We the Dreamers

A/N: This was actually supposed to be a one-shot with an epilogue, but it was too ridiculously long, so I've had to break it up. This fic will therefore have three chapters of varying lengths.

This is not technically Historical Hetalia, but it takes place in a historical setting. I'm giving you a bit of a background, just in case you're not aware of certain details :)

Time period: March 1940 onward

Political scenario:

a) World War II officially has begun in September 1939, after Hitler invades Poland. Britain and France have declared war on Germany, but America has still not entered the war.

b) The Fascist dictator Francisco Franco is in power in Spain, after a Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). He is actively punishing Republican soldiers and sympathisers, prompting thousands of people to escape to France.

c) In June 1940 (three months after this story begins), France will fall to the German offensive, in an event with the unfortunate title The Fall of France. A very popular event during this period was the evacuation at Dunkirk. In a nutshell, the Prime Minister of Britain, Winston Churchill, managed to evacuate around 330,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk in France, and bring them back to Britain. The evacuation was conducted through a flotilla which consisted of ships and boats, both military and otherwise (even fishing vessels were used).

d) America is only just starting to recover from the Great Depression.

e) Kristallnacht or The Night of Broken Glass was a pogrom (a series of deadly attacks) that took place on 9-10th November 1938 in Nazi Germany and Austria. This essentially marked Germany's decent into Antisemitism. Quite obviously, it sparked enormous international outrage.

-/-

Henrique Carriedo (Antonio's older brother) – Portugal

Madeline and Amelia Williams – Fem!Canada and Fem!America

Monika – Fem!Germany

This fic contains some genderbends along with their male versions. For example, it mentions Fem!America but it also has Male!America as two completely separate characters. The same goes for Ludwig and Monika. In this fic, they are different people.

I would further like to add that I am NOT an expert in history. I have just done a lot of research. IF you find any historical inaccuracies, I am extremely sorry. I would also like to say that I have never been to New York. All details in this story about the city and the events that take place on the global political scenario have all been understood using GOOGLE. I am just a student, and not even a citizen of USA. My understanding/descriptions may not be entirely accurate. But I have tried my hardest.

You may find politically incorrect comments in this fic. I'm trying to keep with the time period. Nevertheless, it won't be cruel or judgemental or anything, just slightly crass.

Thank you.

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us. And the world will live as one." – John Lennon

March 1940

The man arrived in the early hours of a Sunday, on a small ship with the ambitious name S. S Hope. By some miracle, he had all of his original documents. He was legal. And alive. And in America. And those three things were all he needed, for now. Along with a little bit of S. S Hope's optimism, he would be fine.

The ship was quiet. Only some of the other passengers—dressed in rags, with dirty faces and emaciated bodies—were awake. They sat quietly on the floor and watched the sun hit the Statue of Liberty in a way that made her face glow.

The man with the hefty name rubbed the last of the tears from his eyes. There would be no crying now. He was alive, legal and in America. He was on a ship named hope. The Statue of Liberty was golden. New York looked like a modern El Dorado. There was no need to cry.

Antonio Fernandez Carriedo stepped off the ship and onto the port. He pulled up the collar of his coat and rubbed his gloveless palms. There was a thin film of sleet underfoot, but not really that much snow.

Francis had told him who to look out for. The man with the glasses and the sunshine hair, perhaps waving energetically or calling his name. After he got his documents examined again, Antonio stepped out into the crisp air, eyes watchful. And there he was, Alfred Jones.

Alfred waved when he spotted Antonio, bounding up to him and pulling him into a hug. It was a surprise for Antonio. He'd never met Alfred before. "You're Toni, right?" Alfred said into his ear, still not letting go.

"Antonio, yes."

Alfred finally let him go, but still placed his hands on the man's shoulders. "Yeah, Francis remembers you kindly. You've been through some tough times, huh?"

Antonio just shrugged. "I take it as it comes."

He was surprised again at Alfred's chuckle. "That's the way." A brotherly pat between the shoulder blades. "Come on, you must be starving. And cold. Come to my place, I've made breakfast for you."

"That's too sweet!"

"No," Alfred said seriously, blue eyes devoid of humour. "The pancakes I made are probably too sweet."

Antonio found himself smiling. "I like sweet things."

"Excellent. Same here."

As Alfred took him by the elbow and dragged him off, Antonio heard him happily say, "The bad times are over, Toni! You're in the city of dreams."

December 1940

Part One: An Introduction to Silence

The thing with nightmares was that beyond a point, they became passé. Same old rubbish. Lovino had stopped waking up in cold sweat years ago. These were more the shadows of those bad dreams. They were what remained after the pain had lost its bite, or perhaps had seeped so deep into the mind that it didn't really make a difference to anything anymore.

As a general observation, Lovino could never remember his dreams. He wasn't even sure he had them. Just sometimes, he'd wake up with the strange feeling of having played hopscotch the wasteland that had once been a farm, or perhaps having heard the odd sentence in his grandfather's coarse Italian voice. Sometimes, Feli would be in those dreams too.

But as a rule, Lovino never let himself dwell on Feliciano too much. There was no point in dreaming about those who died young. They hadn't lived long enough to matter. That was what Lovino told himself, that was how he got through his day.

Lovino's apartment was fairly plain, a little hole in a little building in Little Italy. He never paid much attention to it. But there was a time those walls had been white and not grey, there was a time the door didn't creak as it opened and the floorboards didn't groan. Lovino didn't pay much attention to it at all. There was no point. If something broke, he fixed it. If he didn't know how, he asked his landlord to fix it. If the landlord didn't know either, Lovino would find a way to do without it.

He lived alone.

Nobody was surprised.

Least of all Lovino.

His thin coat and fraying gloves did little to protect him from the snow. Christmas decorations were everywhere. He never knew what do to with Christmas, either. It was just sort of…there, like graffiti on the walls. As good Catholic, Lovino went to midnight mass. He wished the neighbours happy holidays. He nodded when people smiled at him and tipped his hat at the women. Lovino didn't have to worry about buying or receiving presents. He didn't even have to worry about them.

He purposefully didn't look at the broken windows and bashed-in door of the barber's store. If people failed to repay Donatello, they had it coming. But that had been a while ago. The barber never came back to fix his shop. Rumours say he quietly left the area. Even Donatello didn't ruin Christmas. He was a good Catholic, that way. A good Catholic. At least to those in Little Italy.

Lovino owned Vargas Tailor, a small establishment between the mechanic's store and the grocery. There, he made suits for men, dresses for women and hats for the both of them. Donatello's boys got their clothes from here. As far as possible, he made an honest living. Only and only when Donatello's boys made him threaten people for money did he do it. After all, it was either them or himself, and Lovino had worked hard for Vargas Tailor. He'd made it a reality using entirely legal money.

Lovino was a simple man, a good man, and that was all anyone could ask from a person. Anything more was too much, and anything less was pointless.

Antonio liked to divide his life into two time periods: before and after.

Specifically, Before the War and After the War.

Before the Guerra Civil, he worked as a farmhand. He liked talking to the cows. They had big brown eyes that seemed to listen to him without judgement. So Antonio could talk and talk and talk, and all he'd get in response is a large pile of dung and a snort or two, which was fine. They were, after all, cows.

Then came the war, and that changed everything. He'd been so scared after Henrique went out to fight and never came back. He had to protect his Mama, so he picked up a rifle—there always seemed to be plenty of those around, like rotten tomatoes falling off the plant—and fought.

Today, Antonio was proud to say he'd been a Republican solider. He was proud to say he had tried his hardest to ensure Francisco Franco never came to power. He learnt these grand ideas of Fascism and Communism and Democracy, and liked only one of them. So he was happy in America where there were elections and freedom of speech. And if he had to escape his home country for his beliefs, well, that was just a shame.

