The end-where everything is better.

0o0o0o

This what Gilbert must have felt like when he left for the first time-the weight of other people's expectations and prejudice suddenly gone, all the walls falling away and allowing him to remake the world. The difference was that Ludwig wasn't his older brother, and running away was not what he did.

The bike shop pulled into view and Feliciano was there, the only steady point in the falling world, and Ludwig didn't want to stand up against the weight of a world entirely on his shoulders. Feliciano held him tightly.

'Your grandfather didn't-'

'Not him.' Ludwig realized dimly that he was shaking with anger and fear and everything else that only now was prickling underneath his tight skin, needing release. 'Gilbert.'

Feliciano's grip tightened and his fingers bit into the marks Gilbert had left.

'He can't,' he said, in the small and broken way people speak when they are hopeless.

'I just…' The sun was too bright, and his head pounded. 'Just want a drink. I'm going back tomorrow.'

Feliciano knew he wouldn't listen to a warning not to go back, but he had his limits.

'No drinking tonight,' he said firmly. 'You can stay with me, or you can drive around for a while and maybe think-'

'I'll stay.' He'd had enough of thinking.

'Okay.' Feliciano touched his arm and led him upstairs and into the loft.

When the door shut, they were alone in a small bedroom with the late sun gleaming through the closed shutters and reflecting off Feliciano's hair. He was perfect, had been since the first days, and he deserved better than this. Ludwig's heart hurt.

'Why are you letting me stay?'

Feliciano looked surprised. 'Because we're friends, Ludwig.'

Just friends. But it was hard to remember that when it was just them alone with their memories and Feliciano was illuminated gold and if he could just ask him, maybe. 'That's not what I meant. I-I don't know how to not forgive Gilbert. You know that tomorrow I'm just going to end up back like this.'

'I know.' Feliciano sat down next to him and slowly laid his head on Ludwig's shoulder, like he was waiting for permission. Ludwig almost laughed. He wanted this-couldn't Feliciano see that? He had always let people do what they wanted to him, but this was something he wanted, too, not something he ended up forgiving. Feliciano acted like he thought Ludwig would push him away for a touch and Gilbert tore up his world without thinking.

'I'm sorry,' Ludwig said, and leaned over-heart in his throat-and kissed the top of his head. Feliciano went still, and then leaned up to meet him, soft breath on his neck, golden eyes staring into his.

'What are you sorry for?'

'Being-' Ludwig felt like he was choking, Feliciano was so close and he wanted this more than he wanted to keep breathing. He was still in love with Feliciano Vargas. 'Being like him when you said you loved me without him.'

'Are you worried I'd stopped?' Feliciano asked, eyes shining with tears, a strange smile slowly unfurling. 'I never stopped. Every time I kissed someone in Europe, I wished they were you.'

Oh God, he's so close, everything is thrumming inside his chest. 'So-so you don't-'

'I don't have a girlfriend.' Feliciano paused, and his hand caught Ludwig's hair and his next words were a rush. 'I thought you might, because you're beautiful and you-'

'They weren't like you,' he whispered, and the light played across Feliciano's face as he turned towards him, his eyes asking, asking, drinking in the details of their years apart, eyes on the ways he'd grown taller and the new muscles in his shoulders. Feliciano had a way of seeing him like he was his masterpiece, like every inch of him was better than Ludwig could see it himself.

'Ludwig…' Closer, fingertips touching his hip and curling behind his head, wanting. He never looked away.

Ludwig thought his heart would burst, he would shatter into stardust and drift in the sunbeams getting caught in his eyelashes, but he brushed a hand underneath Feliciano's eyes.

'You're staring,' Ludwig said, and his voice caught.

Quiet and the gold sun and their hands sliding across skin and tangling in hair and Feliciano laughed, a teary, incredulous thing and then they're kissing like they never stopped, like three years hadn't passed. God, this is what Ludwig had been dreaming of, because he knew Feliciano better than he knew himself, because the planes of his body still fell together in the greatest masterpiece known to mankind and his voice gasping Ludwig next to his ear was the most wonderful sound in the world.

'I've been waiting,' Feliciano said in a moment where they both caught their breath. 'To do that. Since I left. And since I came back. I didn't know-thought you might have changed, but I hadn't, and if you'd have given me a chance I'd have waited another three years for it.'

'I wanted it too. I just didn't want to hurt you,' Ludwig confessed. Feliciano laughed again and buried his face in his shoulder.

'You won't hurt me. Nothing this good can hurt.'

'Are you sure you want to do this? Want me?'

'You especially. And I-I'll be okay until the world is better. When people like us can hold hands in the street.'

'I'd like that.'

