Resolving to do something was a lot easier than doing it, and Sebastian could think of a thousand excuses, the foremost one being that he didn't know where Matteo's apartment was, or the hotel his older brothers had decided to sleep at. Of course, even an issue like this could be easily remedied. For the first time in what felt like ages, Sebastien felt like he could reach out to his brothers. He had Giovanni's number, and he felt like this time, if he texted Matteo, his younger brother might answer. What stopped Sebastien was his own insecurities.
What if he texted, and Matteo didn't answer? What if Giovanni had blocked his number? Having something only made the thought of losing it worse. Maybe that's why Sebastien somehow found himself back at what was left of their old home. For the first time since the storm, Sebastien walked around the house and saw the damage from the storm. Splintered wood, shingles and roofing, debris across the yard and branches and piles of wood lying in neat piles on the grass. Elizabeta and her construction crew must have come by at some point and cut up the tree that had crashed into their house in an attempt to clean up. Still, the absence of the offending tree only made the gaping hole in the house that much more eye-catching, and once again, Sebastien felt the aching feeling of "It's all gone".
Lovino and Feliciano's room was completely gone, all the more obvious from outside, just like how they'd left his life. Matteo's room was also ruined, the missing ceiling and chunk of the wall making an otherwise intact room useless. Even Giovanni's room was rendered unreachable, the climb up the stairs too dangerous to risk in what was left of their house. Even his own room, just missing that small piece of the roof, was useless now. It felt like the universe was telling him there was no place in that house for anybody.
Still, Sebastien's feet led him inside. He didn't have anywhere else to go. He didn't have an uncle to run too, or a boyfriend's family to board with, or a friend from France to help him find an apartment. He wasn't self-sufficient enough like Giovanni to rent his own place on his own, and even Chris had kicked him out.
The house was quiet when he opened the door, but not quiet enough. There was creaking and rustling of the plastic tarp blocking the wind from entering the house, shifting of clothes in the Family Room, and sniffling...
It took Sebastien a moment to recognize the strangeness of the last sound. There was someone in the family room, in the quiet house that was always empty, save for Sebastien himself. Then Sebastien moved, possess by a hope that he didn't even know he had. The sniffling stoped when he stepped into the Family Room, and Sebastien felt that he should have known what brother to expect.
Feliciano was in a messy heap amongst Sebastien's blankets heaped in the floor, eyes red and swollen, frozen while wiping his nose on his sleeve. Sebastien should have expected that it was his crybaby older brother, but he didn't. It didn't feel right, or real, to find any of his brothers in the house they all abandoned. For a moment, Sebastien wondered if his eyes were now having issues instead of his ears.
"Fratellino?"
A timid and wavering tone from Feliciano, and Sebastien moved like in a dream. It didn't make sense that Feliciano was there, but he was. He wasn't with Lovino, he hadn't gone back to his other family that he'd stayed with all these years, he was just...there. Maybe it was because Sebastien half-thought it was a hallucination that he didn't immediately do what years of practice had trained into him and pull Feliciano into a hug to try to comfort him. Maybe it was because last night's dream and his conversation with Chris were still fresh in his mind, but Sebastien found himself asking the question he desperately wanted to know the answer to.
"Fratello, why are you crying?"
Is it for the same reason as me?
Feliciano blinked his large wet eyes back at Sebastien, opening and closing his mouth, then responded weakly.
"I didn't want to leave, you know."
Even though Sebastien hadn't asked, not properly, Feliciano was telling him anyways, fiddling with the sleeves of his sweater.
"I wanted to stay, and I wanted us to eat together and laugh together. I didn't want to rely on you whenever I was sad. I wanted..."
Feliciano trailed off, and Sebastien mentally supplied a couple potential ends to that sentence. I wanted to be able to rely on Giovanni. I wanted to see him again. I wanted to-
" I wanted to be happy. "
Feliciano had buried his head in his lap, and the words came out muffled, but not so much that Sebastien couldn't hear. Sebastien's stomach flipped. Feliciano continued into his lap.
"I didn't want to cry all the time or mope about. I wanted to smile happily and to laugh. I didn't want to make the mood get worse just by me being there."
