[fic] "and when you're feeling angry keep me in your memory"
to the stars | chapter 5: lovino | 2900 words | america; canada; denmark; prussia; germany; switzerland; south italy; vietnam; thailand; france: hungary
in which we know of lovino's background, there's something wrong with feliciano, and elizaveta is less than pleased.
to the stars
Chapter 5: Lovino (with some Alfred thrown in, but who's counting?)
"Shit, I have the worst hangover ever."
Matthew reached over the table and patted his brother on the head. "Oh, Alfred. I told you not to drink too much last night."
His brother frowned and looked up at him. "Mattie! That Bonnefoy man has good wine, I tell you! I can't believe you barely drank anything last night!" He paused. "Can't you heal it with your magic or something?"
"No." Matthew placed a plate of pancakes in front of him. "Eat up or you'll be late, bro. You know how Ludwig doesn't like latecomers."
"Urgh." Alfred buried his head in the table at the thought of his religiously punctual commanding officer. "Come on, Mattie."
Matthew sighed. "No, Alfred. Let this be a lesson to you - never drink too much at a party, or else-"
"Mattie, please?"
Alfred's sky blue eyes met his brother's sunset purple ones, and Matthew groaned. "All right." He put his fingers to his brother's temples and closed his eyes. A white mist immediately rose out of his hands and seeped into his brother's head.
"That is awesome, bro!" Alfred started digging into the pancakes. "Thanks!" A pause. "Shouldn't you be eating up, too? Aren't you in the military with me?"
Matthew smiled. "Unlike Ludwig, Lien isn't nearly as pushy about coming late," he said. "Must be because she grew up in the East. And besides, I ate an hour ago."
Alfred stopped chewing and eyed his brother. "You know, she is hot."
Matthew nearly spit out the water in his mouth. "E-excuse me?"
"Lien," Alfred said seriously. "Your commanding officer. The head of the military's healers. The lady who does that awesome wind magic thing. The Battle Medic. I said she was hot."
Matthew raised an eyebrow.
"Anyway," Alfred continued, "I didn't see her at the party last night."
His brother laughed. "Oh, Alfred, you didn't know? Lien was Francis' old flame."
Alfred stopped chewing again. "Seriously? How the hell did that happen?" He paused. "And you know this…how?"
Matthew shrugged. "And unlike your commanding officer, Lien tolerates gossip."
Alfred stood up and began putting away the dishes. "Man, I knew I should've just become a mage. It seems so much more fun. Also I'd get Lien as my commanding officer-"
Smack.
"Okay! Geez, Mattie, you didn't have to hit me!"
"Good morning, Matthew." Lien's smile was warm. "We're meeting at the mess hall today. I'll see you there?"
Matthew smiled at her. "Morning, Lien. Yeah, I'll be there."
Alfred nudged his brother. "Hey, Matt," he whispered. "Introduce me."
His brother glared at him. "Introduce yourself, you -"
"Matthew, come on! Do it for me?"
"Alfred-"
Alfred looked around and saw Lien's dark ponytail disappear around a corner. "Great job, Matt. She's gone."
Matthew laughed and followed her. "See ya later, bro."
As usual, the knights' area, a sprawling field of greens and armor, was lively and noisy due to the crowd at the gates.
"So, like I was saying. Ludwig was three and wet his bed because he was dreaming about big scary-"
"Gilbert, for the last time, that did not happen."
"Oh, shut your trap, you potato bastard, you know it did!"
"Lovino, how do you know? Were you even there?"
"Well, Lovino does have stalker-ish tendencies…"
"Matthias!"
Alfred grinned at the sight of his friends. "Lud! Gil! Lovi! Matt!"
The four young men turned to him. Gilbert was the first to react. "Alf!" he said. "Great to see ya! I was just telling this story to the guys about Ludwig…"
"Gilbert." Gilbert's brother's voice was dangerously low. "Tell that story and I will tell everyone about that one time Elizaveta managed to get her hands on…"
His brother yelped and dropped to the ground. "Ludwig, no! My dignity…"
Lovino's face was thoughtful. "Elizaveta…wasn't she the pretty lady who got engaged last night?"
Gilbert started cracking up. His brother hit him on the head. "Well, yes," Ludwig said. "You see, our families have been close friends for a while."
"Mmm," Gilbert said. "Close friends or not, she's still Lizzie. Makes you wonder, really, what Francis sees in her."
The five of them were interrupted by a new voice, loud and cutting. "What Francis sees in who, exactly?"
"Vash!" Gilbert grinned at his old friend, who was sauntering towards them. "I was merely telling my friends here about the party last night. It's the talk of the town, you know, and-" Before he could say anymore, the tip of Vash's sword was at his neck.
