All You Wanted, Please Wake Up, Pieces, Hall of Fame, Whole Playlist.

The Gay Brother

Detours and the Shit Knife

When the boys were very little,

And Carlino wasn't born yet.

Their parents had a great

big

glass cabinet.

Feliciano was, of course, late getting from the graveyard to the restaurant. The hours of time he'd woken up with were devoured by the sight of his mother and the arrival of his grandmother, and despite the danger of it he'd left her side not long after the tears had finally slowed down and dried.

They both understood that now wasn't the time for Feliciano to try and face his grandfather, not yet. He kissed his grandmother and she told him that she'd help Lovino try and talk to the old man, promising quietly to come by the Valenti's house with Carlino sometime soon. After that she'd gone back into the church where her husband and Feliciano's uncle Benedict were waiting, and he escaped down the lane away from the site and continuing on into the town proper.

Their mother had been the youngest of three and the only girl: his uncle Mario was the eldest and had worked for several years in their family's restaurant before going into business with a friend in Rieti. He spent most of his time travelling between cities now, especially since letting Lovino take over the restaurant. After uncle Mario there came Benedict, the one who from Feliciano's earliest memory had smelt like candle wax and incense.

While uncle Mario knew his way around money and business, uncle Benedict knew his way around the world. Joining the clergy had sent him to Rome for a few years when he was younger, and he'd taken opportunities throughout Feliciano's childhood to visit the Americas, south Africa, and even a few large communities in eastern Asia. Mama's brother Mario was who you went to if you wanted a candy or needed someone to buy tickets to the school play. Mama's brother Benedict was who you went to if you'd failed another math test, or if one of your brothers had climbed too high up a tree and was now too scared to come down.

Neither one was the kind of uncle you went to for relationship advice for you and your gay lover. Feliciano didn't think those existed, but even if they did then his uncle Benedict would still probably not be one of them.

It had been something of a miracle for Feliciano to find a patient ear at the church he'd attended in university. He still attended the same services now, out of gratitude, even though there was another church much closer to where he and Ludwig lived. But the father there had listened to him both in and outside of confession, and whenever things had started carrying on too far he'd taken it upon himself to make sure Feliciano didn't do anything hasty or rash with his life while trying to cope. His mother's death, his family's reaction, even his own misgivings and Ludwig's difficult attitudes had all pushed him very hard for a very long time.

Ludwig didn't like the religion, any religion, but he had a special chip on his shoulder when it came to the Church. It was the great Big-Bad of European history to him, it stood for corruption and abuse and they'd had too many arguments about the issue for Feliciano to try thinking back on any of them. Ludwig only saw the big parts sometimes, the major atrocities, the total screw-ups and the totalitarian years.

He didn't understand that while yes, the Church was a human institution and therefore flawed like all humans were, the multitude of good things that had come out of it easily exceeded the bad. Feliciano was probably still here because of the intervention of one priest, wasn't he? And their university had, at its core, once been an old Christian monastery several centuries ago. That had to be worth something, didn't it?

Ludwig only saw the badness of religion, but Feliciano refused to give up his peace of mind just to meet unreasonable demands. And they were unreasonable: he'd never dragged Ludwig with him to mass, so Ludwig had no right to get in his way and tell Feliciano not to go.

While thinking about all of this, Feliciano did not get lost on the way to the restaurant, he just went the wrong way. He went the long way between two streets and took a detour over old, rolling cobbles to find another hilltop bricked in houses and high walls, watching the yellow sun hit the white plaster and bounce back into his eyes. The heat was rising and the glare was getting worse, the March sky open and pure blue as it domed the landscape. Sunglasses.

And a hat. Except these hats were ugly.

So just the sunglasses and a bottle of water: he wasn't hungry. He picked up both items in a small shop, wrinkling his nose at the idea of buying a touristy hat for himself when he'd been born and raised here in this little town. His feet kicked up dust as he traipsed back down the hill he'd already climbed, following the jagged way the road had been cut into the terrain and ducking between buildings and behind blocks for the sheer hell of it.

The town was loud in its own way, but so much quieter than Berlin. Here he could look up at steep windows and balconies and hear televisions blaring, or voices laughing or speaking loudly to one another. There were cars, but he stayed away from the wider lanes where they could travel, scooting past a parked truck where boxes were being unloaded. When he came around the next corner to re-establish his bearings in the rising dust and heat, he immediately recognize where he was. That truck behind him was dropping off as a shipment of fresh produce for the little deli where the three brothers had usually gone for ice-cream as kids.

