"Bastard?"

Lovino's voice floated in from across a void.

Reluctantly, Antonio lifted his head out of the dent in the pillow in time to see Lovino's head poke around the door, his face creased uncharacteristically in concern as opposed to annoyance. Antonio felt his heart sink at that. Lovino didn't need to be concerned for him. He didn't belong here.

The Italian cleared his throat. "You getting up this morning? Or are you just going to laze around like a dumbass?" This was Lovino's way of asking if he was alright.

Antonio returned his head to the pillow and said nothing. His head felt like bread dough.

"Those bastards asked after you. Gilbert and Francis, that is. You want to talk to them?"

Antonio was surprised they hadn't forgotten about him too. Everyone else had.

There was a thick, stuffed pause so long that Antonio thought Lovino had gone away. "Well…Vene and I have to go now…classes and stuff. Uh…don't stay in there and mope all day again. " Lovino's voice was hesitant, dismayed. If Antonio could have felt worse, he would have.

As the Italian padded away Antonio heard a sigh and a soft, "Damn it…"

XxxxX

There's not much quite like the moment the hot water caresses your skin after you get home from a long day, strip off, and blitz away the stress with a shower. Warmth, comfort, and relaxation all at once.

But it only took a few minutes of lathering bubbles into his hair before the natural scowl returned to Lovino's face. Take any other day, and he'd be glad to have the evening off. Working evenings always sucked; not as if he had a choice in the matter. He hadn't been keen last week on leaving Antonio alone with Feliciano, for fear of the chaos that could ensue. It admittedly had yet to go seriously wrong, but Lovino took the pessimistic view. But this week had been starkly different. He hadn't had a single cause to worry, even considering he'd been gone every evening since Sunday. There hadn't been a single occurrence of chaos, disarray, or even shenanigans.

He wasn't so sure about being home tonight, either. He almost wanted to be out of the place, it was so unnatural. Ever since Saturday, Antonio had gone quiet.

If it had just been the quiet, it would have been relaxing.

But it wasn't. The atmosphere felt frozen. It was unnerving. It felt tense, taut like the moment upon encountering a tripwire just before you fall over.

It had been like this all week, and Lovino didn't like it one bit. He'd just about got used to sharing his flat with two happy, excitable morons and had been just about ok with that, apart from the noise. Now he had one brother who was reluctant to be too cheerful because his friend was sad, and one depressed ex-pirate who slunk about the place like a lost puppy, avoiding all contact. He'd had to practically tiptoe around the pair for fear of causing the Jenga tower of repressed emotion to crash down.

Lovino hadn't even thought pirates could get depressed. But he supposed that, when it came down to the bones of it, Antonio was a human being like anyone else. He shouldn't be defined by his piracy.

And yet the problem was that he had been. That was why he was, for want of a better word, kind of depressed. It had determined who he was, all of who he was, probably for most of his life. And then the fragile strings with which he'd been holding onto his past had been slashed. It must be crushing, Lovino thought, to suddenly lose one's identity.

But even though he kind of understood, he was worried. Just a little. And not at all about whether the bastard was happy. Definitely not that. Just about if life was going to settle back down, that was all. He wasn't concerned for that stupid Spanish jerk. Not even if it seemed like the life had been sucked out of him…

They'd almost had to drag him home from Arthur's last week.

Since then it was like Antonio had been replaced by a robot who looked and sounded like Antonio, but hadn't got the personality software installed. He'd lost all interest in everything, even the reading and and other such acclimatisation, and he'd been distant to the point of being disconnected. Every time either Vargas brother had tried to talk to him, Antonio had quietly brushed the question off and returned to brooding to himself in his room. Neither of them knew about what he was thinking, but doing it all the time was certainly doing him no good. It was almost like he'd had his soul taken and he wasn't sure what to do without it. Drifting around as opposed to living.

Lovino hadn't thought he'd ever be concerned for anyone except for himself and Feliciano, but that had been before Antonio had turned up, quite literally, in a puff of smoke. He'd only been there a few weeks, but the bastard almost felt like one of the family. He certainly was annoying enough to fit in.

The problem was that Lovino wasn't quite sure he felt close enough to Antonio to feel like he was able to talk to him about it. "Bastard, you alright?" could only get him so far under Antonio's surface. Unfortunately, that was about the best Lovino could do. He'd never really been close to anyone, and felt so out of his depth in situations like that that he felt like he was almost drowning.

He had no map to help Antonio find himself. Not even one with a big 'x-marks-the-spot'.

