Decision of the Loved, Trail of Angels, The Hanging Tree, Not Nice.

I'm almost positive it's said somewhere that Mario lives with his parents because he isn't married and I need to remove it but I can't FIND it in the previous chapters. I know I wrote it though…

Didn't get as far as I wanted with this chapter, but there's a reason.

The Gay Brother

A Lesson and An Accident

When the boys were very little and Carlino wasn't born yet, their parents had owned a great, big, glass cabinet. But really, the cabinet itself had not been made of glass: just the doors and the shelves and everything inside.

They really couldn't remember what had been kept in there. Plates? Bowls? But it must have been something fragile: something sharp.

It was an accident though. Accident. Accident. A-C-C-I-D-E-N-T… or something like.

Maybe the accident was Lovino's fault for getting in between them, or maybe it was Feliciano's for not following him. Either way the entire family would always agree about one thing: it had in no way been Carlino's fault, even if it might have saved his life.

Because either way: that cabinet made him leave.

That man had left while Lovino was still in hospital. Feliciano didn't remember seeing him for the last time or what he might have said, he just knew through hearsay that while he'd been sleeping in his mother's lap at the hospital, the man who'd brought them there had left to go back to the house and put his clothes with a bit of money in a bag. Then he'd taken apart his key ring so the house and car keys were left behind, scribbled something on a piece of paper, and left: probably taking a tour bus out to Rieti or Rome.

Good riddance.

But somewhere in the fuss and commotion of moving from their house back to Grandma and Grandpa's place just off the Piazza, someone had let slip that the only reason he'd been married to Mama in the first place had been because of Lovino. Maybe they just decided to be ironic about it, citing the same person for the marriage's beginning and end.

Feliciano had never seen Mama slap someone before, at least not so hard and never on the face. It had been one of her friends from when she'd been in school, but they stopped being friends after that. A few days later Carlino was born, and…

And Feliciano did remember what his mother said when that yellow-wrapped bundle of cranky pink brother was set in his lap with his arms wrapped right around to make sure the squirmy thing didn't fall. All four of them had been on the hospital bed, Lovino laying with his head on Mama's shoulder and Feliciano and the baby in the crook of her arm.

She'd said that she loved them more than anything else, and said Lovino was all the love she'd ever hoped for and Carlino was all the love she'd ever look back on and remember. He couldn't remember what she said about him, but probably because the pink squirmy thing in his arms had started getting really wriggly so he'd pushed it over into her side so it wouldn't puke on him or something.

It was a few years later when they learned another piece of the story, and Mama didn't slap her sister-in-law, Uncle Mario's wife, but she looked like she'd wanted to.

Because Lovino had almost been Uncle Mario's son, not Mama's. It had been her brothers' idea before Lovino was born and before anyone outside the family had known he was coming: have Mario, Mama and Aunt Francesca go away on holiday for a few months, and come back with the new baby in their Aunt's arms. Not a fool-proof plan, but still plausible: a guarantee that Feliciano and Carlino would not have been born.

So it was not a good thing to whisper about on Lovino's high school graduation day; 'He could have been ours'. Not a kind thing to say, least of all with Feliciano sitting next to them and finally understanding why they never saw very much of Mario's wife.

Feliciano doubted Lovino knew about any of it, he'd just barely worked it out of their mother and that had only worked because he'd threatened to just ask Mario himself.

"I was too young, Feliciano but I loved your father! I loved him and sometimes I still miss him: I would never give up any of our children for- for what? To not have you? No. Now never speak of this again."

God, it was so hard not to miss her…

Haunting thoughts like those followed the two of them across the vineyard, the grapevines hiding them from the moon and almost leading to Feliciano or Lovino tumbling over or tripping in the darkness. Lovino knew the path better because he still lived along it, Feliciano trying to follow his brother's black jacket and trousers over shadows and under hanging branches. He listened to the footfalls and eventually heard the babble of the stream whispering through the darkness, letting Lovino continue to lead because neither of them trusted him not to turn back if he lost his nerve.