The idea of a safer world tingled through his bones. It would be a while until Ludwig stopped fearing the hurt his brother was so terrified of, and he kept expecting this to end, to wake up. But they lay there with Feliciano's hands in his hair and his mouth on the not-strong-now steppe of Feliciano's bare shoulder, shuddering like they're both waiting for someone to tell them no, but nobody comes and Feliciano's eyelashes are damp when Ludwig kisses him again.

They spend the night twisted together in the bedsheets, close like they had not been for years. It is like the night they ran with the storm in their hearts and got drunk off emotion, but tonight is a better high than anything, the only one he's never feared with their worship written in trembling hands and love confessions in every language they know, and Feliciano pulled his hair into spikes of morning colours. Ludwig touched Feliciano like he never had before. He had never known what pleasure really looked like on him, but this is it-hazy golden eyes and Italian he can't understand being almost slurred against his shoulder, skin slick and flushed red, curved heat pressed against his palms and his artist's hands pulling him close. He wanted to touch him carefully, because of fear of hurting him somehow, but this was not hurt-this was the raw golden emotion and heart of both of them in gasps and pleads, this was right, filling his cracked-open eggshell chest cavity with glorious sunlight. Ludwig closed his eyes when the knot in his stomach pulled tight, finally able to say Feliciano's name all tangled together with beautiful and love you like he'd been accidentally doing for three years.

Feliciano curled close to him when they were finished and drowsy and Ludwig was deliriously happy. They fit together perfectly in his bed. Feliciano leaned up and ran a hand through his messy hair and said sei bello, and Ludwig said du bist wunderschön back because that was all that mattered, that Feliciano was the most beautiful person in the world.

0o0o0o

Ludwig woke up and the world felt right. The sun was shining in through the window onto the faint freckles across Feliciano's nose. Ludwig couldn't help staring, trying to see every detail of him, like the way his eyelashes were long and auburn and caught the sun or that he smiled in his sleep. He wanted to draw him suddenly, what he hadn't done in too long, wanted to become familiar again with everything he is.

Feliciano opened his eyes and Ludwig didn't have an excuse for staring, but Feliciano laughed and rolled over to kiss him, and so maybe he doesn't need to explain. The movement of their hands and mouths together now was not desperate and needy, but slow and soft. The kind of kiss that promises it will never be the last.

'I'm going to tell Vati,' Ludwig said against Feliciano's mouth. The idea and words had slipped out of his hazy dream-like thoughts, and he pulled back, unsure.

'I trust you,' Feliciano said. 'He has to be better this time. But if he isn't, I'm here.'

Ludwig didn't know the words to say how grateful he was in any language, so he just kissed Feliciano again, feeling more than a slight thrill at being able to, and the hot, pleased weight in his stomach at the way Feliciano hummed and arched against him.

He didn't want to leave, but life continues and so must everyone. He had to face his brother and his grandfather and find his place with both. His place with Feliciano-that was easy, because it was in his humming pulse.

'I love you,' Ludwig said, because he loved the way Feliciano's eyes lit up when he said it, and because it was right.

'I love you too,' Feliciano said, before they finally got out of bed to clean off.

They did not redye Ludwig's hair. He left it pale sky blue and pulled the collar of his shirt to hide the reddish mark on his shoulder. Feliciano touched it and they both shivered before Feliciano let go and Ludwig stood at the door, at the threshold of a new life.

'Gilbert…' Feliciano looked both pleading and determined. 'I know what you feel towards him. But nobody is allowed to hurt you and not have to prove themselves afterwards, not even him.'

That was the difference-that Feliciano did not hurt him, that he made the world make sense instead of telling him what it was.

'I know,' Ludwig said, and he did. He felt like smiling, strangely. He felt brave, and willing to say things he didn't fully understand. 'Feliciano, the cornflowers where you used to live are still growing.'

Feliciano smiled. 'Just like you.'

0o0o0o

Ludwig took a cornflower to wear and pushed his hair back. He didn't know what he looked like, but he wasn't as much of a stranger to himself like he had been before. Cornflowers and music-that was what he belonged to here.

He opened the door. Vati and Gilbert were shouting at each other, only fighting when Ludwig couldn't hear them.

'We both wondered where you were for three years. What was I supposed to tell him? That you were too busy living life without him?' Vati asked.

'You should have told him what you told everyone. That I was the mistake, the one nobody wanted,' Gilbert spat back.

'Enough.'

Both fell silent to stare towards the door. Ludwig didn't feel angry, or numb, or broken. He felt brave in the way it took to look your older brother in the eye and know he wasn't perfect. He stepped in front of his grandfather. This was the end of silence and broken things.