Lovino scowled and turned off the shower, his skin prickling at the sudden loss of comforting warmth. It'd do him no good to join Antonio in brooding over this. At least he felt a little more refreshed after the shower, and if it was still quiet here he could get on with a bit of classwork after dinner. If he could be bothered to, that was.

He wrapped a fluffy towel around himself before the air had a chance to steal too much of his warmth, slowly dried off and got dressed. He glanced at his watch as he fixed it around his wrist. It was getting late. He'd not had any food in at least two hours and he was getting kind of hungry.

His younger brother was curled up on the sofa in the living room, tapping at his phone and humming tunelessly. He'd evidently done a bit of tidying up while Lovino had been a shower; either that or the myriad of junk that had been all over the table and chairs had undergone a spontaneous migration.

"Quit humming," Lovino told him as he walked past. "Do you have a constant need to make noise, or are you just trying to piss me off?"

"Is it ok if I go to the cinema tomorrow afternoon with Ludi and Kiku?" Feliciano asked as if Lovino hadn't said anything. The younger sibling was used to the older's moods; he was rarely the cause, just the target of outburst of general irritation.

Lovino grunted. "Do what you like, if you absolutely have to spend time with that potato. And don't come home too late, you know what it's like out after dark."

"Yay!" Feliciano chirped, returning to his texting. "There's a new film we'd like to go see, it's about this-"

"I really could not care less," Lovino interrupted before his brother went off on a verbal essay about God-knows-what franchise. He opened the fridge and scowled at the contents like it had personally offended him. It was rare that he wasn't sure what to cook. "Go ask that bastard what he wants to eat today, Vene," he told his brother, deciding to cop out of the decision. "And if he replies with 'I don't mind,' or 'I'm not hungry', hit him and ask again."

Feliciano frowned, head cocked to one side. "Hmm, but I don't want to hurt Toni. Especially if he's sad. Perhaps I should make pasta for him again, pasta is good for being happy."

"Hmph," Lovino replied as his brother wandered towards the bedrooms. "Pasta doesn't solve everything, moron. He either needs to figure out the damn problem himself, rant it out of his system, or man up and forget about it." But despite his words, Lovino was worried. He didn't know what to do. Why did he never know what to do when it came to that damn bastard?

Feliciano's voice sounded through the walls, somewhat urgently. "Fratello, he's not in here, or our room. And then I knocked on the bathroom door and he's not there either!" The younger Vargas ran back into the kitchen, his face a mask of worry. "I don't know where he's gone! I thought he was in his room but then he's not! He's not run away again, has he?"

Lovino slammed the fridge shut with a bang that rocked the appliance on its feet, his face contorted with shock and rage. "The hell do you mean he's gone?! He's been sulking in there all day! Stupid jerk can't just up and leave without telling us!"

Bastard must have snuck off somewhere while I was in the shower and Feliciano in his bedroom. Lovino swore violently. He should have known it was too quiet –he'd gotten careless over the last week. He stormed into Antonio's bedroom, just to check if he was hiding in there. But Feliciano hadn't been wrong – the room was completely Antonio-less.

He stalked back into the kitchen, cursing profusely. Feliciano was stood by the stove. His phone was in his hand and he was texting hurriedly.

Frustrated and out of options, Lovino slammed one fist on the table, immediately regretting the action as pain arced up the length of his arm. "Damn it! Where has that bastard gone to? I am not searching the whole goddamned city again!" If Feliciano hadn't noticed when Antonio had gone, the Spaniard could be literally anywhere in the city by now. Including the police station, or worse, the morgue. Now Lovino was wishing for the silent tension to be back. At least that was predictable.

Feliciano looked up worriedly from his phone, thumbs still poised over the keyboard from his texting. "Gil-Gil and Francis don't know where he is either. I'm scared he's run away, fratello. I hope he's alright."

Lovino just growled and stormed over to the window. It was open slightly to let in the warm early autumn air; what was usually a refreshing breeze was a rush of mockery of the prospect of having to search a maze of streets for an ex-pirate who refused to stay put. Completely forgetting the lesson he'd learned a minute ago, he slammed his hand on the sill, receiving only a sharp burst of pain up his arm that befriended the first injury and sharply wracked his nerves. "Goddamn it, you bastard!" he shouted aimlessly at the evening sky. "Where the hell are you?!"

To his surprise, there was a soft reply from outside, barely audible over the whistle of the wind and the ever-present background roar of car engines and horns. "I'm up here, Lovi. It's ok."

The roof. Lovino had never thought to check up there – Antonio had only ever been once. He'd run away that day too, but that had been out of a desire to explore, not…whatever this was. Lovino hadn't expected that to be any kind of option; he'd almost forgotten the bastard knew about it. The hell was he doing, hiding up there?