They didn't bother to speak as the creak opened up a black rift in the ground, whatever they said now would just have to be repeated up the hill. Lovino vanished first into the murk, Feliciano following him with one hand on the damp, cool ground as he slid a little and his feet found the rocks and grit of the creek-bed. The make-shift bridge tossed Lovino so he sank one foot and calf into the cold water, Feliciano faring little better in the dark when the hole in the bottom of his shoe reminded him that it was there.

They said nothing about it, just climbed with grasping hands and unsure footing up the steep side of the hill, snapping branches and feeling out dips in the ground as they pressed forward and up.

There was no catching sight of the steeple through the trees this time, it was too dark for that. With the moon out they had to wait until they reached the low stone wall into the church yard before they could look up at the midnight blue sky, the black reach of the church's roof forbidding in the starlight.

They had not come to see their mother, so as they were careful not to trip over any of the half-hidden graves sunken in the grass they avoided looking for her amongst the newer rows of straight stone monuments. They came around the far side of the grave yard together, stood at the gate, and that was when Lovino finally froze.

"He's here." Maybe if they hadn't stopped to fight each other like that, their uncle's beat-up old brown car wouldn't have been sitting in front of the church already, its engine quiet and clearly empty. They could see the glow of the church's pale electric lighting shining through the glass windows set in the wide stones, and Feliciano set a hand on his brother's shoulder to stop him from losing his nerve.

"You had a choice."

"So did you!" Lovino didn't shout, he just spoke loudly as he hissed the words and turned to look at him in the low light, his voice down like he was afraid to yell in the company of the dead. Or maybe he didn't want the man inside to hear him either.

"This isn't about me." Was Feliciano's only answer, and with a firm push he turned Lovino back around and made him walk, refusing to give up or drift back the two or three steps to give Lovino space. He didn't deserve space, he couldn't be trusted with it.

But his brother's steps were slower now, almost laboured. Feliciano thought he saw him make a fist with one hand, but Lovino tensed up with a sharp hiss and brought his hand up in front of him, his other one gripping his wrist. Over the course of the walk and their fight Feliciano'd completely forgotten about the cuts his brother had on his palm, but it was hard to drum up any sympathy for them now.

He made Lovino open the door too, refusing to move in front and do it himself. It was a set of tall, dark double doors made of old wood, the brass handles longer than both hands put together, but well hung. Lovino would be able to open them with one hand, he even reached out and grasped one of them, but then he stopped.

Feliciano pretended not to know why.

"Just tell me she's okay." Not this again…

"You weren't so worried about that when you-"

"I get it!" Well he was about to get a lot more of it, because Lovino wouldn't look back at him before finally pulling on the heavy door and dragging it open. Warm light hit them as Lovino vanished inside first, Feliciano hesitating briefly before following.

He'd probably just be told to leave again for transgressing, but the slightly cooler air of the church settled around him first. Like a cave, the old quarry rocks that built up the walls and ceiling blocked the sun's heat. The sweetness of incense had soaked into the few short rows of pews generations ago, soot-marks along the walls showing where old torches and lamps had been replaced by electric bulbs shaded in old lantern caps. There were a few candles burning, not very many: most people brought their prayers to the larger church just off the town's Piazza. Several small lights glittered on a table under a hanging portrait or Mary, but the rest were sitting on the table in the sanctuary down the aisle and directly in front of them at the back end of the church.

Feliciano was shocked when his eyes were torn from the looming figure standing by those candles when he heard footsteps shuffling between the pews. When Mario appeared, his thin hair sticking up without a comb and his short body wrapped in a pollo shirt and long grey shorts for the heat, Feliciano was suddenly asking himself what Alice or her mother must have said to bring both their uncles out, not just Benedict.