Antonio was proud of his past, and there was no reason not to be. He was a soldier, and soldiers always fought. And there were many kinds of battles in ones lifetimes. The literal ones and the spiritual ones. These days, Antonio found himself fighting the second kind.

The English words were so difficult to read. He sat behind the counter at the dingy bakery he worked at, squinting at the undecipherable language. When he was younger, he'd been first in his class at reading. Now he felt like a child again. A stupid child. Because the more he pored over the words, the less sense they made. And he had to know the news. He had to know what was happening in Europe.

Alfred had let him stay with him for a couple of weeks. He'd found Antonio a job in an okay neighbourhood and an apartment only five minutes away on foot. The economy was only just picking up, and jobs were being snatched away like candy.

His boss was a portly old man with a square-shaped face. He had salt-and-pepper hair and a toothbrush moustache. He stepped out of the kitchens and smiled at Antonio. Antonio looked up, very close to expressing his despair out loud. He folded the paper, rolled it up and waved it in the air. "Does it say anything about the war? Does it?"

"Antonio, come on, it's Christmas."

"No, Christmas isn't for another three days! I must know about the war!"

His boss sighed loudly before walking up to Antonio and taking the paper from him. He unrolled the rag, glanced quickly at the front page, and said, "Nothing since the strike on Mannheim by those RAF bombers."

Antonio blinked. "But that was—" he counted off his fingers. "But that was seven days ago!"

"How much more bombing do you want in seven days?" his boss asked, giving Antonio an exasperated shake of the head.

"Do you think they'll stop the warfare for Christmas?"

"If we're lucky." His boss shrugged. "I fought in the First Great War, you know?"

Antonio just stared. "What was it like?"

"I was in the trenches," his boss went on, making a face. "It was pretty icky."

"Icky?"

"You know," his boss made all sorts of vague hand gestures, "Wet, sticky, grubby, dirty. Lots of rats. Lots of gunfire. All of that. You ever heard of the Christmas Truce?"

Antonio had, albeit vaguely. One of the British commanders of the International Brigades in the Guerra Civil had spoken about it. "Is that where the Germans and the English people played football on the battlefield?"

"Yes, yes, that's the one." His boss sighed. "I don't think something like that is going to happen this time."

"Si, I guess not. There are big tanks." Antonio paused, frowning. Sometimes this language made him stumble. "And big planes," he finally added. "Bigger than in the last guerra." He liked to swap English for Spanish sometimes. It made him feel a little less homesick, at least for that split second.

"Big tanks, big planes, big submarines, and big Nazis." His boss shook his head in apparent disbelief. "I'll get started on making the plum cakes."

Alonso was the weedy, thin, sickly one with the leering smirk. He entered Vargas Tailor around lunchtime. Lovino had been helping someone pick out suit material when Alonso arrived. The three men in the shop had looked at each other. Then the customer smiled faintly at Alonso, tipped his hat in politeness and perhaps fear before wordlessly walked out.

Lovino sighed softly. "You're scaring away my customers again."

"They're showing their respect, boy." Alonso dipped a hand into the pocket of his coat. Lovino knew from experience that he wasn't pulling out a gun but a notepad. Alonso tore out a page and handed it to Lovino. "This one's a week past the due date. Go there and remind him that Padrone Donatello is getting impatient."

Lovino took the paper with a hastily scribbled down address. He hated doing these jobs. Some poor fellow named Barney was going to get shot in the leg if he didn't pay, and Lovino was supposed to remind him of that. "Barney the baker. Has a nice ring to it," he muttered, just to make conversation.

Alonso blinked. "Just go."

It was a cold snowy day three afternoons before Christmas, and Lovino the Good Catholic and Lovino the Simple Man did not want to ruin the holidays for Barney the Baker, and yet, it was either Barney's skin or his own. Lovino was the mafia's complicated little marionette. That had been the case right from the beginning.

They were kind enough to him. Padrone Donatello never made him bully the people in his own neighbourhood. They only gave him jobs outside Little Italy. That way, Lovino could continue to be the upstanding man he pretended he was.

It was called The New Little Bakery, but it looked about a hundred years old. Ill-lit, derelict, dingy. Lovino could see termite marks in the wood. The glass case with the goods was greasy and stained with fingerprint marks. There was a backdoor that could have been anything from a kitchen to the entrance to a tomb.

The man at the counter was attractive. That was the first thing Lovino noticed, and then he mentally kicked himself. Because he was a good Catholic, a simple man, an upstanding, honourable fellow, and he hated that he often got these…homosexual tendencies. He'd always had them. It made things difficult to explain. Why was he thirty-one years old and unmarried? He couldn't just tell the truth, could he? The neighbours would talk.

The man with the green eyes smiled at him, and opened his mouth to speak in an accent that was decidedly not American. "Hola! Good day! Merry Christmas!"

Lovino stared at him with a looming, dangerous silence. Most people understood this silence. Most people ran from it. But not this one. He seemed completely foreign to the concept.

"You look like you're having a bad day," the man said after a prolonged moment of quiet. He wasn't smiling anymore. His face had fallen in a look of mild concern. "Oh, I know," he went on, and the smile was back. He bent down, opened the glass case and took out what looked like some sort of cream pastry, put it on a paper plate and placed it on the counter. "This should make you feel better. It's free! Because nobody should look that sad three days before Christmas, no?"

Lovino looked from the cake to the man, not saying a word. Finally, his eyes flickered towards the backdoor, before they came back to the overly cheerful fellow. "You're Barney?"

"Uh, no. My boss is Barney. Want me to get him?"

"Yes. Now."

The man took a step back, took a deep breath and then without warning, shouted, "Mr. Barney! Mr. Barney, someone's here to see you!"

"What?" there was a muffled thud and the sounds of footsteps shuffling. Then the backdoor opened and a head peeked out from behind it. "What was that, Antonio?"

"I said there's somebody here to see you." And the one called Antonio gestured to Lovino.

Lovino and Barney locked eyes for a moment, and the Italian watched the other man's pale skin turn even paler. "You know why I'm here," Lovino said quietly, making sure his words were dripping with menace he did not feel. He took a threatening step towards Barney. "You owe the Padrone a shit ton of money, Barney."

"Yes, I know, I know." Barney swallowed, and Lovino caught him giving furtive looks to Antonio. For his part, Antonio's body had gone taut in what looked like an animalistic urge to react.

"I'm not going to hurt you today, Barney," Lovino went on, voice like ice. "It's Christmas. You've got the family to worry about. Don't want daddy to have a broken leg on Christmas, now do we?"

"I'll get the money, I just need a few more wee—"

"If you don't have the money by New Year's Eve, you'll be crawling to Church. Get me?"

Before stalking off, Lovino plucked the cream pastry from the counter. "Thanks for this," he said without looking as he stepped out into the snow.

He kept up his menacing prowl until he reached the end of the street. Lovino stood under an awning as he finished the last of the cake. He crushed the paper plate and threw it on the footpath. The pastry had probably been the best part of his day so far. Dipping his hand under his shirt, he pulled out the Cross pendant.

He lowered his head and refused to cry. "I'm so sorry, Father."

It was starting to snow.

If silence was a place then it was here, at three in the morning with a bottle of cheap wine, a red brick building with no curtains on the windows, a lonely apartment and the city covered in white.

If silence was a place then it was here, with Christmas lights and neon signs, to celebrate a familiar day in a strange place where one Sunday morning a ship called S.S Hope came to deliver a cargo full of the ones that needed it most.

If silence was a place then it was here, caught between the dream and the reality, like two pairs of legs tangled in the sheets.

And if silence were a person, then it was him.

Antonio never slept much. If New York was the city of dreams, then why did he have so many nightmares?