The Italian sighed, his anger slowly fading to a soft relief. "The bastard's up on the roof, Vene. I'll go get him."

Feliciano's face lit up. "Yay! I'm glad he's not run away. I'll tell Gil and Francis that he's ok!"

Leaving his brother to his texting, Lovino clambered out the window and up the floors of the rickety, badly-painted fire escape. It was only one storey extra onto the roof; the building wasn't especially tall. Getting onto the roof itself required a short climb, where one put a foot on the safety fence of the escape, then stood on it to get within reach of the roof's rafter tail, which was a position a short pull-up away from being on the roof. But Lovino had made the trip countless times, and it wasn't hard for anyone with a reasonable level of physical fitness. Even when it had been raining, there was still a fair amount of grip on the tiles.

Lovino hauled himself up the short gap to see Antonio sat close to where they'd sat before. He seemed to be watching the slow change of the colours in the sky across the vast cityscape, resting back with his hands behind him. Even dressed in his new clothes, he was looking very lost. It was something in the face, something Lovino couldn't quite put his finger on.

The Spaniard glanced up slightly as Lovino sat down next to him. "I'm sorry I worried you. I just wanted to be alone for a bit, and Feliciano has been pestering me a lot lately about whether I'm ok." He sighed in frustration. "I don't mean I resent it, I know it means he cares, but there's nothing he can do." His voice was quiet, barely more than a murmur. It didn't hold any of the life that it had when Lovino had met him.

There were several seconds of silence before Lovino found the words to speak again. He didn't like seeing Antonio this sad. He was supposed to be cheerful, relentless, almost unstoppably enthusiastic. Not mournful, like all the energy had been drained from him. He didn't know how to even try to fix this.

"Still…it'd be nice if you gave us a bit of warning that you were going off on your own." Lovino ran a hand through his damp hair awkwardly and scowled. "Thought we'd have to search the entire damn city for you again."

"That's nice of you, Lovi," Antonio replied half-heartedly, still not looking him properly in the face. "But you've got your classes, and your job. You don't have to do all that just for me."

Surprised, Lovino gave him a sideways look. The bastard hadn't been this conscientious before. "'Course I do, idiot. I've not put weeks of effort into getting you used to this time just to abandon you the moment you wander off. Damn ungrateful bastard." He grunted quietly and returned his face to a scowl.

For a moment, the ghost of a smile graced Antonio's lips. He sighed softly and drew his legs up underneath him so that he was sat cross-legged. "Thanks, Lovi."

Lovino didn't know what to say. Unsure, he stared off at the horizon. The sun was gradually dropping lower and lower, setting the lazy clouds alight with tongues of orange and yellow fire. The city was at its dimmest at this time of day, before the incessant twinkle of light pollution had a chance to dust the night's clouds an unnatural orange. Buildings were draped in shadow like an old man in a cape; aged and darkened, but still grand and dignified. It never ceased to amaze Lovino how beautiful his home was.

"It has a certain magnificence to it, this place." Antonio said softly, as if reading Lovino's thoughts. "I thought when I first came here that modern cities were chaotic and enormous and aggressive, but…" He smiled slightly again, just for a second. "But there is a beauty to it, now that I look. Maybe I'm just a bit more used to it, but I've started to appreciate the city a bit more. I never knew so many colours could exist together so often. And once I get past how big the buildings are, they're quite pretty. The old ones have all kinds of carvings, the shiny glass ones look like they come from another world and there are little streets that are like a hidden maze. It's kind of wonderful, in a way." The wind ruffled his brown curls, edged with gold by the light of the sunset. He may not had had a penny to his name at this point, but there was still something rich about Antonio.

Lovino looked at him, watching his green eyes reflect the orange of the sky like a forest fire. He didn't say anything in reply. If Antonio was finally beginning to voice what he'd spent the last week brooding about, it was probably best not to interrupt. He'd probably only say something stupid and upset Antonio further.

"But it still feels very strange," Antonio sighed. "I still don't know anything about this place. It's a big confusing mystery. I only really knew anything about the sea, or boats. And they've probably changed now too. Well, not the sea, but probably boats. There's probably like a car for the sea now. Would wheels work in the sea? Probably not. I miss the sea… I miss it a lot." Antonio frowned, looking uncertainly at Lovino. "Out there…I felt like I belonged there, it's the only place that was home, for a long time. Do you think I could belong here instead, Lovi? Could I truly call this place home?"

