Secret Door, How Could an Angel Break My Heart?

Oh wow, Toni Braxton + this story = wow wow wow…

The Gay Brother

Sunrooms and Rumpled Money

The hot sun hit his face at too-early-in-the-morning, which wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't been so badly confused about why he was on the wrong side of the bed. Ludwig slept facing the window and Feliciano faced the en-suit's door: there was no reason for the sun to touch him. And the bed smelt wrong, that was the next thing he noticed. And why did his cotton sheets feel pilled and rough? Where was- oh…

Feliciano had to lay there for a few minutes just to orient himself properly, confused for the several long moments it took to recognize the corrugated steel roof over his head and the glass panes surrounding him. He was not in his bed in Berlin, he wasn't in Germany anymore, he was in a completely different country. He wasn't even in a house for goodness' sake, and as he pulled his bare arms up over his head Feliciano was uncomfortable enough just thinking about his arrangements that he didn't want to remember last night.

The sunroom was a secure and safe place to sleep, he'd helped build it so he'd have taken offense if it collapsed on him or something, but it wasn't actually in the house. When they had all been children this had been a garden patio. The floor under the furniture was still grey terra-cotta brickwork over a foundation of sand and gravel, and the first two feet of wall were red brick and grey yard rocks mortared and mason'd together by someone's great-grandpa. When they had been teens Feliciano's mother had volunteered her two older sons to help construct the room the way it was now: thick wood posts and beams erected to hold up a ceiling of sort-of-insulated corrugated steel. It was separated from the actual house by the proper exterior yellow stone wall of the villa.

He couldn't read into it though, as in he actually could not do so: Lovino's mother-in-law didn't know why he'd broken the engagement, not really. Chiara didn't know, Alice didn't know, Carlino didn't know, none of them knew the real reason why so there was no way to convince himself that he was sleeping in a converted patio garden because he was dirty or impure or corrupt. He was just sleazy and unwanted…

Horrible thoughts, poison really, but that just made him think of last night. He hooked one bare arm over his eyes with a groan, telling his mind to please stop- but what good would that do? He could feel the hairs on his arm pressing against his eyes, rubbing the limb back and forth trying to scratch them awake and muttering at the same time.

"Mistake, mistake, mistake…" This had all been a terrible mistake, he couldn't believe Lovino hadn't talked him out of this- it was all his fault! It had to be!

But no, last night had been awkward. He had not seen Alice: he had seen her mother. He could see the dinner table perfectly behind his closed eyes and rolled over to try sticking his head under a pillow to escape. It didn't work.

He could see the table perfectly: Lovino placing himself at the far end, the head of the table, with Chiara taking the opposite end after the food was set out. Donna Valenti had sat at her daughter's right, Carlino next to her on Lovino's left, Feliciano on his older brother's right, and then there had been one empty seat between himself and Chiara.

He'd been seated diagonally across from a woman who had been simultaneously an aunt and a second mother to all three of them while growing up. Feliciano been starving after too much travel and the Valenti household knew how to cook up a proper feast, but with Donna Valenti sitting there with her full, round face thinned from widowhood and age, her black curls grey and snarling around her deflated cheeks and harsh grey eyes, he hadn't tasted a thing on his plate. He could have been swallowing wet rope and modelling clay, because that was what the food felt like in his stomach.

If he said something he was glared at, if he stayed quiet he was huffed at, if he requested something from across the table he was just plain ignored until either of his brothers made the same request on his behalf. It was a shaming technique and Feliciano would argue his co-workers under the table that no one employed it better than an angry Italian mother.

Yes he did enjoy sitting at a table with his brothers. And yes, Chiara was a good hostess who had, however grudgingly, at least let him participate in whatever conversation was happening around him. No one talked about him: Carlino's questions about Berlin and Germany were deflected and turned into queries about the restaurant and winery. No one mentioned wedding rings or children.

Feliciano was convinced every time he saw Donna Valenti's eyes move from the empty seat across from her to his left hand, something was about to burst into flame. Alice's name wasn't so much as breathed.

But she was in the house, because there was only one shower and it was up on the second floor where he had been just prior to dinner. Apparently after getting dressed again in a fresh shirt and pants he'd opened the bathroom door at exactly the wrong moment. She'd been right there, standing in front of him, as shocked as he was to see her and they both just stood there dumb and mute about it.

If Chiara was small and scary, then her sister was full and sparkling, it was just the way his mind worked to describe it. She was a lot like an animator's sketch, round hips and sloped shoulders attached by a dancer's slender waist, she'd always been the heavier sister but in a flattering way. He hadn't recognized her without a smile on her face, it was strange to see her arms pinned close to her body like clipped wings.

