A/N: It looks like I screwed up a few ages here. Timelines are messy so follow them loosely. As I was writing this I found some conflicting things from previous chapters. I'd go back and change things but it would still be pretty messy. So, uh... just go with it. Please.

Antonio knew he had royally fucked up as the words left his mouth. It was lunch at the high school and in honor of Valentine's Day there were pink and red decorations everywhere. The cheerleading team had a booth set up to sell candygrams and flowers to send to your 'sweetheart' during class and there were posters all over the halls for the impending dance, themed after famous couples.

Naturally Antonio's number one fan, a young sophomore named Emma, had come back to him hinting at going together. The poor oblivious senior needed to be kicked under the table by his trusty best friends to catch on. "Oh? OH! I'm so sorry, Emma, but I'm a little… uh, what's the word…"

"Gay?" Gilbert chimed in.

"Catcher not a pitcher?" Francis added.

"Thank you," he said sarcastically, face void of his usual laid back expression. "I'm taken."

Emma stuttered before turning around back to her table of friends with the reddest face they'd ever seen on a girl. Antonio, though glad to have that over with, was now faced with the stern faces of his friends.

"What do you mean you're taken?" Francis asked as if he were a teacher catching a student cheating on a test.

"Oh, I—I was just saying that!"

"You've always been a piss-poor liar," Gilbert growled. "Please don't tell me you're fucking fraternizing with that ghost!"

"He's more than a ghost!" Antonio shot back, feeling a hint of betrayal at his alleged best friends. "He's the most sincere, sweetest, honest man I've ever met."

Francis ran his hand through his hair as he usually did when irritated. "Toni, you must understand that we're thinking of what's best for you here. You can't realistically date a ghost. You can't even, well…"

Antonio blushed. "We don't need to have sex to be together."

Gilbert angrily smashed his fork into his blob of school food. "What about when you go to college? What about when you meet someone else?"

"You're being so ableist right now!"

"Stop quoting shit you read on teenagers' blogs!"

"We're teenagers!"

The Spanish teen glared at his friends and stood up, grabbing his tray to throw away before he planned to storm off to the library. Francis reached out and grabbed his shirt. "Toni, please, listen to us! You'll be happier with someone who doesn't have an obituary! Someone you can hold and kiss and grow old with!"

"Is it really so important to you that you fuck everything you see?" Antonio seethed. Francis and Gilbert were surprised at his cursing, which they rarely heard from him. "You know what? I'm done. You can both go fuck yourselves."

He jerked his shirt from Francis's grasp and tossed his food away. He had crossed through the library doors when he thought of just how much Lovino had rubbed off on him; being self-assertive and foul-mouthed all at once.

Lovino wasn't used to the fiery side of Antonio and the way he stomped while walking and slammed his school bag on the floor before throwing himself on the bed. Antonio remained, facedown, on the mattress, breathing heavily.

"You okay over there?" Lovino asked from his chair.

Antonio mumbled something through the blankets before lifting his head. "I got in a fight with the guys today. I said some pretty mean things."

"Like?"

"I told them to go fuck themselves."

"Nice."

Antonio looked at his boyfriend with desperate eyes. "Not nice! I don't swear and I swore at them!"

"If I recall you swore a few times asking me out. Creep."

"I'm a passionate man, Lovi."

Lovino lifted an eyebrow but didn't say anything. "What exactly did you fight about?"

A few deep breathes later Antonio finally admitted, "You… I accidentally said we were together and they flipped out. Gil was mad but Franny seemed like some mom trying to make me into her."

"That makes no sense."

"He told me I shouldn't date a ghost because… well, I guess the same reasons you gave me… plus the no sex."

Lovino snorted. "I see how that can be an issue for you sluts." Antonio laughed and looked at his boyfriend in awe. Somehow he felt a lot better about what had happened. "Hey, idiot. Don't feel bad about one fight. You can't let yourself waste your life being unhappy."

Oh. That's why. Lovino was surprisingly understanding for his personality. The way he made Antonio feel calm and relaxed was a plus, along with the way he made him feel alive and complete. Suddenly he heard eardrum-shattering, shrill beeps from the lower level of the house.

Lovino startled and looked around. "What the fuck is that?"

Antonio hopped from his bed and made sure his phone was in his pocket before he went to investigate. "Sounds like the gas alarm."

Lovino paled. "Gas alarm?"

"Yeah, mom insisted on buying a few when we found out this house has gas ovens instead of electric. There's probably a gas leak."