So that was what had been bothering him, Lovino thought to himself. That was it. That was the expression Lovino hadn't been able to pin on him; a lack of confidence in where he was. Antonio had lost his freedom, then the anchor of his own time, then his very identity, and to cap it all off he was in an alien place that utterly mystified him. No wonder the guy had been a bit depressed. "Don't see why not," he replied gruffly. "You've not really sucked at it that much so far."

"What?" Antonio asked, and Lovino realised he'd been using slang again.

"Been bad at it," he clarified. "You've not been bad at settling in here. Yeah, maybe over the first few days I wanted to hit you over the head with a spatula, but I guess you're not quite the arrogant, disaster-prone, fight-seeking, idiotic bastard that I first thought you were. If you stopped trying to be a pirate, and just started trying to be Antonio, I reckon you could belong."

"I always felt like I belonged where I was," Antonio said sadly. "It was all I really knew. So was being a pirate."

Lovino shrugged. "Just cos it was all you knew doesn't mean you belonged there. P'raps you just didn't know any better."

"Maybe," Antonio said uncertainly. "But at least I knew it. There's not much I know here."

"Good," Lovino replied shortly. "It'd be no fun to know everything. Like if I knew everything about making fast cars, I'd be able to make the fastest car that there's ever been and ever will be." His eyes dropped and his expression turned to a darker scowl. "And then what the fuck would I do with my life? I'd have nothing left to do. But, if I didn't know everything, I'd always be trying to make something better, to improve. There'd always be a goal, something new and exciting. Life's about learning, about the journey." Realising how serious this was making him sound, he felt his cheeks flare up red, and he quickly added. "And thinking too much sucks balls and philosophy makes my brain hurt."

Antonio chuckled. It was good to see a bit of humour return to his face. It was a face that smiles belonged naturally to; again counter-intuitive to piracy. "What's philosophy?"

Lovino's face coloured again. He had to stop using words he couldn't explain well to Antonio if asked. "Damned if I know. When you think far too much about life and existence and belonging and all that shit. Something like that."

"Yeah," Antonio nodded. "I've been thinking about that lots lately and it's not been fun." He sighed again. "But I see what you mean. Like if back in my time I became the greatest pirate ever and had all the riches and everyone else was so scared they never went on the sea. It would be no fun."

"Exactly," Lovino agreed. "So don't get too depressed about all this shit. If you don't know much, then you've just got a shit-ton of stuff left to experience. I dunno…think of it as another journey or something, except you're not on a boat, you live here, and the journey is about discovering where you belong here, or something." He shrugged and waved a hand dismissively, still thinking it all sounded too philosophical and vague. "Doesn't matter if shit happens. It's like an adventure or something. God knows. I sure as hell don't."

Antonio just chuckled slightly.

The two sat watching the slow change of the sunset in companionable silence for a while. Lovino wasn't completely certain, but Antonio seemed to look a bit improved. More reflective, thoughtful, than the outright despondency he'd had going. It wasn't back to normal, but it was certainly better. Lovino was relieved he'd been able to help. Usually he completely sucked at cheering people up.

However, Lovino's stomach didn't seem to agree that everything was better now, and decided to voice its opinion with a loud, discontent growl. Lovino jumped and frantically clutched at it to get it to shut up, but the damage was done. Damned atmosphere-killing organs.

Antonio laughed. "Hungry, Lovi? I suppose it is getting kind of late."

"Oh, shut up," Lovino retaliated. "I was going to have food, but you had to disappear right when it was dinnertime. Now I've got to cook something before I can eat it, 'cos I doubt Vene's been bothered to start anything, and that's going to take ages. Damn it, I'm starving."

Antonio stood up. "Let's go find some food. I'm kind of hungry too, now that I think about it."

Lovino grunted in reply and led the way back across the roof. There seemed to be some kind of unspoken agreement that there had been some progress made and, for now at least, this conversation was over.

There was perhaps thirty seconds of this silence before he heard Antonio's voice behind him. "Hey, Lovi?"

"What?"

Lovino was halfway through turning around when he was hit with an unexpectedly warm hug. Antonio's mouth was millimetres away from his ear as he murmured, "Gracias, Lovi." Arms snaked around his waist and pulled him in close, pressing him flush against the Spaniard.

"Hmph," Lovino scowled, trying to ignore the heat building up in his face. He didn't like Antonio being so close; his chest felt tight, his breathing quick, his brain fuzzy. Antonio's skin was warm against his neck. Why did Feliciano have to teach the bastard about hugs?

He scowled awkwardly and pushed Antonio away. His face felt like it was on fire. "You're welcome, bastard, now let's go inside before I starve to death."