They'd stalled and said nothing to each other until her mother came up the stairs and saw them, and then with a voice like a cannon-shot he'd been told his brother wanted him for something. It wasn't a lie, but no voices had come from upstairs before Donna Valenti reappeared in the dining room and they all, minus one, sat down for a stifled, awkward meal.

Feliciano groped across the fold-out couch to find the edge, scraping his phone off the floor to check the time. It was quarter past five in the morning, and he knew after eleven he would belong to his brothers down at the restaurant- they were serious about making him work.

He had six hours to get up, get dressed, and go see his mother…

It took Ludwig until Thursday morning to open the trunk of Feliciano's car, and he didn't understand what he was looking at after he did it.

He'd thought Feliciano had taken his good suit jacket and pants with him. He'd thought that emerald tie was missing because it was one of his partner's favourites- a Christmas gift from two years ago. He didn't understand why there was a tin of shoe polish and his partner's best black shoes in a plastic bag. He just stood in the supermarket parking lot and stared at the items, completely at a loss when he saw the drycleaner's name on the hook the clothes were still resting on. They'd last been laundered a week and a half ago, the receipt was still attached.

"Lutz?"

When he got home, he moved past his brother with only a brief pause to make sure Gilbert would put the milk and eggs in the fridge, then went straight upstairs.

The spare bedroom on the second floor was their shared office space, dominated by Ludwig's work documents and filing cabinet. It was not a cluttered room, in fact it was strictly organized and tidy: he made a habit of filing any documents of Feliciano's that his partner left scattered around. He organized way-ward notes by size and colour in the middle of Feliciano's desk next to where his laptop usually rested in its docking station. It had been three days without Feliciano in the house, his desk had never looked neater, and Ludwig fished the key to his drawers out of his pocket where the rest of the ring had made its home.

The large filing drawer slid open with a click, the key still hanging in the lock as he thumbed through the documents until he found the red folder. Red meant finances according to the system Ludwig had organized for their household, and as he pulled the portfolio out he was surprised when his eyes caught something blue in the white folder just in front of it. White meant work, and from where he was crouched down next to the drawer Ludwig paused for a moment. He had every right to know what was going on in their household's finances, but he could have sworn that that looked like…

It was a twenty Euro note. Why was that pushed between several memos from Feliciano's boss and co-workers? How careless of him! Ludwig set the finance folder down with a sigh, reaching into the drawer and thumbing through the memos and scrapped brochures for various shows and exhibitions the gallery had put on over the years. A memo about photocopier use, something about chemical reactions, questions about some artistic form Ludwig couldn't say he knew anything about, but no mention of anything relating to a twenty euro bill that was from or meant to go to someone at work.

Foolish. Ludwig slipped the money into his own pocket with a huff and picked up the red file again, quickly taking it back to his own desk by the window and sitting down. He had the receipt from the drycleaner's already sitting there and quickly opened the red file. He thumbed through the various documents, utility bills mostly because Ludwig's paycheque carried the mortgage and taxes, and Feliciano dealt with the utilities and groceries. They covered their own gas, insurance, and health costs themselves.

There was nothing in the credit card records, and the bank statements showed nothing out of the ordinary. Feliciano always preferred to use cash when he could and that could be frustrating when it came to following the money in their household, but he hadn't made any surprise withdrawls anywhere. The usual amount of cash was withdrawn after every pay-day: he was sporadic about what and when he bought things, but quite careful about exactly how much he spent.

But there was no receipt to match the one from the cleaner's?

He must have done it for his birthday then, but that didn't make any sense either: they'd planned on spending the day in, there had been no talk of restaurants or anything that would require formal clothes.

Closing the file with a snap, he was upsetting himself and there was no reason for it. He placed his forehead down on his hand and just held his head up that way, eyes closed and taking several deep breaths. He was over-reacting.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Feliciano dressed up in that outfit, but to be completely honest his boyfriend had more than one black suit, and Ludwig's memory for which tie his partner happened to be wearing on a given evening was extremely poor. They ate out as often as five or six times a month and went anywhere from a casual Saturday morning brunch or a fancier Wednesday night dinner. Feliciano had exhibitions to attend, was regularly called for consulting work, and had always been meticulous about his grooming even back in college.

But he was over-reacting, and there was little Ludwig could do to convince himself otherwise. What was he supposed to assume if it wasn't something innocent? That he was keeping clothes hidden in case he was seeing someone else? Absolutely no, preposterous, that made absolutely no… sense… at all…

No.

No that was not what had happened, what a ridiculous thought. Ludwig could still remember what it was like to get hugs and kisses from his friend Feliciano, and how awful it had been as a college junior when they'd been paired up by the housing lottery at their college to share their dorm room for their third year. It had been all kisses on cheeks and quick squeezes around the arms that ended too soon as far as Ludwig's still-a-teen mind had been concerned. Feliciano as a lover was much different than how he'd been as a friend, and despite the few tense weeks leading up to Lovino's visit and that disastrous birthday, he had not shifted back from one into the other.