The white paint on the front was still weather-beaten and peeling off, the green awning from childhood bleached white from the sun, but just peering in through the open door he saw the gelato stand that had entranced him as a child. Six flavours was what they'd grown up on, all hand-made in the back room. Jars of candy and shelves stocked with canned goods, boxed mixes, snacks and bread and cheese filled the rest of the little shop, and it felt so familiar he wondered if anyone would recognize him if he went inside.

He almost tried it, but when he thought he saw the old store owner Feliciano's nerve fled him and he turned away quickly to hurry back down the street. He couldn't face his grandfather yet, and that meant he certainly couldn't face their neighbours either… Not this soon anyways.

Besides, he checked his watch and- oh. It was already past eleven.

"You're fucking late!"

See? Late.

"I'm sorry! I got distracted-"

"Distracted my foot you got fucking lost you stupid shit."

"You're the stupid one if you think I got lost."

The restaurant used to be a cantina- more a place to come and drink than to come and eat. After the war it was abandoned and when their grandfather came of age he'd bought the run-down, single level shack for cheap and tore down most of the walls before rebuilding them. From the outside the first two things you noticed were the massive garden growing around it on all sides, and the great big black water-wheel bolted to the white exterior wall under the slopped red tile roof. No one was really sure where the water wheel had actually come from since they were across town from the main body of the river, but there it was on the outside, and that was how you were supposed to know you were at the right place.

If you were far from the piazza where tourists wandered, then you had to be noticeable in some other way. In order to have their garden, and probably because the site had been cheaper, Grandpa had bought just outside the busier centre of town, but closer to the main highway. The Pinwheel was a trap that drew hungry travellers on their way to Rieti aside to visit the smaller town instead. The location, therefore, was as profitable as it was unorthodox.

The wooden fence out front had a gate with an arch announcing the name in proud Italian, and his brother was standing under it waiting for him with a scowl. The red paint was beginning to fleck from the words overhead as Lovino clamped a hand around the back of Feliciano's neck and dragged him over the white gravel and step-stones leading to the propped-open red doors and into the tiled and stucco'd interior of the restaurant. It was only a few steps to get there, but the smell of lavender, mint, and assorted herbs and flowers blooming in the front part of the garden were still powerful and alluring.

This place was as much home as the building where they'd kept their beds. They'd done homework on the back counter where the original cantina's bar and fixtures had been updated with pale wood and sparkling crystal. All three brothers had enjoyed their first job sweeping floors and bussing the dozen tables inside and out on the sunny patio, then taking orders and delivering food, and after at least two summers doing nothing but chopping vegetables in the morning, talking to customers all afternoon, and washing pans at night, they were actually allowed to have either Grandpa or Uncle Mario show them how to cook.

"You're late as fuck, now take the shit knife and-"

"Oh no, no you don't mean that." They moved from the familiar front of house with its half-steps and red terracotta tiles into the back with the florescent lighting and random stainless steel appliances next to 1960s grills and cutting boards. Feliciano was just taking off his jacket and tie when he heard Lovino say 'shit knife'.

"Shit knife, and the shit uniform too."

"Lovino please…"

The shit knife was the last piece of a lousy knife-set someone had bought years and years ago: it went dull after only a few strokes and had lost mass and weight over the years from needing so much sharpening. It looked more like a sickle now and was kept around for exactly one purpose: to annoy whoever was made to use it. It was their restaurant's hazing technique: if a new cook could handle one week working with just the shit knife, then they were worth keeping around.

The shit uniform was just the oldest, rattiest uniform on the rack. Nothing special about it, it was just ugly and was, again, only kept around to be used in tandem with the shit knife.

"But I'm only here for a week…" So no, Lovino, please no, don't make him use that one. He buttoned up the used-to-be-white body of the stained uniform his brother handed him so his clothes wouldn't get dirty, but the knife with its sad, curved blade and ugly plastic handle with a hole drilled through it was something he tried backing away from. "Maybe I should go back to the house and try doing some dramatic painting with soft background music, like in the movies!"

"Fuck you." Lovino was always mean after his morning coffee, and the scowl over his green eyes wasn't helping right now either. He made a threatening gesture with the knife and Feliciano tried to stop two summers of forgotten resentment from surging up. His unwilling fingers closed around the cheap black handle just as the backdoor leading out into the restaurant's vegetable garden rattled open.

