Caruso, Good Life,

Eeeey, fast update!

Something I said on tumblr bears repeating here: you could pretty much take every 2-3 chapters of this story and make them into their own 2/3-shot story. Instead of cluttering up my archive with tiny Cooking-AU things, I just put them all in one story? Bleeh...

Big Brothers Don't Cry

Dancing On the Edge of Something

Establishing a relationship with Flavio, even a strange one like theirs, was one of Lovino's better moves in life. His first love was no longer this emotional vacuum in his life and memories, because although he would never have classified Flavio as someone he felt love for, if nothing else, being around him finally put Antonio in a context.

Antonio had been about passion and adventure. He'd been Lovino taking a fast and desperate plunge into waters too hot and cold at the same time to survive in. Lovino had been forced to swim for his life and climb out before Antonio could drown him, because the exhilaration had been addicting, and that addiction had threatened to compromise who he was.

Flavio was something like temperance, and it was all about the dance. Everything was touch-and-go, half-spoken and open to interpretation. Mistakes were hard to make because neither of them ever moved far enough at once to do more than wobble or lean too close to the edge.

For simplicity's sake the critic was bisexual: that was the label Lovino understood so that was what he used, letting Flavio's insistence and explanation of the twelve dozen other labels and alignments go in one ear and out the other. He really didn't give two shakes about pan-demi-bi-a-romantic-sexuality, he didn't know what 'cis-' meant or what the different flags were for, and on purpose he even pissed Flavio off one time by telling him about the only two flags that mattered:

"The Stars-and-Stripes and the Tricolour. That's it."

"That's ignorance."

"Oh say can you seeee, by the dawn's early liiight!"

Despite his insistence and obvious dedication to labels and distinctions, actually defining their relationship was part of the dance: it was unspoken, unseen. Lovino couldn't just stand up and demand Flavio clarify when they moved from acquaintances to friends, or friends to boyfriends, or anything like that because he wasn't even sure if they hit every step along the gradient of growing closer. Did they ever even make it to boyfriends?

The first kiss happened once, by accident- or by frustration. Lovino was cooking for them in Flavio's kitchen, an ultra-modern set-up with white countertops and glass surfaces and a place for everything and everything in its place. As cooking spaces went, it was about the best Lovino had ever seen and he was inappropriately eager to cook for his friend if it meant being able to get near that gas range and his lovely, lovely marble countertops.

The countertops that took Flavio's weight so easily when Lovino pushed him back against one, because he was frustrated with the bastard for not giving back the spoon he'd been using to stir and taste the sauce for their dinner. Since he couldn't get the spoon back, he took the smear of sauce on one full lip with both of his, cold marble under his hands and a misleadingly firm body trapped against him.

Worth it.

"Needs more lemon, I think."

And then they somehow went back to just friends for a few weeks, drifting all the way to professional acquaintances until summer hit, and Lovino needed Flavio's expertise with Naples' restaurant scene.

"Gelato." That was all he said into the phone, desperate and dying in heat that was so much worse than what he'd gone through in Rome. "Or ice cream, I don't give a shit. Someplace with something cold that I can just put in my mouth and leave there."

"I…" HE DIDN'T CARE HOW WRONG IT SOUNDED HE WAS COOKING IN HIS OWN SKIN HE WAS GOING TO DIE FLAVIO DO SOMETHING. "I can think of several places."

Several places that took a day to see all of, trying flavours Lovino had never heard of or thought about, and finally maybe forcing him to give up a life-long love of American ice cream. From too much sweet to just sweet enough, Gelato won him over.

"It's too hot for this…" And that day of watching Lovino suck and lick and swallow treats that were so sweet and creamy finally maybe forced something to break in Flavio.

"Shh, just trust me…" It didn't feel like sex- that is it felt- well, it felt intimate. It felt like something Lovino would rather die than talk about with anyone else. It made sense of all the dancing and the sideways communication, because to do the things they did required more than just verbal confirmation. Knowing looks and touches and the way voices rose and fell, sensing when to touch or fight back or bite off.

Experiencing the kinds of things a body- his body, could do without his control but somehow still with consent. The sorts of things that made him forget about the heat completely and left him shivering and torn between asking for more or making it stop.

