Mi Mancherai, Closer Album, Glitter in the Air, Try, Stupid in Love, .

The final scene for this chapter is actually a continuation of a previous dream sequence! What dream sequence, you ask? That's a good fucking question because it turns out I wrote it but then forgot to edit it into chapter 14 where it belonged.

It's short and, again, needs to be read in tandem with the one here and I think a third piece that comes later. Really easy to find however: just click back to chapter 14 and it's the first segment right under the title!

Happy reading!

The Gay Brother

Two Panini and Ten Thousand Daisies

Maybe it was Lovino's fault for getting between them.

Maybe it was Feliciano's fault for not following him.

But no matter what the entire family would always agree: it had in no way been Carlino's fault, although it may have also saved his life.

From the winery in Alice's car they made quick time up through the hills and following the road to reach town. They'd left without breakfast and a bit of apple-juice and wine had them both pining for a real meal.

"I've missed sunshine like this, I really have!" The convertible would have been better for the gorgeous sunlight and sweet spring air, the village far enough away from Rome that the air was a bit cleaner and the horizon almost pure. It was enough to be faced only with the haze, not the dominating wall of smog from Berlin.

"The sun doesn't shine much in Germany, does it?"

"Oh, she shines just fine," He corrected, but it was a light, thoughtless handful of words. "But she doesn't smile like this, and I live in the city too so there's not nearly enough growing around us." Us. He failed to bite back the word and that thoughtlessness stung him, Feliciano rolling his eyes at his own blunder and looking through his window again at the acres of grape-vines and distant orchards owned by other farms.

Wine was the safest distraction from unsavoury German lifestyles. As they reached paved and cobbled stones the car finally slowed down to an eager creep between crooked buildings, and they asked each other what they wanted to eat to go with what they were going to drink. The pizzas that were a little bit salty but had the childhood charm of always being worth the most for their size? Feliciano was glad Alice didn't mention the small restaurant they'd once frequented when a date at his uncle's restaurant had felt too awkward- which had been all the time. When they rumbled past the deli on the hill, they both had the same thought.

"Does he still make those panini?"

"You know I was going to come here for lunch yesterday, but I forgot."

That settled it, but a mere grilled sandwich- stuffed with cured meats and cheese and everything else as they were, wasn't quite the all-star meal. But two panini, a bag of snacks each, and then because Feliciano couldn't resist them a pair of those cinnamon tarts, plus the wine still sitting in the car made a much better impression on both of them. And then even after the food was paid for, they somehow managed to stay on the same wave-length.

"Picnic?"

"I can't believe I didn't pack a blanket."

Because they did actually want to make their way all the way to Rieti today, Alice didn't drive them back in the direction of the grape-vines and instead them on the road moving south away from the winding streets until they hit the highway. They both knew the place and Feliciano put the decision to go there down to two simple factors: it was a beautiful day, and it was on the way to the larger town.

You could go speeding by the exit thinking it was little more than a goat-trail or a dry creek-bed no one had fenced off. Like so many other things: you had to know it was there. Feliciano actually didn't recognize it because the landmark he was looking for was missing. There had always been one particular slab of rock mounted next to the highway and covered in netting to keep it stable, but that was gone when Alice slowed the speeding Fiat down and leaned on the wheel to twist the tires far enough around to make the narrow opening.

"What happened to the old man?" They passed from sunlight into a moment of shade, the heat cutting itself down before the car revved up a little and began climbing up along the winding road. It was still paved, but it took a few moments of careful driving before Alice was able to press on the gas again and propel them along.

"A tourist stopped to take pictures there last summer and was hit by a car." Oh, of all the ridiculous things to- "So the government took it down. The road was closed for a week!"

"Better a week than a month at least."

"A month?" She scoffed, eyes on the road as they sped by a crooked white fence Feliciano did remember, because he'd once been caught trespassing by the owners of the house hidden higher up the hill. "Any man in town could have done it in a day, not those lazy boys they dragged up here to do it instead."

The path they were on evened out as Feliciano asked about what other roads had changed, because even if his visit was a short one he didn't fancy getting lost if he drove further than the village limit. There wasn't much beyond the one missing landmark, but the conversation carried them to the crest of the steep hill they'd been following, and the car seemed to gasp in relief when they made it and looked down at the dell.