"Hey, you're here!" Carlino's happy voice made him turn around, momentarily forgetting his plight when he saw his younger brother with a wicker basket over his shoulder and a big grin on his golden face. "Here're the onions we need you to chop, but since you're late you'll have to go extra fast."

Onions. On his first day they were giving him a bushel of onions.

"I thought I was done crying today…" Feliciano whined, tempted to call them both out for treating him like this, but somehow his comment only made things worse. It was a small kitchen so the two older brothers had to shuffle over so Carlino could pass them with his burden, but as Feliciano turned to watch and figure out where exactly they were going to make him stand and hack away at the sprouts, he found himself pulled into an unexpected hug.

"I kinda wish you hadn't gone alone." Lovino muttered, somehow managing to sound put-out and annoyed despite how close he was holding him. Lovino didn't hand out hugs very often though, so Feliciano was quick to return the gesture and squeeze his older brother tight.

"I'm okay." He murmured back, closing his eyes for a moment before remembering himself and straightening up a little. He knew how long it had taken Lovino to get comfortable giving him hugs and kisses again, so it wasn't worth it to push his luck sometimes. Still, Feliciano could admit to himself that he felt a little bit better with just the short embrace. "Really, I'm fine! Don't make that worried face: it makes you look old."

"Shut up and go peel your onions then." Feliciano grinned and then stuck his tongue out like a child, watching Lovino cover whatever goodness was in him with angry hisses and a swat to Feliciano's head as he scooted past him. "Carlino show him what to do, I'm gonna go find our lazy staff and open the till."

"You sure you're okay to work after this morning?" Carlino asked, dropping his voice like it was a secret as Lovino left in a huff. Feliciano just stepped across the kitchen and noticed that his brother had set the basket down on a section of counter right next to the oven of all places, so he was more worried about the fact that his brothers were trying to kill him.

"Working will be good for me, but you know I've been in Germany all this time, right?" His little brother blinked confused green eyes at him, and Feliciano stitched the fakest grin he could manage onto his face, intentionally doing a bad enough job that the younger one got a bit nervous. "The oven? Really? Are you trying to murder your big brother on his second day home? That's not very nice you know."

"Oh come on! It's only March it's not even that hot yet."

"Germany." He repeated. "Seven years in Germany." He was exaggerating but that was the fun of it, especially since it took his little brother a few more minutes and a couple stifled laughs on Feliciano's part before he understood it was a joke.

"Stop teasing me! I'm not a little kid anymore!" Lies, Feliciano would never believe him: he would always be that slightly smaller person Feliciano used to grab under the arms and drag around like a big sack of- "Cut it out!"

With most of the teasing out of his system, Feliciano let his little brother walk him through what was the same or had changed over the years. The tables had a new layout, some of the equipment in the kitchen was new, a lot of the menu had been swapped for new dishes and recipes now that the restaurant was mostly Lovino's and their uncle Mario had stepped down to be just a partner and investor. Most of the prep work for the afternoon service was already done, but in his corner of the kitchen Feliciano was assigned to chopping and peeling everything they'd need for the evening service.

His job, aside from dealing with the worst knife in the kitchen, was to watch and try to reacquaint himself with the restaurant and its rhythm. It was a fair task.

When Feliciano had last worked here, Lovino had been in the kitchen for almost every service, now he was management, owner, and the face of the restaurant. He had to be dressed well and organize the front of the house, not run around splashed with tomato sauce with garlic ingrained under his fingernails. Now Carlino was second cook on the line, the right hand to the actual chef who Feliciano wasn't familiar with, but they shook hands and Feliciano's temporary position was explained. After the chef and Carlino, there was one more cook- a young French woman he learned was actually from Monaco when she introduced herself, and that was it for the kitchen staff. Lovino had at least two members of the wait staff managing the front with him, but when he needed to he shouted back for Carlino to come out and handle something. It was all part of Carlino's training as the lunch orders started coming through.

Once the restaurant actually started preparing and serving food, the time went faster. Feliciano was on the outside looking in, really, standing in a hot little bubble by the oven with his hands repeating motions they'd sworn off to shuck onions and slice, dice, or chop them as instructed. There were also peppers, zucchini and eggplants waiting for him, nevermind the block of cheese that needed grating for the evening service.

The knife he'd been given was frustrating and he ended up cutting himself once before remembering that every two vegetables he needed to rake the blade across the sharpening steel left out specifically for him. Thankfully, just in the time it took him to look up from shaving down the steel, he saw the rhythm of the people around him.