It was intimate.

It was private.

And it felt so, so good…

But it wasn't quite what Lovino thought of when he thought of sex.

Invisible lines made it possible for him to transition smoothly from intimacy like that to working as usual the next day in the kitchen, because it wasn't his boyfriend schmoozing with the big-shots in the dining room, it was just some fancy critic standing out with all the other fancy critics.

"Don't let Santiago know." A fancy critic who was more street-smart than Lovino had initially given him credit for. "Not even those wonderful taste buds of yours will protect you if he finds out about you. He's such an ogre, positively medieval, but that's simply how it is with him." Fucking up for the critic hadn't gotten Lovino fired, but fucking him definitely would.

Maybe it was a sign of how much Lovino had grown up that instead of being scared and quaking in the shadows whenever his boss was around, the warning pissed him off. It meant something that instead of running like a mouse when he noticed more and more of the kinds of things the Chef let slip about faggots and boy-lovers, Lovino got mad. He got offended.

Fuck you, you bigoted piece of shit.

Maybe it showed how much Lovino had changed, willingly or not, when he mentally prepared himself over and over again for exactly how he'd come out and tear down Santiago some day for the shit he said between menu workshops and schedule changes. Maybe he'd be cool and blunt, maybe he'd throw shit at the fan and watch it explode, something subtle- something firm.

Something that wasn't making up stories about fake girlfriends or pretending to flirt with the waitresses.

He'd changed.

"Do you get any vacation time with your job?" He'd changed so much that it was hard to remember that there were people back home, people Lovino kept finding it harder and harder to make time for.

"A few weeks, a friend and I were thinking of going to Paris." Flavio was horrified with the fact that Lovino had never taken the trains or even flown beyond Italy's borders into Europe. "Is Feliciano home for summer break yet?"

Lovino and Feliciano kept in regular contact by e-mail, Lovino forced himself to try and remember to call home every month to their grandparents. Sometimes Carlino was there to speak to him over the phone, but usually…

"Oh yes he's here. Carlino is out though…" Lovino checked his watch, then opened his phone and looked down at the world-clock function on the screen.

"It's ten thirty back home."

"Yes…"

"Is he working?"

"No, not really." Not really? Lovino had spent his years in high school working in restaurants, Feliciano had stayed out with friends for study parties: neither of them had ever stayed out past ten o'clock on a school night. What were his marks like? "He has them."

"Nonna."

"He's sixteen, Lovino, it's a hard age…"

That was true, but it felt like an excuse to him. The fact that his Nonna refused to really say much of anything didn't make it any easier to put down.

"Carlino? He's fine!" And Feliciano was an unhelpful piece of shit too. "A little moody, always hungry, but nothing to worry about!" It didn't feel like a lie but it didn't seem like the truth either. "He's as tall as I am! You're the short one now, Lovino!"

"Fuck you I'll always be taller." He was the eldest brother, damn it. "Look, when he gets home just tell him I'll try calling again on the weekend, okay?"

"Sounds good! I'll talk to you soon, bye-bye!"

But Lovino didn't catch Carlino that weekend.

Or the week after that.

And out of all the e-mails he sent only one out of every five got an answer. And they were shitty answers.

How's school going?

Good.

Feli said you're getting taller, does that mean you can reach the snack shelf on your own?

Yes.

Lovino even went so far as to write out a long e-mail demanding to know if his brother was on drugs, if he'd gotten mixed up in crime, if he was dating or had knocked-up a girl, if he'd lost his religion or had gotten in a fight with Nonno because

for fuck's sake just talk to me!

…but he deleted that one without sending it, and the same thing went for all of its later incarnations that all basically said the same thing.

As far as personal matters went, he was comfortable in Naples. His apartment was nice, his wages were solid, his relationship was unorthodox and almost non-existent, but still left him satisfied in ways that left Lovino alone when he wanted to be and in company when he needed it.

He learned more about cooking from Flavio, or rather he learned more by cooking for Flavio, than he arguably did from the Empress' kitchen anymore. His technical skills were strong and to keep them sharp and shining he needed the nightly grind on the industrial stove-tops, fighting to keep the rhythm of the restaurant's heart stable. His creative side was given room to breathe when he had more than just himself to cook for outside the restaurant, because Flavio wouldn't let him get comfortable.