Antonio opened his bedroom door and stopped to smell the air. There was nothing new but he passed that off as the gas not reaching them yet. Lovino threw himself in front of Antonio when the Spaniard rushed to the stairs.

"Jesus, Antonio! Stop for a minute!"

"Why? I need to at least leave the house before I suffocate," he joked. He regretted it when he saw the blues in Lovino and the serious expression on his face.

"Don't. Run."

Antonio nodded and walked slowly, gently, to the steps. Lovino was watching him like a hawk and Antonio was beginning to understand the panic. The sulfur smell of the landing was disgusting and he immediately opened the front door and hopped around the house to open windows. Lovino left him to check the oven and, low and behold, the knob wasn't turned all the way.

I fucking knew this goddamn piece of shit was out to get me.

He turned it all the way off, even forcing it to be sure it was in place. Then he slid the knobs off and left only the pieces of metal sticking out. The pieces of hard plastic were left on the counter and he flew off to open more windows. When he finished he saw Antonio waiting on the front lawn, making a call.

Antonio had called his father, who urged him not to call the police about it. "Just air the house out and stay away until I get home. Don't waste resources!" There was no way Antonio was just going to abandon his home, vulnerable as ever, so he retreated to the backyard to wait on the swing. Lovino joined him later when the beeping had stopped and every door and window had been opened.

The ghost took the form of a seated man, floating next to Antonio like a magic show performance. "That was awful."

"Very much. Thanks for helping me with the leak."

"Anytime," Lovino breathed. "I think it's time I told you…"

This was it, this was the moment Antonio had been dying for since he first encountered the supernatural being! Lovino had composed himself, ready to go on in full detail, only stopped by the honking of a car horn.

Henrique came running around the side of the house and waved around. Antonio looked to his side to find Lovino had already gone invisible. "Henrique! You're home!"

The elder teen came to him and grabbed his arm. "What the hell are you still doing here? Dad called me half an hour ago and asked to check if it still smelled. And I come driving down the road to see you messing around on the swing?"

Antonio craned his neck and grimaced. There was just enough of a gap between their and their neighbor's house to see the yard from the street. "I was just keeping an eye on it, make sure nobody robbed us."

"Your fucking 'ghost' buddy can do that, we need to leave!"

More like ghost brother-in-law, you bastard. Your brother is mine now.

Antonio shot back an apologetic look where he though Lovino was as he was ushered away and out of the yard. He was so close to finding out!

The Carriedos had returned home later that night with take-out food and a receipt for an electric oven to be installed the following week. Henrique stayed around to catch up but excuse himself with a lie about needing to study for an important test for Sociology; a class he didn't take but sounded good enough to fool his parents. Antonio was relieved to return to his bedroom to find Lovino was waiting there for him.

"My parents are replacing the oven."

"It's about time that piece of trash was reunited with its home at the dump. Speaking of trash, how are your bastard friends?"

"They called me after Henrique kidnapped me but I wasn't in the mood to talk."

Lovino nodded and they entered a silence. Antonio changed his clothes and was disappointed that Lovino wasn't even trying to sneak a peek. He settled in on his bed, tired from the day, surrounded in his soft blankets. Lovino settled in next to him, his form emanating coldness, making Antonio thankful for his mountain of covers.

"Do you still want to know?"

A nod from the curly head of the Spaniard was all he needed.

"Alright… how much do you want to know?"

"Everything. I want to know everything there is to know about you, Lovi."

"Nonno was a powerful man when he was alive. He was a politician or something, I don't know, it was boring. He owned some land and he had a lot of money from his family. We all lived in Italy back then, in the seventies. For some reason my parents and Nonno thought America would be a nice change of scenery, and we moved here when I was very young. I think I was five or something.

"Nonno was very popular despite being foreign and he had a way with women. I grew up here but I kept my accent and was pretty popular with girls when I was in school. When I was in my last year of high school my mom became pregnant again and none of us expected it, especially at her age. I admit, I didn't like the idea of a brother nineteen years younger than me. I hated to think he'd get all the attention when I was supposed to be in the spotlight, graduating and going to college.

"My father died a few months before Feli was born. I think it was January. It hit our family pretty hard and my mother was depressed for a while. The doctors already told us she was high risk at her age and it was a miracle Feli wasn't miscarried.

"She was already having her C-section when we got there and she died on the table. The last time I saw her was that morning before I left for school. The last thing she told me was she loved me and to have a good day… It was the worst day of my life. I gained a brother and lost my mother all on my birthday. My nineteenth birthday.