Antonio nodded, looking a little disappointed that Lovino had broken off the hug and Lovino had to try hard not to feel guilty. He couldn't just go and upset the bastard right after he cheered him up. But he wasn't a hugging person, and he wasn't sure if he liked having Antonio quite so close.

Lovino quickly cast his mind back towards food; he still didn't know what to make for dinner. An empty stomach was the bane of decisive thinking in the face of food. Everything sounded so good, but effort all sounded so tiresome. Lovino frowned as an idea occurred to him. It would be a lot of effort now, but it might save him some later. "Hey, jerk. You should probably learn how to cook, if you're living here permanently. Freeloading bastards like you need to learn how to pull their weight since you're not paying rent."

"Really?" Antonio said in surprise. "But I don't know how to use anything in the kitchen and you made me promise not to use anything on pain of 'having a fork stuck up my ass'."

"Hmph. Fine then. Providing you're under supervision, then I rescind that threat."

Antonio seemed to ponder this for a moment, just long enough for Lovino to become nervous. "Ok. But I've never cooked before. We had a man on the ship who did all the cooking. And I am – er, was – the captain, so I never did that sort of thing anyway. And I'd bet it's completely different in the now, there must be food machines. What would I start with?"

Lovino shrugged as he descended the last couple of stairs and put a hand on the window sill. "Machines don't make the food for you; they just kinda help a little. But how about we start with pasta and tomato sauce? Even you couldn't screw that up, it's pretty simple. Also it's made of tomatoes, so providing you don't do anything blasphemous with them, it should be fine."

Antonio frowned and opened his mouth, about to say something in reply, but the excitable tornado that was Feliciano leapt off the sofa and bounded over almost before the two had climbed back in through the window. "Ve~! You're back! Oh! And Toni is smiling again! Yay! You managed to get him to cheer up. I'm so glad~."

"Oh shut up, idiot fratellino," Lovino grumbled, annoyed he'd missed what Antonio was about to say; it might have been important. But he did agree. It was nice to see Antonio back to normal, at least for now. Doubtless he'd start being annoying again soon, but as much as he hated to admit it, that was better than being sad and unresponsive.

"Lovi is going to teach me how to cook!" Antonio announced, much to Feliciano's amazement and delight. The uncertain expression had vanished from his face so fast Lovino wasn't certain if he'd imagined its presence. But Antonio's cheerful words did have some effect; Lovino had a feeling this wasn't going to be such a good idea after all. Damn his brain. And his mouth, for talking before he'd realised this idea was terrible.

Much to the despair of Lovino's anguished stomach, it took ten minutes just to get set up. During this time, he'd delegated pasta-making and preparation of a side salad to the more expert Feliciano. It was probably best to introduce Antonio to one task at a time and only start entire meals and stage synchronisation once he'd gotten used to how to work a kitchen. Perhaps this wasn't the best starter meal, but…tomatoes spoke for themselves sometimes. Half-a-dozen of the large, gleaming red orbs sat on the chopping board next to the knife Antonio had been instructed to ignore until told otherwise, and the necessary bowls and pans were piled nearby. Lovino had made doubly sure Antonio had washed his hands. His new roommate's hygiene had improved somewhat under Lovino's somewhat forceful tutelage, but it still wasn't where the Italian would prefer it, and he wasn't taking risks when it came to food.

As Feliciano stood happily off to one side in his bright yellow apron, doing his own prep work, Lovino decided to take the plunge and begin. "Ok, first you need to get the skins off the tomatoes," he commanded, "otherwise the sauce has uncomfortable chewy bits in. Well, it's not what I'd normally do first, but let's start with that as it's easy." With his hands on his hips and the expectant Antonio in front of him, Lovino wasn't sure whether he felt more like a culinary instructor, or a parent. He certainly felt more out of his depth than he should.

Antonio nodded and picked up a tomato, examining it as if it held the secrets of the universe. "I still can't believe how tasty all the food is in the now. And you can get everything all the time instead of waiting for trees or trying to salt it."

"It's only tasty here," Lovino said as he gathered the necessary tomatoes into a glass bowl. "If you go to America, I swear it's all deep-fried burgers and stuff that tastes all fatty and terrible. And don't even get me started on how shit British food is. It's like they have no tastebuds or something." He made a face. "But Vene and I are pretty good. Food's a damned important part of life. No point coming home from work or whatever to a plate of something you don't really care about. Food's an art, and it deserves that respect. If you don't love your food, you don't love yourself. And besides, it–"

He was forced to break off from his food-based-rant as he realised he should have restarted paying attention to Antonio. The idiot had decided the best way to remove the tomato skins was with his fingernails, which, in addition to having dirt up them, were short, blunt, and completely ineffective. He was trying to peel shred by shred, despite the skins clinging stubbornly to the tomato flesh like a child refusing to go to kindergarten by latching onto a parent.

