Try, Karma, Everything I Do, Unfaithful, Will You Be There, Tears of an Angel, Someone Else, Unwell, Oceano, Stereo Hearts, Just Give Me a Reason.

EDITED MAY 4TH, 2013: I forgot a section! It's the first section here in this chapter, so if this is your first time reading, ignore this note!

The Gay Brother

Hair Gel and Voice Mail

What was the difference between a man's lips and a woman's? Functionally, the answer was nothing. To purse and to smile, to stop water and air and grow dry in the cold wind. To pucker and swell and suck and kiss…

Kiss…

So, what was the difference between a man's kiss and a woman's? The smell of it, for one. Because a man's body would always smell different from a woman's, just like how he would stand and react differently- how his lips would part and his arms rise warm and strong like the folds of a heavy blanket. And he would smell different too, of course.

In the morning he would smell like fresh air and dawn-lit dew, because he walked the dogs before the sun was all the way up in summer and the day began before dawn in winter anyways.

Some mornings there was the sweet flavour of coffee with too much sugar on thin lips framed by soft skin washed with spearmint aftershave. And by evening time that freshness is lost to tired sighs and lips that search for yours between business news and local stories on the television. Dinner and beer make him warm and clumsy when heavy steps creep into the garage, or bring you close to distract busy hands from dishwater and leftovers.

A man's kisses moved down the back of your neck, or his strong nose pushed up through your hair while hands asked permission to loosen ties and slip buttons from their holes, all with the hope of finding skin flushed by delicate caresses and so… many… kisses…

The worst kind of hangover was the kind of hangover that made your heart beat loud enough to wake you up. Or maybe that was the second-worst kind.

The worst kind of hangover, Ludwig revised, was the kind of hangover where after you woke up because your heart was beating too loudly, you realized that you had no idea where the hell you were.

No matter how off-tempo Feliciano's sense of time was becoming, he still knew a Saturday morning when he felt one. There was something in the sun-soaked air, and between the pilled cotton sheets, and it meant that when he reached, exhausted, across the fold-out bed looking for someone who still wasn't there, that person still wasn't here. Feliciano woke up for the fourth straight day in a row wondering where Ludwig had gone and why he wasn't here, in bed, with him.

And for the third straight morning in a row, Feliciano sat up alone in his in-laws' sun-room and reminded himself that he was the one who wasn't there, in Berlin, with Ludwig…

He missed him. But was he still mad at him? It was Saturday. Their big argument had been on Monday night, Feliciano'd left on Tuesday, and they'd last yelled at each other over the phone on Wednesday. The last time they'd slept next to each other had been Sunday night, the last kiss on Monday morning, and their last time as lovers had been the Saturday before.

Saturday had been the day before Lovino's arrival from Italy, and Feliciano had been too happy and excited and nervous and grateful to let his lover out of bed at six on a Saturday morning to walk the dogs.

They'd last held each other a week ago today, and just using the word 'last' to describe the hugs and kisses and everything else hurt more than he wanted it to. Those couldn't really be the 'last' times, he couldn't let those be the 'last' times- a careless peck on the cheek while hurrying around preparing breakfast, a friendly hug that morning before Ludwig had left for work, a sleepy, barely-aware foray between the sheets in the spring sun.

So, was Feliciano still mad at him? Maybe. But now he missed him too and that was worth more. It meant more than car-keys and dry-cleaning bills, it hurt more than opened mail and Gilbert's complaints. So he couldn't let those last times be the last times, because he couldn't break everything off so suddenly all over again.

Still sitting there in just his boxers with the blankets piled around his legs, Feliciano brought both hands up in the light and rubbed them over his eyes, telling himself not to go where his thoughts were headed, but he couldn't control them. He told himself to look anywhere else: at the shelves around the low stone perimeter of the room- to game-sets he hadn't seen since he was a child, old art projects Alice and her sister had made in school for their parents. There were old, deflated pool toys and a little raft piled up in one corner next to a fake tree in a pot, and the light streaming over the mountains shone goldenrod through the glass. There was a flower-bed growing around the outside of the sun-room, and the grape-vines on the rolling hills beyond that.

There were plenty of things for him to think about, so he didn't have to upset himself over when he'd given Alice the last kiss they'd shared as lovers. When had he pulled her into his arms and actually meant it for the final time? When had he stopped being her fiancé and changed into Ludwig's partner? What would he say if she asked?

And what would he do if, just sitting here, he realized he still remembered which times and been their last times?

Ludwig, honestly, had no idea where the hell he was.

He opened his eyes to a room with sunlight and neutral brown paint- this was wrong. His bedroom was done in pale grey with metallic tones in the bedding, with black fixtures on the bed and furniture, not the bland kind of taupe he was looking at now. Their living room was blue, the spare-bedroom was white: there was no room in Ludwig and Feliciano's house that was taupe.

There was no taupe room in his house with a couch in it, because that was the next wrong- or was it right? He wasn't sleeping in a bed, which was good because this was still the wrong room, but it was wrong because it meant he wasn't home.

