Stories have a habit of developing their own ways.

0o0o0o

Feliciano leaned back, the rough edge of the fence rubbing into his palms. He could see Ludwig looking at him for a long second before he leaned back as well.

'I...I don't know why the idea of falling terrifies me so much,' he admitted. 'I wonder if I'm just…'

'I think you've very brave,' Feliciano interrupted before he could say anything wrong. 'Everyone is scared of something, but you faced your fear.'

'I did it because of you.'

Feliciano turned in surprise, but Ludwig was still watching the clouds, looking as peaceful as Feliciano had ever seen him.

'You did?' he managed, and was about to ask if Ludwig had ended up doing something he'd regretted, which would be horrible and Feliciano would feel guilty, but Ludwig met his eyes first.

'Thank you,' he said honestly.

Feliciano just nodded, a little dumbstruck, and decided to go back to watching the clouds.

'That's what friends are for,' he said, swinging his legs. 'Helping each other.'

In the hot bright sun, Feliciano felt like he was flying, and that the sky was all that existed, so endless his mind spun. He could get a little bit drunk on sky, he thought, like when his grandpa had people over and later on in the evening would do roaring renditions of old songs and even Lovino started flushing red and grinning at jokes and everyone just seemed brighter and happier.

It was almost like when he was back in Venice. The difference was that now there was Ludwig next to him, his hair fluttering in the faint breeze. Feliciano's mind wandered in the drowsy heat and he tried again to figure out the words to ask if he could paint him, because the idea of Ludwig all pale and gold kept tugging at his fingers.

'You're staring at me again,' Ludwig said without looking away from the sky, and Feliciano jumped and stammered an apology and wondered how many other times he'd been caught.

'I've been thinking of painting you,' he blurted, and that didn't sound right at all, so he tried again. 'Can I paint you? It's probably best if you give me a picture, because otherwise you have to stay in the same position for hours and you'll definitely cramp up and then it's really no fun. If you even want to be painted.'

Ludwig looked surprised. 'Why would you want to paint me?'

Feliciano waved a hand at him, generally gesturing to the way he smiled and the pensive curve of his brow when he thought and how really blue his eyes were because he couldn't explain any of it. He settled for summarizing it all as, 'Because you're beautiful.'

Ludwig went red and his mouth worked into a funny shape, like he was trying to remember how English words were formed. 'You can't say stuff like that,' he finally said.

'Why not? In Italy I say it to everyone. Sei bella! Or bello, in your case.'

'This-this isn't Italy.'

'But I'm Italian!' Feliciano laughed and flung out his arms and nearly fell off. He balanced precariously, the fence digging into his back, toes hooked into the slats. He squinted up into the fiery strands of flyaway hair against the sun. 'And I want to paint you because sei bello, Ludwig.'

Ludwig stared at him in that way Feliciano was very quickly becoming acquainted with-half bewilderment and half amusement-before he held out a hand. Feliciano took it and was easily pulled back up, so easily it left him a bit breathless. Ludwig was stronger than he looked.

'I don't suppose you know anyone with a Polaroid camera,' he said with that hidden smile.

'Me, actually,' Feliciano replied, still a little bit distracted by that strength.

0o0o0o

He may not have been able to see the sky, but it was much cooler in the house. Were all American summers this hot?

'Are there any house rules?' Ludwig asked, taking off his shoes at the door. Feliciano thought about telling him that there were no paint smocks allowed at the table, but that would be pointless. He also wasn't supposed to be wearing his cap inside, but it made him feel like a professional artist, and his grandpa wasn't here.

'None!' Feliciano remembered one then, though, which was just bad timing. 'Wait, one. I'm not allowed to become a punk biker boy.'

'Why?'

'Because if Gilbert teaches me how to hotwire a car, I'll end up as that.' Ludwig still looked bemused. 'It was probably just a joke, Nonno does that all the time. Come on, my bedroom's upstairs.'

'Did you paint all of this?' was the first thing Ludwig asked when he came in.

'Yes. Not all of it is very good, but I've got at least one painting from every year since I started.'

'They're all very good, Feliciano.'

'Art can always improve.' Feliciano rummaged in one of the boxes for his camera. 'There's a lot of stuff in here, I should really take it out. Look, there's this picture frame, I'm going to-ouch!'

'What's wrong?' Ludwig was at his side in an instant.