"What happened to you two?" Mario kept his voice down, speaking more to Feliciano than Lovino because it was clear the older brother was currently gripped by the eyes of the man in the sanctuary. "You're filthy! Soaking wet- are you bleeding?"

He didn't expect Mario to touch him- Feliciano was still waiting to be told to leave, so when his uncle's thick hand reached out and touched his face he jumped back a little. It shocked both of them: Lovino was the one who'd had his hand cut open, but Mario was still looking at Feliciano when the middle brother reached up carefully for his own mouth, the place where Lovino had punched him.

The corner of his mouth was numb and it had been for some time, the pain falling away during their walk. He'd tasted a little bit of blood in his mouth and could feel with his tongue where the sweet of the wound was placed just over his teeth. But when he touched the outside, along his lip, he was surprised when he felt a sharp sting and felt something that wasn't dirt grit over his skin. Oh, at least it was dry now…

"It doesn't hurt." He said quietly, watching the way his uncle's eyes slowly looked at Lovino's back, darkening boldly as he locked his teeth and shook his head.

"Attacking your own brother on top of your wife, heaven help-"

"Mario sit down." That voice.

Mario was the uncle you ran to if you needed pocket money or Mama's car wouldn't start. But he was also the one who you avoided admitting why you were late for work to, or where that scratch and ding on the bumper had come from.

Benedict was the uncle you hid behind if your brothers wouldn't stop throwing dirt at you or you were guilty of almost drowning one of them at the dock. But not even Nonna could protect you if he caught you vandalising church property, or god forbid the fights at school were your fault and not the bully's.

Where Uncle Mario was a stocky, thick sort of man, Uncle Benedict was a good head taller than him, greyer with his short cropped hair, and a long face like their Grandfather's and Lovino's. For a moment now, Feliciano almost didn't recognize him.

Being a man of business meant Uncle Mario had a tick to him, an energy that bordered on nervous but was usually very productive: tapping fingertips, jumping legs, sighs and guffaws and joints popping waiting until he could move or act again. Mario was expressive and active.

Benedict was a man of the church. He'd taken to his calling early and Feliciano barely remembered seeing him without the black garments of his office or the white collar of the priesthood around his throat. Even if he was tending to church property or at home helping his mother move bags of soil around the garden, he took everything in stride and always appeared immaculate. Long and tall and thin, boasting a peaceful mindset and a calming outlook rooted in scripture and a healthy dose of simple common sense.

So Feliciano didn't recognize the darkness saturating his uncle's brown eyes, or the chalk-grey matte to his skin as he stepped off the dais wreathed in the shadows that clung under the arms of his black shirt and wrapped around his pressed slacks. It was an effect of yellow lamplight and the glow of the candles, but the silver crucifix swinging from the chain over his chest was terrifying. It felt like judgement coming down on them and Feliciano found himself scrambling for whatever he could have done wrong to bring himself to this point.

But Benedict's eyes weren't on him, and his slow, even footsteps that echoed off the stones weren't meant to bring him closer to Feliciano. It was Lovino who was taking shallow breaths, shoulders inching up bit by bit with the anxiety. He was still clutching his injured hand by the wrist, shrinking back a little before Benedict finally reached them and held his hand out to look at Lovino's.

Feliciano's world tilted on a sharp axis when he realized that, staring straight ahead, his eyes were in line with his uncle's forehead, not his shoulder.

Height differences didn't stop Lovino from swallowing hard and finally relenting, turning his hand palm-up so the cuts in his palm were visible, the sparkle of green glass still speckled over his skin. Benedict looked down at them for a moment and Feliciano's eyes followed. Most of the cuts were shallow, glancing really and barely bleeding, but two sharp blades had cut deeply: there was even one triangular piece still lodged in place in the soft skin between his thumb and forefinger.

"Explain yourself." Benedict's voice through thin grey lips was almost impossible to hear, grave and low in his throat as he barely formed the words. Feliciano couldn't see his brother's face and he was too absorbed in the moment to move for a better position, but he knew Lovino was suffering under that unrelenting stare when he had to take three deep breaths trying to answer.