There was a blanket thrown over him, but as soon as Ludwig tried sitting up his head reminded him why he'd woken up in the first place: it was throbbing. The simple need for blood to flow through his head was pulsing and radiating discomfort across his scalp and feeding down the cords of his neck, spearing both his eyes when Ludwig realized there was sunlight coming from somewhere and his shirt was open.

Correction, not open: gone. His shirt was gone he wasn't wearing it why wasn't he wearing his shirt?

Ludwig practically fell off the couch where he'd been sleeping, awake and hurting as he caught himself on one arm and noticed, to his breathless relief, that his jeans were still in place- but his belt was open?

No, oh god no this wasn't happening to him. He took one bleary-eyed look around the room he was in and recognized nothing. He hadn't slummed his way over to Tino and Berwald's house and he wasn't looking up at Vash's rifle collection mounted on the wall. Ludwig was staring at a modern fire-place with built-in shelving units holding books and nick-knacks he couldn't examine right now. Nick-knacks that included two tumblers with water and faint traces of something else in them on the coffee table…?

Not possible. This was a prank.

Someone had remodelled since they'd last visited and now they were playing a prank on him.

Ludwig wasn't this kind of person. He'd never, not once in his entire life, been this kind of person. He wasn't going to start now and he wasn't going to let this happen. He picked his tired, hungover body up onto his feet and immediately fixed his belt. It was only undone, but the relief fell flat right before it welled up and punched him in the throat: there was no excuse for this, absolutely none.

His shirt was a crushed, wrinkled mess that still had the smell of beer on it as he snapped it straight and quickly pulled it on, buttoning it shut with shaking, clumsy hands. There was another smell pressed into the fabric, some kind of cologne that didn't belong to him or his husband, and that reality was making his ears ring.

He'd just woken up hungover and half-naked in a stranger's house, reeking of alcohol and male cologne. He caught one look at himself in the mirror hanging on the wall next to him and brought both hands straight up to his hair. The gel that usually held it back was dry and had turned the blonde flax into a bird's nest on his head. He couldn't stand it: his hair only behaved like that if his husband had taken great care to mess it up, just falling asleep wasn't enough for the kinds of tangles and clumps he could feel.

'I didn't.' He had. 'I couldn't have.' He must have. Ludwig left his hair alone and tightened the last button under his chin, not letting himself fiddle with the collar on his shirt. If there was anything on his skin he couldn't trust himself with burning eyes and a sore throat not to scream.

He had to get out of here. Only after he was out could he worry about actually getting home, right now he just had to-

A sharp buzz in his back-pocket not only made Ludwig jump, but he nearly did scream.

Was it a mistake? Feliciano had been very clear, ruthlessly so, that he didn't want to have to deal with Ludwig calling or texting or otherwise bothering him while he was here. He'd screamed more than he'd meant to or could apologize for when he'd used Lovino's phone to call his partner, but he'd been sitting here for a solid ten minutes and had only crawled far enough across the bed to find his phone.

Staring at the device hadn't helped him feel any better. Searching up Ludwig's name didn't help either. There were pictures in the phone and he kept almost looking at them, veering away to check anything else in the list of silly apps and bright icons on the screen. He checked text messages from friends who were looking for him, typing out a half-hearted string or two of words for Feliks and Tino just so they were far enough in the loop not to worry about his vanishing act.

No new e-mails, just spam and junk. Nothing in his news feeds- he really didn't care about who had scored what last night.

He wound back up in his contacts and hit 'call' next to Ludwig's name. It was past nine, he'd definitely be up. It was only after he heard it ring the second time that he realized he had no idea what to say and started scrambling for words.

Hi? How's it going? Are the dogs doing alright?

Are you still mad at me? Are we over? Will you be there?

Words, he needed words.

'Oh god no, not right now.' That was his name right there on the screen and Ludwig couldn't stop himself before he found a frustrated, mortified tear running hot down his cheek. This couldn't be happening, he couldn't be stuck like this right now.

The black phone in his palm gave another wild shake, humming as the weights inside spun rapidly, warning him to pick up or lose the call. Ludwig got it half-way to his ear before he felt something painful kicking its way out of his chest- he couldn't answer if he was going to cry, he couldn't do that and have to lie about why.

If he was crying when Feliciano heard his voice again then he'd ask what was wrong. It didn't matter how upset he was already, if Ludwig was going to stand here weeping and hating himself then his husband would demand to know why. But what if he was in trouble and that was why he was calling? What if he was coming back sooner than expected and-

No no no, he couldn't come back already, not when Ludwig was like this…

"I'm sorry…" He whispered, staring down at the screen and just holding the phone in both hands as it vibrated one more time. "I'm so sorry, I don't- I just…" How could this have happened? How could it be happening?

What had he done?