The idiot blond had the culinary attention span of a puppy. He was only interested in something so long as it was different or new or he hadn't seen it in a while. He forced Lovino to improve on recipes that were just good, and to coax new flavours out of over-done ingredients. He was probably the very best thing to ever happen to him career-wise, but he wasn't family.

And arguably neither of them wanted him to be.

Summer was half-gone when Lovino finally went to his bank and opened up the account with Carlino's college money in it, not to take any of it out, but just to look at the number.

The amount was half of every pay-check for two years straight, for skilled labour, in Euros.

He asked the clerk to convert the number into American dollars and wrote the new number down on a slip of paper. Lovino then took a long, slow, three hour walk around Naples.

The industrial shore of the Mediterranean wasn't as beautiful in this decade as it had been a few before, too much trash and pollution sweltering in the heat and poisoning the barrier between land and sea. It reminded him of just how far away from home he was knowing the body of water surrounding him was separated over and over again from the rivers and lakes running through the city where he'd grown up.

By the end of that long walk Lovino ducked into a pharmacy and bought a pack of condoms, and on the way to a nicer side of town he picked up a bottle of his almost-boyfriend's favourite wine.

"Well, this is unexpected…" So was seeing Flavio stand there at the door to his condo without his scarf or jacket, honestly giving the impression that he'd spent an entire day inside not being a condescending douchebag to anybody.

"Are you busy tonight?" Lovino didn't want to take him out to dinner, and he hadn't brought flowers because that wasn't how they worked and Flavio didn't like dead plants in his house anyways.

"If I was then those plans have completely slipped my mind and I will have to apologize." But he would do the apologizing later, because right now there was something working its way up behind Flavio's paper mask, a kind of greedy pleasure that revealed itself more through the way he rubbed his fingers together side-by-side on one hand, or the barely there curl of his tongue behind his teeth. "Won't you come inside?"

Lovino didn't hesitate. He'd already been more forward right now than they usually were with each other, so as he stepped inside he transferred both bags he was carrying to one hand, freeing up the other so he could reach out and let Flavio decide if he was going to let him do what he wanted.

And the blond one consented, because he didn't step away when Lovino touched his face and then hooked that hand behind his head. He pulled him in for a kiss that Flavio closed his eyes for and then responded to willingly, the door swinging shut behind him with a sigh before Lovino felt himself being inched backwards.

He twisted his shoulders until he felt the bottom of the wine bottle hit the tile floor, letting it drop without breaking and freeing up his other hand as he was backed up against the door. And it felt good.

It felt good because it was closer to what Lovino was used to, to what he was experienced with. Convincing Flavio to kiss him privately like this wasn't difficult, but it required Lovino make the first unquestionable move and that was where he struggled.

So it worked out well that his soft lips were so warm, and one kiss was really a series of touches and gentle pulls, the tingling grain of tongue against lip and almost floral delicacy of having his mouth caressed and coaxed open. It was easy to not notice the hands that came wandering up his chest, prying greedily through his shirt and pushing away the light summer jacket he'd worn just to keep the sun off his back. Flavio didn't let the jacket hit the floor as it was folded down Lovino's back, catching it with one hand and tossing it off somewhere over a chair or couch.

Flavio didn't kiss to distract or shut him up, didn't slam him against the wall to keep him in place and overwhelm him. The kisses were as much a reward as the touches, and the wall was just something for Lovino to lean on so he didn't lose his footing completely and fall to the floor.

"You've improved." Flavio's stupid laugh just pissed him off though, because yes he had improved, because he'd tried to learn, because kisses like his were worth figuring out how to give back. Flavio stopped them with a finger under Lovino's chin, lips hovering and body pressing against him. Lovino wasn't even in the mood to care how tonight happened, one hand on the small of the other man's back pulling his hips closer, his feet planted far enough apart to make the offer known.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong before we go any further?"

"You're seriously telling me you'd rather talk about personal shit than distract me from it?"

"Of course not." Then why were they even discussing this? "Hush now, I'll gladly give you all the slow, simple vanilla sex you need to survive this crisis of yours in one piece."