Sebastien felt like his stomach was plummeting. His musings from the night before seemed shallow and naïve in the face of Feliciano's weakness. He'd never tried to understand his brother before last night, and even after trying, he felt like he still didn't understand, but piece by piece everything was beginning to fall into place. Sebastien wondered just how insensitive and self-centered he was. Finally, he was beginning to understand just a glimpse of who Feliciano was.
Sebastien didn't understand heartbreak, or the pain of someone you love getting hurt. He couldn't, because it had never happened to him. But for a second, he thought he might be beginning to glimpse what it was like for his brother. The emotions he had regarded only as "sad" as an innocent kid had always been deeper than he'd thought. He'd always thought crying was a choice. There were many times when he was a child that he wanted to cry, and chose not to, or when he was crying, but was comforted or distracted. But Feliciano wasn't the same.
Sebastien didn't know what it felt like to want to stop crying, or to want to feel happier but not be able to. He'd always been able to distract himself, to bite it back and move on. But Feliciano had said he didn't want to cry, that he wanted to be happy, but couldn't. Because he couldn't understand that, not really, he couldn't say anything in response. Feliciano didn't seem to expect him to.
"At first I thought Giovanni was getting rid of me, that he thought I was annoying, and he didn't want me around."
Sebastien was holding into every word. "At First," Feliciano had said. But did that mean that wasn't what happened? He'd always thought the same as Feliciano, that Giovanni was kicking Feliciano out. Sebastien couldn't remember the time as clearly as he thought he had, and tried to remember what Giovanni had looked like when he made the announcement of his decision, but his memory came up blank. Feliciano explained.
"But then I found out why he sent me to live with Roderich. After the accident, he moved back with his family, and Gilbert and him were only a few blocks away. He had amnesia, and didn't remember much, but it was like I was given another chance to do it right, to try again."
Sebastien didn't need to ask who he was. Feliciano's boyfriend, the one who had the accident and moved away. And Sebastien felt something dawning in his heart. If what Feliciano was saying was true, then Giovanni had never been trying to get rid of his third eldest brother. He'd been trying to help him. Sebastien felt odd, an unfamiliar feeling wiggling like a worm in his chest. Hesitantly, he posed the question.
"Were you able to be happy?"
There were thousand of questions he wanted to ask, like how Feliciano had realized that, whether he'd regretted leaving or if he'd even wanted to come back home after rediscovering his long lost love, or if he'd even thought of any of his other brothers at that time, but at that point, that was the question he wanted to know the answer to the most. Feliciano wiped away his tears again, and managed a watery smile.
"Si."
Sebastien felt like he was tearing apart. He wanted to be glad, no, he knew he should be, and maybe a part of him was, but another larger part of him was twisting and tightening guiltily. Feliciano had been happy there, but since he'd come home all Sebastien had seen was his tears. It hurt because of the realization that he was the reason Feliciano was unhappy, and even more so because of the selfish ache he felt at the thought that if his condition hadn't been discovered, Feliciano might not have ever come home.
"I-"
There were words he wanted to say, if he could just pick them carefully, selfish words about selfish feelings that could hurt Feliciano if not said right, but Sebastien was scared to say them. He'd never been able to help Feliciano feel better, not then or now, and he felt suffocated by his own self-centered greed.
"If you want their attention, make them give it to you! If you want, go and drag them back by their ears! Complain and whine if you want too! Who cares if you're being greedy? That's what a little brother is supposed to do!"
But Chris had said it was alright to be greedy, and just for this once, Sebastien wanted to choose to believe those words. So he forced the confession out, word by word, struggling not to hurt his older brother with his feelings.
"I'm... glad...that you were able to be happy."
And that was true, he really was grateful from the bottom of his heart that Feliciano had been able to learn to laugh and smile and be happy again. But...
"But I...wanted to see your smile too, fratello. I wanted... I wanted to hear your voice again and see you again too, I didn't care even if you cried, I just-"
Missed you.
Sebastien cut himself off, choking on the truth behind his resentment for Feliciano. The reason he hated Feliciano's tears and Giovanni for sending him away, the reason he couldn't make himself tell Feliciano about his hearing, finally, Sebastien let himself understand. He'd wanted Feliciano to smile for him, to coax his cheerful brother back out. He'd missed the cooking lessons with Feliciano, learning to make his own pasta, his older brother's comforting after a nightmare, or the sound of Feliciano's excited rambling about his day or what he'd done.