On the third ring Feliciano heard the static click that meant he was being sent to voicemail. Considering how many times he'd made Ludwig call him on the day he'd left, it felt like payback and Feliciano just closed his eyes trying to endure it. He leaned back until his shoulders hit the hard wooden shelf at the head of the bed, the sheets tossed over his waist as he stared down at the tented V his legs made in the bedding. At least he'd be able to hear Ludwig's voice in the recordi-

"Rise and shine!" The voice at his door made Feliciano jump so badly the phone dropped right into his lap. "Are you awake yet? Did you forge-?" and when he looked up at Alice's stunned face peering around the doorjamb, there was humiliation shining through the gold light. He couldn't tell if she was blushing, but she was staring straight at him for several moments before Feliciano remembered his bad habit of sleeping in just his boxers.

"I-" He jumped again because his brain was still set on German, and Alice slammed the door shut before he could make heads or tails of what had just happened.

The exchange set the unfortunate tone for his morning.

"Uhh…" He had to get home, there was no way to compromise: Ludwig needed to go home now. "I guess you're up."

The voice should have scared him as badly as the phone had before, but the reaction just wasn't in him. Ludwig clutched the small black device in his hand and turned, his ears roaring with the sound of blood and self-loathing rushing through him. Standing at a bend in the wall that transformed into the rest of what had to be the ground floor was whoever had brought him here, but Ludwig couldn't find the right kind of anger to turn around and try to blame him for this.

The man was tall like him, and dressed down in a white tee-shirt and a faded pair of blue jeans. He had a strong, square jaw and thick neck, blonde hair feathered around his ears and clumped up on the crown of his head where he must have styled and then slept on it. At this distance Ludwig didn't know what colour his eyes were, but the bow-shape of his mouth was fringed in dark gold scruff and the beginnings of a moustache and goatee.

"What happened?" he hated how the words came out because they wouldn't make anything better, but they were all he had. The way the stranger across the room rolled his eyes a little and swung his weight over his hips carried as much embarrassment as discomfort: he'd brought home a drunk who'd passed out with no memory.

"Not much, I turned around and you fell asleep." Insulted, that was part of his reaction too, but not anger. "You okay? There's a bathroom just around that way if you feel like-"

"I need to leave, I'm sorry."

Ludwig wasn't sorry because he'd proved to be a dud for someone who had, as far as he could think, been in the wrong place to begin with. A straight bar was a casual place, and that was the only location Ludwig could think of: the sports bar. He hadn't gone anywhere else, he hadn't been any place else in his foggy memory of the night where this could have happened. Where had he met this person?

"Hey, listen." Ludwig's eyes came back into focus, but his senses were still lost in the pit of memories, each half-remembered scent and barely-there image cutting into him like paper edges. The stranger was closer to him now, close enough to put a hand on his arm and look straight at him with pale grey eyes and a confused knot tied across his forehead. "If you're freaking out about waking up at a guy's place then maybe you should sit down, have something to eat, and-"

"I'm married."

The hand snapped back and the stranger took a step away, the space giving Ludwig room to breathe as he brought one hand up and pressed the heel of his palm up against his own forehead, swallowing panic. He didn't even care enough to clarify what kind of marriage: the admission was enough.

"I didn't know."

"No, but I did." The words burned him, pressing pain down his throat like hot coals searing him with steam.

"We're not far off the beaten path, I can drive you to the nearest station."

"Thank you." Now he just… had to get home.

Get home.

That thought barely sustained him in the stranger's car, and it didn't help him when the other blonde tried to ease the terrible silence by giving his name: Matthias.

Ludwig stared out the window and choked out that he couldn't do this, and when the car reached the subway station he gave another mechanical thank you and got out.

Get home.

Ludwig didn't look back at the mistake watching him from the driver's seat, he just tried to lose himself in the Berlin crowd as fast as humanly possible. He just wanted to be anonymous, another figure in a rolling tide of faces and bodies crowding together and pulling apart between glass skyscrapers and painted street signs. He wanted the rattle of street construction and the ominous thrum of the city trains to drown out the panting breaths and starved gasps, the constant noise of shoppers and commuters running against the frantic beat of his heart.

When Ludwig hit the turnstiles he felt his empty back pockets. When he tried to check his jacket for his money, that was when he realized he'd lost them both: his jacket and his wallet.

He couldn't even tolerate thinking about it, not in the washed out lights of the subway station, the concrete and tile that suddenly sounded far too quiet, too empty, too close. In the time it took him with long, fast strides to reach the city air again the impact was already hitting him, a cold shock-wave from the crown of his head that rolled down over his clammy skin. By the time it reached his chest the heat was flowing down behind it, because this couldn't be real.

The wallet was something he could replace: credit cards, bank cards, driver's licence.

The jacket had been a gift: brown suede with a red silk lining, dark buttons over the pocket flaps and a cut an artist's eye had sized for his shoulders and waist.

Feliciano had always had impeccable taste.

Ludwig vanished into the shopping crowd knowing that even if he found home after this, it would never be quite the same again.

If you think I hit Ludwig with the villain stick in this chapter, then you should have seen how the first draft came out. THAT was the villain stick, this was the unfortunate bastard stick.