Nightmares with screaming children and gunfire and collapsed buildings and a country that was tearing itself down where brothers bled out on the pavements and there had to be some purpose to the fires of Madrid and Barcelona and Guernica there had to be had to be hadtobehadtobe because if there wasn't then what was Antonio doing here in another planet in another universe with homesickness for a place that no longer existed

where there were farms and grass and laughter and the sort of warmth that came not from the summer sun but from inside somewhere although now that warmth was replaced with inferno and hate

and all antonio wanted to do was go home go home go home

It was quiet tonight.

It was always quiet.

Lovino spent all night at church.

It kept him from crying.

And remembering.

Part Two: The Insistent Americans

March 22nd 1940

Dear Francis,

I hope you (or someone around you) can read Spanish, because I can't write in English and I certainly can't write in French. But I just wanted to let you know that I've reached New York safely, have spoken with Alfred and have acquired a small but acceptable job.

I can't thank you enough. I really can't. There are so many out there who are more deserving of this second chance than I am. It's a pity the French government did so little for the refugees, but you, my friend. You are an extraordinary human being. I don't know what contacts you had, I don't know what strings you had to pull, but to get me to America with all my documents intact in this tumultuous political climate? How did you even manage that? I think the question will always mystify me.

I have a small but pleasant little room in a building with a new structure but an old atmosphere. There is one bathroom at the end of each corridor, for all the inhabitants to share. But that's all right. I've had worse. WE'VE had worse, no? I have nothing by way of radio or telephone, but the landlord lets me make the occasional phone call through his, and even takes messages for me (not that I receive too many!) Isn't that wonderful? He's a good man. A bit grouchy, I suppose, but a good man.

The city is marvellous. I am constantly amazed at the number of tall buildings and the newness of it all! I get the feeling that European cities have quite the old-world air, but New York is fresh and undamaged. And goodness, what a lot of mass production there is here! I know that Europe also mass produces (some things), and I also know that Spain was never really that much of a producer, so it's unfair to make a comparison, but goodness gracious!

I had my first sip of Coke yesterday. The drink, not the drug. Coca-Cola. Alfred introduced me to it. I don't remember if I ever saw this in Spain. Maybe France has them? I'm not sure, although it's not like I saw much of France during my 'sojourn' there. Maybe they do sell this in Paris. I don't think you'd like it, though. It's sort of fizzy and quite sweet and tends to almost scald the mouth as it goes down. But that's just the gas. This is a strange drink in a very strange country.

They speak a different kind of English, too. You know how the commander (what was his name?) from one of the British troops in the International Brigade would ask for a rubber when he meant eraser? Apparently, over here, a rubber is…a contraceptive device. I asked Alfred for a 'rubber' (I wanted an eraser) yesterday and he gave me a strange look and a lascivious smirk. You would have had a good laugh.

This city is not much like Paris, but I think you would enjoy yourself here. The Statue of Liberty is really quite grand. You should come to visit sometime. I'd love to show you around (once I learn to get around myself, of course!)

I want to thank you once again. I am safe and warm and well because of your hard work and concern. You will always have my deepest loyalty and gratitude.

Your friend,

Antonio.

May 17th 1940

Dear Francis,

My boss, Barney, reads out the English newspapers to me when I ask him to (which is fairly often, I admit. I still haven't grasped reading or writing in this language. I doubt I ever will.) And I learnt that the Netherlands surrendered to Hitler only two days ago. I don't know if France is under attack or not. I wish I could ask Barney to read out the whole paper for me, but he only obliges the headlines and a paragraph or two on the first few pages.

Francis, your silence worries me. Are you perhaps fighting in this war too? Please, please, please be careful. You survived the Spanish Civil War but don't test your luck. What do the French say? "Sil vous plait" or something like that, no? (Pardon me if I haven't written the accents or have misspelled something.)

I hope that your lack of response is because you cannot read Spanish and have not found someone who will translate for you. I worry for your safety. Please write to me at the earliest.

Your friend,

Antonio.

June 7th 1940

Dear Francis,

Oh my god.

I'm sorry, that is a terrible way to begin a letter, but now when I sit down to write it, those are the only words that play in my head, again and again. Oh. My. God. Dunkirk. Dunkirk. Dunkirk.

Francis please tell me you are all right. I haven't heard from you in months, and I don't know if that's because my letters are getting blocked my some sort of censor (?) But I absolutely MUST know. Were you at Dunkirk when the Germans attacked? Were you one of those people who escaped through the flotilla?

RESPOND. NOW. PLEASE. I can't bear to lose another friend to the wrath of war. I've lost so many already. And the German offensive is…in a word, brutal. I never imagined there could be anything like it. Did Mr. Churchill not once say that "The English go to the country on weekends and Hitler takes countries over the weekend"? Something similar, anyway. I don't recall exactly. But it's terrifying. And I'm not even in Europe right now. I can't imagine the state of fear there must be over there.

Please be careful and respond at once.

Your friend,

Antonio.

June 30th 1940

Dear Francis,

I waited. I heard the news of France's defeat and I waited. Hoped. Hoped that you would reply and tell me you were alive. Perhaps a little bit banged-up (that would be expected), but on the whole, alive and well.

And yet, you remain silent.

It feels like I'm writing this out into a void, shouting for you in the darkness, hoping, praying that you will reply. And you never do.

I went to church yesterday. I went to church despite my atheism—or perhaps disenchantment is the right word—with God. And I asked Him to prove Himself to me. After all this pain and destruction, after all that He has broken, I asked Him to prove himself. I asked Him to keep you alive.

And I will reserve my judgement for His miracles until I receive a letter from you, my dear friend. If God exists in these Godless times, He will, I'm sure, prove that He is not just a fairytale we tell ourselves to sleep through the bombings and the bloodshed.

The Germans, the Italians, the Nationalists, God – SOMEONE has to answer for Guernica. SOMEONE has to answer for Spain. SOMEONE has to answer for Poland and the Low Countries and France and every single place that humanity has ravaged over and over.

I doubt I will ever see beauty in a place again. The most powerful cities are built on the bones of its slaves. The happiest of civilisations smile over the misery of their colonies.

God has to prove He is still there for us. And you, Francis, you have to write me a letter.

Your friend,

Antonio.

December 24th 1940

Dear Francis,

There are, I'm sure, better ways to spend Christmas Eve in a city as wondrous as New York. But I can't stop crying. The ink on the page blurs as my tears stain it. How can someone be so safe and blessed, and yet be so unhappy?

It is not, I promise, ungratefulness or want of more. It is grief. I guess you can say I'm grieving. I never did cry for the loss of my innocence, so I suppose this has been a long time coming.

Everything was so different. My childhood had only consisted of fields and cows and dogs and playing football barefoot with the children in the village. And then we all grew up and did the same work our parents had done. My friends got married and started families. Papa's poor heart gave out. And a year later, there came war.

My brother, Henrique, went first. Slowly, the children in the village became defenders of the village and food became dearer than bullets. I had grown up to be a man with the constant smile and the simple philosophies, who never cared for the grander schools of thought, never considered politics and war and loyalties, never saw beyond the immediate moment. How did that man become the person I am today?

I know USA will enter the war. That is certain. It's just a question of when. I know that there is no hope to try deposing Franco, although I have briefly met veterans from the International Brigade around here who think otherwise. I know that we haven't seen the worst of Hitler's atrocities. I know that at the moment, the Allies have a very slim chance of actually winning. And I know that the fate of civilised society hangs in the balance.

The problem, Francis, is that I don't WANT to know these things. I want my life to be as it was in Spain, in my little village, playing football with the boys and talking to the cows and helping Papa and Henrique in the fields, and kissing Mama on the forehead before going to sleep. That is all I want. I want the past, and I want the past to be the present and the future.

But life tosses us about in strange ways, and eventually all of us lose our innocence. It's all a matter of how we cope with it. I think I'm doing rather well, despite everything. I live a meagre existence, but I've always lived that way. I'm more comfortable like this.