He loved his older brother, and he just wanted him back. The understanding of his own heart and thoughts made Sebastien blurt out the question he should never have asked.
"If I hadn't... If I didn't... Would you ever have come home?"
He was afraid to look at his third Eldest Brother, curled into a small heap on the floor, afraid to see the answer on his face. Please, Sebastien thought, just say yes, even if it wasn't true. Feliciano was silent a moment too long, and Sebastien's heart fell. But Feliciano answered in a tiny quiet voice.
"I didn't know I still had a home to go back to."
Blood rushed into Sebastien's ears, pounding, and he couldn't hear anything else, even as he read the words on his brother's lips as he searched his face.
"I thought everyone was gone. Lovi, Vanni, Teo...and even you. I heard that Vanni left home, and a friend said that Mateo did too, so I just...I thought everyone had left."
Sebastien didn't understand what it felt like to cry, even when you wanted to smile, or to lose someone you love, but he thought he knew how Feliciano felt in this moment. Wanting to go home, but having no one to go home to. Empty rooms, lonely meals, silence in the Family room. A home that had turned into a house. A house that only had him.
But that left Sebastien with a new question. He had a brother looking for someone to go back to, and himself, waiting for someone to come back, but they no longer had a place to go back to, and he didn't know what to do about that. So, hesitantly, Sebastien asked for help from his brother for the first time since he was seven.
"Fratello... What do we do now?"
He didn't expect the answer to come from behind, a hand reaching under his chin and pulling his chin up to tilt his head back, nor did he expect to see Lovino's serious face responding. Lovino spoke slowly.
"Since you can't hear, read my lips."
Lovino must have come in when he couldn't hear and heard the change in Sebastien's tone, but Sebastien barely had time to process that before he was sent reeling under Lovino's next words.
"You idiotas," Lovino looked frustrated as he spoke, "Home isn't the house. It's us."
Sebastien suddenly remembered something that Chris had once said to Peter when he was feeling homesick for England after he'd first moved to Italy. Peter had been crying that he wanted to go home, white his flustered parents tried to comfort him, and Chris had cut in shortly. "You punk, why are you crying? Don't you know home is where the heart is?" Sebastien remembered because the words struck something inside, and finally he understood what Chris was saying. It seemed stupid, in hindsight, to take so long to understand the one thing he knew the best.
Sebastien had never been waiting in that old empty house for the building itself. He hadn't even been staying for the memories they made there. The reason he had stayed was to give his brothers what Feliciano was so desperately wanting. He stayed to give his brothers somewhere to go home to. He was waiting in that quiet, empty house, for his brothers to come home. And now, they'd come home, and Sebastian clung to the broken remains of his house in the hopes that he'd be able to keep them there. That's why he kept coming back, why he couldn't leave like his brothers. Because without the house, without a home to tie them together-
"But you're just going to leave again."
Sebastian had already made up his mind to be greedy and selfish, at least just this once. It was just as Chris had said. He had nothing left to lose. So Sebastien said out loud what he was afraid of most.
"You're all just going to go back. You'll go back to Uncle Antonio's, and Vanni will go back to his house and Matteo will go back to his apartment, and Feli will go back abroad and I-"
And I have nowhere to go.
Sebastien didn't say the last part, a fear so crippling it felt like it was more suffocating then any abandonment so far had been. Against all his brothers who had already found their place in the world, there was only him, alone. And Sebastien didn't know how to deal with this inescapable aloneness. Lovino had circled to face him as he spoke, making a face heartbreakingly similar to the one Feliciano had made, standing alone in the kitchen after Lovino had left all those years ago.
"Stupida!"
Lovino's lips formed like hissing the word, making it hard to read, and Sebastien only knew what his brother had said because he knew what Lovino was like. Then he felt the sharp jerk under his arm as Lovino grabbed him under the arm with one arm and hauled Feliciano to his feet by the armpit with the other. Sebastien stumbled at the jerk, missing the first part of Lovino's words and catching only the end.
"-come with me!"