Antonio squeaked in a most un-pirate-like fashion as the disgruntled tomato retaliated against this culinary blasphemy by squirting juice at his face. It narrowly missed his left eye and Lovino stifled a smirk. Disheartened, the would-be chef looked up at Lovino. "Lovi, this tomato is delicious but mean. Can't I use the knife for this instead? The skins won't come off."

Lovino scowled to prevent himself from laughing at the pouty look on Antonio's face. It certainly was not cute in the slightest. "You're struggling 'cos you're doing it wrong, you moron. There's a really easy way to get the skins off." He pointed at the kettle. "Get that thing, and fill it with water up to the point that says '6'. And if you've not learnt your numbers yet and you get it wrong, I'm going to up-end it over your damn stupid head. Il mio Dio, I don't know what I'm going to do when we get onto the onion if you're this bad with just tomatoes."

Feliciano, over by the stove, looked up from his pasta-making. "I can do the onion if Toni will have trouble."

"Bastard's got to learn some day," Lovino grunted, piling the tomatoes into a large glass bowl.

Antonio, who had just about mastered the wizardry of a tap, held the half-full kettle up questioningly and studied the gauge. "Erm, six…one, two, three, four, five, six…ooh! That one! Hmm, there's not enough in there to be six. If I put more in, you won't empty it over my head, will you, Lovi?" He hurriedly stuck the kettle back under the tap before Lovino could reply and got the water up to the correct level. "Ok, now what?"

"Put it back on its stand and press the little silver lever. That's the thing at the bottom. It should light up; that's how you know it's working."

Antonio stared at the device as it began to hum. "What does a kettle do, Lovi? Is it turning the water into sauce?"

Lovino rolled his eyes. "No, dumbass. It just makes it hot. Boiling water is useful for cooking." The kettle began to rock agitatedly on its stand and steam issued from the spout. "That's about done, now take it and pour it into the bowl."

"Won't that hurt the tomatoes, if it's hot?" Antonio asked, reluctant to pick the kettle up. "Or me?"

Lovino felt his eye twitch. "No, it just makes it easy to take the skins off. Long story short, before you ask, it's because of science. Go on, before I pour it over you and see if your skin comes off."

"Don't be mean, fratello," Feliciano piped up. "Cooking doesn't mean you have to make death threats at poor Toni every five minutes. He's still learning. It's ok for him to make mistakes and ask questions. It's called experience~."

Outnumbered, Lovino growled and retreated over to the counter as Antonio drenched the tomatoes in the hot water. Tiny bubbles began to rise up off the tomatoes and break for the surface. The skins slowly began to wrinkle.

The ex-pirate bent down and stared at them. "Now what happens? When do the skins fall off? Is that science too?"

Feliciano giggled as Lovino explained. "They don't just fall off, moron. Don't just say the first thing that comes into your head; think, for once. The hot water just makes it easy to take the skins off once you take them out of the water because it makes them begin to peel by themselves."

"Ohh." Antonio's face cleared and he stared at the tomatoes with new determination. "I see it! The skin looks more loose and wrinkly. Come here, tomatoes~." Before Lovino could even cry out a warning, Antonio plunged his hand into the water, before recoiling with a shriek and clutching his hand. "Ow! That's hot! Ow ow ow ow!" Lovino would have thought that as a pirate Antonio would have been more used to pain. Perhaps he'd gotten complacent after that long in an Arabian lamp.

Feliciano rushed over to see if Antonio was alright, encouraging the older man to run cold water over the stricken hand. "It'll be ok, Toni! If you leave it under the water for a few minutes, the burn won't be as bad and your fingers will be fine."

Lovino wasn't sure if this sort of naïveté was endearing or annoying. No, definitely annoying. "Hey, genius, if something is hot, it's hot, ok? Surely you can't be so dumb as to not know what that means. I really don't know why I even bother with you. Ok, Kitchen Safety Rundown for Dumb Bastards: one, hot stuff is hot, don't touch it without gloves; two, don't place stuff where you can knock it over by accident; three, if you don't know what it does, ask me or Vene instead of investigating; four, always turn equipment off once you're finished; five, don't use chopping boards for more than-"

"Ayyy! Lovi, that's too much! You can't expect me to ever remember all that! That's too hard!" Antonio protested. He looked down at the tap. "My fingers are cold now."