'How many times have you fought since you came back?'

'Just this once,' Gilbert said, his body folding in, unwilling to meet his eyes. His hunting-bird older brother was never brave when faced with him. 'Because you were gone.'

'I need to talk to you,' Ludwig said, ignoring Vati behind him. He walked out, knowing that Gilbert would follow.

He stood between his and Feliciano's houses, staring at the sky, remembering all that had happened in the space between their windows. When he looked back, Gilbert was leaning against the side of their house, watching him.

'I shouldn't forgive you,' Ludwig said, but his voice cracked. He wasn't able to be cruel to his brother. They were birds with broken wings and hearts, both of them-unable to stay and unable to leave.

'That's what I don't understand, baby brother,' Gilbert said, so softly it was like it had been nearly eight years and Ludwig was ten and still learning what the world was. 'After what I've done, you can't even bring yourself to hate me. I see it in your eyes when we fight, that you want to hurt me, you want to make me feel what I've done to you.' His smile, broken like thin ice, showing the raw beginnings of life underneath. 'Why don't you ever do it? Everyone else I hurt has, and God knows I deserve it.'

'You wouldn't fight back,' Ludwig said, his throat thick.

'Of course I wouldn't. I don't want to hurt you.' Gilbert came closer and slowly, slowly wrapped arms around him. Ludwig let himself become smaller and protected like he hadn't been for years. Gilbert's next words were against the nape of his neck. 'But I do anyways. You never fought me when I kept running away, though. Isn't that enough payback?'

'I can't hurt you,' Ludwig said, the end choked.

'But I can hurt you.' Gilbert's hands awkwardly shifted over his hair. 'I have hurt you. I'm bad for you, I know. I'm the worst person for you. I fuck you up and leave you still trying to fit what I used to be. Baby brother, what you never understood is that you're better than I am.'

'No,' Ludwig said automatically.

'Don't lie.' Gilbert chuckled faintly. 'Francis told you, too, about hero-worship? If you're worshipping anyone, it can't be me any longer.'

'What are you saying?'

'I'm saying that you need someone else. Someone who doesn't just take.'

Feliciano. 'Who?' Ludwig asked.

'Your artist boy. Feliciano Vargas.'

Ludwig's heart jumped. 'You didn't want me with him.'

'That was wrong.' Gilbert let go of him. 'I'm...wrong about things. That's why I can't be your gospel anymore. I'm wrong about a lot of things and I-I'm sorry. But one thing I know is right is that Feliciano is better for you.'

'Are you telling me to…?'

'I'm giving my blessing.' Gilbert ruffled his hair, careful not to disturb the flower. 'You love him in a way I almost never see. You love like he is the world, and-and I think that maybe, maybe you won't get hurt.'

'I was with him last night,' Ludwig whispered, his secret better when he was allowed to tell it to his older brother. Gilbert smiled.

'I thought you might be. You know what each other want now, right?'

Ludwig nodded. Gilbert grinned.

'It's about time.' He looked at the car. 'I'm going downtown to talk to Toni and Francis. You're going to tell Vati you're in love with him, aren't you?'

Ludwig didn't ask how he knew, just nodded again. The relief of everything had lifted off of him. He didn't need to run away to feel like floating, especially if he thought of Feliciano.

'Good man.' Gilbert clapped him on the shoulder and his hand lingered. 'You're almost eighteen, Ludwig. You are your own person, and not even I can take that away from you.'

Ludwig heard Gilbert drive off before he took a deep breath and pushed the door back open. Vati was sitting in his usual armchair. Ludwig sat down across from him. His bravery was gone, replaced by the usual feeling of being pinned by his grandfather's piercing eyes

'Do you remember Feliciano Vargas?' he asked, knowing the answer before it was spoken.

'I knew his grandfather.'

'I knew Feliciano.' And the words of years of waiting and hiding spilled in patterns that didn't convey all that had ever happened. 'He's come back. He's the one who dyed my hair. And I am in love with him.'

Vati said nothing for a long moment. Finally, he took off his wire glasses and folded them in his lap.

'How long has it been going on?'

'Since we were younger.' Ludwig could remember exactly when he realized he'd fallen for Feliciano-sitting on his bed and watching the sun catch in his eyelashes-but in reality, he'd been in love for long before that.

'I had my suspicions.' Vati sighed, but had the hint of a smile. 'What people say was true-that you looked at him like he was the world.'

'Why didn't you turn me out like you did Gilbert?' Ludwig couldn't muster all of the anger he needed. Vati looked up, and his eyes were faded and tired.

'I didn't want to think you were like that. I'm sure you've heard how people-'

'Get hurt,' Ludwig finished.