And without a single further explanation, he hauled them after him. There was a taxi waiting outside, and Lovino threw them in unceremoniously, then slipped in the front himself, supposedly speaking to the driver, then the taxi took off. Like all good Italian taxis, it got them to their destination within half the time it should have taken if they followed the rules of the road, probably further motivated by the wad of money that Lovino dumped into the driver's palms upon arrival. Lovino stormed around the back to haul them out of the backseat and after him.
The destination that they arrived at wasn't the hotel that Sebastien was expecting, but it also certainly wasn't an apartment either. It was a large and fancy house with flourishing vegetable gardens with large plants dripping with ripe tomatoes and other produce lining the small plot beside the house, and small decorations and garden tools scattered against the side of the porch. Lovino marched directly up to the door, but instead of knocking, simply released Feliciano long enough to fish a key from the depths of his pockets and unlock the door, before shoving both his younger brothers inside.
Sebastian felt, rather than heard, the deep breath taken and slight vibrations of Lovino's shout, too taken in with the unfamiliar surroundings just inside the house. Pairs of shoes scattered near the door, messy jackets and muddy garden boots, dusty tracks on the welcome mat, it was a house that was clearly lived in, a place that all but shouted "I am a home!" to Sebastien's lonely heart. Lovino threw his own jacket to the side as though it belonged there without much care, and Sebastien thought that this must somehow be Giovanni's new home.
The resentment in his heart stirred at the eldest Brother who had built a home in the short period of time since he'd left Sebastien alone in that house, and Sebastien tried to squash it. A man appeared at Lovino's call, but it wasn't Giovanni like Sebastien had expected.
"Lovi!"
Tanned, messy hair and bright green eyes that were faintly familiar to Sebastian, like a face from an almost forgotten dream, and Sebastian turned his gaze once more to Lovino's mouth, eagerly searching for the identity of the stranger.
"Uncle Antonio-"
Lovino was still speaking, but Sebastien turned his startled gaze back to the uncle he'd met once years ago. The uncle who had promised to visit often, but had never returned once since that date. An uncle who only had space in his heart for Lovino, and not for any of the other younger brothers. But neither Sebastien nor Feliciano had the time to process this new shock and hurt before they register the other person trailing behind Antonio, swollen eyes and blotched face, but unmistakable regardless.
"Giovanni?"
Sebastien felt the question rip from his throat, looking desperately from Giovanni's face, to Antonio, to Lovino, looking for answers. Lovino caught his gaze and he side-eyed his younger brothers, and turned to face Sebastien so he could read Lovino's lips clearly.
"Just come along, stupid Fratellinos."
And what else could he do in that situation except blindly obey? So Sebastien obediently abandoned his shoes and Feliciano too, removed his, and followed after Lovino. And, as if everything wasn't already shocking enough, Sebastien felt a smooth hand not much larger than his own take his hand, seeking as much comfort as it provided. Feliciano didn't look scared, but he did look uneasy, and Sebastien felt like he understood why as he squeezed his older brother's hand in return. And for a moment, both of them were just scared children, instead of an adult and a teenager. Then Lovino stopped at a room, and Feliciano's hand slipped away from his grip and flew to his mouth in shock instead.
Antonio's Sitting room was smaller than their own, but more personal, small figurines and potted plants and paintings gracing the walls, and it was the paintings that shocked Feliciano and made Sebastien stare. He stared because he recognized them. Messy strokes, colours a bit off, awkward shading, but undeniable. A painting of Lovino leaning his weight on Feliciano, both grinning playfully. A painting of Giovanni, feeding a chubby baby that Sebastien knew was Mateo. A painting of Sebastien piggybacking on Lovino's back, a messy Feliciano piggybacking Matteo in the background. Sebastien, only eight, struggling to hold the heavy Mateo in his arms.
The painting wasn't as neat or precise as Feliciano used to paint, there were places where the paint was too thick, or smeared, or parts of the picture were cut off because the artist ran out of room, but Sebastien still recognized each and every picture. Pictures that used to hang on the wall in the Family Room, pictures he didn't even remember, memories he'd experienced a long time ago, each hung on the wall like a vintage work of art, carefully framed and kept. Feliciano brought a hand up to brush the painting, no doubt whispering a name, even though Sebastien couldn't see his face to read his lips. He didn't have to. It was obvious who had made those paintings.