'It cut me!' Feliciano cried, waving his finger in the air. He couldn't stand any of these small, digging pains.

'Stop moving around!' Ludwig motioned him down and examined it. 'You've got a sliver.'

'I hate them!'

'I know.' Ludwig gave him a half-amused look, which Feliciano understood but didn't appreciate at the moment because what if the sliver couldn't be taken out and it got infected and he died? That would be horrible and sounded very painful and he really didn't want Feliciano Vargas, died by infected sliver on his gravestone. He didn't want to die, either.

'I'll get it out, hold on, Feliciano. Do you have any tweezers?'

'They're in one of the boxes downstairs.' Feliciano hated this, it made him want to squirm around and try to pick it out himself, but his grandfather had warned him countless times that it could make it worse. Ludwig was looking into the box, and carefully pulled out the splintery wooden picture frame. It had a picture of him in the streets of Venice in it, and Feliciano found himself trying to remember every detail of that moment again. Ludwig was looking at the photo as well, almost transfixed, but he shook his head and looked away.

'Hold still-we can go over to my house, but…'

'But what?'

'Vati is home.' Ludwig said it like he was trying to forget something. 'It's nothing. Come on.'

'Don't forget my camera!' Feliciano reminded him. Ludwig took it and hung it around his neck.

0o0o0o

Feliciano first thought he might have made a mistake when he noticed how pristinely unmarked the walls were and that maybe he should have taken off his paint smock. The second time was when a large dog came barreling towards him and he screamed.

'Feliciano! He won't hurt you, don't worry.' Ludwig was rubbing the dog behind its floppy ears, and it was panting and happy, but Feliciano still didn't trust it entirely. Ludwig looked happy, too, though, and so he hesitantly reached out to pat it.

The third time he really thought he might have made a mistake was when Ludwig's grandfather strode down the stairs.

'What's wrong?' he asked, and then his eyes caught onto Feliciano, who froze. Ludwig's grandfather had a piercing gaze and on him, the blue of his eyes was more commanding than whatever fluttering feeling he felt with Ludwig.

'We need the tweezers,' Ludwig said.

Gilbert poked his head out of the room behind his grandfather, and he made fleeting eye contact with both of them before he disappeared again and reappeared with a pair of tweezers. He must have left Lovino and Antonio alone, because neither of them were around.

'What happened?' he asked, kneeling down beside him. Feliciano shut his eyes and braced himself, but nervousness always made him talk quicker, and then he started thinking about if what he was saying was appropriate or not, and then it wasn't and he got even more nervous.

'There was a picture frame in the box I was trying to get my camera out of and I thought I could take it out too but then it stabbed me and gave me a sliver and I hate slivers and it's not going to get infected, is it, Gilbert?'

'It's not going to get infected, Feli. Can I call you that?' Gilbert squinted and then there was a sharp pinprick of pain and it was all over.

'Yes!' Feliciano waved his hand around to test it, relieved. 'You can call me anything. Well, not anything because then there's no point to my name, but you can call me that, at least. Thank you!'

'Any time.' Gilbert glanced to behind him, where his grandfather had retreated to the room with the door left open. 'Hey, Ludwig, would you mind taking this to the recycling?' He pulled a few crumpled sheets of paper from his pocket and stuffed it into his hand.

'I-Gilbert, are you arguing with Vati again?'

'Not in front of our new neighbour, little brother.' Gilbert's smile had turned brittle. 'Just do what I tell you.'

Ludwig's face went stony, and he turned and left without further words. Feliciano watched him go, a hot twist of fear and confusion welling up in his stomach.

Gilbert took a long breath and pushed his hands across his knees.

'Sorry you had to see us like that, Feli. He's just getting rebellious in his teenage years.' Gilbert stood and ruffled his hair. His eyes were dull with pain. 'Tell him I'm sorry.'

When Feliciano got outside, Ludwig was unfolding the papers.

'Ludwig?'

'It's more sheet music,' Ludwig muttered, holding them up. They looked complicated, and Feliciano couldn't make much sense of the markings.

'Are you supposed to be looking through them?'

Ludwig's expression hardened again. 'It's his own fault if I do.'

Feliciano didn't know what to say. He didn't like seeing Ludwig like this, when he was frowning and pensive and there was some deep worry in him Feliciano couldn't figure out.

'Gilbert says he's sorry.'