"Beautiful…"

"Is it what you remember?"

It was better. A bowl scooped out of the top of the mountains grey, it was only about three or four kilometers before the ups and downs began again, but here in the middle was a different kind of field with a more majestic kind of crop. The farmers on the hill were bee-keepers, and these fields were theirs.

But these flowers under this sky belonged to everyone, all of them daisies: thousands of them- tens of thousands probably. Daisies carpeting the green rolls and rises of the dell with cascades of yellow, cutting through a sea of golden-eyed white blossoms with splashes of pink and blue where the seeds had once scattered. Under the blue dome of the sky the flowers seemed oversaturated, brilliant with their purity and mass that swept Feliciano's eyes across them and confounded senses that loved colour and form so much he'd devoted his life to them.

There was another old story here, another one no one quite believed but everybody told regardless, and as Alice parked them on the side of the road and Feliciano popped his door open so he could hurry around and grab the food, he remembered it. It was an old story, ancient, really.

The story was about Remus, the brother Romulus had slain in order to name their city after himself. When he was still dying the she-wolf that had nursed them took his body and dragged it from Rome into the mountains, and the ink well at his belt burst open and sprayed the daisies with blue, the gold from his jewelry transformed other petals with their yellow glitter, and the blood from his wounds soaked into the ground and blossomed as pink stalks. It was just a myth and it wasn't very popular, it had a meaning Feliciano had tried writing a paper on in college but had ultimately given up on. It was a nonsense story to explain so many colours in one small patch of earth, but as Alice made short work of climbing over the low wooden fence in her skirt and blouse, Feliciano followed with their brunch wrapped in paper and two thin plastic bags.

"Did you get the wine?"

"Oh! I forgot. Which one do you want?"

"The white! Save the red for later." Because dead romans didn't have a place under such brilliant sunlight. There was no reason to spoil the gentle mountain breeze that made the flowers whisper and sigh with thousands of soft leaves and delicate heads turned to the blue sky.

The Fiat chirped with its electric locks right before Feliciano got a hand on the door, locking it. Maybe Alice thought she unlocked it? It chirped again when he pulled the handle and there was the tell-tale ka-klunk of the two acts cancelling each other out.

Ka-klunk.

Ka-klunk.

One more- ka- oh for god's sake, Alice. He bowed his head for a moment and let it rest on the blue edge of the door, shoulders shaking because his chest hurt trying not to laugh. He let go of the car and turned around, both arms up.

"Stop that!"

Alice was mimicking him, the food resting at her feet and the keys in her hand with the remote between her fingers.

"I'm trying to help you! You stop!"

"Okay, I'll stop. Now go."

"Go?"

"Alice!" She started laughing as soon as she caught up with the joke and Feliciano swung his arms through the air telling her to start walking and choose a spot. "No! No wine for you, obviously you've had enough!"

"Don't you dare say that!" The car chirped properly behind him, unlocked now for sure with two bottles of wine sitting innocently in the back seat. "Half a glass an hour ago is no excuse!"

"That's what I should be saying!" But he opened the car door anyways, reaching inside and checking the two tall paper bags Alice had packaged the wine in as a formality before they'd left. He saw the white label first but searched the next one for the broken indigo seal and marked cork, pulling the bottle out by the neck and realizing at that point that they had no cups. "Do you mind sharing it from the bottle?" It wouldn't be the worst thing they'd ever done, but Feliciano's own thought made him pause.

Where had that come from?

"It's fine. Where do you want to sit?" He tried to shake it off as he knocked the car door closed behind him, letting it chirp or whistle or whatever it was meant to do as Alice locked it again from the other side of the fence. In jeans and runners it was easy for him to hop over the low barrier of piled logs and a few misplaced stone slabs, feet landing on a cushion of green stems and white blossoms. There was no avoiding bruising the flowers when they grew so tightly against each other.

"We can walk until we find shade or sit in the sun, but let's at least get a little further from the car first." What was the point of driving all the way out to a sea of flowers if you were just going to wade in the shallows?

