It's worth reading old newspapers for the slang.

0o0o0o

Feliciano saw Alfred and Arthur around, and Lovino was slowly warming up to talks, and Gilbert had laughingly agreed to teach him the workings of a car, but Feliciano couldn't stop thinking of Ludwig.

'What are you doing?'

Feliciano couldn't stop his smile as he unbent from the grimy engine, almost disbelieving that Ludwig was here, with his bright blue eyes. 'If I tell you I'm trying to work an engine, you have to promise you won't tell Nonno I'm breaking his rule.'

'I promise, Feliciano.' Ludwig knelt down beside him and unscrewed the knob Feliciano had been having trouble with. He glanced up, a smile playing on his lips. 'Is this specifically because he told you not to?'

'Hey, don't go about doing things like me just to spite your old man,' Gilbert interjected. He waved a wrench playfully, but Feliciano could see the dark shadows under his eyes.

'I'm not,' Feliciano assured him. Gilbert snorted.

'Little brother, are you going to help?'

'I can, if you want.'

'Don't. Go have some fun. Summer is almost over. Feli, sorry for not being able to show you around your new school, but if anyone gives you trouble, just tell them you know Gilbert Beilschmidt and they won't bother you.' He grinned and ducked down again.

Feliciano wiped off the grease on his paint smock, put his cap back on, and stood up.

'Is Gilbert serious?' he asked when they were out of earshot. 'It makes him sound like he's part of a gang, but he's not, is he? I don't want you to get arrested because Gilbert did something illegal.'

Ludwig flinched slightly, but shook his head. 'He's just a musician.'

'What's wrong?'

'My arms are stiff,' Ludwig said, and even though Feliciano could see the lie in his eyes, he let it go. 'I've been trying to work out.'

'Really?' Suddenly, the image of the muscle magazines flashed through Feliciano's head, and he had never been more grateful for the heavy summer heat that he could blame the redness in his cheeks on. 'That's-that's really cool, and you're already strong, and-' He stopped before he could mention anything about how Ludwig's shoulders were almost too broad for his jacket and how he didn't understand why he couldn't stop staring. 'To celebrate that, and the end of summer, we should go do something.'

'Like what?'

'Go to the church,' Feliciano proposed. Ludwig looked at him strangely, but it faded into that dangerous thrill Feliciano had known was hidden underneath his quiet fear of asking questions.

The back door was still unlocked, and they crept through the dark passage towards the stairs that would hopefully lead to the main rooms of the church. Feliciano stared at anything except the box or Ludwig when they passed it, and was glad for the poor lighting.

'Feliciano.'

Feliciano turned to where Ludwig was examining the wall.

'People have signed their names here,' he said in wonder. 'Look at this-some of them are linked. Eliza and...and Emma, and what looks like a cursive L.'

'Why would they carve their names here?'

'To make sure they were remembered.'

Feliciano found a rough spot on the wall and frowned. 'Look at this. One of the names has been scratched out.'

'Saxon and...I can only make out Ba. The rest is gone.'

'Maybe they had a falling-out,' Feliciano said, but he had a feeling something else was happening here on this secret wall. 'Are those flowers?'

Ludwig gingerly picked up one of the dusty green felts twisted into a flower and brushed it off. 'I think so. There's also purple ones.'

Feliciano took a green flower, uncrumpling the felt petals and wondering who had left it. The thought of so many other people in all their lives leaving flowers and carving their names knocked the breath from him.

'I want to carve my name here,' Feliciano decided. He didn't know why he wanted to be part of this secret, but it resonated in him like art. He picked up a sharp rock and began to sign, blood pounding, aware of Ludwig watching.

When the hand touched his shoulder he jumped. Ludwig solemnly handed over a pocketknife with a cross scratched into the blade. Feliciano turned it over and found a childish scrawl. Property of the awesome Gilbert.

'He gave it to me when we left Berlin,' Ludwig said. Feliciano nodded, throat strangely thick, and finished signing his name.

'Do you want to…?'

Ludwig took his knife back and added his name, linked together like so many others.

He looked over and Feliciano had once laid on his bed and dreamed of three thousand words to describe the exact blue of his eyes but the only one he could remember at the moment was beautiful when Ludwig tucked it into his hair.

'Sei bello,' Ludwig said, and Feliciano's heart did funny things at his language in that accent, all wrapped up inside of him and glowing like a perfect secret.

'Du bist wunderschön,' he replied, tongue still tripping on the words even though he'd whispered them to himself the night after Ludwig had said them until the rhythm was humming in his heartbeat. He reached out and gave him his flower. Ludwig smiled.

Walking home, Feliciano watched the dusk add orange and red to the felt petals and imagined painting that, layering shades to capture the world on fire. He wished he had his camera.

'When we get home, can I take a picture of you?' Feliciano asked.

'If you want.'

'I do. Because you're beautiful, and I like you with flowers, and I like you regularly, too.'

'I'm...glad you like me,' Ludwig said, sounding almost bewildered, which Feliciano didn't understand because Lovino always said he was obvious when he liked someone.

'Can I give you flowers if I like you? I can give you the cornflowers. They match your eyes.' Feliciano could imagine Ludwig crowned with the blue flowers.

'I think I like flowers,' Ludwig said half-hesitantly. 'They're nice, but I've never grown them.'

'They're beautiful. In Venice, they always bloom at the same time.'

Quickly, as if he had been waiting for the right moment, Ludwig nudged him to ask a question. He was fiddling with his hair.

'Do you ever find girls beautiful, Feliciano?'

'I like them,' Feliciano said, taking his hand. 'I don't understand everything about them, though. Nonno says-well, he says a lot of things, but I don't know when I'm supposed to start understanding girls. I understand boys better. I understand you.' He was quiet, a small worry growing in his stomach. 'Do you...like girls, Ludwig? In the way that you think they're beautiful?'

