I need to close this story soon, but there is still ends I want to tie.

0o0o0o

The world had stopped caving in and started to rise again and Ludwig felt like floating. Everything had to be better now, even Gilbert retreating into his room more since Feliciano had come back. Ludwig would turn around to see Gilbert watching with an indecipherable look, almost like a grimace.

Gilbert hadn't spoken about it since. Ludwig hadn't expected Gilbert to be openly happy for him, but it felt like Gilbert was only quiet with his opinions because he had to be now.

It didn't matter, not now. Three years felt like nothing except time he'd wasted not living, and he wanted to make up for it. If Ludwig did fledge wildness like his brother did, at least his runaway thoughts would be for wonderful things.

He was allowed to drive-allowed to do all of this, he reminded himself, things like not telling Gilbert he was going even as he started the car, because Feliciano and he would be only friends this time. The words were a small pang in his chest, but it didn't matter. He wasn't going to ask Feliciano if he still had lingering feelings. He was going to ask for some small rebellion.

He'd tasted freedom and Ludwig had never had it before, not like this, and it was like a drug. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel and his heart was a tattoo against his fragile ribs. He was scared of arguments and what this act might do to shatter the silence of peace, but Feliciano made him bold enough to not care about what happened next for once.

Mathias was handling the shop, but he waved Ludwig towards the back with a knowing grin. Ludwig felt a momentary flare of jealousy that Mathias could know-even if they weren't like that anymore-and not try to reshape them like Gilbert. He pushed the thought away.

Feliciano was bent over a poster, painting an eagle on the body of the motorcycle he was drawing. Ludwig stopped to watch him for a moment, his guilt not enough to dissuade his awe at how Feliciano looked in his element, brow slightly furrowed in concentration, the sunlight in his hair and the way he'd pulled his pageboy cap over. Ludwig didn't let himself stare for long. If he kept waiting, he'd lose the knot of courage that had driven him to come this far.

'I want to dye my hair.'

Feliciano looked away from his painting and his astonished smile lit up the room.

'Ludwig, you're back-and I think you'd look good with your hair dyed,' he said, jumping up. He took Ludwig's hand and pulled him towards the mirror set up at the back-and it felt like before in the press of their palms together; even though his was calloused, Feliciano's was still streaked with paint, gold for the feathers and red-black for the heart, the engine.

Ludwig couldn't believe he was doing it. There was no turning back now, and he wanted this. Change had been an unwelcome, hurting thing nearly all the times before, and now he could change the world himself. Even if his decisions were bad like Gilbert's, they were his, and that is what mattered.

Feliciano pressed him to sit in the chair and pushed an oversized, paint-stained white shirt into his arms.

'Put that on or your clothes will get stained,' he instructed. 'Unless you want it only temporarily, and then I guess we could use Kool-Aid, but…'

'I want it to last,' Ludwig said. He wanted a lasting mark of change. If every look in the mirror was a reminder to be braver, he would be able to start living again eventually.

'I know what you mean. What colour do you want?' Feliciano held up a bottle labeled Cornflower. 'Blue? To match your eyes. Like me, but not to match my eyes. Your hair is already gold.'

'Blue?' Ludwig tried to imagine himself like that and couldn't. The thought was like of falling, anticipation luring him into the fear. The thought tugged at him that Vati wouldn't want the reminder of his eldest grandson's rebellion.

'I can fix it to make it last only a few weeks,' Feliciano offered. 'If you like it, I can make it last longer.'

It wasn't whether he liked it that Ludwig was thinking about. He didn't want to start the arguments again. Feliciano knew, and his voice changed.

'You're worried about what your grandfather will say?'

Ludwig nodded. He thought that if he began to speak, all his fears and dreams and emotions of three years would come rushing out, and that would include that he was still in love.

'I...knew some kids back in Europe,' Feliciano began hesitantly. 'They dealt with parents who thought these things were wrong, too. I can make the dye wash out quickly, but I won't do this at all if you'll end up in danger because of it. I never want to end up hurting you.'

Feliciano-perfect, wonderful Feliciano, knew he was the good kid, that he was supposed to be perfect to make people look away from his older brother. He remembered, and he didn't want to hurt him. But Ludwig wanted to live, and if he didn't find a way to express the pressure of longing and knowledge of love in his chest, it would burst out of him in argument and angry words.

'I'll be okay,' he said, and Feliciano nodded, eyes shining slightly in the dusty light, a sad smile gracing his face.

'If you're sure. Blue, you said?'

'Blue,' Ludwig said. 'I...how much does it cost?'