Lovino scowled again and retreated again to behind the table. "Sheesh. Sorry for giving a damn about your safety, you jerk." He was officially fed up now. That was the last time he listened to his own ideas; they all turned out to be utterly stupid. The nerve of that bastard. Here Lovino was trying to teach him how to cook, and all he did was complain. Too pissed off to even look at him, Lovino sullenly fished the tomatoes out of the bowl with a spoon. He wasn't going to let Antonio ruin them by leaving them in the hot water for too long. Feliciano was jabbering away in the background about burn remedies.

The last few droplets of water fell from Antonio's fingers as Feliciano turned off the tap. "There we go, all done. Your fingers don't still hurt, do they? If they do then you can put them back under the tap."

"No, they're fine. Thanks, Feli." Antonio didn't seem put off by his injury. Bastard must have just been making a fuss for attention. He wasn't going to get that from Lovino.

That asshole. Sure, he could get all chummy with Feliciano badgering him about first aid, but as soon as Lovino dared to give a crap, he was all 'no, that's too hard!'. Lovino had more than half a mind to just abandon this disaster train before it ran off a cliff, but that would mean abandoning the food too. And those poor tomatoes had been through enough already.

He was hungry too. But then, he had tomatoes in his room. Could he just go eat those instead? Wouldn't be as filling, but it'd be quieter.

Feliciano had paused his tasks and was teaching the ungrateful idiot how to crush a garlic clove. Bastard seemed entranced by the simple tool. Lovino could feel the heat curl through his chest. Feliciano was having no trouble getting Antonio to do anything, and he didn't get sassed, or have dumb things happen. Why did Antonio listen to Feliciano but not him? He'd have crashed and burned in this time if not for Lovino's help, but didn't seem to appreciate the effort.

Stupid jerk. Lovino wasn't going to waste any more of his precious time on this if he was just going to get snapped at all the time. He stepped forward, about to yell exactly what he thought of those ostracising bastards; the words were formed in his throat, eager to leap out.

But they never got the chance as Antonio put the used garlic press down and hugged him spontaneously for the second time that evening. "I didn't mean to yell at you, Lovi, I'm sorry. It's just that there's so much to learn and it's kind of overwhelming and you said everything too fast. I know you're only trying to help. I'm glad that you are. You're not mad at me, are you?" He almost looked worried – not that Lovino cared at all.

Great, now that bastard was being humble? Yet again, it was that other side of Antonio that trod on the captain stereotypes of before and whispered of a different, decent man underneath. It just raised more questions. Lovino sighed. The raging pressure in his chest had evaporated at the contact, almost as if Antonio's hug had opened an exit valve and the anger had all vanished. Now he just felt tired. "Whatever. Let's…let's just get on with it."

If only there was food soon to help revive his spirit. But alas…

Antonio's face had lit back up. "Yes! Ok, so I peel the skins off the tomatoes and then cut them up, right? Can I cut them with my axe? I've not used it in so long."

An image of Antonio's axe tearing a gash in a wall like it was paper flashed before Lovino's eyes, driving all other thoughts from his mind, and he shuddered nervously. He was uncomfortable just having that thing in his house, let alone letting it be used. "Dear God no. It's far too big. And fucking dangerous. Use the knife. You should know what those are, at least. Cut out the seeds and cut the flesh into pieces about the size of your fingernail."

It was far longer than Lovino would have liked before there was a pot of tomatoes, garlic, basil, oil, and the vegetable net's second onion bubbling industriously on the stove. He was curled up on the sofa reading a car magazine and waiting for the timer to go off – he'd gone so far through hunger that his stomach had given up on growling and resigned itself to a quiet, tired ache that was making Lovino grumpy.

After his initial shock with the hot water, Antonio seemed to have developed a bit more respect for the hidden dangers of the kitchen – or at least he was asking first to check what was about to happen – so things had begun to progress faster once the tomatoes had been cut. Well, apart from what had happened to the first onion. Antonio had had a disagreement with the first onion. His inexperience with culinary knifework had caused the fumes to send painful tears streaking down his face. Lovino didn't know onions could bounce that well.

He certainly wasn't going to be the one to get the remains of it off the ceiling.

Still, Lovino had made a mental note to bang his head on the wall and never listen to one of his ideas again. It would have taken a third of the time and a fraction of the hassle just to make himself food without involving the idiot, and he could see no improvement in the foreseeable future. Hell, it would probably take weeks of cooking every day before Antonio could even be left on his own.

The little red kitchen timer sat on the countertop began to emit a series of urgent beeps, and Lovino sighed. It was finally done. Antonio had been hovering impatiently around the pan for the past five minutes, insistent that the simmering was doing nothing for it and deaf to Feliciano's explanations. It had only been thanks to Lovino's hunger induced laziness that he'd not received a whack around the head to cease his relentless chattering.