So they walked, and it was a careful, meandering place that let Feliciano watch where he was stepping and try to nudge the daisy heads out of his way so he didn't trample them carelessly. He still stepped on too many for his own liking, but it was the thought that counted. Below the high stalks and spread petals of the tall daisies, there was loamy moss and tiny heads of white fringing more golden centers. It was a little bit of paradise with the hum of bees everywhere and nowhere at the same time: as long as they didn't accidentally sit on one, the honey-makers would leave them both alone.

"I haven't been back here in such a long time." Alice filled the quiet air with conversation, Feliciano minding his steps and at the same time noticing when the flowers vanished under the hem of her skirt only to reappear behind her. "But you used to drive up here all the time, didn't you?"

"My mother really loved their honey, so I'd drive her and Carlino." And usually they'd bring fresh bread from the bakery, but Lovino was usually working during days off from school- he was just that kind of person. "Bring paint supplies or a soccer ball, make an afternoon of it."

"Are you going to take a jar back home with you?" Of the honey? Feliciano looked up from his feet and let his eyes get swept away by the gold ribbons painting themselves through the white hills spreading around them. There were only trees far across the meadow, and that would be where the flowers thinned out and the ground got hard. Without a blanket, they were probably better off here, sitting on the slope of the hill looking away from the road and the car- completely out of sight amongst the flowers.

"I hadn't thought of it. Maybe." Something to remind him of his mother when he took that long train ride back to Berlin… He gave a short laugh, just a fast breath that disturbed his voice: "Whatever I take back I have to carry all the way to the house, packing light is probably better."

"Carry…?" Alice seemed to agree that this spot was good, because they both stopped walking and then slowly folded their legs down into the tangled grass and swaying flowers. The light scent of the daisies was comforting, but quickly overpowered by Alice handing him his toasted sandwich and unwrapping her own from its wax paper.

The bread had gone a little chewy while waiting for them to stop and eat, but one deep, hungry bite off the corner filled Feliciano's mouth with fresh tomato juice and the satisfying texture of warm, folded basil leaves sliding open over his tongue. The meat was just salty enough to balance it, smokey and so much better than German sausage regardless of whatever Ludwig had to say- now if he would just stop coming up in Feliciano's thoughts.

"I've missed these too…" He really had, just the way the cheese was still warm and stuck to his teeth only a little bit, rolling with the other flavours before he heard the pop of a cork and saw Alice delicately tip the bottle of wine back for a sip. She actually pulled it off gracefully, and held it to him so he could add one more cascade of flavours to the medley in his mouth.

He could taste the vanilla right away, and those sour white grapes played perfectly with the rest of it.

Correction: he'd missed this too. All of this. The scenery, the sunshine, the breeze, the food, the wine…

"They don't have panini in Germany either?"

"They have the presses." But not that subtle hint of something he was equal parts too hungry and too overwhelmed to taste in the bread, but he knew it was there. The way it was greased with olive oil from their region, not butter from some German dairy farm. The flavour of local meats instead of just salt paired with green-house tomatoes and rehydrated herbs. "It's… not the same."

And wine, not beer, and not cheaper German wine or internationally marketed Italian wines: real, good, proper Italian wine from a winery he knew operated by people who were almost family- had almost been family. He stole another sip before biting his sandwich again, handing the bottle back and trying to keep his eyes on the flowers.

"Feliciano?" he tried, and then he wiped his eyes with one hand as if he had a headache, knocking his sunglasses and letting the true intensity of the sun and the colours hit him for a moment before the brown shades fell back over them. He was this overwhelmed by a tinted, washed out version of what was in front of him, and the hand that touched his shoulder and then moved down his arm didn't help. "Are you okay?" He should have been okay, he should have felt fine. He was out from under Chiara's toxic influence and he wasn't stuck dealing with a family that hated him, Feliciano should have been calmly enjoying his brunch with Alice and admiring the dell around them. Instead he was not.

"Do you ever feel like you don't know where home is?" He didn't expect her to answer the question, in fact he knew she wouldn't be able to because he switched into German on purpose.

How would someone who'd never needed to question where she belonged be able to answer something like that, and what kind of person would Feliciano have been if he forced the issue between them? But he needed to say it, so he said it in the language of the people and the country that had done everything to try and be his new home, but that would probably never take the place of the old one.