'My treat.' Feliciano smiled, eyes crinkling in the way they always did. 'Close your eyes.'

Ludwig did, and felt Feliciano pull his hair from careful order, fingers sliding and curling and tugging and Ludwig bit his lip and tried not to ache with the want of it.

Right before Feliciano touched him, the panic that had been hiding showed itself-Vati was going to throw him out, it would be his fault that the arguments would start again-and Ludwig dug his fingers into his palms and demanded bravery. Feliciano had stopped.

'Ludwig?'

'Does it hurt?' he asked softly, knowing it was stupid, but years of holding back left scar tissue inside of him that didn't shake free so easily.

'No. I won't hurt you,' Feliciano promised again. Ludwig forced away his panic and concentrated on his heartbeat and Feliciano's sure hands in his hair-like they once had been, but different all the same. In the bike shop, with sunlight painting the insides of his eyelids red, it was nearly peaceful, and Ludwig drifted.

'Ludwig, open your eyes.'

Feliciano's voice jolted him out of his haze, but Ludwig kept his eyes closed for half a second more. All his tension stretched to breaking point. This was like their first few nights, where it wasn't worth wondering what happened afterwards since the world would change.

Ludwig opened his eyes and a stranger stared back at him from the mirror. They blinked when he did, and turned their head the same, but there was a piercing, hard look in their eyes that hadn't been there a few years ago, and their hair was blue.

'Do you like it?' Feliciano asked. 'I made it as close as I could to your eyes, but your eyes were closed, so I couldn't check. It's very close. I remembered well enough.'

'It's...good.' He ran a cautious hand through his hair. It felt normal if he closed his eyes, but it was new, and it felt brave and right in a way that nothing had been for too long. And it was bright. 'Are my eyes really that...?'

'Ludwig. Dovresti saperlo, i tuoi occhi sono molto blu.' Feliciano hesitated and touched the cut of his jaw, turning him to see. Ludwig leaned into his touch. He had an odd expression. 'Mi piacciono.'

Ludwig still remembered some Italian, but it had gone by so quickly he couldn't decipher it. 'What does that mean?'

Feliciano flashed a sad kind of smile, eyes still fixed on his face like he wanted to draw. 'I guess I can say it like...du bist wunderschön.'

Feliciano had a way of saying things and remaking the world to make sense around him and Ludwig had fallen for it years ago, but nothing quite compared with those words in his voice. He just stared, foolish and lovestruck like he could not be.

'It's good. I like it,' he said again, heart knocking against his fragile ribs.

'That's good.' Feliciano pulled him up from the chair. 'You'll probably have to keep your hair down because if you slick it back now it'll probably look funny.'

'Does it look...funny now?' Ludwig asked, twisting towards the mirror again.

'No.' Feliciano reached out and caught him before he could look, turning him back to face. He brushed his hair back, hands lingering, and Ludwig's breath caught. Feliciano being so close was a drug trip on gold and warmth and it was all too much and not enough. 'No, you look...really good, Ludwig.'

All those years ago when Ludwig had first felt the urge to lean in, it wasn't so bad as this, because back then they didn't know what happened to people like them. Now they both knew, and Ludwig had promised not to hurt Feliciano by pursuing, but the urge was absolute and Feliciano's hand was in his hair again, staining his palms faintly blue. Nobody would be able to see them here, and God, Ludwig had been dreaming about it for three years-

He stepped away and Feliciano's hand fell to his side. Ludwig couldn't look at him. He was sure Feliciano had seen his intent, and he didn't want to see the disgust there.

'Thank you,' he said, keeping his voice steady.

'Don't worry about it.' The nervous scuff of his feet against the concrete floor. Ludwig kept his eyes focused on the oil and paint stain on the ground. 'If-if your grandfather does anything, I'm here.'

Ludwig should have just said he wasn't like that, just to stop any chance of this proceeding, but he couldn't.

'Thank you,' he said again, the words too small for his gratitude. Feliciano hummed, gently stepping closer again, and Ludwig finally looked up and saw intensity and determination, but no disgust.

'I wanted a change,' he said suddenly. 'A sort of-rebellion, but I don't want to be like Gilbert. I just wanted to make a decision that was entirely mine and couldn't hurt anyone.'

'Except you,' Feliciano said. His mouth twitched towards a frown. 'Unlike Gilbert.'

'Gilbert.' Ludwig tried to laugh-he hadn't told Feliciano. 'Gilbert came back.'

Feliciano went still.

'I-I hadn't…' he trailed off. 'Why?' he asked finally.