Ludwig would have known. He knew the difference between a friendly Italian kiss on the cheek, and a confused, almost frightened kiss on the lips from a junior art's student who hadn't known how to rationalize their kind attraction. Ludwig had known before Feliciano did that he had finally come to grips with what he wanted, because those warm, passionate, full-body kisses and caresses he was so free with now hadn't appeared until they had already been dating for almost six months.

And they had never gone away, because no matter how angry they ever got at each other, if Feliciano was going to kiss him then he was going to put everything into it from the tilt of his head to the spread of his feet and everything in between. He didn't kiss without his hands, it was like asking him to talk with his wrists bound: he couldn't do it. Even a quick good-morning peck required a touch on the cheek, or a hand on his chest, even just a soft stroke over Ludwig's wrist when he brought them both coffee.

So no, no cheating, no affairs, he wouldn't let his mind think of it and he was furious with himself for letting it happen. He put the paperwork back in order and stormed across the room again, kneeling down to find the place where this file belonged before pushing the drawer shut. What was that sound?

He pulled the drawer back out again, and he heard the same sound. It was a paper rustle and tapped back and forth softly, but all of the files and their documents were settled neatly at the bottom of the drawer where they were hanging. Nothing was sticking up.

In and out again, and he could still hear it. He stooped down a little more and tilted his head, confused until he noticed something hanging…? Hanging from the bottom of the drawer above the files, the underside of the drawer that held pencils and pens and other office supplies his partner might need in a day.

Reaching inside, it was a bit of a squeeze for his wrist but Ludwig found a slip of paper attached there. With tape? Maybe it was some kind of instruction label they'd left on while installing the desk, but as he peeled it off, it…

A fifty Euro note. Orange, and decorated with a renaissance arch and bridge on the right side, there was a clear piece of plastic tape still stuck to it, and Ludwig couldn't come up with one sensible reason why it was stuck under the drawer. He just sat there on the floor for a moment, pulling the twenty he'd already found out of his pocket, and he didn't understand why there was almost a hundred Euros in his hands that hadn't been there before.

He didn't hesitate, he went straight to his laptop and opened Google. He hated that the search-engine knew what he wanted before he finished typing past "Adult".

Adult survivors of Child Abuse.

Scroll down.

Symptoms.

Click.

Ctrl + F: money.

Click.

Read.

They didn't talk about it. They never talked about it, and although it upset him sometimes Ludwig knew that they would never talk about it. He only knew pieces of it, things that had come out only after the incident three years ago. Feliciano's experience with his grandparents had triggered nightmares, and the nightmares had been terrifying to try and watch and sooth him through when he came home.

Feliciano had finally agreed to move in with him so he could cope with the dreams, because he was terrified of waking up alone. Ludwig knew his father had been the abuser, and that his mother had been the target, and that it was why Feliciano never spoke of his male parent. He'd answer all kinds of questions about his mother; he'd happily talk about her for hours, but he never said a word about him.

Before then, Ludwig had always assumed abandonment as the reason why his partner was so clingy, why he was constantly looking for approval and affection from the people around him. Before they'd started regularly sharing a bed together Ludwig had never really noticed the scar across the side of his left hand, or the similar, sharp looking nicks and lines over Feliciano's palms and around his fingers. He'd thought Feliciano was just skittish around blood because he had a weak stomach, but the first time he'd met Lovino he'd had to change his mind: a small knife-wound on Ludwig's hand, almost nothing really, had prompted the same silent, urgent reaction from two brothers who were otherwise completely different in personality.

He was afraid of broken glass. Not paralyzed or terrified of it- but it frightened him. It was the only thing he would clean up in an instant if he saw it.

Ludwig had made the very, very bad mistake of trying to ask Lovino about it during that first tentative meeting six months ago, and it had probably been the event that triggered the rampant dislike they had for one another.

"We don't talk about it." Was all he'd said, and he'd given Ludwig such a hostile look that he just couldn't stand to have him in the house anymore. The entire family was stuck in a past generation: as if ignoring the issue would make it go away!

But money was new. Feliciano had a habit of squirreling away treats and candies from time to time, but that was innocent: Gilbert was guilty of the same thing, and Ludwig had gone through his phases as a child as well. But his partner had never hidden money, Feliciano had never withheld his banking information or his purchase receipts. He practically volunteered the information most of the time: look I did good, look I'm being responsible, look I paid everything on time again just like last month. He was always looking for praise, why would he start hiding things? And in such bizarre places too, wouldn't one stash have been better, like that cherrywood box?