We do have occasional problems. Just the other day, Barney was threatened by a man who I suspect was connected with the mafia. The mafia is in abundance here. I almost attacked him. I know how to attack someone and kill them. But he didn't hurt Barney, so it's only fair that I didn't hurt him, no?

Criminals are all the same. I remember the ones back home, too. Nothing but bullies, oppressors of the weak. Like Franco and Hitler and Mussolini and the rest. Maybe the bullies lost their innocence in the cruellest way imaginable and never truly recovered from it. If that is true, then I hope to never attack someone and become a bully myself. For me, the world has lost its wonder, but not its value. There is still that. I want to preserve that. I never, ever, ever want to wake up one day to find that I hate—or desire—something so much that I will destroy it just to make an impact on it. The bullies are the real tragedies, not the victims. The bullies have fallen so far that they have no consideration for beauty or value. Isn't that so very sad?

I've finally stopped crying. The city looks beautiful from my window. Like a cake made of snow and sprinkled with light. This really is a magical time of the year. I still can't stop my homesickness, though. I want to go back to the Spain I remember. The Spain that was a country of its people, and not just some bully's personal backyard. Although I suppose democracy has always been a little on the rickety side in my nation, no?

But there is democracy here, and I treasure that. America is not home, but I hope that one day, it will be. I dream of walking down these streets and feeling like a citizen. And the only reason I can even conceive such a thought is because of your efforts in getting me here.

I wish you could have seen New York, but your long silence tells me that you are probably in a place even better than this now. I guess I've come to terms with that. So I thank you once again, and bid you farewell.

But I still want to post this letter. Maybe by shouting into the void, my voice might travel to Heaven. If there is one, that is. (But I am sure that wherever you go, Heaven follows.)

Merry Christmas.

Your friend,

Antonio.

After Midnight Mass, Lovino found himself aimlessly wandering the streets, listening to Christmas parties through windows and closed doors. The cold bit into him but somehow didn't torture him like it used to. It was fine. He could deal with it.

The city looked beautiful tonight. It always did. What was it like in Italy right now? Last he'd heard, they'd joined this damn war. He didn't know how to feel about that. On one hand, Lovino was the tiniest bit proud of Italy being on the winning side, but then a despot like Mussolini being the leader of the country sort of dampened his spirits. Though underneath the mild interest in these affairs, Lovino didn't care. He'd cut ties with home so many years ago, that thinking about it gave him phantom pain. He hurt in parts of his heart that he was sure didn't exist anymore.

For him, Italy was silent and distant and far, far away. Italy was ripped out of him at Ellis Island and thrown into the ocean at the docks where he'd waited and waited and waited every night for ten years, craving anything but the tunnelling silence at the other end.

Grandpa and Feli never came. They'd promised they'd come and they never did.

Christmas was background noise. Graffiti on the walls.

He walked through the streets in a sort of daze, stumbling into a dingy bar at half past two in the morning because he couldn't feel his toes. Lovino couldn't figure out if it was quiet or not. There were people there, certainly. But all of them had a washed out, tired sort of look of a population that were as irrelevant to Christmas as Christmas was to them. Lovino was right at home here.

He went to the counter to order his usual beer, but then paused and asked for wine instead. At least he could pretend he was celebrating something, right? The barman looked inebriated himself, but managed to pour something purple and vaguely wine-like into a greasy beer mug. Lovino took it wordlessly.

"I hear they mix piss in it."

The voice was so slurred that Lovino barely caught it, but the man was sitting only two spaces away from Lovino himself, grinning at him with a kind of contented, drunk stupidity. He was, Lovino noticed, an actual albino. White hair, milk skin, red eyes, everything. Lovino had never seen someone as physically interesting as this man before. He stumbled over to where Lovino was and plonked down next to him, resting his chin in his palm as he placed Lovino under a long knowing smirk.

"What?" Lovino asked after a moment, realising he needed to respond.

"I hear they mix piss in it," the albino replied, absolutely calm, as though he was saying something perfectly normal. "Piss," he said again at Lovino's blank face, "In the wine."

The man's accent finally came through his slurred speech. Lovino felt his stomach drop.

"You're a German."

That elicited a response from the albino. "And a good man. I live here and I pay my taxes and I hate Hitler. I am a good man." His expression had become humourless and firm. "And you are an Italian, aren't you? So we're on the same side."

Lovino looked away. He was a good man too. He was. He threatened people occasionally, but he'd never, ever hurt them. "I'm a practicing Catholic," he stated firmly, without making eye-contact.

The albino laughed. "You know we're called Protestant because we protested against your shit, right?"

"Oh fuck off, you mad drunk." Lovino raised his glass to his lips.

"They mix piss in it," the albino insisted as Lovino drank.

"Then piss tastes delicious. Now shut up."

Instead of going away, the albino outstretched a hand to shake. "Never seen a man drink piss with that much confidence. I'm Gilbert Beilschmidt."

Lovino stared at the offered palm for a moment before slowly shaking it. "Lovino Vargas."

"I want a beer." So Gilbert signalled to the drunken barman for one. "So Lovino, what brings you here on Christmas Eve? No family?"

"None of your business."

"My family is in Germany," Gilbert replied a tad wistfully, eyes faraway. Although that could also have been the result of the drink. "I have a brother in the war. Wonder what he's up to."

"Nazi," Lovino muttered, looking away.

Gilbert narrowed his red eyes but said nothing for a very long moment. Finally, he muttered, "Luddy's not a Nazi. He has no choice. I'm actually glad he's in the war, because if he weren't, he'd probably be at home, persecuting Jews. You know how it was. Kristallnacht. Luddy's a gentle boy. A child with a firm moral compass, you know?"

"Nazi," Lovino repeated with far less conviction.

"He's not," Gilbert insisted with a touch of irritation. "He used to have Jewish friends. They disappeared. And he had to keep a straight face. He's good at that. Keeping straight faces, I mean. It's either them, or him. You know?"

Lovino set his glass down on the counter. He did know that sentiment, actually. He knew it too fucking well. "Yeah."

"Yeah," Gilbert repeated. "I came here to study. Then Hitler showed up and made a mess of things. So I stayed here. He'd kill me for sure."

Lovino tiled his head towards Gilbert. The man's red eyes reflected the dim lights of the room.

"I'm the wrong colour," Gilbert went on. "Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, traitors, and all sorts of other miscellaneous life forms that the Fuhrer doesn't like. I come under the miscellaneous category."

"You're as white as it can get."

"There is such a thing as being too white, you know." Gilbert's eyes held a strange, sarcastic smile. "Can't be too white, can't be too black, can't be grey either—'cause if you're grey, means you're dead."

To his utter surprise (maybe it was the piss-wine?), Lovino laughed. "All you have to be is a heterosexual German man with blue eyes and yellow hair with bad taste in food and a stick up your ass."

"What's wrong with our food?" Gilbert asked, a tad threateningly.

"What's right with potatoes and barely-cooked meat?"

"Hey! It's cooked, okay? And for your information, potatoes are delicious."

"I think that's the problem with Germany," Lovino said suddenly. "They're off taking over other countries because of suppressed urges to eat good food. I mean, they're just mad with fate because all they ever grew up on were potatoes, so they're taking it out on the rest of Europe. No interesting flavours in their diet. I've eaten potatoes, okay? No matter what you cook them in, they always taste the same."

Gilbert rolled his eyes and finished his beer. "Let's take a walk."

Lovino raised an eyebrow. "You're going to beat me up because I insulted potatoes? How German of you."

"No," Gilbert laughed. "You're fun to talk to and this bar is shitty. Let's go somewhere else."

"I came here to study," Gilbert said again as they staggered (Gilbert more than Lovino) in the snow. "Good universities in Germany, but I still came here. The Great War, y'know? Fucked shit up back in old Europa. Especially for Germany. My mother used to take a wheelbarrow of banknotes to the market to buy one loaf of bread. You know why? The Mark depreciated. And depreciated. And depreciated." Gilbert paused, and somewhat sheepishly added, "I majored in Economics."