'Because Roderich got hurt,' Ludwig said. 'Or so he told me.'

'And he didn't stay?' Feliciano was staring at him again, eyes insisting on his own answer and not Gilbert's loud opinions. 'He didn't stay to help him and fight back?'

'No,' Ludwig said with a kind of savage vindictiveness. The temptation to suddenly call his brother a coward hovered, but only for a second. No, Gilbert had courage. Courage or foolishness.

'He can't keep doing that to everyone,' Feliciano said. He stopped and looked Ludwig over. Ludwig knew what was coming: the question of forgiveness. He braced himself to answer that he had.

But this was Feliciano, who knew him better than he knew himself. Feliciano leaned against him, warm solidarity at his side.

'I know,' he said, and he looked like an angel with a crown. 'I know you can't help forgiving him. You know how I told you that we cannot change our hearts? Yours has him in it.'

'And you,' Ludwig said without thinking, like he'd been waiting years to say it. Feliciano paused, and then laughed softly.

'Oh, Ludwig…'

Tell me, Ludwig thought desperately. Tell me you're not the same anymore, tell me you have a girl from Europe, tell me to stop and I swear I will.

'You too?' Feliciano asked sadly, and his hands were back in Ludwig's hair, pressing their foreheads together. Ludwig shut his eyes, feeling emotion swell up behind his heart, unwilling to believe this.

It was just worse if Feliciano felt the same way. Ludwig was not going to make any decisions that hurt anybody but himself.

'I have to go home,' he said, breaking away, feeling his heart crack open, bleeding gold. He'd give everything up for Feliciano, but he would not do this. Feliciano would realize eventually. He would find someone else to love.

'I...I'll see you, okay?' Feliciano said. Ludwig nodded and backed away, hot, horrible shame in his throat and filling his bones. His skin was cold where Feliciano's had pressed against it.

He left without looking back. Mathias stared at his hair, and Ludwig got in the car and drove wildly and too fast before he finally pulled over and screamed his throat raw and slammed his hands against the steering wheel until his palms were sore and scraped but no longer cold, and when he was spent, collapsed backwards and stared through the spikes of his hair at the sky. It was all the same colour. He would not hurt Feliciano Vargas, and if he had to hurt for the rest of his life to make sure he didn't, he would.

Carefully recollecting himself, Ludwig sat back up and automatically went to smooth back his hair before he stopped.

0o0o0o

Ludwig pushed the front door open quietly, hands still stinging, and stopped dead. Gilbert stood on the stairs, giving him the same look he had been for a week-eyes narrowed in concern, body tense.

'Ludwig, what the hell did you do to your hair?'

'I dyed it,' he said defensively, shutting the door. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to fight with Gilbert ever. This was his choice, such a small, harmless thing. It shouldn't matter to Vati or Gilbert, just like it shouldn't matter to anybody who he found beautiful.

'Yeah, you did.' Gilbert's mouth was twisting into that familiar grimace. 'You know Vati won't-won't like that.'

'I know.' He did, that was some of why he had done it. Gilbert should understand that.

'No, you don't.' Gilbert jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 'We need to wash it off.'

'No!' Ludwig's tipping-point emotions suddenly burst out of him.

'You aren't wearing that to the dinner table!' Gilbert snarled.

'I'm not washing it off.'

Gilbert glowered down at him for a moment. 'Come up here.' His voice was cold.

'Why?'

'I said, come up here. Or are you deaf as well as stupid?'

Ludwig followed, stunned. Gilbert never said things like that to him.

Gilbert shut the door of his room behind them. Ludwig glanced at the walls. There were even more posters of models now, over the pictures of birds. Gilbert examined him, anger in his every glance until he stepped away.

'Why'd you do it?' he asked.

'Because I wanted to.' Because he wanted change and beauty and Feliciano and none of that could happen.

'No, you didn't.' Gilbert pointed at him, at his blue hair and his paint-spattered shirt. 'You did that to defy Vati. I thought you hated it when we fought, baby brother. Didn't I tell you not to take after me?'

'I'm not taking after you!' Ludwig shouted. 'Despite what you think, the entire world doesn't revolve around you, Gilbert! I'm doing all of this because I want to.'

'Or did you do it because he convinced you into it?'

The accusation shocked Ludwig. Even Gilbert stepped back, hands hooking in his pockets, but he didn't rescind the question.

'Feliciano-Feliciano wouldn't have done that. This was my choice.'

'You're supposed to be making better choices,' Gilbert said carefully.

'Because I'm the good kid?' Ludwig asked, eyes stinging.