"I'd rather have hard vanilla-"

"I'm not finished." Lovino closed his mouth around the words, not good with shutting up but used to it if it meant getting his way. The way Flavio looked him up and down like he was evaluating Lovino's physique, then moved in with those lips over his and Lovino giving in the way the other man liked so much… The kiss and the slow, powerful rock of their hips moving together once cooled his temper towards the talking, because Flavio really did know the best way to get two people off at once.

"As I was saying-" Lovino almost interrupted again to say no: no saying, no talking. But he let Flavio have his way and opened his eyes again to look at him, arms hooked over the other man's shoulders now as he made himself listen. "Of course we can do all of those wonderful things, but since when do you throw yourself at someone like this? Even if it's me?"

"It's a small crisis, barely counts as one." So he'd really rather kiss than talk, and that was what he tried to do.

Flavio's gloved hand found its way into Lovino's hair, gripped hard against his scalp, and before he could whine about how much he didn't need this shit right now his head was forced back and the kiss was successfully denied. Flavio's lips on his throat killed the rest of his complaint, invasive hands and toe-curling shocks making him forget what they were even talking about.

Forgetting was what he wanted. He wanted, just for a little while between white walls and cotton sheets, not to remember anything. No thinking, just experiencing and enjoying, nothing to fret over in the haze of sex. He wanted that, because even when it left him dozing on foam pillows and comfortably resting face-down on his sometimes-lover's bed, it took everything else out of his hands.

Carlino's well-being, his family's secret-keeping, his scrimping and his saving, the way he couldn't tell which way his career was going because he once again didn't know where his life was going.

"If you think I'm letting you drink red wine on Egyptian cotton sheets, you're dead wrong."

There wasn't any point in worrying about those things when Lovino's immediate concerns were figuring out which limb could support how much weight to move him from the condo's bedroom into the living room. Wrapping himself in one of those Egyptian cotton sheets just earned him a huff from his host and a place to sit on the couch, and the wine Lovino had learned to enjoy eased them into a hazy after-glow conversation about nothing important.

Nothing important to Lovino at least, which was what made it so appealing. He could ask about Flavio's work and Flavio's concerns and Flavio's life and be content just listening to him talk about the other side of an industry they both worked in. Things not to do, things he should probably try, gossip and advice and so many things that weren't his problems or concerns.

"What do you want for dinner?" Lovino finally asked, rubbing his tired eyes with one hand while the soft glow of the nearby table lamp kept the dark from collapsing over them completely. He felt a tug at his bed-sheet and looked up, understanding slowly when a harsher pull made a few folds of the cotton come away from over his shoulder. Lovino placed his wine far enough away on the coffee table that Flavio wouldn't consider it a hazard, then turned back around as his covering was unfurled and his body told to lay down on the couch with his host quite comfortably climbing on top of him.

Flavio had a thing for being in control, for being the one physically on top and directing things during sex. But he wasn't like Antonio: he didn't tell Lovino he was wrong if he tried pushing for a bit more power, and he was willing to compromise if Lovino could come up with an argument or made it clear that it was more than an idle fancy. He was fine talking about whatever would keep his lovers comfortable and happy in his bed- because Lovino knew well enough not to make that mistake, theirs was by no means an exclusive relationship.

Either way, Lovino didn't mind being straddled on the couch with his hands woven behind his head. He was comfortable because he knew how finicky Flavio was about keeping his apartment clean, and how very little of anything beyond kisses or touches was normally permitted in his living room. Maybe he just liked the way the light hit Lovino's skin tonight, the view from above appealing to him as Lovino watched his face, not his body.

The old joke about the carpet matching the drapes didn't apply to Flavio, because after the styled mop of hair on his head there wasn't another thread of it on him. He waxed it off and Lovino's hands still jumped away from the smooth skin from time to time, long over the initial disappointment from the first time Flavio had lost his shirt and Lovino had caused an awkward moment by saying "oh" out-loud.

It was a little like taking the mane off a proud lion. It still had the claws and the teeth and the roar and the strength, but it wasn't really much of a lion. Flavio's body still had the weight and the smell and the height and so many other things that Lovino needed to enjoy himself, but it wasn't perfect. There was no such thing as perfect.