"Stop staring at those! Come sit down, stupid fratellinos!"
Lovino smacked his head, blustering, and Sebastien barely even registered that he could hear again, barely paying his brother attention. Each photo reminded him of a happy memory he'd thought he'd forgotten. Each memory reminded him of why he was waiting for his brothers to come back. Lovino grabbed the back of his collar, likely to haul him away from the paintings, but Sebastien was saved by the unexpected interference of their Uncle. With a smooth move, Antonio separated Lovino from his little brothers, and caught both Sebastian and Feliciano in a casual one-armed embrace.
"Ah! These paintings are so lovely, si? Lovi painted them all by himself after he moved in here! Why, he used to talk about you all the time, in fact he-"
Lovino cut Antonio off with a frenzied shout and the skilled use of a dehabilitating choke hold from the back.
"Shut up, Uncle Tonio! Get out!"
And without standing on ceremony, Lovino pushed Antonio out of the room and slammed the door behind him. If Sebastien didn't know his second oldest brother so well, he'd have thought Lovino was blushing. But then again, he apparently didn't know any of his brothers like he'd assumed he did, and Lovino's face was clearly flushed red. Sebastien looked from the door, to where Lovino was standing, arms crossed, pretending nothing had happened, to Giovanni. For the first time he notice Mateo was there too, curled into a ball on one of Uncle Antonio's chairs, resolutely not looking at any of them.
For a moment, no one spoke, or at least, Sebastien didn't see anyone speak. Finally, Lovino shifted, and Sebastien looked towards him. Lovino rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, then spoke, answering a question no one had asked, but Sebastien had been wondering for years.
"I'm saying this just in case, but I left home to avoid Giovanni, because he's a prick! Not you! You could have come see me anytime you wanted!"
Giovanni flinched, but Lovino pretended not to notice. He started to turn away, then seemingly remembered Sebastien's hearing loss, and turned back to face them, sporting an unusual twisted expression Sebastien had only ever seen before the night Lovino confronted him about his hearing loss.
" Then you never came, so I just figured.."
Here Lovino hesitated, then mumbled to himself, and Sebastien only caught part of it.
"-thought you were taking Giovanni's side and didn't want to see me anymore."
Sebastien was so shocked he couldn't think of anything to say, turning to Feliciano with wide eyes, disbelieving the words his brother said. Feliciano seemed to be thinking the same thing, and blurted out the things Sebastien was currently feeling.
"Seriously? I was thirteen, Lovino! How was I supposed to figure that out! Even if I did, how was I supposed to get there? I didn't even know where Uncle Antonio's house was!"
Sebastien couldn't catch his breath to even agree with his brother's words, reeling in the new revelation. Sebastien remembered, standing at the kitchen door, watching Feliciano looking lost and alone, waiting for a brother to come back. He remembered why he'd only silently watched Feliciano, how he hadn't been able to say anything, or pull Feliciano away to distract him. Because Sebastien had been waiting for the same thing. And yet, in seven years of waiting, it had never occurred to Sebastien once that he could have gone to Lovino first. It seemed like such an obvious thing in hindsight that Sebastien wanted to kick himself, but he couldn't say anything at all.
Matteo was still staring resolutely at the wall, with a stone face, as though none of them existed, and once again Sebastien was struck with the understanding that he didn't understand any of his brothers at all. Lovino looked flustered.
"I-"
Sebastien cut him off, not wanting to hear his brother's excuse, or worse: no excuses at all.
"Then why-"
Sebastien floundered, realizing he hadn't thought what he wanted to say through, only focused on not letting Lovino talk. He finished his question, but even to himself his voice sounded childish and lost.
"Why was I even waiting?"
No one in the room had an answer. A brother who had stormed out to escape his oldest brother, three younger ones who had been left behind, and not a single brother had gone to visit another. Neither Feliciano, nor Sebastien, not Matteo had thought to visit Lovino. But Lovino hadn't visited them either. Something ached inside him, but Sebastien didn't know what the feeling was. Was it regret, for all the years wasted when the answer was right in front of him? Or resentment, that Lovino hadn't even been willing to try visiting, not once, even after seven years? Or was it empathy, thinking of a brother desperately wishing for his siblings to walk through the door and tell him they missed him, only for them to never come?