'It's something both your brother and I experienced.' He turned to look out the window. 'I always thought that if things ever changed, they would be so far in the future it wouldn't matter. But you are the new generation, and you are different. Perhaps the world is changing, after all.'

0o0o0o

Feliciano laid on his bed in the autumn sunlight and thought. The weight of his grandfather was always there, but it was less today. Every day it got a little bit easier.

Life was complicated. Life threw you into huge cities with boys with midday sky eyes and gentleness and you fell for them, and then tore you away and left you dreaming, and now he was back and it was so easy to fall back into familiarity like they'd never left. Life was not perfect, but it was good, good, because you kept moving, and wonderful because you could heal and grow and love again.

Ludwig especially-he'd changed, and some of the changes were good because Feliciano couldn't keep his eyes off the new breadth of his shoulders. Some were worse, because Ludwig had tried to make himself into what he was not, everything his brother was, like hard eyes and running away, and it made him try so hard to be something he was not.

The worst part was always, always watching the man he loved destroy himself through forgiveness, which was supposed to be a gentle and good thing. Gilbert was sharp with his words and his decisions and Feliciano knew Ludwig would always forgive him, but he didn't have to. Most things were forgiven, but abandoning Ludwig was something that would take time to forgive.

Because all of this had been for a chance to see those sky blue eyes again, hadn't it? For a chance to have the wonderful thing they had once.

The memories flickered when he closed his eyes-gold heat and their voices twining and want in the air like the scent of the ground after rain. That night where they'd forgotten their three years apart and just existed in each other was worth the world.

Feliciano wanted a world where people like them could be safer. He'd heard over and over that people like him who wore their hearts on their sleeves would only get hurt, but it had never been right for people to hurt because of beautiful things. There had been too much hurt in the world for love.

He heard the knock at the door and jumped up, grabbing the bag by his side. Ludwig was waiting, blue eyes bright and a smile curving across his face. It had been two months since their night, two months since Ludwig drove to see him and said between choking words that it was okay, everything was okay now. Vati had accepted him, and Gilbert was better, and this was where the healing could begin.

'Happy birthday!' Feliciano cried, and he couldn't help his smile. Ludwig leaned down to kiss him and Feliciano's heart sang with the way he didn't even look around to see if people were watching.

Ludwig knew Feliciano's apartment in the bike shop now, and he set down a bag in the corner.

'What's that?'

'Flowers,' Ludwig said, and turned faintly red. 'Cornflowers. They would have died if I hadn't picked them.'

'You're not supposed to be getting me things, it's your birthday,' Feliciano jokingly accused. 'I got you more records from that Eno artist in Europe.' But that wasn't the real idea he had in mind, and it kind of was a present to Feliciano, too, and he just needed to come out and say it.

'You know how I told you that Lovi wasn't staying here forever?'

Ludwig stood up too fast. 'I-I know, are you-'

'No. Not if I don't have to.' Feliciano took a deep breath, his longing and nervous excitement still humming deep in his bones, remembering how he'd talked to his brother and told him everything. 'We're both eighteen now, Ludwig, and that means we're allowed to start making our own worlds, and I want mine to be with you. I don't know if this is a good decision but I think it is because you have always been, and Lovi and I are staying, at least for now, and maybe we can go back to Europe later-'

He was interrupted by Ludwig kissing him and decided that they could talk later, after he'd touched and been touched and had his hands in Ludwig's hair that he'd started to slick back as the remains of the dye faded. They did not make perfect decisions because it was not a perfect kind of world, not yet, and maybe it never would be, but they loved each other and beauty made the world wonderful.

Three hours later, Feliciano was painting a mural of a boy with blue eyes in the back of the shop when the door jingled and in walked his latest customer. Feliciano turned to help and stopped, unwilling to believe what-who-he was seeing. White hair, white skin, red eyes and a smile that was less sharp than it had been before. Gilbert Beilschmidt, the man who'd hurt Ludwig and who Feliciano had almost forgiven, too, because Ludwig needed him, but he also needed to be himself. Gilbert was a conflict of emotion and he knew it, with his eyes slightly sad but with steely resolve.

'I want to dye my hair,' Gilbert said.

0o0o0o

His new records were crooning softly and Ludwig was drawing Feliciano from memory when Gilbert knocked on his door. He'd left in the morning, right before Ludwig had gone to see Feliciano.

'I was talking with Vati,' he said. Ludwig nodded absentmindedly, absorbed in his shading. He was drifting, and it was hard to remember that he was allowed to have his own time still. Gilbert made a sound like a short laugh and sat down on his bed. Ludwig could feel his nervous energy rolling off him. When Gilbert seemed to be waiting, he finally looked up and stopped.