'I know.' Ludwig took a deep breath, and Feliciano stepped forward before he could start to push his hair back. He didn't want to see Ludwig as that older, more stern version of himself, and maybe it was just him, but he didn't want him to turn into a version of his grandfather that Gilbert would argue with. Ludwig stilled, and then gave him a weary, grateful smile.

'What's the name of the music?' he asked, settling down against the garage door with him.

'Nocturne by Chopin.' Ludwig flipped through the sheets.

'I didn't know Gilbert played music.'

'He doesn't.' Ludwig stood and tore the sheets into pieces before scattering them in the recycling.

'What? Is it Antonio's music? I thought he was a writer, too, or at least that he read books because Lovino has been reading the same two bookmarked pages for-well, I guess it's only been a day-but I could see him as a musician.'

'Not him.' Ludwig's hand moved as if to fiddle with his hair, but didn't. 'It's...it's too hot here,' he said, and Feliciano understood what he really meant.

When they were sitting in the cool, shaded garden, they both seemed to breathe easier. Ludwig was tugging at the sleeves of his black jacket.

'You don't have to tell me,' Feliciano said.

'I don't,' Ludwig agreed. 'I'm going to, though.'

Feliciano reaches out and unhooked the camera from around Ludwig's neck, and Ludwig glanced up, startled. He didn't know why he wanted a photo right now, at this tipping point, but he pulled Ludwig to his feet and captured it all, the messy gold of his hair, the sky and the apple tree and his blue, blue eyes.

'You make a lot of in-the-moment decisions like this,' Ludwig told him, still standing. 'Climbing on fences and taking pictures and…'

'And calling you beautiful,' Feliciano interjected. 'And deciding as soon as I saw you that we would be friends.'

'That too.'

'Are the decisions a bad thing?'

'No. No, it's…' Ludwig sat down. 'It's a good thing. It's a very good thing, but you're making me do the same things.'

'I think you make the same decisions, Ludwig. I think we all make them. Mine are just…'

'Better.'

'Sometimes,' Feliciano acknowledged, thinking especially of friendship.

They sat together for a second more before Ludwig spoke again.

'Gilbert is in love with someone.'

'Is it Elizabeta?' Feliciano asked, before the real weight dawned on him. 'But that's so exciting! Why would they argue over that?

'No, Elizabeta doesn't play music. I also asked him, and he said something about her wearing too many violets for his taste.' They contemplated that for a minute. Feliciano made a point of asking Lovino if violets were mentioned in his Life In Wartime book, because Gilbert knew about the war. 'The problem is that Gilbert won't tell anyone who he's in love with.'

'Why wouldn't he tell anyone? If I loved someone I'd tell everyone I knew. It's a silly reason to argue, too-love is a beautiful thing.'

'I know. They argue when I'm not home. Or when they think I'm asleep.'

'Do you know who it is?'

'No.' Ludwig sunk his fingers into the grass. 'I wish I did.'

'Because you'd tell your grandfather?'

Ludwig jerked in place. 'No. I don't tell secrets.'

'That's good.' Feliciano fell back and stared up at the clouds again. 'Can I tell you a secret?'

'If you want.' Ludwig laid down next to him, and Feliciano rolled onto his side to face him. Ludwig copied him.

'I think my brother wants to be friends with Antonio, but he's not sure how.'

'Why?'

'Lovino spends a lot of time arguing with Nonno, too, maybe that's why.' Feliciano rolled back to face the sky. 'I know he wants to be friends because every time I mention him, he looks all funny, kind of like he wants to tell me something but realized Nonno would tell him off for saying it. He looked that way when I asked about why Nonno said a certain song was the reason why our mother existed. I still don't get it. Do you, Ludwig?'

Ludwig was making the exact same face Lovino had, but he shook his head and mumbled something about it not being the time to explain.

'And he has two pages bookmarked in his Life In Wartime book, and I think Antonio recommended them to him because he keeps flipping between them.' Feliciano was quiet. 'Wait, do you want to see your picture? Here.'

Ludwig took it and made a face.

'You caught me when I wasn't smiling.'

'It's called a candid. I think you look very good no matter what.'

But really, right then when Ludwig laughed in surprise, eyes bluer than anything Feliciano had ever seen, he was so beautiful Feliciano couldn't look away, and so he took another picture.

0o0o0o

Of all the places for a story to develop, in Wikipedia searches was not where I expected.

:: Old stone arches by sunset