"What's that look for?" He had soft hands too, probably because he kept them in those gloves all the time, and feeling his bare palms press down on Lovino's shoulders was a rare luxury.

"I want to know why you've grown so melancholy." Melancholy? Lovino wasn't sad.

"Screw you, I'm just tired."

"I've seen you when you're tired." The hands on him eased off, then pressed down again. Flavio had showered and put fresh pants on while Lovino dozed, and there was enough shift in weight for him to understand that when Flavio lifted himself up a little, he wanted Lovino to roll over onto his stomach on the sheet. "And when you're satisfied, so don't pretend that you can try to fool me." Whatever…

But hey, free back-rub.

"It's just my family…" Lovino closed his eyes and placed his head down on his folded arms, pleased with the hands working across his shoulders and the slope of his neck. "You wouldn't care."

"No, but that doesn't mean I won't listen." Huffing softly at what was basically an offer to reverse the roles from earlier, Lovino chose to just enjoy the firm touch working down his back- at least until Flavio pinched him rudely.

"Ass."

"Speaking of which, yours is so tense I can feel it where I'm sitting." Sometimes he really hated the blond ninny's way of turning insults back around at him. "I'm not going to waste my time trying to relax you if you aren't going to do some of the work yourself."

"Okay fine then." So Lovino told him, and he received more attention during the slow, rambling explanation than expected. Along the way something was added to the palms of Flavio's hands that felt so warm that Lovino almost let himself fall asleep, knots he hadn't felt untying in his arms and sore patches in his back wearing away in exchange for details and reminders about things: how old his brothers were, how long ago Lovino had left for Italy, the circumstances around what had happened to their parents…

"So you, the eldest, left home to live in Rome, and half a year later the middle one went off to college?" A little more than half a year, but yeah pretty much. "And a year before that, your father passed away?" Yes. "Your absent father."

"He fucking tried, alright?" Lovino kept his head down, relaxed and then almost frustrated when he had to defend someone he'd forgotten he'd already forgiven. He heard that crooning laugh behind him and felt Flavio's weight shift and settle down over his back and shoulders, too exhausted from soothing touches and the memory of sex to knock him off as his lips touched the shell of Lovino's ear.

"And you wonder why your little brother seems moody…" He tried picking his head up to look at the bastard for saying something so conceited, but his neck decided it didn't want to put up the effort and the rest of his spine told him to let it go. It was so much easier to let Flavio's warm lips travel down his cheek, a hand pulling his arm down so when Lovino turned his head in compliance there was a slow, seductive kiss waiting for him. The anointed hand that slipped between bedsheet and skin made Lovino's sagging body agree to roll over again, fingertips teasing his nipple and spreading that warm oil over his breast. When his legs took the weight of his host's body, he made them spread to let Flavio down comfortably.

"Enlighten me then," was about as clever as Lovino could be before those lips caught him again and oh those sweet kisses... But as always, Flavio's laughter was there to ruin it:

"My poor lost soul, with a flashlight and a compass you couldn't find your way out of an emotional paper-bag." Lovino just lifted his hands a little bit in mock-surrender, too drained to get pissed.

"Fine, be that way…" He hadn't come here to talk about his problems, he'd only shared so much just to appease the man resting on top of him. Drawing one finger along Flavio's jaw seemed to settle the issue completely, but just before he let them come together for another kiss Lovino slipped the pad of his thumb gently against those bowed lips. "But if you want to eat tonight, then tell me what you want for dinner."

His smile this time wasn't an offending curl painted between his nose and chin, but that hungry, pleasurable expression that snuck out from behind the thin paper mask. With a firm kiss that played with him until Lovino had to stretch his body and adjust with Flavio's clothed hips resting on top of him, he smiled at the sound of Egyptian cotton falling over them both and the pleasurable sigh of his often-lover enjoying how easily Lovino's hands liberated him of restricting trousers and waistbands.

"Dinner? Later…" because now was the time for strong hands and hungry eyes, rules bending like spines writhing for pleasure… "Dessert first…"

And problems never…

THEY HAD A FIGHT AND

IT WAS BAD SO

I TOOK IT OUT

NO FIGHTING ON THIS SHIP