"No shit," Lovino muttered, tugging his coat closer to himself.

"I've not gone back to Germany in years. The one time I considered it, that joyless bastard with a dogshit moustache came and made things worse. And I wasn't going to go back home only to get brainwashed into believing I was a genetic mistake! I'm snow white and ruby red, and fuck you, Adolf!" Gilbert suddenly stopped walking, staring at Lovino in wonder.

"What?" Lovino asked, staring right back.

And then Gilbert threw his head back, raised his arms to the sky, and shouted into the night, "FUCK YOU, ADOLF! FUCK YOU! YEAAH!"

"What the hell are you doing? Stop it!"

"FUCK YOU, ADOLF!" He looked at Lovino for only a moment. "Say it with me, Vargas! FUCK YOU, ADOLF!"

"But I have nothing against Hitler."

"That's bullshit."

Lovino sighed. And quietly, he said, "Fuck you, Adolf."

"That's the spirit! Louder!"

"Fuck you, Adolf!"

"FUCK YOU, ADOLF!"

"FUCK YOU, ADOLF!"

"TAKE YOUR DOGSHIT MOUSTACHE AND STUFF IT UP YOUR ASS!" Gilbert yelled.

"Maybe if we shout loud enough, he'll hear us?"

"HITLER!" Gilbert yelled, "DID YOU HEAR ME? I SAID, TAKE YOUR DOGSHIT MOUSTACHE AND STUFF IT UP YOUR ASS!"

"THE WORD NAZI SOUNDS LIKE A SNEEZE!"

"YEAH! HEAR THAT? YOUR PARTY SOUNDS LIKE IT HAS THE FLU!"

"FUCK YOU!"

"FUCK YOU!"

Lovino hadn't had that much to drink, but he felt exceptionally intoxicated right now. And as Gilbert had enough shouting and staggered into the night, Lovino followed him. And they talked about the things only the inebriated could talk about.

"They say NYC is the city of dreams," Gilbert began grandly as they trudged through the snow, ignoring the biting cold. "But what they don't tell you is that it's the city of immediate dreams, not big dreams. It's for the people who don't get a safe place to sleep and have to fight for their food and are ripped apart by famine and war and all that shit. They come to New York hoping for a better tomorrow, but what they get is a better today. Tomorrow entails they have a future. They don't. They have a present, and the present is filled with basic luxuries. Like soap."

"Hear, hear."

"New York will satisfy your immediate dream." He paused and glanced at Lovino. "You got an immediate dream, Vargas?"

Lovino didn't reply. He didn't have dreams. He wouldn't know what to do with them. Maybe what he wanted most was Feli and Grandpa to be alive. To be with him. "I want my family."

"Ah, that's a big dream," Gilbert corrected with a dark smirk. "You got any immediate needs you want satisfying? Some service that New York City can do you?"

Lovino kicked some snow underfoot and hugged himself tighter. In a small voice, he muttered, "It would be nice to be my own man."

Gilbert thumped him on the back so hard that Lovino almost fell over. "There, that's a good one. You want to hear my immediate dream?"

"Yeah, sure."

"So there's this girl."

Of course.

"Her name's Madeline Williams." Gilbert's eyes drifted away again. "Lives in the building opposite mine. I see her sometimes, walking her fluffy white dog or going to work. She has a sister. Amelia Williams. The perky, fun one who harps on about women's rights and independence and freedom from social customs and all that. But nobody notices Madeline." His gaze softened. "But real beauty is what nobody notices. Real beauty flits in the spaces between the colours."

Lovino exhaled softly.

"I've spoken to her once or twice. But her father will never allow a marriage, so why bother wooing her?"

"Why's that?"

"I'm an albino," Gilbert replied, his voice sad and soft and demure. "It's shit to be shunned for what you can't control. That's all I'm saying."

"Tell me about it." Lovino paused, deliberated, and then quietly said, "What do you think about queers?"

Gilbert's pace slowed to a halt, and he turned slowly to look at Lovino. "You queer?"

"What if I was?"

Gilbert said nothing for a moment, regarding Lovino with studied blankness. And then he shrugged, turning his head to the road and continuing the walk. "Hey man, I don't give a shit. I've had my own experiences with your kind. You know, in the bedroom. Yeah, once or twice. It was…different, I'll say that. But the world finds any reason to hate these days. Colour, race, religion, orientation, nationality, ideology, class, whatever, man. We're so entombed in our societies and communities. Well, I want no part in it. None at all. We waste too much time hating each other, when it's simpler and much more enjoyable to have a beer with a stranger on Christmas Eve."

"Well, aren't you a regular philosopher."

Gilbert laughed. "And that's the beauty of New York, man. A German Protestant albino can have a drink with an Italian Catholic queer on Christmas night and we're somehow both American. We remain insistently American, I say."

"No, we're not American. We're immigrants."

"That's not what the white guys said when they landed up here on the Mayflower." Gilbert waggled his eyebrows in jest.

"I don't even know what to say to that," Lovino muttered, rubbing his hands close together. "Shit, can we get out of this cold?"

"My apartment's not too far away," Gilbert offered.

It was snowing at five in the morning and neither of them had slept. Lovino was panting slightly, and Gilbert was quiet. At least for the moment. Lovino stared into the darkness with slow disbelief combined with pleasant satiation. There were worse ways to spend Christmas Eve night.

"I'm surprised you agreed to this," Gilbert said quietly. "Didn't know you were that sloshed."

"I'm not drunk," Lovino replied simply. "I just figured it's my only chance to fuck a drunken German Protestant albino philosopher I just met on Christmas Eve night in New York City."

Gilbert's laugh was breathy. "I guess that's true."

"What about Madeline, though?"

"It doesn't matter. It's not like I'll ever get to marry her."

"You said this city fulfills your immediate dreams."

"Only if you fight for them, Lovino. Only if you fight for them."

Part Three: Ordinary Courage

They barged into Vargas Tailor just as he was opening shop on New Year's Day. Lovino couldn't even comprehend what was happening when he saw Salvatore and Cesare, both of them huge and humourless. Lovino raised his head and then an eyebrow as they stood between him and the door. "Come with us," Cesare said quietly.

Lovino stared. And then he felt himself go cold. "Whatever you think I've done, I'm innocent. I swear."

Salvatore snorted, exchanging smirks with Cesare. "He thinks we're going to kill him. Ain't that cute?"

"You're going to help us. Donatello's very happy with your work so far. Consider this a treat."

What the fuck, Lovino thought. But he wasn't allowed to say anything before Cesare caught him by the shoulder and dragged him out, right in front of all the other establishments. Lovino only caught glimpses of his neighbours' terrified faces as he was thrown into the backseat of Salvatore's car, the door shutting loudly and ominously after him.

"What the hell is this?" Lovino cried as the car started to move. At his feet there were three baseball bats. God, no. "What the hell is this?" he repeated softly, his voice trembling.

"You know that baker with the catchy name?" Salvatore replied.

"What was it? Boris, Barney?" Cesare added.

"Barney," said Salvatore as he took a hand off the steering wheel to light a cigarette. "Want one, Vargas?"

Lovino was going to vomit. He could feel his stomach spinning. His head felt faint, his body quivered. He was either going to throw up or faint. "No," he managed to croak. The thought of a cigarette right now was nauseating.

"Barney forgot to pay, so we're going to wish him Happy New Year," Cesare chuckled.

"Why do I have to be there for this?"

Neither of them answered for a moment, and then Salvatore said, "We felt like tagging you along."

"Yeah, Vargas. We like it when you cuss. It's hilarious. Say something. Cuss."