But Ludwig knew about the box…

He kept reading, and it was all information he'd already seen before. Lack of trust, lack of confidence, difficulties managing self-worth yes, yes he knew all of this. For some reason Feliciano was still genuinely surprised whenever he did something kind for him like buy a bottle of his favourite wine or remember something as simple as an anniversary- or god forbid, his birthday… But this didn't answer his question: if Feliciano normally doubted he was contributing substantially to the household, why hide money?

He looked back at the two notes sitting on his desk, the blue twenty and the orange fifty. The twenty was small and rumpled, casually dropped into a file maybe even by mistake while one of them was tidying up. The fifty was worth significantly more and deliberately hidden…

How much was he hiding then?

It was a terrible thing to consider, but that just made him get up and try to figure it out. Ludwig decided that his search would turn up nothing before he started, so he immediately began moving books on the shelves and tugging open the unlocked drawer's in his partner's desk. He found a five-euro note and some change in the pen drawer and decided that that didn't count. He found a twenty between two renaissance history textbooks and didn't know how to cope with it.

He didn't understand. It didn't make sense. Was he still over-reacting?

"Dude, you alright?" He had a handful of money and no answers as he heard his brother's voice, turning around to see Gilbert standing there leaning on the doorframe, a confused look on Gilbert's face as he noted the handful of colourful bank notes he was worrying between his fingers. "Should I even ask?"

"When he left- you said he was running around the house?" When Feliciano'd packed his bag and stormed off back to Italy, nothing was missing but he'd carried on upstairs after his fight with Gilbert…

"Yeah..? I heard him swearing up here before he went and ransacked your room." The bedroom was probably clean then, Ludwig had never found anything like this where they slept. "Lutz sit down, you're lookin' a little shaky. What's with the cash?" Ludwig found his desk chair very, very slowly, easing his way down onto the plastic seat and slowly looking down at the money in his hands again. When he looked back up at the shelf, it was the first time he'd noticed that the books were out of order: Feliciano must have moved them and then shoved them back into place when he came through and took his laptop.

"Is this normal?" he asked, and he watched Gilbert fold his arms slowly and stay where he was, looking at the money as Ludwig fanned it between his hands. "For someone like him, someone with his past. Is this okay?"

"Where was it?"

"Everywhere." He looked at the desk, gestured to the disorganized bookshelf, held his hands up with no idea what to do with them. "I mean- unless this is yours?"

"What? Nah." Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Did PTSD victims have a tendency to hide money? He'd have to check after Gilbert left the room, but first his older brother just pulled a face, stretching his pale cheeks down and shaking his head with a shrug. Gilbert was animated about pulling away from the doorframe and brushing the issue aside completely, but it wasn't the jitter he got when he was lying: he calmed down too fast.

"Lutz, I can see from here that that's a new fifty, if you're not careful you'll cut yourself on it." He went back to slouching in the doorway, craning his long neck around and getting a good look at one of the rooms he rarely wandered into. His short-cropped platinum hair was almost white in the spring sunshine coming in through the window next to Ludwig, it washed all the colour out of him except one spot of red on the end of his nose. He looked like a ghost… "Don't ask me why it's not in the bank, but he does the dusting so he probably hid it then."

"I thought you did the dusting."

"No?" But Ludwig was sure… well, nevermind. "Oh, hey." Gilbert seemed done with the topic anyways. "When're you doin' laundry next? I'm outta clean stuff." Out of…?

"But I thought…" Didn't… Gilbert do the laundry?

"-so I'm gonna go do that." Huh?

"Sorry, what?" Ludwig hadn't caught a word of that, and it wasn't like him to miss things so obviously. Gilbert paused, but then went back through and repeated a wide arm gesture with both hands that meant he was about to go downstairs and leave.

"I'm gonna go, pick up your car from the garage 'cause the dudes called about it, and then I'm gonna go help a buddy a' mine move some boxes around." He didn't have to repeat it so slowly¸ he just hadn't heard it. "So I'm gonna go do that." Alright, fine, he got it and he understood. "But, if you're still feeling all out of it by the time I get back, maybe you an' I'll just take the cash and go get a beer or something."

"It's a Thursday."

"And you're home." He was on-call waiting for- "Right-right-right, I know, home-office and all that stuff yeah. Look, I said beer not bar-hop, okay? Think about it."

"I don't-"

"Think about it!" Drumming his hands on the wall as he gagged out the words, Ludwig didn't know if he should smile at his brother's attempts to cheer him up or tsk him for behaving like a child. Either way-

"I'm outta here! No drinking without your awesome big brother to supervise!"

Either way, he still had a handful of cash and no answers…

WHY IS IT SO LONG? I once again didn't get to the scene I wanted, but Ludwig popped up out of nowhere at all and took five pages for himself. It was nice to see him again though, so I don't mind.

I'll be around with 8 when it's done. Drop a review in the meantime? Thanks for reading!