"I…" Three, four, five deep breaths. "I don't know- I don't know what came over me I just-"

Benedict slapped him.

It came out of nowhere, Feliciano didn't even see his face break into the rage that propelled violence. The hand that had been hovering over Lovino's wounded fingers had snapped up and back-handed him, turning Lovino's stunned face so Feliciano could see it. The light caught the bruises from their own fight on his face, his good hand up and wrist pressed over the corner of his mouth where he looked like he'd been cut.

"Don't you dare lie to me." Their uncle's voice was so low, but then; "In a house of God, don't you dare lie to me!" But then a voice blessed by God to give sermons and guidance shook the rafters, swelling with volume that didn't match a face that barely scowled over an open mouth.

The silence was sudden and it hurt, Lovino's eyes were closed and he hadn't turned back properly to look at Benedict again. He was hunched over and his shoulders had collapsed, his face was going red and he didn't look like he was breathing, either the humiliation or what must have been shame choking him enough that Feliciano was almost scared. He almost, for whatever undeserving reason, wanted to comfort him.

"Did my sister give birth to a beast? Have my brother and I wasted half our lives teaching a serpent to walk like a man?"

"I know!" He didn't expect Lovino to find his voice again, but he and Mario were standing just off to the side now between the pews, watching the two of them go head-to-head. "I know it was wrong! I know I made a mistake- and I'm sorry!" It was hard to watch but it was harder trying to know which side he was supposed to be on. Feliciano had his arms folded as much for his own comfort as to appear stalwart. The pitch Lovino's voice hit was almost frantic, it showed how much weaker he felt because the ground he was standing on was crumbling. "I'm sorry and I don't want to be here! I want to be at home with my wife so I can tell her I'm-"

"A wife you barely respect and have never loved." And it was enough that Benedict didn't even raise his voice again, simply spoke and they all watched the words shatter over Lovino's head and stun him.

"But I do love…" His brother's voice was so soft that Mario's scoff next to him overpowered the words. Feliciano felt that sympathy again but forced himself to control it, even searching for words he could say only to realize there were none: he didn't know enough to support or attack Lovino right now. He could only watch.

Watch, and then look up when he saw movement across the church hall. A small door leading back into the rectory and offices of the church opened up slowly, a shy, shocked face slowly creeping into the light.

It wasn't fair to bring Carlino into this. The urge to side with Lovino and at least stop the battery welled up stronger this time. It was one thing to bring Mario and have both uncles handle the issue, and it was kindness to ignore Feliciano's issue with the family and let him stand here, but to bring their youngest brother along? No, that wasn't fair. It wasn't right to see the teenager slowly pulling himself out of the dark office space and stand along the first row of pews.

He was holding what looked like a small steel cashbox in his hands, the beaten grey metal matted and dull from a distance. Feliciano met his stunned gaze for a few moments before his little brother looked away, letting him glance back at Lovino and realize the eldest brother hadn't noticed the youngest one yet.

Benedict had noticed though, because he turned away from Lovino without addressing what he'd said, marching back up the length of the church until he was hovering just in front of the dais leading to the sanctuary. The rest of them had to follow, and Lovino had to look up and break a little bit more when he saw Benedict gesture for Carlino to come over.

It started at the crown of his head and it just moved down from there, Feliciano saw it. The way his eyebrows bent to the sides and down, green eyes widening before he let them hit the floor with red rims glowing, shallow breaths around tight lips spread so he could keep breathing. His skin was flushed but going pale under the burn, shoulders slumped without the strength to come forward or rest straight across his back. He moved slowly, like he was being crushed.

He didn't try to play it off or say they were making a big fuss. He didn't argue that it was nothing or that this was stupid. He hadn't sworn once, and he bit back but he didn't keep fighting or throw his hands up in the air and give up. Lovino understood why they were taking this so seriously, and Feliciano did too.