Sebastien didn't have an answer for himself. He felt like a child again, hiding in the corner of his room, waiting for the silence to give way to the chaotic noises of his home. He wondered if he'd used to feel the same fear that things would never go back to normal, when he first started to have the hearing issues, and how he'd ever handled it. It was suffocating and overwhelming and despite the many people in the room, he felt isolated and alone. Sebastien wondered if any of his brothers felt the same way. Finally, Feliciano broke the silence, a ragged and exhausted tone that Sebastien understood from the bottom of his heart.
"I hate this." Feliciano almost whispered the words, fists clenched, "I really, really, hate this."
Sebastien hated it too. Lovino agreed, roughly, throwing himself on the couch, on the opposite end from Giovanni.
"Si. This SUCKS."
Matteo made a tiny snorting sound.
"I'm sorry."
Giovanni apologized, in a tone that almost matched Feliciano's exactly, and Sebastien wondered whether Giovanni even knew what he was apologizing for. Did he understand how his immaturity drove Lovino from the house, and isolated his brothers? Did he understand how hiding had only left them to stagnant and rot instead of grow? Or was he apologizing for leaving, or for being there in the first place, or not being who they thought he should be? Sebastien hated Giovanni's apology. He hated it, but still...
Giovanni repeated the words.
"I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
It was a cold and cruel question, but Sebastien was feeling cold and cruel. He felt abused and neglected, like he had an open, infected wound, and Giovanni was passing him a Band-Aid as though that would fix everything. Like he was trying to cover up their pain. Giovanni cringed at the question, like Sebastien had poured salt in a cut, and Sebastien felt guilty for the small satisfaction he found in that. Hesitantly, Giovanni forced himself to speak, saying each word like it was cement in his throat.
"I.. Didn't want to be like this. I.. Was scared...and felt insecure, and I took it out on you. I wanted to be a capable brother, and to take care of everything, and to make you happy, but I didn't know how, and then I just-I just made things worse."
Giovanni paused, but nobody spoke.
"I'm sorry for always fighting with you, Lovi. I knew you were right, but I didn't want to accept I wasn't good enough. I just wanted to make you guys proud of me."
Lovino swallowed and looked away.
"Yeah, Great job you did at that."
Giovanni drooped, and Feliciano scolded, half-heartedly.
"Lovino!"
Giovanni shook his head, stopping him, and turned his gaze towards Feliciano instead.
"And I'm sorry for sending you away without asking or talking to you about it. I thought that you would be mad at me and hate me like Lovino, and I thought you'd be happier where he was. I just wanted.."
He didn't finish, and Sebastien thought he knew what Giovanni had wanted to say. What Sebastien had wanted to say, what Feliciano had said, curled up in the corner of the family room.
" I just wanted you to be happy."
Feliciano's lip quivered, but he didn't respond. Sebastien flinched as Giovanni looked at him next, eyes heavy and tired.
"I'm sorry I trapped you in that deafness for so many years, I'm sorry I was so selfish as your older brother. I'm sorry I didn't.. Didn't care for you enough."
Sebastien felt like he was trembling too, from his fingers to his internal organs. He didn't understand Giovanni, he didn't know why he fought with Lovino, why he didn't talk to Feliciano, why he did any of that. He didn't know how his eldest Brother felt, not really, but he did know that Giovanni didn't know how they felt either. At the least, he didn't understand what Sebastien felt. Because Giovanni was still apologizing for the wrong things.
Giovanni turned to the last, and youngest of his brother, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out, and Sebastien knew the reason for this, at least. To Giovanni who never spoke to Matteo, who hadn't made enough memories with the youngest to have something to apologize for, for the Giovanni who still not apologizing for the right things, there was nothing he could say. Giovanni didn't understand them, just as much as none of them understood each other. Matteo spoke, balancing each word as they came out to keep a flat tone.
"You don't know anything, Vanni. You can't even apologize, because you don't even know us at all."
And Matteo was right. Lovino nodded,and he wasn't the only one. Both Feliciano and Sebastien too, dipped their heads to agree. Giovanni's forehead creased, both in guilt and confusion, and Matteo flatly provided the answer that Giovanni couldn't seem to understand.