Feliciano watched hot pans move from stove tops to ovens, salads coming together in bowls that were grabbed and washed before they left the chef's hand. A bell by the small window cut into the brick wall dinged each time tickets and plates passed back and forth for service, voices travelling down the kitchen line and echoing from the dining room on the other side of the wall. The kitchen was loud, because over the sizzle of meats and the scrape of mixing bowls, there was that constant talk and chatter.

If Feliciano looked up for more than a second, he was watching his younger brother communicate between the second line cook and the chef. Carlino kept his hands clean and busy, moving quickly and comfortably from heavy skillets to sharp steel knives. He switched from Italian to French faster than Feliciano ever balanced his mother tongue and German, communicating quickly with the woman in charge of dressing salads and rinsing pots before going back to check the lamb for an entree or the light simmer and seasoning on a sauce.

Feliciano hadn't thought to wear a watch and just fell into his own rhythm of peeling, slicing and dropping the results into the stainless steel containers left out for filling. With regards to the onion fumes that stung and attacked his eyes: there was nothing he could do about them except keep his eyes open and tilt his head so the tears that had nothing to do with grief or sadness just trickled down without comment. He wasn't upset, in fact as long as he was allowed to pop over to the sink when he needed it and gulp down cold water, his feet were hurting but he was fine.

He had been out of the restaurant for years, but he'd worked in it for a long time too. With a sharp whistle to get Carlino's attention, he was told where he could find lettuce heads and tomatoes and timed his journey across the kitchen and back again without interrupting the flow of pans and plates. He found the old warped knife was missing when he got back, the hole drilled through its handle keeping it suspended clean and threatening on the wall by a nail, and there was a proper straight knife waiting for him.

He saw Lovino's face flash briefly through the little window and watched his brother make a face at him and thumb his nose. Feliciano just flipped the knife over his hand and went back to work.

His feet were killing him long before he ran out of vegetables, and by the time he noticed it getting dark outside his hands were prune-y and stank of onions and tomatoes. When he was told to stop chopping he didn't need the third cook to show him the sink: he'd spent enough nights washing dishes to know that the stacks of sauce-smeared plates and bowls were his task now.

His shoulders were stiff and his arms were going numb, but it was a monotonous job to rinse, stack, and load the dishes into the kitchen's sanitizer. He broke one dish and swept up the shards without asking where the broom was, getting back to work with utensils and chaffing pans. He didn't notice his eyes going cross until he went reaching for the next stack of cups and almost pitched over onto the floor.

Then everything started spinning…

"You can take a break soon if you want." Carlino's voice came by like a whirlwind and was gone again before he could muster up an answer, which was probably why a moment later he felt a hand on his shoulder. He had one hand planted on the edge of the sink, but the rest of him was still sagging dangerously. Was he sweating? "Are you okay?" Oh, he knew what the problem was…

"I didn't eat…" He grunted, telling himself to stand up straight and failing when his legs felt weak.

"Dinner? We don't usually have anything until later-"

"No, anything." No breakfast before leaving the house and he hadn't picked up anything to eat while walking through the town. He was running off last night's dinner and that was now exhausted from working. Feliciano was used to sitting hunched over at his station with paints and oils at work, not spending hours on his feet moving things around. "I get a break soon? I just need something to snack on and I'll be fine."

"Aah, why don't I get Lovino? Here, take your break now and just sit down." This was stupid, he wasn't sick: he'd just let his emotions kill his appetite for a day.

But try as he might to explain this, Carlino led him out that back door and into the cool evening air where a couple of chairs and an ash tray were sitting on the gravel path. He didn't want a cigarette and he'd left the pack he'd bought in Munich at the house anyways, but at least it was much quieter out in the dusk as his brother hovered nervously before rushing back inside.

It left Felicaino alone in the quiet with another glass of water and his thoughts, but he tried not to think too much as he told his body to stop acting like he was getting sick over nothing: it was nerves and no food, nothing more.

He looked around to take his mind off everything instead, pleased when he saw how well the garden was thriving around him. With the restaurant's demand for fresh produce, there was no way this patch of green could supply them for more than a week, but fresh herbs and lemon slices from the fragrant tree in the corner could make an impact when used sparingly. It was calming to close his eyes and smell the mint leaves growing thick in the flowerbed behind his chair, a light breeze rustling the leaves of the lemon tree that looked a bit thicker and stronger than when he'd last seen it.

