HEY GUYS I'M BACK

Gonna be late, sorry if editing is rushed gonna be late for school!

Enjoy!

"Okay, fill that big pan with 8 glasses of water." Lovino directed, cutting up a piece of raw chicken into small chunks on the cutting board. Antonio nodded, carefully measuring out the water and tipping it into the large cooking pan on the counter. When he had finished he returned to Lovino's side, smiling gleefully. "We'll add this to it when it's fried. Pass me the olive oil." Lovino watched in mild amusement as Antonio eagerly answered his directions like a puppy. They had finally returned home from school and, as Lovino had promised, the Italian was teaching his roommate how to cook. The chicken had been cut up and now needed frying in olive oil. He grabbed a frying pan and placed it on one of the heated rings, turning up the heat.

Lovino turned to where Antonio stood holding the bottle of oil. "…pour some in then." He said in slight disbelief that Antonio was taking his instructions so literally. The Spaniard nodded and hesitantly held the bottle at a slight angle over the pan. Shaking his head, Lovino grabbed the older man's wrist and tilted it so that a healthy splash of olive oil hit the pan. "For fuck's sake, stop being so nervous. I'm not going to let you ruin anything." He chastised firmly.

"I'm sorry Lovi, I just want this to go right." Antonio said with a pout. "This all just seems so precise!"

Lovino almost face-palmed, but his hands were occupied with moving the oil around on the frying pan. "You're Spanish! And we're making Spanish food; the whole point is that it's done with careless passion. Precision will ruin it." Antonio nodded, impressed by Lovino's words and beginning to understand them as he saw the careless way Lovino threw a handful of chicken into the pan. "Put the rest of the chicken in, and for God's sake relax." Antonio grabbed the rest of the chicken and tried to imitate the way Lovino threw them into the pan, almost splashing them both with burning oil due to his excess vigour.

"Lo siento! I didn't mean to…" Antonio hung his head embarrassedly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I suck at this." He muttered.

Lovino held back the curse he wanted to throw at Antonio, knowing it would only make the situation worse. "You're still learning. Just…next time use a little less passion, si?" Antonio laughed at that, nodding appreciatively. "Buono, now, look at the colour of the chicken. When it's brown it's done. When it's pink it's not done. And when it's black you've over-done it, despite what Mr Kirkland claims." Antonio's laughed even harder at that, having been foolish enough to try the Englishman's cooking once when he brought it into the staff-room.

"You're so funny Lovi!" Antonio noticed the way Lovino blushed at the compliment, the pink dusting over his cheekbones and on one side blending in with the bruise that was starting to form. It was a reddish pink colour with slight touches of dark dotted around, matched by the one around his lower lip on the same side. The Spaniard felt his smile fall off his face, replaced with an angry scowl that he wasn't used to having. He began to believe it would be a good idea for him to accompany the younger man to all of his lessons, to stop it from ever happening again.

"Stop staring at me bastard, it's creepy." Lovino snapped, taking the frying-pan off the heated ring and placing it on the counter beside the large cooking pan.

"You know Lovi, some teachers would have a problem with being nicknamed 'bastard' by their students." Lovino shook his head, letting out a small chuckle as he put the fried chicken pieces into the large cooking pan.

"You call me Lovi, I call you bastard. It's fair-play." The Italian quipped, taking the pan over to place on one of the cooking-rings. Antonio had to agree, and inside he felt quite giddy at the idea that Lovino had just admitted to giving him a nickname.

"What do we do now?" Antonio asked, watching Lovino adjust the heat of the cooking rings.

"We get this to the boil, then let it simmer. Then cut and fry all that shit." Lovino said, indicating the table-top full of vegetables. "Add some more crap and put it all in that huge pan over there."

Antonio stared in slight shock. "You know, one day you're going to say a sentence to me without any swear-words in it." He joked, receiving a 'fuck you' in response.

Together they began cutting up the required vegetables, Lovino instructing Antonio on how to properly fry the vegetables in olive oil before adding them to the large pan. By the time everything was cut up as required, the chicken was done. So they added the chicken and a few glasses of chicken stock to the large pan, as well as the rice, garlic, artichokes and red peppers. Then Lovino mixed in the black pepper, parsley, thyme, rosemary and colorante which made him look, in Antonio's opinion, rather like a wizard. As a final touch, Lovino cut a lemon in half and squeezed the juice out from one half before sprinkling the dish with salt.

"Wow Lovi, this is looking fantastic!" Antonio said with a bright grin. It was slightly different to the one Lovino had made before, but was essentially the same dish. Lovino smirked as he showed Antonio what heat to set it to.

"Next time you can make it on your own." He said and Antonio panicked slightly.

"But…it looks so complicated! So many different ingredients…" Lovino shook his head, knowing that Antonio would be fine if he just learned to relax more while cooking.

"Actually, that's a point." Lovino muttered, checking a couple of cupboards. "We're going to have to go shopping tomorrow." He muttered.

Antonio's brow furrowed slightly in thought as he looked at all the ingredients they had just used for their food. He remembered the school gave all students a small amount of money each week for food, but the stuff they had used all looked quite expensive. "Lovi, how did you pay for all of this stuff?" He asked, wondering if Lovino had a job or something.

Lovino turned to look at Antonio quickly, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "Why do you care?" He snapped.

Antonio held his hands up defensively. "I didn't mean anything, I swear! I was just curious, that's all." Lovino kept his gaze for a moment, then seemed to accept him as he relaxed and leaned against the counter. It would be twenty minutes before the food was done. "You still don't trust me, do you?" The brunette sighed, feeling slightly depressed at the idea.

"…We barely know each other." Lovino replied quietly, not liking the sad tone to Antonio's voice.