'I think they're interesting, I guess.' Ludwig's ears were red. 'I don't understand them either. I don't-I have no idea, I haven't thought about it. I don't think I've ever thought about it, but...I think I like you, Feliciano.'

Feliciano laughed in delight, warmth spreading to the ends of his fingers. He didn't understand everything but what he did was that Ludwig liked him, and maybe he felt the same incredible way Feliciano did when he saw him, and that was enough for now. 'I'm glad. I'm really glad, because I think I really like you, too.'

0o0o0o

School was strange mostly because there was an empty space beside Feliciano that he kept turning to so he could point out pretty things.

Alfred and Arthur went to his school, but Lovino never talked to him. Feliciano tried to catch up to him in the halls, but he didn't even look at him.

He'd promised Ludwig they'd write, and he drew him pictures of the teachers and students, and in the nighttime when they sat on their roofs and the entire world was open and the stars were bright, Feliciano didn't know why he couldn't stop looking at the way Ludwig's shoulders cut in his thin tank tops.

He was doodling someone who wasn't supposed to have Ludwig's eyes and his hands with the calluses along the top of his palm when Alfred brushed him on his way to sit down. Feliciano looked up and was shocked by the drawn paleness of his face.

'Don't go in the bathroom,' he said lowly. 'I just went, and…'

'Why?'

'Someone's been writing things on the walls. They'll catch him eventually.' He forced a smile.

Feliciano had climbed on windowsills and looked at magazines, but sneaking off to the bathroom was different. He felt wrong doing this, and he was scared of what he would see written.

The words were scrawled over the divider wall in a sloppy marker. Someone had already tried to scrub the accusation away, with little luck.

Berwald is a-

Feliciano didn't understand the word, but he felt sick reading it and hurried back to class. He thought about asking Ludwig, but the word seemed wrong to even repeat.

Antonio had a habit of sometimes picking Lovino up after school, and Feliciano followed the next time he showed up.

'What are you doing?' Lovino demanded.

'I need to go downtown,' Feliciano said firmly. 'To talk to Francis. It's important. Please.'

Antonio caught his eyes in the backseat mirror and nodded. 'I'll take you to him.'

'What's so important?' Lovino asked.

'I saw a word written on the bathroom wall,' Feliciano said. Lovino's face hardened.

'Let's go,' he said.

0o0o0o

Francis took one look at him, closed the blinds, and flipped the sign to Closed.

'What happened?' he asked.

'I needed to ask you because I was scared of asking Ludwig,' he said shamefully. It didn't make sense, but he was scared that Ludwig would know what the ugly word meant, and how he knew. He took a deep breath. 'What does fag mean?'

Francis looked old in the seconds before he answered, his hair dusty in the pale light through the blinds.

'It's a horrible word to refer to someone who is homosexual.' His hands curled into slow fists on the arms of his chair. 'Where did you hear it?'

'It was written in the bathroom at school.'

'Of course.' Francis managed a smile and reached out to ruffle his hair. 'If you hear anyone using that word, leave.'

'Why?'

'People who use that word...sometimes like to hurt people who aren't the same as they are,' Francis said. 'Promise me, Feliciano, that if you hear that word being used, you'll leave.'

'What if they're attacking someone I know?'

Francis' face was ashen and ancient. He lifted a hand and touched a necklace Feliciano hadn't noticed before, strung with a few simple charms. Francis closed his eyes as he touched the cross, and an old agony echoed across his face.

'You can only save yourself sometimes, Feliciano,' he said softly.

0o0o0o

Feliciano was shivering that night as he threw pencils, hoping that Ludwig was awake. He was.

'What's wrong?' he asked as soon as he opened his window. Feliciano slid down onto the roof and wrapped his arms around himself, unable to voice the ugly fear growing inside him ever since he'd read the word. Ludwig carefully climbed down and held out his hand. Feliciano took it, unsure, but Ludwig was strong and he trusted him.

'Do you want to come in?' he asked.

'Can we do that?' Feliciano asked, voice rough.

'Vati won't know.' Ludwig gave him a secret sort of smile and pulled him to his feet.

Ludwig's room was warm. Ludwig was busy fixing something on his desk, and Feliciano noticed his painting on the wall.

'It was the only place it wouldn't be noticed by anyone but me.' Ludwig sat down on his bed beside Feliciano. 'What happened?'

'Someone wrote things in the bathroom. I asked Francis about the word.'

Ludwig went still. 'Was-was the word…'

'I didn't ask you because I was scared you'd know it.' Feliciano hunched his shoulders, and Ludwig gingerly wrapped an arm around him. 'I know that sounds stupid, but I didn't want to think that someone had said those things to you-because Francis said...'

'It's okay.' Ludwig leaned against him, and Feliciano closed his eyes, the fear of sneaking out fading away under the warmth. 'I do know the word.'

'Francis said that sometimes the people who say that word attack people who aren't like them,' Feliciano said, fearful of breaking whatever world they could have away from his new fears. 'Did you ever…'

'Yes.' Ludwig's fingers wound in his. 'It was back in Europe, when we were leaving for America. It doesn't matter now.'

The thought that Ludwig had experienced that sent a hot pulse of anger through Feliciano's stomach. 'Ludwig, I-were you hurt?'

'Why do you think Gilbert gave me his knife?' Ludwig closed his eyes. 'That doesn't happen here. It shouldn't.'

'When we're older, I'll find a place we can live where that never happens,' Feliciano promised sleepily. They sat together in silence, and Feliciano drifted until Ludwig gently shook him awake so he could go back to his room.

0o0o0o

Newspapers give an unvarnished view on how things were perceived in the moment.

:: Old trees that block the sun