"Fuck you," Lovino said before he took a sharp intake of breath. No, no, no, what was he playing at? They wouldn't think twice about shooting him in the head and tossing his body in the sea.

But Salvatore and Cesare just laughed. "A riot, this one," Salvatore commented mildly, a smile in his voice.

Lovino fell back against the car seat and wished he could just disappear. He could not beat someone with a baseball bat. He hated violence. Poor Barney was just doing whatever he could to make ends meet, and this was just…Dio, so cruel. No. Lovino couldn't do this. He absolutely couldn't do this to an innocent man.

But the car pulled up alongside The New Little Bakery and Lovino was hauled out. Salvatore handed him one of the baseball bats. The street suddenly became empty. Shoppers and salesmen alike disappeared, hid in buildings, scurried down alleys.

Barney was polishing the greasy glass case and the attractive one, Antonio, was arranging breads.

Then, Barney froze. His eyes met Lovino's. Then he saw the baseball bats. That one moment lasted forever.

And then there was pandemonium. Barney ran into the shop, shouting, "ANTONIO, RUN!"

Salvatore and Cesare tore after him. Everything was happening all at once. There was screaming and the terrible sound of bones cracking and Lovino was frozen in shock as they hit Barney and Antonio and what was going on—Antonio staggered and slammed a crate into Cesare's head and Salvatore took out his gun and Lovino screamed, "NO!"

He didn't know how his legs were carrying him when he was so terrified but he launched forward with his baseball bat and pushed Salvatore out of the way. "Are you fucking insane? Donatello wouldn't want you to make such a goddamn gunfight out of this!" and in that, Antonio launched himself at a distracted Salvatore and twisted the gun out of his hand and there were shots fired into the ceiling as Antonio's knee connected with Salvatore's groin and then he saw Lovino and Lovino saw him and—

"Kill him!" Cesare groaned from the floor and Antonio looked at Lovino again and then at an unconscious Barney and went straight for him, trying to hoist him up and escape into the backdoor towards the kitchen and Cesare was saying, "Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!" over and over again and Lovino never forgave himself for the moment when his fingers tightened around the baseball bat and he marched into the kitchen.

There was another backdoor there that opened into a dirty alley and Antonio was on his knees trying to lift Barney up again and Lovino noticed how there was a cut on his forehead and his shirt was stained with blood and Antonio looked up and Lovino looked back and they just stayed like that, with Lovino holding the bat above his head, all ready to strike and kill.

And then something shattered.

And Lovino lowered the weapon. "Go," he whispered urgently.

Antonio stared back in shock and disbelief.

"What the fuck are you waiting for? Go! I'll handle those idiots outside!"

Antonio managed to hoist Barney up again, stumble and stagger into the alley and limp out of sight. Lovino closed the door. And then he stepped out into the main shop area, where Salvatore was standing half-bent over and Cesare was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, semi-conscious.

"He got away," Lovino said calmly. He didn't know why he felt so calm, lying to people who could potentially kill him. It was probably the adrenaline.

"How the fuck did he get away?" Salvatore groaned—whined?—trying to straighten up.

"The same way he beat the shit out of the both of you," Lovino answered, dropping the baseball bat and leaning against the glass case, arms crossed, demeanour disinterested. "Now can you ladies walk, or do you need me to carry you?"

They made Lovino drive around the neighbourhood, looking for Antonio and Barney. Lovino was terrified he'd find them, terrified that this time, Antonio wouldn't be able to fight so well. Terrified that he'd have blood on his hands. But whatever Antonio was doing, it was working. It was like they'd vanished into thin air.

"Fuck it," Salvatore said after half an hour of this. "We beat up Barney enough anyway. Vargas, out."

"What?"

"Stop the car."

So Lovino did.

"Get out."

"You're not going to drop me back to my store?"

"Hell no, why should I? Get moving."

Lovino stepped out, almost fell out. He was shaking that much. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, he was trembling all over, and the snow did nothing to help.

He watched them drive off.

What had he done? He'd attacked two completely innocent men. He'd done the unthinkable. And now, he was just as evil as Salvatore and Cesare were. Lovino staggered for a few paces until his quaking, horrified body gave in, and he had to sit down on the freezing sidewalk and just breathe. Around him, normalcy was returning to the marketplace.

Lovino buried his head in his knees and he cried.

He didn't even go to church. He was too ashamed. He could ask for forgiveness and a thousand times—and he would. But how would that help? God was merciful. But Lovino would never, ever let him forgive himself.

He didn't go home, either. He just sat at that sidewalk for hours. The chill burned into his coat and he was getting worried about frostbite, but Lovino deserved it. What had he done? What had he done? Today, he'd crossed the line. He was a bad man.

It was only at nightfall that he pushed himself up and stretched to get the blood flowing. It hurt to walk after he'd been sitting still in the snow all day, but Lovino probably deserved that too. He was going back to The New Little Bakery. He was going to inspect the damage he'd done. He was going to face it.

But only when he was right in front of it did he hear the noise. There. Antonio. He was sweeping up broken glass. The bakery was ruined. Only now did Lovino really take in the destruction. There was wood and plaster all over. There was a hole in the glass case Lovino hadn't noticed before. Blood on the floor.

Antonio suddenly looked up and tensed. He was still covered in blood and had to lean slightly to the right as he stood, but his green eyes were fearsome. Lovino was terrified of them. He was terrified of Antonio.

There was a moment of silence.

"Come back to finish the job, have you?" Antonio asked quietly. How could a voice so soft be filled with so much hatred?

"I—"

"I stopped counting the number of people I've killed after the first thirty. So if you want to murder me, please, try."

Lovino swallowed, taking a step back. His eyes filled. "I let you escape. I never wanted to hurt you. I never—Dio santo, I never wanted any of this." Pathetic of him, crying like a child. But his head dropped to his hands. He couldn't stop. The more he tried, the more tears came. "I'm sorry," he managed through his thick tears.

Lovino wasn't sure how many minutes passed, but when he was finally able to calm down, Antonio was looking at him like he had before. With shock, disbelief. And when Lovino was able to wipe his eyes and breathe normally, Antonio's gaze briefly fluttered towards the backdoor.

"Thank you," he muttered after a moment.

"What?" Lovino asked, his voice cracking. His throat hurt.

"You let us escape, right?" Antonio's eyes flashed at Lovino for one threatening moment before the rage in them vanished, replaced by something distant and emotionless. "Thank you for that."

Lovino shifted his weight from one foot to another. "I almost got you killed."

"No. Those other two men. They were hitting us. You just stood there. Why do you think I didn't attack you? I could have. I didn't. You may have actually saved Mr. Barney's life."

Lovino stared. That was…well, technically true. He hadn't attacked anyone. He'd—he'd helped Antonio escape. But he—how?—Nothing made sense. Had he actually done something so good? Lovino had never done anything significant before. Never.

"You're hurt," Lovino said after a moment of staring stupidly at Antonio.

Antonio glanced down at himself. "I've had worse."

"Isn't there a first-aid box here?"

"Yeah, of course, because this looks like the kind of place that would have a first-aid box! Oh did you know, we have a fully-equipped hospital tucked away in the kitchen." Antonio rolled his eyes as Lovino narrowed his. He'd never liked it when people gave him lip.

"You don't need to be so fucking sarcastic." This was better. He was feeling more himself suddenly.

Antonio placed Lovino under a calculating stare. "Why did you do it? Let us go?"

"Because I'm not an asshole. You think I hang out with them because they're my friends? Yeah, we definitely share beers and laugh about the size of our guns."

And to the complete surprise of the both of them, Antonio cracked a smile. "Was that intentional of you? To make that joke?"

Lovino huffed, crossing his arms. "Do I look like an intentional sexual joke kind of fellow to you?"

"Do they make you do it?" Antonio asked suddenly. "Hurt people?"

Lovino's eyes flickered away. He couldn't look at Antonio. "This is the first time that's happened."