"You kept them?"

"I prayed I'd never need them."

He just didn't know how to explain it to Carlino when he handed the box over to Benedict and Mario asked his question. Benedict climbed the dais so they could see him, moving to the table and setting the box down there. It was nothing remarkable, but now when Feliciano looked at him he saw their uncle Mario standing with his hands finding their way into his pockets, eyes down and head shaking like he couldn't rise up and see whatever it was. Carlino crossed the floor and, as if their argument was forgotten, gave Lovino a wide berth and came to stand next to Feliciano instead.

"What happened?" He whispered, "I mean what really happened?" Of course they wouldn't have told him, not bluntly at least… He didn't want to be the one to explain, he didn't want to change something about his brothers' relationship…

"He hit Chichi." But Feliciano whispered the answer, because he was already hiding too much from his brother to keep anymore secrets from him. All of Feliciano's problems felt immature and foolish next to this, because his problems only left emotional scars, not physical ones like glass in delicate skin.

"You look like you've been in a fight."

"I jumped in, we fought." At the end of the day Feliciano would be on a train back to Berlin, Carlino would still have to go to work in Lovino's restaurant. "She'll be alright, she just…" He didn't remember: Carlino couldn't have any idea. That man had already left them behind when he'd been born, it was impossible for him to carry the memories that made tonight so damned impossible to accept.

So Feliciano had to look straight at his brother, not skate around the issue or try to deflect his questions. He couldn't tone any of it down or leave out the details, not the important ones: not the broken glass and the frantic tears. He just had to say it:

"She screamed like Mama when he did it." And let those words just sink in.

Because no, Carlino didn't have the memories, and he'd never heard the shouting. He hadn't been there for the accident- maybe he physically had, but not his spirit. But he'd still known their mother and he'd loved her as much as she'd treasured all three of them. He'd seen that white mark on her arm and he knew why she'd always stepped lightly on her right leg when walking. And he'd heard her scream.

Only once, but he'd still heard her scream.

So when Carlino looked away at him to find Lovino with his eyes, Feliciano was fast to pull an arm around his little brother and hold him around the shoulders, dragging him against his will so he couldn't move for a moment. Just a moment though, long enough to squeeze his shoulder and stop the sudden push forward that he tried to make in Lovino's direction. He held him and then he let him go, because their uncles wouldn't have brought him here if they weren't convinced that he was ready to be a man.

And if he was ready to be a man, then he had to have this lesson beaten into him the way it should have been physically ingrained into his elder brothers. When Feliciano's touch retreated he forced his arms to cross again, holding them together tight enough that the forgotten sunburn from his day out started to sting him again.

Where Lovino had found the violence and blindness to transgress was a tragic mystery, but up at the candlelit table Benedict was unlocking the little box Carlino had fetched from the back room. It opened up with a simple click and he reached in to remove a black tray meant to carry coins and expose the belly of the box.

Then he lifted the box up in both hands, turned so he was standing behind the table and the rest of them could see him, and slowly shook the contents out onto the tablecloth.

Glass.

"Fratellino…"

Broken glass, clear shards of thick panes, some of them frosted, others curved in the memory of what might have been clear plates or cheap wine glasses. Dozens of shards and fragments, and then with finality there came the thunk of two broken rods of wood that landed on top of the heap.

Feliciano closed his eyes so he couldn't see them anymore, Mario's soft voice giving away a secret he'd never wanted to learn. The sound Lovino made was muffled behind his hands, and when Feliciano chanced one brief look at him, he watched his eldest brother sink into a low crouch on his feet, hands up trying to hide his face.

"I was going to throw them away when she died." Benedict stated, not moving as he set the box back down and then looked down at them- or maybe he was gesturing, Feliciano refused to see and hid himself in the darkness behind his eyes. "Lock them up and toss them into the deepest part of the river, a bad memory we could all, collectively, forget."