"Do you think Lovi shouted because he wanted too? Do you think that Feli cried because he wanted to? Do you really think that Seb didn't tell you about his hearing because you said that? You're such an idiot. I'm ashamed to call you my Fratello."
Matteo's words stung, even to Sebastien. Those were the words he never wanted to hear, no matter what, from his brothers, and even though they weren't directed at him, Sebastien knew how painful they must be. Lovino stopped Matteo's cold outburst by laying a heavy hand on his youngest brother's head, and Sebastien's scalp itched at the memory of that happening to him only a day ago. The rough and unfamiliar hand had given him a warmth he hadn't known before, and he saw Matteo's eyes widen for a second before his little brother regained control over his expression. Lovino finally said the words he'd never been able to say years ago.
"He's right. You were wrong, Giovanni. I never was angry because we fought. I fight with everyone. I wasn't even mad that you kicked me out."
Giovanni started, staring at Lovino with bewildered eyes. Lovino continued in a barely controlled voice.
"I was mad because no matter how loud I yelled, no matter what I said, you never seemed to hear. I was mad you didn't try to get me to come home."
Sebastien began to understand his second eldest brother just a little bit more. The reason Lovino had never come to visit,why he'd left in the first place. Things Sebastien had thought he'd known growing up, but was now understanding he was wrong. Lovino had never left to avoid Giovanni, or stayed away because he hated him. He'd left so Giovanni would chase after him, and stayed so he wouldn't have to accept that wasn't happening. Lovino too, was still waiting for his brother to come get him and bring him home. And Giovanni had failed to follow through. Giovanni too, looked like he was finally learning he didn't know anything, but Feliciano didn't give him the chance to process it, speaking in an unusually soft but firm voice.
"Me too. I want mad that you sent me away, and I didnt hate you. I was mad that you didn't talk to me, but it wasn't just then. It was always, Fratello. You only talked to Lovi, and even then all you did was argue."
Feliciano smiled a tiny sad kind of smile.
"You know, I never hated you, but sometimes I hated how you treated me. It felt like I was Lovi's shadow and you never really saw me at all."
Sebastien tried to imagine what it felt like to be Feliciano, sent away only a few months after Lovino left, only spoken to after Lovino, alone and scared and with no older brothers to rely on. Giovanni looked sick.
Sebastien knew it was his turn. Even now, Giovanni didn't understand at all. Sebastien told it to him as plainly as he could.
"It hurts that you didn't want to help me," Sebastien said the words in a surprisingly stable tone, "But I didn't really want help for my hearing all that much. I think a part of me liked it, the times where I couldn't hear fighting or crying or anything. It was... Peaceful."
He paused a second, then continued.
"But what hurt the most was losing both Grandpa and my Grand Fratello both together."
Giovanni's expression didn't change, but Sebastien thought that was only because it was impossible for Giovanni to look more sick or torn up. And he still didn't understand. His Eldest brother that couldn't even offer an apology to the youngest, still didn't realize the sibling he'd hurt the most. Sebastien waited for Matteo to deal the final blow and finally enlighten their brother, but Matteo was resolutely staring at the wall again, jaw tense and tightly shut. So Sebastien dealt the heartbreaking blow instead, in his softest voice he could muster.
"But, at least I had you, Vanni, for a little bit. Matteo was too young back then to know, to remember. I lost a big brother, Giovanni, but Matteo never even got one. You don't even understand any of that, so how-"
Maybe something in Chris's lecture had awoken something that Sebastien didn't know he had, a snake of selfish greed and resentment and venomous words designed to throb and ache. Because Sebastien's words weren't considerate or gentle at all, and even his soft voice couldn't hide the bitterness in the words.
"How can you say that you're sorry?" Giovanni looked like he was crumbling away like a sandstone, and Sebastien wondered what exactly he'd broken, that he didn't even care.
Eldest Brother, Giovanni = Vatican City
Second Eldest, Lovino = Romano, South Italy
Third Eldest, Feliciano = Veniciano, North Italy
Second Youngest, Sebastien = Seborga
Youngest Brother, Matteo = San Marino