"Nonno took care of Feli after that. I couldn't stand the house I lost my parents in so we sold it and Nonno bought me my own place. He lived with me at first and Feli has a nursery set up where you put the sitting room. After a year he moved back out, saying he wanted me to feel independent and to have my own place since I was an adult in college.

"For a couple years he would randomly stop by to visit with Feli. We'd take pictures and do weird family things because we wanted to be as normal as we could for him. Of course I had to go fuck that up when he was barely three-years-old.

"I was in my last year of college, as cruel as that was. It was just turning spring and I was pretty happy to be done with all the goddamn cold weather. I wouldn't graduate until the late summer—I took a semester off to take care of Feli when Nonno was visiting family back in Rome.

"I woke up and felt like I was going to get sick. I wasn't hungover, I remember not having enough money to buy anything but some bread to stall my hunger. I hated asking Nonno for handouts but I really should have…

"When I got out of bed I almost fell over, I was so dizzy and I was trying not to throw up. It was so early in the morning that the sky was still black. I blacked out a little when I got to the door and I had to wait a few minutes to let it pass, but it never passed. The air was so thick and it smelled so retched I wanted to just run outside and breathe again.

"It took me a while to realize it was a gas leak. I guess I was tired or too fucked up already to see it sooner. I knew I needed to go outside and get away from it and I tried, I did… but the fucking carpet on the stairs had always been a problem. The fucking carpenters didn't staple it down right or it was displaced at some point, I don't know… but there was a bump in it at the top of the stairs. And I was so dizzy and I could hardly see anything by then.

"I rushed to the stairs and I tried to grab the railing but I missed. The last thing I remember was my toe catching on that goddamn rug and a rush of air on my face…

"When I woke up everything was different. Everything looked blurry and I was on laying on the ground. I didn't know what had happened and I got up and I felt something pulling me up, like I was underwater and being moved around by a current. I barely registered that I was floating and I felt so numb that it didn't shock me as much as it should have when I saw my body.

"I was just there, at the bottom of the stairs. I guess I fell head-first. My jaw was scratched pretty bad and my neck was twisted in a way I've never seen before. There was blood pooled around my head and I couldn't tell what killed me, the broken neck or the head injury. My body was slumped on the stairs still. I tried to touch it but I went straight through.

"Later that day my friend, Toris, came by to pick me up for classes. He was my ride to school and we were best friends since grade school. He knocked for a while and he saw my body through the window since I didn't have curtains.

"I'll never forget the way he wailed and fell to his knees. I tried to talk to him and tell him I was still here but he couldn't see me or hear me. Months later I learned I was invisible to people and finally learned how to be seen, not that it mattered. It was too late then.

"They held the wake at my house and that was the last time I saw most of my friends. I heard my Nonno on the phone when he was cleaning up my things a year later that Toris had a breakdown and threw himself off the roof of the science building on campus. I fucked up and fell and Toris killed himself because of it.

"I remember hearing Nonno tearing the carpet out of the stairs. He wanted to take that damned oven out but couldn't handle coming back to the house his grandson died in. I spent my time in my room. Eventually I learned how to move things and I finally organized all the photos Nonno left in my drawer. The album was only half-finished when he left it.

"Since I died I spent my time trying to leave but I couldn't get much farther than the back swing or the front porch. When I got to the limit I felt sick again, like the morning I died. I was too weak to move forward. So I retreated to my house and just watched the world outside. I had to have read our old bible a thousand times trying to find a way to pass on and go to Heaven or wherever you go to when you die. I wanted to see Toris and Mom and Dad. I want to see Nonno. I never figured it out…

"Then you came and you had to work your way into my afterlife. And you brought Feli to me. And you brought me people I could talk to and be human with. And you just had to make me thankful to be here for once."

A/N: Wow, huge block of monologue. That is ugly.

Congrats, catholicorprotestant, you got it! He fell down the fucking stairs. Super anticlimactic but whatever, I googled common deaths last month and falls came up.

My own house has a gas stove/oven. We had, like, one minor gas leak and I can smell the gas sometimes when I try to turn the burner on too long. It's a definite smell but what Antonio smelled is a little dramatized, at least compared to my own experience. And the knobs on our oven come off and leave these sketchy, rusty bits of metal sticking out. So that's based on weird reality.

I'm feeling a bit sick but I felt a need to post this. Apologies if I don't feel well enough to do tomorrow's update.