'You dyed your hair.'

'Feliciano actually did it.' Gilbert ran a hand through his vibrantly red and blue-streaked hair. 'You like it?'

'I do,' Ludwig said, feeling himself smile.

'I know, it's an awesome look on me.' Gilbert hauled him up and just stood staring with a soft smile, like he was trying to memorize what Ludwig looked like.

'What are you doing?' Ludwig asked, almost hesitant to speak and break this, because he wanted his older brother to keep looking at him with that pride in his eyes.

'I'm giving you a choice,' Gilbert said gently. 'And it's yours entirely, baby brother, I'll obey your decision. I was talking with Vati, and I'm an adult now. I was thinking of moving downtown.'

The old fear woke back up in his bones, but Ludwig forced himself steady and braver. This was a choice.

'Why?'

'I told you. I'm the worst person in the world for you right now,' Gilbert said. 'You need someone who doesn't just take and take.'

'But if I tell you to stay, you will?'

'I will, I promise.' Gilbert tugged Ludwig's hair and pushed a hand through to the back, making it stand up and them look the same. 'And I'm getting better at staying here, aren't I?'

Ludwig didn't know what he wanted. He wanted his big brother to stay now that he was able to live without fighting, but maybe it was better to let him go. This was too much of a decision, this could break and hurt and he'd promised himself he wouldn't do that. He couldn't make his brother leave again.

'Why do you want to leave?' he asked, voice small, the voice he'd had when he was eleven.

'I'm just saying that birds need to be freed sometimes,' Gilbert said with a wry grin. 'But it's for you mostly. I'd love to stay, I love watching you grow up. But you aren't doing that with me around. I'm saying that you don't know who you are underneath what I've made you be, and I want to see who my baby brother is because I know he's beautiful. It's not forever, Ludwig. I will never leave forever so long as you need me. But it's for now. Give yourself a month or two to figure out who you are. With Feliciano, maybe.'

'A month or two,' Ludwig echoed. 'And then you'd-you'd let me see you?'

'Whole world just can't keep us apart, can it?' Gilbert pulled him close. 'I want to see you again, baby brother. I want to see you.'

'Okay,' Ludwig said, and knew it was a promise to let his wildfire brother free again-but also knowing he'd come back, with his hunting-bird loyalty. Until then, he needed to stretch his runaway wings.

Gilbert laughed exuberantly and spun them around, his multicoloured hair tangled.

'I'll see you soon. Sooner than you think.'

'Are you leaving now?' Ludwig asked, emotion closing off his throat.

'Not today. Today is yours. I can show you the place I've been thinking of tomorrow, it's near the music hall and-' And his big brother blushed suddenly, his pale skin red. 'Well, Roderich is coming back. He's out of his old job and he got an offer here. I got a letter from him a few days ago, and we never really broke it off, so…'

'That's good,' Ludwig said, smiling, and everything felt right. It was okay to let Gilbert go like this, to figure out the world by himself. He'd have Feliciano beside him to make it all make sense.

0o0o0o

Venice, 1989

The world had changed in ways Ludwig never expected. Feliciano Vargas-lovely and impossible and perfect Feliciano Vargas was standing beside him in the plaza with the windowsill flower boxes and their hands were twined. For the first time, he wasn't scared of being hurt from it. They would face the world together, like they had for years.

'We made it,' Feliciano said, and Ludwig knew exactly how he would look with tears in his eyelashes before he turned, but the sight of his golden eyes still took his breath away.

Venice was beautiful this time of year. Feliciano had been hinting about it for weeks, but somehow he had never exaggerated the way the setting sun painted the world into warmth.

This is what he needed-warmth and softness and a life of his own. Ludwig needed someone who could let him find out who he was without his older brother. He needed someone who knocked his heart wide open and made him rethink the world, who touched him like he was a masterpiece and who was his and had been since that first day where their lives had begun to grow together.

Ludwig wasn't made of firebrand hurricanes and wildness. His love didn't hatch from cannonballs and life on the edge, it came from the gold light in the afternoon and beautiful things. He needed cornflowers and paint and music on records and gold, in sunlight and eyes and high emotions, and Feliciano.

'Sei bello, Ludwig,' Feliciano whispered against his mouth, and Ludwig closed his eyes and squeezed his hand and kissed him in the late sunlight with light gleaming across their faces and onto the gold rings on their fingers, of his promise to the most beautiful person in the world.

'Du bist wunderschön, Feliciano.'

0o0o0o

I'm sorry to let this go-it was a wonderful run.

:: Letting yourself fall asleep earlier