Then he heard stomping feet coming at him from inside, and before Feliciano could open his mouth to explain, something soft and firm was wedged in his mouth and Lovino came down on him like a hammer:

"You stupid shit!" Lovino- "Passing the fuck out on me for no fucking reason! What do you mean you haven't fucking eaten all day you moron what do you think we're too fucking poor to feed my fucking brother in the morning?" He hadn't- "Did that cock-sucking German take all your fucking money so you couldn't fucking buy yourself a god-damned sandwich while wandering around being late for work I-"

It was a pear, by the way. His brother had shoved a pear in his mouth which Feliciano now removed and took a bite out of before speaking.

"For god's sake, Lovino keep your voice down." This was exactly the kind of conversation Lovino's guests wanted to hear, and with green eyes still boring down on him and Lovino's mouth getting ready to open up and bombard him again, Feliciano spoke up: "I didn't pass out, I just got dizzy. I didn't trust myself to eat this morning-" he'd been terrified of throwing up if seeing their mother had been as hard on him as it wound up being. "And I wasn't hungry after I left the graveyard." But he was hungry now, and he bit through the bitter skin of the pear to get at the sweet white flesh inside, licking up the juice so it didn't get down his face and hands.

"You're still a stupid shit, and you're going to get changed and go home for the night."

"Oh come on, I'm fine!" He held up the pear he was happily chomping away on, making sure to take an extra big bite so nearly half of it was already gone. "I'll finish this, have some water and work until the end of service-"

"It's only six o'clock."

"Did you change the hours?" Lovino seemed confused by the question, so Feliciano continued while his brother folded his arms and tapped one foot impatiently on the ground. "Lunch service is long over, and you don't end service until eleven. Then it's clean up until midnight before lock up and go home. I know how it works, Lovino, Germany didn't wipe my memory or something." It was the wrong thing to end with but his brother just scowled and huffed at him, skipping over the comment completely.

"And you're going to do all that on a fucking pear." Feliciano could try. "No. If you were coming back full time then sure I'd make you do it, but even if I pay you for this week I don't expect you to work twelve hour shifts out of nowhere."

"I thought I was being paid in heart-ache and bad reunions." At the look from Lovino he stuffed the other side of his pear in his mouth to shut himself up. The sweet was helping him: the world wasn't spinning but now his stomach was awake. He was hungry.

"Did you see Grandma today?"

"I did," Feliciano placed his weight on his elbows, letting them dig into his knees as he looked down and finished chewing the rest of his pear. "Can we talk about it later, though?" Or not at all, but he wouldn't be that lucky.

"Did you see Alice?"

"No." He'd really rather talk about this later.

"You can't keep avoiding it." He wasn't trying to. "Come on, I'm taking you home."

"Lovino I'm fi-"

"For Carlino's sake, please, Feliciano." Aah… Lovino didn't say 'please' very often, and he didn't put on that soulful, sorry face either. It was hard to see in the dimming light, but with the glare coming out from the open door Feliciano could look up and see the way his brother's brow was wrinkled and he was, of all things, worrying a set of keys between his fingers so they twinkled in the light. He actually looked worried, and even if he wasn't upset about a little dizzy spell then that meant there was something else eating at him.

It was too much stress, Feliciano decided. He'd only been here a day and a half and he was already causing his brother too much stress…

"Did you see Grandpa today when you were opening up?" He asked quietly, and this time it was Lovino's turn to drop his eyes and look away. That said enough then, didn't it?

"Come on, we'll talk about it in the truck." There was… really no way to express how much Feliciano did not want to talk about it. "Oi- Carlino! I'll be gone for an hour, I'm taking him home. Gorgio's already here so he should be in to start washing dishes in a minute, cover for me in the front!"

"Ah, okay!" He couldn't see Carlino's face, he just heard his brother's voice making the change again from French into Italian. "Good night, Feliciano! We'll see you again tomorrow, right?"

Ah-

"Right, yes!" Or…

With the way Lovino wasn't looking at him… maybe not.

Plot you are slow. Not as pleased with the writing this time around, but last chapter was a really good one for me so, bleh.

I was absolutely thrilled with the amount of feedback last chapter though! Thank you! More feedback means faster chapter updates, but for those of you also reading Recovery: don't worry, I'm still working on it. I'm not 100% on whether or not I'll get it done for Sunday exactly, but it should be close.

See you soon, and thanks for reading!