"Oh." Antonio sucked in a cheek. Then he let out a small exhale. "I'm sorry."

"I'm an honest man," Lovino muttered. This had to be repeated over and over until everybody believed it. Because there were days when Lovino sure as hell didn't. He hugged himself and took a step deeper into the store. It wasn't very much warmer, though. "Didn't you go to the hospital?"

"I can't afford one. I can barely afford rent."

"So you…came back here?"

"To clean up. Mr. Barney loves this shop and I want to make it look as good as it can for him when he gets back to work." Antonio bent to continue sweeping. Lovino watched him wince.

"I have first-aid at my home."

Green eyes looked up sharply. "Good for you."

Lovino let out a long-suffering sigh. "You can come over, if you want."

"And why should I trust you? Besides, don't you live in Little Italy, with all your mafia friends? This looks like an ambush to me."

"God, you're fucking paranoid, aren't you?"

"You're telling me I shouldn't be? After what happened today?"

"This is a tough city. Learn to deal with it."

"I've been in much tougher cities."

"Good for you." Lovino pressed the bridge of his nose. "Come on. This isn't how anyone should be spending the New Year's night. I owe you at least a little bit of first aid. Stop being such a fucking drama queen."

Antonio was silent for a minute. "If anything, I owe you. Not the other way around."

"Great, I'll make a note of it in my book of pending favours. Now come on, will you?"

Antonio was considering it. Lovino could see that in the way his lips became a thin line. He didn't say anything for a full minute, just staring at Lovino like he couldn't understand what Lovino was doing. Honestly, Lovino didn't have a clue either. The way things were, both of them suspected each other of launching an attack at the slightest provocation. Lovino had no doubt in his mind that Antonio could beat him to a pulp despite his injuries, and wouldn't hesitate to if he suspected anything.

Lovino was a fairly good runner. He could slip away from danger if he really tried. Or he could hit back. Lovino had never been in an actual fight before, but he had strong muscles. He could definitely bruise his opponent pretty well.

"If I get ambushed…" Antonio warned finally, although his eyes gave away his hesitation. He looked just about ready to accept the offer.

"Jesus, you're not that important!" Lovino threw his hands in the air. "They went after Barney because he owed them money. You don't owe them shit, you just happened to get in their way today. Had you just stayed out of it, they wouldn't even have touched you."

Antonio crossed his arms, grimacing slightly as he did. "I wasn't going to let them hurt him like that."

"And that's noble and whatever. Now come on." Lovino turned on his heels and walked outside. "Pull the shutters down on this thing."

Slowly, the lights went off. Lovino waited as Antonio pulled the shutter down, locking it in place. "How far is Little Italy?"

"A bit of a walk, if you can handle it."

"Of course I can." Antonio paused and then said, "What's your name?"

"Lovino Vargas."

To his utter surprise, Antonio thrust out a hand. "Antonio Fernandez Carriedo."

Lovino stared warily at the palm before shaking it. "Why do you have two surnames?"

"It's a Spanish thing."

"You're Spanish?"

"Yes."

"So that's the accent."

"I thought I was losing it."

"Not at all."

They walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence. Antonio had some difficulty climbing up the stairs, not that he actually let Lovino help him. Though it wasn't like Lovino was following him around with a stretcher or anything anyway. They maintained just the right blend of distance and vague humanity.

Lovino made Antonio sit at the dining table as he went to get a bucket of hot water and a couple of wet rags. Lovino had an unopened bottle of spirit, a roll of cotton and bandages in his first aid box, all of which he carted out. "Take off your shirt," Lovino muttered.

Antonio sighed. "I can take care of myself. Thank you for your generosity, but I can handle this." Slowly, he unbuttoned his shabby white shirt.

Lovino gasped at the scars. There were so many of them, big and small ones littering a perfectly toned chest. But what really caught his eye was the small circular one at the side of his stomach. Was that from a bullet? Antonio glanced down at himself calmly, studying his newest wounds. The blood there had dried. There were few large bruises too. But Antonio turned his attention more towards the deep gash on his forearm. "That's going to need stitches," he muttered with a sigh.

"Were you in a war?" Lovino blurted.

"Si," Antonio replied automatically. "Do you have a clean needle and some thread?"

"I'm a tailor," Lovino retorted, which made Antonio smile slightly. "Hold on, I'll go get some."

There was a box of small needles, completely new. Lovino still put them in a pot of boiling water, just to be sure. And then he carried them in a plate, like some sort of strange antipasti.

"Gracias," Antonio said with a small smile as Lovino returned. "This should be more than enough." He'd cleaned all his wounds, leaving a pile of bloody cotton at his feet.

Lovino could not sit there and watch Antonio stitch himself back together. He'd probably throw up. So he quietly muttered something about making dinner before repairing to the kitchen. When he returned forty-five minutes later, he'd noticed that Antonio was buttoning on his dirty shirt.

"No, no fucking way. I can't eat staring at that blood. Wait here."

"Are you going to lend me a shirt?" Antonio asked Lovino's retreating figure with a laugh.

When Lovino returned, Antonio had unbuttoned his shirt and was staring down at his marred chest with slight curiosity. There were huge bruises everywhere, gashes and raw, irritated cuts. But Lovino still found himself getting slightly panicky at the sight. Someone as attractive as Antonio was not allowed to be shirtless in Lovino's presence, it wasn't fair. It made him extremely uncomfortable. Lovino wished he was attracted to women instead, because this wouldn't be considered so strange. But with the way Lovino's face was turning redder and redder, the way his tongue refused to cooperate beyond a stammer and the heat in his body made him so hyperaware of the temperature around him, Lovino knew he was being pretty fucking obvious.

Antonio, however, either didn't mind or didn't notice. Lovino was going with the latter. He just smiled politely when Lovino handed him the shirt, said a quiet, "Gracias," before throwing it on him and buttoning it up, one little button at a time—the way the shirt was slightly small for him, the way it caught onto his muscles in all the right places oh Dio—Antonio's large, powerful hands and that firm, well-defined jaw and—for fuck's sake, no.

Lovino had to close his eyes and look away. No, no, no. He was going to think about the mafia. About Donatello and Salvatore and Alonso and Cesare and all the others. Yes. That was calming. Depressing, sure, but it got the job done.

"Hey," Antonio said suddenly, making Lovino internally cringe. "Where do I throw these bloodied cotton balls?"

"I'll do it," Lovino said quickly. It was revolting to even look at, but that was exactly the point. If he could disgust and depress himself enough, he'd reign in his thoughts. But garnishing the pasta distracted him from thinking about mafia and medical waste and sewers, because it only served to remind him how Antonio was right outside and probably hungry.

"Get it together, you fag," he whispered to himself firmly, as though insulting himself would give him confidence. Both hands holding two plates of pasta, Lovino walked out.

Antonio was rubbing his head slightly, which looked a bit worrying to Lovino's untrained eyes. He set the food on the table, keeping his eyes fixed on Antonio's, but thankfully thinking only of bleeding brains.

"You don't have a head injury, do you?" Lovino asked just as Antonio was putting the first forkful of penne in his mouth.

Antonio lowered the fork and frowned. "What is the word for that? Con…con…ah…" he laughed, scratching the back of his head. He was completely different from the murderous, snappy, sarcastic man he'd been not too long ago. "Conmonción cerebral…what is the English word?"

"Conmon—wait, you mean commozione cerebrale. A concussion. God, you don't have a concussion, do you?"

Antonio laughed again. "No, of course not. This stupid cut hurts, that's all. I just wanted to learn the word properly. Would I be so aware of things had I a con…" his voice drifted off. "Concussion?" he asked with a hopeful smile.

"Yeah."

"English is difficult," Antonio muttered, putting some pasta in his mouth. "Oh! Your cooking is wonderful!"