"No." And then he fell back into Italian, because it was the one that didn't require any thought or intention. He didn't have to think about the sounds or the verbs or the pronunciation- the intonation was ingrained and the vocabulary limitless. He could say anything in Italian, Feliciano just wouldn't. "I'm not okay." And he smothered the rest of the words with another painful bite of home and closed his eyes this time, forehead resting on his free hand so he could try and calm down and not let his expression betray him any further. He'd admitted it and now that was going to be the end of it.

But she was still touching his arm, holding on actually with her hand clasped just over the cuff of his short sleeve. They were making terrible time getting to Rieti for the rest of their day, but that was probably Feliciano's fault for not paying attention to how much nostalgia was welling up around him. Daisies and honey and that longing for something he wasn't sure he was going to have again, that comfort that wasn't like home because it was home…

"Talk to me..?" That mouthful of bread and everything it was supposed to be was washed away by another drink of wine when the bottle found its way back into his empty hand. It was wrong to swallow such a good vintage so boldly, it was fine wine and not a cheap three euro bottle, but he treated it crassly and dropped his head between his knees where his legs were propped in front of him, breathing around the after-taste of alcohol. Slowly, with eyes still closed Feliciano used both hands to wrap his sandwich back up in the paper protecting his hand from the mess inside, and he nearly threw it off into the flowers except that would have been petulant. "What happened in Berlin?"

"I walked out." Covering his face with both hands and rubbing his palms hard over his cheeks and nose wasn't much better, but it was less destructive. "I begged Lovino for months to get him to come up to Berlin, months." Regardless of whatever lies his brother had been telling everyone else here in town. "But the day after he arrived he was thrown out, and I didn't get one ounce of respect before or after it was done. I'd never been so angry…" He had been since, but not before- no. Mario had found a pit of hellfire buried deep in Feliciano that he hadn't even known he possessed, but Ludwig had dug the tunnel down that way first.

"So you stormed out?"

"Almost, I was coward." He should have just packed that night and left, but he hadn't: just like how right now he couldn't take his hands off his face, not even when Alice took the sunglasses off his head where they were barely clinging to his knuckles trying to stay up. She was so close to him, but he didn't care. "I slept in the garage and tried to clean up the next morning- the house was a mess. I refused to talk about it, my partner went to work as usual, but then that-" No. "-but then the brother came upstairs. You can say what you want about my brothers, Alice but they're still my brothers, and when that bastard started laughing and saying shit about lovino I punched him and left."

"Are you serious?"

"I'm not proud of it but I'm not a liar." Without his sunglasses Feliciano had to open his eyes slowly, dragging his hands down his face and running back through his hair where the sun was making it hot. He wanted to lay back on the grass and flowers, but kept himself sitting up and shook his head slowly before looking down at the daisies swaying around them. There was mediocre comfort in being hidden up to his knees in greenery.

"You don't even have a temper though, not like Lovino's." No, not like his brother- not like either of them actually. But:

"Not having a bad temper doesn't mean I don't get mad, Alice." She took a turn with the wine bottle as he spoke, and maybe that eased the moment just a little bit. She wasn't horrified to the point of rapt attention, but rather focusing enough to join him with the minor indulgence. "Plenty of things can make me angry, I just hold it in better than others." And other times, like last Tuesday or even yesterday, the rage just came roaring out of him.

"Have you talked to her since then?" Feliciano tsked sharply and rolled his head and finally dropped onto his back on the cool grass. Her. Her. Her. How much longer was he going to be able to handle that stupid lie?

"Wednesday, on the train." But for now he just answered the question, because anything less would take this conversation from awful to terrible, and probably leave him stranded in the mountains with a two hour walk from here to a house that wouldn't let him back inside once they knew the truth. "I said if anyone tried to contact me about us- friends or anything like that, then I'd break things off completely."

His exact words, if Feliciano remembered correctly, had been "then you can keep the fucking keys!"

Taking a deep breath full of sweet air, he had one hand up over his eyes just to shade them, Alice sitting next to him on her hip in the crushed grass, most of her weight braced on one hand lost in the green and the other still lightly touching the covered part of his arm. Between the sunlit glare and his own hand he couldn't really see her face, at least not her eyes, but she sounded almost sad when she spoke again.

"But then this morning you tried calling her instead?" Her. Her. Her.

