thought about that morning, when an upset Toris had stormed from the house. He'd hurt him! He'd hurt his Toris and needed to apologize.

"Oh. H-hey Toris." He hesitated, planning out his words carefully as his head throbbed. "I'm like, so sorry about this morning, and about… last night. That was totally not cool of me."

He heard Toris sigh on the other line. "Feliks… You shouldn't be drinking anyways. You're only sixteen! I only care about you, I don't want you to hurt yourself, or do something you'll regret!"

At this, he felt anger bubbling up beneath his hangover. "Toris, I can do some things on my own! You just need to trust me a little, alright!?"

Toris stuttered over the connection, "Feliks, w-wait I'm sor-" but his voice was abruptly cut off as Feliks hung up the phone, slamming it back down onto the receiver. He sat down on the hardwood floor, hitting an empty beer can that he didn't see there before and sending it clattering across the kitchen. Leaning against the cabinets, he felt a sob stuck in his throat. His head seemed worse again, but it was probably just him being more aware of it now. Maybe it was the same.

There was a glass beer bottle sitting under the ledge of the cabinet on the floor between him and the refrigerator. He picked it up, studying it in his hand, before throwing it, watching it shatter against the wall with a loud noise of breaking glass. There was a mark on the wall where it'd hit, and shards of the brown-tinted bottle covered the floor. One flew far enough back to hit him on his shin, and he flinched away from it.

Sobs were coming openly from him now as he bent forward to try and pick the mess up; however, this was probably a bad idea as his hands were shaking and his vision was blurry and his head still pounded. His hands were a bleeding mess by the time he gave up, slices along his palms and on the pads of his fingers that stung badly.

He tried to use his hands to stand up, but didn't realize the pain that would entail; he ended up falling on his face on the kitchen floor, his upper arm landing on more glass. He didn't even bother to move. Crying out in a low moan was all he could do, his strength giving out, the pounding in his head taking over. He shuddered with sobs, his shoulders racking until it finally slowed when he was near unconsciousness.

He'd almost fallen asleep on the floor when he heard the doorbell ring. Oh, fuck it. They'll leave after a while. It's probably just, like, solicitors or something, or Jehovah's witnesses. His thoughts were angry as the doorbell rang a second time, this one twice rapidly. The bell rang increasingly frantically until it stopped for a moment. Just when he'd assumed the person was gone, he heard a key twisting in the doorknob.

The door clanged open with a resounding sound that it made when it opened each time; the door fit so snugly into the frame that it was impossible to open it without everyone in the house hearing; his parents had used the tactic when he was a kid, but he'd quickly learned that sneaking out the window was easier anyways with the tree by his room. He heard two or three footsteps, then the door slammed shut hastily.

"F-Feliks!?" He heard a shaky voice call out into the dim hallway illuminated faintly by the light in the mud room. It was Toris, of course, over at his house for the second time that day. He'd probably gotten so worried after that phone call, thought Feliks was going to do something stupid, oh Toris, Toris, Feliks loved the boy so much.

Toris had come from the hallway and entered the doorway of the kitchen, looking down at the figure curled on the ground, and god, he had done something stupid, hadn't he? Toris nearly screamed, but only uttered a strangled cry when he spied the blonde. He dropped to his knees immediately, probably falling onto glass himself, but he lifted the Feliks' head onto his lap, shaking him again, and all of this was eerily familiar, wasn't it? "Feliks, what did you do?!"

He pulled the blonde into a sitting position, and more tears fell out of Feliks' green eyes as he nearly tackled Toris. His body shook with sobs, harder than before, flooded with emotions and sorrow and his brain screaming I LOVE YOU, trying to somehow beam the message into Toris' head. "Feliks! Feliks, what's wrong? Are you okay? Oh, oh my god." He'd noticed what had happened, the neck of the bottle still relatively together as the rest of the brown shards littered the floor. He held Feliks' wrists, trying to get a look at his hands, but there were beads of blood that had smeared over the clear skin, so it wasn't obvious where the cuts were.

Feliks; His brain was fuzzy from the hangover, his eyes dry from crying, hands bleeding, hair tangled. He decided to take a chance.

Feliks leaned back from Toris' shoulder, and the two of them shared a moment of full eye contact. Now both of them were crying, Feliks out of pain and out of his episode, and now Toris out of concern. Feliks leaned in, pressing his lips (albeit roughly) against Toris', in a full move of desperation.

It wasn't exactly the most organized of kisses, nor the gentlest, being instigated by such an influenced mind, so Toris made a muffled sound and leaned back, instinctively trying to escape. Their lips broke and Toris fell onto his back, Feliks moving over him. The blonde held himself up with his arms, ignoring the pain in his bleeding palms as the brunette exhaled the surprised gasp he'd been holding in.

There was a moment of panic for Feliks; what had he just done?! He'd ruined everything by getting ahead of himself! Now Toris was going to hate him forever, and the playground wedding would be a lie- and- and- his thoughts were disorganized, not sure whether to be calm or to freak out.

Suddenly it was Feliks gasping as Toris leaned back up and captured his lips once again, this time gentler- Toris probably had more experience in kissing. He pushed them upright, grabbing Feliks' biceps to anchor him. Feliks kept his hands floating in front of him, the pressure removed and the conscious pain coming back.

They separated, and Feliks gave Toris a shocked look. "Do you know how long I've waited to do that?" Toris said quietly, and smiled at him.

Feliks almost went into shock right there. He pulled Toris to his chest in a crushing hug. "I… I love you, Toris! I totally love you, okay!" His tears were happy now as Toris rubbed his back in soothing circles.

"F-Feliks, your hands… What is all this?"

"I love you, Toris. All the parties, all the drinking, it was all just so you'd notice! I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, sorry…" He repeated his apology like some kind of mantra.

Meanwhile, Toris pulled him into a standing position and carefully helped him step his socked feet around the broken glass to wash his hands in the sink. It had stung, like every kind of cut does, and Toris ran to grab some Band-Aids from the first aid kit he knew was in the bathroom.

They'd settled down into the couch, Feliks leaned on Toris' lap, and turned on some television as they both calmed down.

"Hey. Toris, do you remember that time in like, first grade when we hired that one kid to marry us on the swing set?" He reached up and tangled his fingers in Toris' long brown locks.

Toris laughed for a second and said, "Yes, I do remember. You fell on the blacktop during a four-square match the day before and scraped your knees up."

Feliks did remember that now; he'd lost against a girl whose name he couldn't remember. "Do you think that, like, still counts now? Ten years later?"

Toris thought for a moment. "I don't know. But I think I want it to." He leaned down for a kiss.


So, how did you like this goliath of a chapter? Pleeease review? I'm so thankful to all the people who have already sent me reviews and messages- thank you all so much. I wouldn't have got this far without you all.