"That's not true, you know lots about me. And I like to think I know you pretty well now too." Lovino coughed awkwardly, looking away from the older man. "Okay then," Antonio continued as Lovino showed no signs of intending to reply. "Why don't you ask me something?" He suggested.

"What?" Lovino asked, confused.

"We can make it like a game. You ask me something and then I'll ask you something." He suggested. Seeing nothing else to do, and realising refusing to do so would do nothing but cause problems, Lovino accepted.

"So, where are you from…originally?" Lovino asked. It was a rather standard question for these kinds of games, and he hoped the man would ramble on until it was time to eat.

"Well, I was born in Galicia, obviously that's in Spain." Antonio laughed, scratching his head slightly. "I lived there until I was eleven, then I came here to go to school." Lovino nodded, remembering that he had read somewhere that Galicia was a relatively poor farming area. That seemed about right as Antonio's parents had been farmers. "What about you?" He asked, surprising Lovino who had expected the man to keep talking.

"Me? I was born in Palermo, Sicily. Which technically makes me Sicilian, not Italian, but I only lived there for a year until Mama had Feliciano. Then we moved to various places around Rome, where my father worked. We visited Sicily as a family a couple of times, then I went and visited it alone when I was old enough to. I always liked it better there than in Italy, it suited me better. Then my grandfather met someone who was on holiday in Italy but lived here, he could never keep a woman for long after my grandmother left him alone with my mother, but he hadn't dated a man before that, and he liked him a lot but the bastard lived here in America. My mother didn't want to leave her father and my father liked the job prospects here and so we all…" He suddenly stopped and looked up to where Antonio was watching him with wide, interested eyes. Coughing slightly, he turned away to lower the heat of the pan and stir it slightly. He had expected Antonio to keep talking, but he had rambled instead. "Sorry." He muttered, still not facing the Spaniard.

"It's fine Lovi, it was really interesting. Besides, I like listening to you talk." Lovino grumbled about how he was an 'idiot Spaniard' quietly, looking down at his shoes. "Your turn!" Lovino sighed and tried to think of a question, still feeling embarrassed.

"I don't know… what's your favourite food?" He asked the first question that came to mind.

Antonio grinned, pointing at the dish on top of the oven, simmering slowly. "That is, Paella. Or Churros, churros are good." He said happily, Lovino smirked in response. Fucking typical. "What's yours Lovi? We'll have to have it soon."

Lovino considered the food he ate, he hadn't ever really thought about which he liked best before. He had always eaten either what Feliciano cooked or what his mama cooked for Feliciano. He knew Feliciano's favourite food… Strawberry flavoured Gelato. Because he is a tricky bastard like that. But his own favourite food? "I guess…homemade pizza. With lots of tomato sauce. And sliced tomatoes on top." He said, remembering the time he had made it for lunch, though he had also filled the crust with tomato sauce, but he didn't say that, feeling it was too much.

"Wow that sounds great! We should make it after we go shopping tomorrow." Antonio said brightly. "Hey, we could even make like a tomato paste to put in the crust and between the dough." Antonio suggested and Lovino felt a sudden (though very suppressible) urge to hug the man. Instead he stared at him with wide-eyes and a small smile.

Still smiling, Lovino covered the pan with paper and took it off the heat, leaving it to cool before he could serve it. "So, why did you become a teacher?" He asked, genuinely curious about the answer this time.

Antonio laughed and scratched the back of his head again, Lovino had noticed this was like a habit of the man's when he wasn't sure what the response to what he was about to say would be. "Well, if I'm honest, it was your grandfather. I was deciding what to do at university, and I knew I wanted to help people, and I suddenly remembered that I wouldn't be going there at all if I hadn't been offered a place at your school. Then I started remembering everything he did for me at school, he even paid the plane fair for me to go and visit my mother in the holidays. He was a great man, and I realised that that would be how I could help people." Antonio said with a fond smile. The smile slid from his face as he looked over to where Lovino stood facing a wall, tears in his eyes. Without hesitating he pulled the younger man into his arms, wrapping them around him tightly. Lovino didn't return the hug but he didn't try to get out of it either. He felt comforted by the warmth of the older man around him.

"It's his inheritance." He muttered into the Spaniard's chest.

"Pardon?" Antonio asked, confused.

"…The money, it's his. Feli and I both inherited half of his money each after he..." He spoke sadly and Antonio nodded, resting his chin on top of Lovino's head.

"So, what do you want to do when you're all grown up and done with school." Antonio joked, trying to distract the Italian.

Lovino let out a short laugh, "don't patronise me bastard, where I'm from I'm practically considered an adult." He said and Antonio realised he was right. Back home he would basically be considered a man already. "I don't know…" Lovino sighed, he couldn't decide what it was he wanted to do with his life. "Maybe something in fashion? I'm good with fabrics. Or perhaps own a café somewhere where it's warm. I don't want to live in this country my whole life, perhaps I could go back to Sicily." Antonio nodded, agreeing with Lovino. He too felt the longing to return home to where it was warm. To see his mother again and the heat of the sun as it kissed his skin. "Well, this is the gayest I have ever felt." Lovino said suddenly, pulling away from Antonio with a small smile.

Antonio laughed, "Me too, and I've had someone else's dick in my ass before." The Spaniard suddenly realised what had just come out of his mouth and he stared in shock. Lovino mirrored his expression for a couple of seconds before erupting in laughter so strong he doubled over.

"You need to stop hanging around with those perverts you call friends!" He gasped, still laughing loudly.

You guys are awesome! Finally getting around to reply to reviews! Thank you for reading! Hope you liked it, if not, tell me and I'll rewrite it later because I'm not sure about it...

Love you all! Going to miss my bus if I don't hurry D:

~Ore-sama