"It was hard to be alone after she died." Feliciano's mother had little, if anything really, to do with things. She was just a reference point, a moment in time he would always be able to remember and use as a gauge for everything that came before or after. "I was angry when I left, but maybe when I go back we'll be ready to talk." There would definitely be a lot for them to discuss, because Feliciano didn't know if his outburst with Gilbert had really solved anything. It had taken Feliciano three years to lash out from the stress, but he wouldn't live to see forty if he made himself go through that kind of strain every few years.

"Was one fight really enough for you to leave her, just like that?"

"It's never just about one thing or one fight, Alice." He almost added that this was something she should have known, but he swallowed the bitter words because they were unfair. No one had told her why things had broken down the way they had, no one had given her more than one, two reasons at most because his family had refused to tell her, and Feliciano was too scared to break the silence. He was still a coward.

But with those dreary final words on the matter, they sank into the natural quiet of the dell and didn't speak again. There was still food and wine, but somewhere over the mountains there was also the whisper of the highway melding smoothly into the sigh of the wind.

He wasn't full, but he was suddenly so tired that half a perfect sandwich under the sun and such heavy talk were all working together to drag him down, down, down. It was so bright out, but with his body cushioned by the cool green grass and the soft touch of daisy petals on his skin, Feliciano knew his eyes were growing heavy. The sky darkened from unbroken, sun-splashed blue to grey and plumb as his lashes shaded him, his hand twisting to rest its back against his forehead, his arm blushed by the heat and caressed by the breeze.

His body had no right to feel so relaxed, but when he heard the rustle of deli paper closing itself and then the whisper of another person settling between daisy heads and green stems, it soothed him. Knowing she didn't want to fight with him, she didn't want to challenge or force her way through something he didn't want to talk about- they didn't even need that code word they'd decided on, they just knew: not right now. No more for now.

And that thought calmed him down. It coaxed his eyes closed and it told him that the whisper of sunburn wasn't enough to make him get up again after fighting this long only to fall. The sun turned the screen of his eyes into a starburst of bright crimson and golden darkness, and he was gone.

So, what was a woman's kiss like?

A woman by definition was different from a man, but how? Softer, maybe? Physically speaking most were smaller, shorter, lighter- but not by much and never as a rule. There were no rules: Feliciano's friend Berwald was about as fussy and mothering with his kids as any woman Feliciano had ever known, and his boss's wife Elizabetha could easily take down a man Ludwig's size if provoked.

But a woman's kisses were playful things. They brushed and bumped noses, laughing deep in their throat with smiles and whispers. A woman's kiss blocked the world out because she would run up behind you and leap onto you back with her arms around your neck. She would overwhelm with fast, quick-fire kisses peppering cheeks and neck while you spun around trying to shake her off before your brothers or, god forbid, her father could see you.

A woman would use her hands, gentle, kind things, to cover your eyes after standing chest-to-chest waiting to move in, blacking out your surroundings until the only thing left to subsist on was her sent and her touch and her taste. Whether you were down on the old dock or hiding half-scared and completely alive between oversized barrels of wine praying not to get caught, her kisses meant everything.

A man's kiss, it really seemed, was a very physical thing. A man's embrace was earthly and comforting, influenced by what was happening to and around you in that moment of approach and embrace. It was like life, it was like every sensation bound up in the folds of strong arms and against the grain of firm lips.

So a woman's kiss, in contrast, was something less experiential and more internal. It made the world feel so small it wasn't even worth recognizing. It was pure emotion- the overwhelming thrill, the satisfying need, and so much tenderness and affection meant to mesmerize both participants.

They were the strangest thoughts to wake up to in the grass under the open sky and beating sun, but as Feliciano barely forced his eyes open, he found the added weight curled up on his arm reassuring. Tangled stems and daisy heads were the only things he could really make out in the brilliant glare, but that was okay; he was not afraid. A comforting breeze and the scent of crushed grass, the far away whine of the highway, and someone to hold onto- whoever it was.

And it didn't matter who anymore, because his sleepy and exhausted mind craved rest, and his flesh just wanted company. For the first time in four days Feliciano had not woken up alone, and that satisfaction was what sent him peacefully back to sleep…

Another day is taking a really long time, I had a feeling this outing would take three chapters and tried hurrying it along to two, but ultimately that didn't work. Oh well!

Leave a review, maybe?