"Careful with your words," the shorter blond said. "By the way, what are you doing here, General Beilschmidt?" he snapped. "Didn't you hear? All generals are supposed to report to Mr. Oxensternia immediately." A second later, his sword was back in his sheath and he was stalking away.
Alfred blinked. "He have a thing for Elizaveta or something?"
Gilbert shrugged. "You'll never know." He grabbed his brother by the collar. "C'mon, bro. Ol' Waldo needs our attention."
Lovino hated to admit it, but maybe he did kinda miss the tomato bastard.
Feliciano was great: for a brother Lovino hadn't seen for the past thirteen years of his life, Feliciano had been marvelously accommodating, preparing a nice, cozy room and good food for Lovino, telling him that Grandfather, having attained Royal Knight status before Lovino was born, was somewhere in the South on some mission, showing him the beautiful paintings he sold for a living - Feliciano really was the talented one, people flocked to his store to buy them - taking his brother on a tour of the capital. He'd even managed to ask the couple who celebrated their engagement last night to add an invitation for Lovino, and apparently both of them thought his brother was cute and played with him as children and readily agreed. In fact, in thanks, they'd received two F. Vargas originals, signed and autographed by his brother the painting prodigy.
He'd even taken his brother straight to the military barracks on his first day, introduced him to a friend of the engaged woman and asked that person to handle his brother. (And Lovino ended up working under that person, in fact. He knew there was something off about this Ludwig man and the way he behaved around his little brother).
Lovino remembered, though, the reason he was away in the first place. They'd been on vacation on the West when Lovino was around seven or eight, and Lovino had just gotten…lost. He didn't know how, but he did. And he'd ended up in the care of Antonio, Bella, and Lars, runaways who'd just settled in the West, the youngest of who was barely older than he was. Of course being noble-born, as his grandfather was a Royal Knight, his grandfather had him tracked down and brought back to the capital, but after seeing the utter change in his grandson's manners (he blamed the old man, it wasn't Lovino's fault he grew up without a female influence) he'd decided that Lovino would be better off living the simple life in the West than the plush life of City citizens. Sure, he'd resented his little brother for being chosen to stay. But he had to admit he would've grown up much differently had he stayed.
And they were plenty self-sufficient for people their age! Antonio had been stupid at times, but incredibly tactical for someone of his age and social class - imagine, a runaway peasant of thirteen! Sure, he refused to talk about where he was from.
"That's a secret, Lovi," Antonio had told him quietly. "You'd think of me differently if you knew."
Lovino hadn't been too curious about it then. But he'd inferred that his past was the reason for Antonio's incredible cheerfulness. Lars, on the other hand, was anything but cheerful - but he'd provided a nice balance to the four of them. In a way, they were like brothers that Lovino didn't have at the moment. Sure, he had a brother, but he was nice and comfortable growing up in the lap of luxury in the capital far, far away from the secluded village they lived in.
And then there was Bella-
"Whoa, Lovi!"
His opponent's cry jolted back to reality and realized that he'd made a weak thrust. Alfred easily parried it and sent his sword flying to the ground. He groaned and picked it up.
Alfred laughed. "You okay there, Lovino? You were kind of spacing out."
"He fought fine," Matthias declared, looking up from the block where he was sharpening his halberd. "Right, Chief?" He looked towards Ludwig.
Ludwig ignored him. "Your offense was all right, but you severely need to maintain a good defense," he said. "It looked like your heart just wasn't in it." He turned to Alfred. "You're improving," he told him. "Your footwork is still rather sloppy. Work on that."
Lovino glared at him.
"Easy, tiger," Matthias said, coming over to them. "How about you take me on, Lovi?"
Ludwig sighed. "Gylensted, you've been raring to fight since this morning," he rebuked. "Did something happen?"
Matthias raised an eyebrow at being called by his last name. "Nothing much," he admitted. "Just got a letter from Nikolas today. That's all." He threw back his head and laughed.
"Ah, yes," Ludwig said in a low voice. "Nikolas Paulsen? Isn't he the-"
"Friend of mine in the North," Matthias interrupted. "If you could call it that." He turned to Lovino.
"You're on, Matthias," Lovino growled. "Just be prepared to lose."
"Did I give you permission?" Ludwig snapped. He glanced at his watch. "It's nearly lunchtime, anyway. You can all go off early."
Lovino glared harder.
"So, Al, how was your training?"
Alfred flashed a brilliant smile at his brother. "Great! Lud said I'm improving. And you?"
"I need to work on my healing," Matthew said.