He felt something pawing at his arm, dropping his head a little and looking to find Carlino's hand trying to loosen his arms a little. Feliciano didn't relent and his brother stopped trying, standing as close as could be without touching him and fumbling his hands together looking for a way to cope with the sudden anxiety. He'd have to figure it out for himself, because Feliciano had his own stress to deal with.

The scars on his knees were cold.

If he didn't keep his hands pinned where they were, he knew the ones cut along the undersides of his fingers would start to freeze too.

"But it seems we forgot too much." Forgot the smell of fresh blood. Erased the memory of that man's screams changing from rage to horror, and horror into sorrow, and sorrow into silence and escape. "Lovino, come here."

"I'm sorry…"

"Lovino."

He had to stand up and Feliciano had to open his eyes again and watch. Watch, and whisper something under his breath to Carlino.

"It was this church, wasn't it? Their wedding?"

And Carlino took a slow, weak breath before answering.

"Yeah. They set up the tent near Mama so she could…" So she could see, but the fact that the ceremony had been here, over these stones, under this roof, with Benedict no doubt being the one to preside over the ritual with family and friends filling the pews made it so much more pungent when Lovino mounted the steps alone to stand across the table from Benedict, the glass shimmering in the candle-light between them.

"Explain yourself." Benedict's voice was solemn, a sound meant for preaching and lecture. The condemnation in his words was heartbreaking. "Explain to me how the boy who once jumped between his father and my sister, could grow into a man who attacked his wife in her own home tonight."

"I'm sorry-"

"I don't care!" Feliciano flinched, he didn't get to see how violently Lovino pulled back from the sound but he'd never heard their uncle's voice reach quiet so high before. It hung in the air like smoke from cannon fire, lingering with the stink of sulphur. "That you're sorry: I don't care. Sorry doesn't excuse you, and sorry won't stop you from doing it again!"

"Uncle-"

"Your father almost killed you!"

The words made his ears burn, they weren't even for him but Feliciano had never heard their uncle speak this way. Benedict knew passion and he knew how to inspire, but he was a calming force with a deeper strength that rarely made its way to the surface. He didn't make erratic gestures from the pulpit or scream his voice to the heavens to be heard, he didn't need to. Tonight it felt like he was coming apart, it sounded like so much more than what was directly in front of them was breaking down and falling to pieces.

The way Mario refused to jump in at all, the loudest voice in their family absolutely silent at the edge of the dais, eyes on the floor and head slowly shaking without words or the will to rise. Mario's reaction was almost as terrifying as Benedict's, and their uncles didn't let the three of them wonder why.

"For ten years you farther tormented our sister!" The sweep of his hand to include Mario in the declaration, the way the older of the two men still refused to look up. "And we couldn't do anything, not back then, not when she'd chosen him and she defended him. Instead you had to be the one to stop it."

Don't make them remember this.

Feliciano turned his eyes on the church wall but he couldn't see anything. His eyes were burning and his ears wouldn't stop ringing with the words he was hearing. The way Benedict's loud voice began to bleed into the echoes surrounding them, the candle-light glancing off the glass windows and melding under electric glows to confuse the eye and soak everything with bronze glare and ebony black.

The beat of his hands on the table and the chime of the disturbed glass, like the scratch of plastic forks on messy plates hidden on bedsheets. The glow like the far away reflection of the television flickering on mute and one voice yelling, and yelling, and yelling…

And he just wanted to step in but he knew it wasn't his place. Just wanted to stop the shouting and the hurting because soon there would be screaming: and the screaming always meant crying, and hiding under the bed pretending to be asleep with pillows mounded up on the mattress. Because what if one day he was mad at them? What if one day she wasn't there and it was just him and them alone with the door ajar and the yelling, the yelling, the yelling… And the memories just-

Don't…

Don't make them remember… him.

Shh, quiet transition to next chapter.

This may need cleaning up later, for now I'm off to work!