'Because I don't want you to turn out like I did,' Gilbert said, hands curling into fists. 'Is that so hard to understand? Use that fucking brain of yours, I know you're ten times smarter than I am. You watched me break this family apart for years and now you turn around and do this.' He grabbed Ludwig's shoulders, eyes piercing down to his heart. 'What were you thinking?'

'I was thinking that for all your arguments, you might understand why I did this.'

'No. I don't. You're the one who doesn't understand.' Gilbert's hands trembled. 'You were able to leave with him whenever we fought. I couldn't so much as try to go downtown without causing another fight! I didn't want to fight, despite what you might have thought. You're-you're lucky, you have no idea, and now all of a sudden you're out of the house and then you come back like this, and Vati's going to be the same way.'

'No, Vati is better.' Without you around. 'And besides, I heard back when-back before, isn't he-'

'Don't say that,' Gilbert said sharply. He ran his hands through his hair, tugging hard. 'Why can't you be a little bit more...normal?'

'What do you mean by that?' Ludwig hated the tone in his voice. For a second, he couldn't understand why, until he realized it was like the pastor's when he said unnatural.

'You know what I mean.' Gilbert turned away. 'It's the same thing as always. You aren't immune to having people think you might be like that. Especially when you still come back from downtown high on your dreams. People will notice, and they'll hurt you. Just get yourself a girl, for God's sake. Anything but this.'

They stood there for a second before Gilbert dropped his head into his hands.

'God.' He looked up, eyes creased and dull. 'Does it come out?'

'Within a week or so, Feliciano said-'

'You shouldn't be doing that,' Gilbert said, and it was that more than anything that broke him. Ludwig grabbed his brother's shoulders and pushed him back.

'Don't talk about him like that,' Ludwig spat, roiling fury rising in his chest. He was willing to let Gilbert shout at him, but not let him accuse Feliciano.

'I'm not, I just-you know what he's like, you know he wears his heart on his sleeve. I just don't want you to get hurt! Is that so fucking hard to understand?' Gilbert was shaking, face red, and Ludwig wanted him to snap, to hit him, to break and hurt him. But Gilbert wouldn't do that, and Ludwig would not begin it.

'I can't change, Gilbert. Maybe you can-'

'I learned to hide it after I watched the man I love get bloodied in the street,' Gilbert said, so quietly it chilled.

'I can't,' Ludwig said, eyes stinging, throat thick. His head was fuzzy and his vision was blurry with tears or anger. 'Not anymore. I spent three years trying to change, trying to hide and it didn't work. I don't want to hide anymore.'

'You have to,' Gilbert said, and his touch through the paint-stained shirt was almost tender, almost sad, like Gilbert would hold him close and call him baby brother.

'You told me you knew because of the way I looked at Feliciano. Back when you cared.' Gilbert hands were too heavy on his shoulders.

'And you are still in love with Feliciano Vargas?' Gilbert asked softly.

'Yes.'

Gilbert's fingernails dug into his shoulders before he shoved him away, hard, and Ludwig's back hit the wall, knocking the breath from his lungs. The look in his brother's eyes was like it had been that day long ago before Gilbert left, horrible and wrecked and sad in a way, but raging with everything he hadn't let himself feel. Ludwig realized in that moment what he hadn't for years-that Gilbert didn't see things clearly, that his love was so hidden under hurt and pain and fear that he thought everything like softness was bad, when it was exactly the opposite.

'Take that dye out of your hair,' Gilbert said, voice shaking and cracking. He pointed to the bathroom. 'Get it out. Bleach it for all I fucking care.'

'Then we'd look alike,' Ludwig said. The reality hadn't sunk in yet, and he hurt, all over, like it was all a bad dream. But this was not a dream.

'We aren't alike, Ludwig.' Gilbert pointed at the door again. 'Not anymore. Get out of my room.'

He did. Gilbert slammed the door after him. Ludwig turned on the water in the sink and looked up one last time at the stranger that was his reflection. His hair wasn't normal when he finished, but it was pale blue like morning.

He turned around and left the silent, echoing house with the brother that had changed and changed him and started driving again. He thought it would be easier to leave Gilbert after what he'd done, but his heart felt like it was tearing and his chest was burning and Francis had been right, about hero-worship, because Ludwig would let Gilbert take even this from him.

But not for now, not for a precious few hours that were his to live, his to give to Feliciano, because if he was a fool for sacrifice, he would rather it be like this.

0o0o0o

I need to truly deal with the familial relationships most of all.

:: Pale blue skies in early autumn