"But Matt, you're a great healer! Every time I have a cold, or a fever, or sprained my ankle, or - or wake up with a hangover, you're always there!"
"Sure," Matthew said, a half-smile on his face. "But I'm not fast enough. I've got to learn how to send out those healing spells fast enough. Or at least according to Lien."
Alfred smiled. "And speak of the devil." He glanced at the entrance to the cafeteria and frowned. "Mattie, who's that with Lien?"
Matthew followed his brother's gaze to see his commanding officer chatting happily with a tall, bespectacled Easterner. "Ah, that's Sunan," he said. "He's some important guy in the army." He frowned. "Thing is, I don't really know what he does, only that he and Lien are really, really close."
Alfred's frown didn't let up.
"That didn't help, did it?" said Matthew.
"No."
"Lien smiles a lot, but I've never really seen her that happy," said Matthias, coming towards with a tray in his hands. "Can I sit here, by the way?"
The brothers nodded and Matthias took a seat beside Alfred.
"I'm pretty sure they're family, though," Matthias continued. "Siblings, cousins, something like that."
Alfred's frown broke into a grin. Matthew could almost see the fireworks going off in his head and sighed.
"By the way, Matthias," he said. "Berwald and Tino kick you out of their table?"
"Nah," said Matthias. "They're off somewhere with some military head meeting that's supposed to start in three minutes."
Alfred looked around to see Sunan and Lien exiting the cafeteria. "So is training," he said. "We should get going."
Matthew nodded and began putting his tray away.
Matthias glared. "Seriously? I've barely even touched the pork chop!"
Walking out of the military's training facility later that day, Lovino heard his brother calling out to him.
"Lovi!"
He turned in time to see his little brother running towards him. "Feliciano?"
"Come quickly," said Feliciano, giving him a wide smile. "We're going out for dinner."
"So," said Francis, "As I was saying, dear Feli, it's absolutely lovely of you to take your brother out to eat in my restaurant."
"It's my pleasure," said Lovino's brother, his usual sweet smile on his face. "After all, you did let him go to your engagement party last night. I'm sorry for pushing that, by the way. It was a lovely party," he added.
"Oh, I'm sure," said Elizaveta, although Lovino could detect a hint of displeasure in her voice. Couple with her less than happy face, she probably wanted to be somewhere else at the moment.
The four of them were seated at a table at Francis's five-star restaurant, eating some jaw-droppingly delicious food Francis had cooked up personally. Lovino was afraid it might turn awkward, but the couple had known Feliciano for years anyway. "This is good food, though," Elizaveta added rather hesitantly.
"Well," said Feliciano, "the chicken could use a bit more pepper."
Francis's face fell. "Really?" With obvious displeasure he picked up the pepper and sprinkled some on his chicken. He then proceeded to take a bite. "My goodness, Feliciano, it is better!" he said. "I don't know why I don't just hire you as head chef, my friend."
"You know why," said Feliciano. "I'm perfectly happy doing what I'm doing."
"Painting?" said Francis, raising a - perfect, well-trimmed blond - eyebrow. "Not that it's a bad thing, of course, dear Feli, and your paintings are gorgeous but I'd imagine someone like you-" at this point Lovino knew he was referring to their grandfather - "Joining the military or something like that."
"Perhaps I don't want to fight," Feliciano said, his face not losing that smile. "You know I hate fighting."
"He's a pacifist, dear, don't push it," said Elizaveta, although if Lovino didn't know any better he'd say she wanted to join the military judging by her tone of voice.
"Speaking of," said Feliciano, "How is the military, Lovino?"
"It - it's all right."
"I mean, really," his brother went on, "Wouldn't Grandpa be so proud of you? I mean, you're following in his footsteps and all." His lips curled into a smile.
Lovino's eyes widened and he stared at his brother. Feliciano was smiling at him. "Fuck. You," he said under his breath.
Feliciano's expression didn't change. "Lovino, dear, there's a lady present," he said, his face unwavering. "I do wish you wouldn't-"
"Shut the fuck up!" Lovino roared. He stood up suddenly and slammed both his hands on the table. "Look, I don't know what your problem is, but could you just not- not bring it -" His face contorted to a pained one. "Excuse me." He stormed out of the restaurant.
Francis felt the eyes of the restaurant customers on him and stood up to explain things.
Elizaveta bit her lip.
Feliciano felt his lips twisting into a grin.
He laughed.
BEHOLD
MY FAIL ATTEMPT AT FORESHADOWING
Yeah.
Italy, I love you and your too-easy-to-warp personality.
Anyway, I'm so sorry for the late update. School caught up with me, and...yeah. Lien is Vietnam; Sunan is Thailand; Matthias is Denmark.
Review anyway?