"So I just pick it up now?" he asked. "It's not going to be hot or anything? The pan is on the heat, shouldn't it be really hot?"

Feliciano smiled and shook his head. "Nope! Pans are good like that. It's fine to pick it up."

"Plastic's hard to heat up to a temperature that'll hurt you," Lovino interrupted, not moving from his comfy seat. There was, of course, a lot more to it than that, and it wasn't applicable for all plastics, but it would suffice as an explanation to Antonio for now.

Antonio, who had been informed of the next steps by Feliciano as a way to kill time while the sauce was cooking, tentatively tipped the pasta into the colander, marvelling again at the magical simplicity. Once in the colander, the pasta was quickly hijacked by Feliciano to ensure portion sizes weren't doled out in 'captain-size' and 'crew-size', while Antonio cautiously picked up the pan of completed sauce. He looked oddly pleased with himself.

Plates were handed around and Lovino started inhaling the meal he'd waited for over twice as long as he needed to. Antonio sat opposite him at the table and started his own portion, giving the pasta a cautious prod with the cutlery he was still inexpertly using.

"It's good, isn't it, Toni?" Feliciano chirped. Antonio smiled and turned large green eyes on Lovino, his smile finally turning into a relieved grin once the older brother shrugged an "it's passable".

Although, Lovino supposed as he ate, perhaps it hadn't been the worst idea in the world; he'd just picked a bad evening to spend ages cooking on. For a man who'd probably never cooked in his life and was having to learn to do so in a room full of bewildering objects, it wasn't a terrible effort. It was certainly a start of efforts to get him functional on his own, even if he had learnt a lesson or two the hard way. And it was a relief to see Antonio's boundless enthusiasm return. It would be nigh on impossible to get him to continue his time-adaptation if he were in his previously depressed state.

He sighed as he headed off to his room to catch an early night. The day had been far too long for his liking.

And it seemed it was about to get longer; for the third time that evening he'd been hit with a spontaneous Antonio-hug. You'd think the bastard would put some warning on the things before he squashed his intended target.

Lovino swatted him off, trying to squash the sudden tension in his chest, and growled. "Quit it with all the damned hugs, you bastard. You're either going to give me a heart attack or suffocate me."

Antonio grinned, obviously not sorry at all. "You make that face when I hug you though, it's kind of funny. And you go all red like a tomato."

"That's 'cos I don't like bastards like you in my personal space, damn it!" Lovino growled, wishing in vain that the flame rising in his face would disappear. "And I do not look like a tomato, stronzo."

"But tomatoes are red too," Antonio pointed out.

"So's a fucking fire engine, and I don't look like one of those either!" he snapped back. If he wasn't certain he'd get a much stronger retaliation, Lovino would have hit him.

This wasn't as good a retort as he'd hoped; it served to confuse than counterattack. "What's a fire engine? Is that when a car is on fire?"

"Oh dear God, never mind," Lovino groaned, leaning against the wall as if overcome by the weight of stupid. "You really are feeling better; you're back to being ridiculously annoying again."

Antonio smiled. "I guess I am feeling a little better, at least for now. Maybe I don't have a purpose here, but what I didn't realise is that I have a home, and I have friends here. Feliciano taught me about friends, and how they're different from crew members. And I'm glad you're my friend, Lovino. I learn so much from you guys, too. I can learn more about how I belong here by doing things, by realising this is an adventure in itself, than I can by shutting myself off from it all. And I'm glad I have you to remind me of that." He turned back towards his bedroom. "Buenos noches."

"Hmph. You're a pain in the ass, that's what you are. Buonanotte, bastard." Friends, indeed. Scowling, Lovino shook his head and retreated to his own bedroom. Who'd have thought that a pirate would get so affectionate. Mind, Lovino should probably stop referring to him as a pirate, seeing as that had been the exact advice he'd given Antonio earlier that evening. Pirate stereotypes were becoming damaging. Perhaps he should just let him be curious, haphazard, cheerful Antonio instead. It suited him better.

But then again, Captain Carriedo the sea-lord, and cheerful Antonio who struggled to peel tomatoes, were still the same person; the sum Lovino had yet to be able to add up. Antonio seemed to be a much more complex guy than Lovino had given him credit for.

As he retired to his room, Lovino felt the spark of another idea. Stupid brain.

Disclaimer: I don't have any problems with either American or British food.

Conscrit, if anyone has any, would be appreciated; I've been writing this somewhat intermittently over the course of my exams and I'm a bit uncertain about odd bits.

And of course, many thanks to everyone who is still reading!