"You speak it well," Lovino replied, trying to hide the blush. "Thanks."

"Thanks," Antonio repeated, and Lovino caught himself grinning back at Antonio's beaming smile. "I can't read it, though," Antonio went on. "It's impossible."

"It's basically bastardised French," Lovino muttered.

"I had a French friend!" Antonio said with a slightly waning smile. "He would have agreed with you, I think. He passed away, though."

Lovino made a face. "When the Germans…?"

"I have no idea, honestly. I haven't heard from him since March. So I'm just assuming…I mean, with all that's happened…"

Lovino understood that. It was too difficult to hope for a miracle. He was almost glad Antonio gave up after only a couple of months. Lovino had held on for a full decade before finally resigning to the fact that Feli and Grandpa were gone.

"My family in Italy went the same way," Lovino confessed, looking at his plate of food. "I-I mean…it was my fault. Sort of. Well, not really, but I still feel guilty. I feel guilty because I survived."

Antonio raised both his eyebrows and leaned forward in interest.

Lovino sighed, putting his fork down. "Well…I was eleven. My brother Fel—" his voice broke, but he picked up again, "Feliciano was eight. And always very poorly. He'd get sick all the time, you know? Some children have that sort of pathetic immunity."

"Yes, I know."

"Anyway, er…well," Lovino cleared his throat. "My grandfather took care of us. My parents died when we were young. My father had died in the Great War, in fact. Anyway, we were supposed to go to America. Grandpa had organised for everything. The fields were barren. Nothing was fucking growing anywhere. It was 1920. We were going to go on the ship…and then Feli…he got sick. We were only days away from departure but he got really, really sick. There was no way he would have survived the journey. Grandpa insisted I go, at the very least. He would stay back with Feli until my brother recovered, and would come to America to find me. That way, I'd have a chance, you know?"

"That's really selfless of him." Antonio reached forward and squeezed Lovino's hand. Lovino's eyes widened as Antonio pulled away. That was unexpected. "Sorry," Antonio said sheepishly. "Go on."

"Anyway…" Lovino mumbled, averting his gaze, "I was scared, of course. I was only eleven years old, for fuck's sake. But I sat on that boat. I wish I'd stayed behind with them, but I sat on that boat. And I came to New York and they never did. They never did. I tried to write to them but there was no response. Nothing. So I assumed they were dead. The kind of times we live in, honestly, people are more likely dead than alive." Lovino stabbed his penne with his fork. "That's my fucking sob story. What's yours?"

"Mine's not a sob story," Antonio replied simply as he resumed eating.

"You can't seriously expect me to believe that. Every immigrant has a sob story. What's yours?"

Antonio gave him a slightly amused smile. "I'm a former Republican soldier. I have been a farmer, a fighter, a refugee and now a baker. Isn't my life exciting?"

"Yes, I can feel my heart pulse."

The Spaniard guffawed. "All right, I'll tell you. I fought in the Spanish Civil War. Most men my age did. I was a Republican. That's where I learnt my English, by the way. I spent a lot of time with the troops from International Brigades. That's where I met my French friend, Francis." Antonio paused to eat, and continued, "Francis…you see, Francis was an idealist. He came from an affluent family, so he had the right upbringing to be an idealist, you know? He joined the International Brigades because he thought he was fighting fascism. Usually the French fighters were workers or communists, but not Francis. He wanted to defend the legitimate government against a fascist usurper. But the war's not as simple as that. Is it ever?" Antonio finished, his voice a tad softer. "But that's not the point. Francis and I saved each other's lives many times. But of course, the Republicans lost."

"And?"

"Franco…he started rounding up Republican soldiers and shooting them. Some were thrown into forced labour camps. Others were tortured. It was really horrible. They went after entire families. I don't know what happened to my mother, but I don't think she died painlessly. And I'm sure she's dead, by the way. Butchered." Antonio's eyes became very dark as he set the fork down, as though he was afraid to break it in a rage. "Francis was scared for me. He was going back to France and he insisted I come along. Of course, he wasn't the only one with the same idea. Thousands and thousands of Republicans crossed the border and escaped into France. I was just one of them.

"And the French government, bless their souls, they thought we'd spread communism there. And since most of my people were uneducated, illiterate and destitute…well, that caused some revulsion with the French, as you can imagine. And it wasn't just soldiers. There were women and children refugees too. Even elders and the disabled. It was like all of us expected France to bestow upon us a better tomorrow. We'd all find a husband or a wife there, settle down, become French citizens…that was the belief." Antonio sighed loudly, rubbing his face, only to wince when he irritated the cut on his forehead. "France made people go back to Spain, and also sent people to Mexico and some other places in the Americas, where there were only a handful countries willing to accommodate us.

"And Francis," Antonio said finally, a small, sad smiling coming to his face. "Like I said, he was from an affluent family. He was horrified at what was happening. So he was able to pull some strings—a lot of strings—and managed to get me out of there. Had I been sent back to Spain, I'd be shot. I guess Mexico was an option, but Francis made sure I got into the United States, with all my documents intact. Don't ask me how. He had a contact here too, Alfred. And Alfred knows people in the government here. I don't know, basically, it involved a lot of string-pulling and favours on both ends."

There was a small silence. Lovino realised his pasta had become cold.

"Wow," he said after a while.

"I've been treated as a poor man, I've been treated as an enemy, but I never, ever, ever want to be treated like a refugee again," Antonio said firmly.

"I get that."

"Of course you do; you were one."

Lovino managed a smile.

"Weren't the Republicans communists, though?"

Antonio shrugged and sighed, before lowering his head on the table. "…Well, yes, I suppose that's true. But they started out as a democratically elected government. Britain and France didn't send any official aid. I don't mean the volunteers from International Brigades, but actual national-level support. Arms and finance and stuff. The Soviet Union, however, did. That should pretty much sum things up, no? Honestly, it's complicated, Lovino. I don't really understand that much myself. It's like an ideological cooking pot where the food is burnt and the stove's still on, making then the house catch fire. I can't stand communism or fascism, though. What about you?"

Lovino blinked. "I'm not taking any sides."

"Don't you have an opinion on this?"

"Not really."

"What about Mussolini?"

"He's an egghead."

Antonio burst out laughing. "Not a fascist supporter, then."

"No…it's…" Lovino made vague gestures with his hands. "I just think he's untrustworthy and stupid, that's all. I can't believe he's got the whole country convinced he's going to solve their problems."

"But it must be nice to live in a place where you have a say in who runs your government, right?" Antonio ventured. "Democracy is the dream."

"Don't you have an immediate dream? Does it always have to be this grandiose?"

"An immediate dream?"

"Something that New York can offer you. Like…like…getting the girl you love," Lovino finished lamely.

"Ah. Well, there is one thing."

"Yeah?"

"I'd like to feel at home here one day."

Lovino's lips twitched upwards slightly. "Have you heard the word 'diaspora'?"

Antonio shook his head. "What does that mean?"

"It's what we are."

"And what is that?"

"Eternally homeless. Not houseless, mind you. We'll have our houses, big and small. But home…that's just a bunch of folktales and something called a heritage." He looked at his hands, at his olive skin. His heart suddenly ached for a place he could barely remember.

Antonio smiled like he knew the secrets of the universe. "Now that's what I call a loss of innocence."

A/N: This is so typically me. I have exams going on right now, but no, no, I'll still upload a completely new fic, despite the fact that I haven't yet updated The Perfect Praline. But this idea, man. It just wouldn't let go. I had to write it. You don't understand. It was plaguing me.

I don't even know how quickly I'll update this. Chapter two is about halfway done, but I'm very poorly prepared for my exams so I SHOULD be focusing on them. Wish me luck. *Dry chuckle*.

I'm sorry if you see any historical inaccuracies. If you spot them, let me know, and I will try to change them. Thank you for reading! Please review!