Disclaimer: Nope~

A/N: HOLY SHIT I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE I'VE FINISHED FLASHLIGHT. THANK YOU ALL FOR READING AND NOW STICKING WITH ME FOR THIS. C:

DO YOU LIKE THE TITLE? /shot

...-hides- I'm sorry I'm so late! I'd blame the Democrats, but.../shot more

Hope you guys enjoy. Thanks to my beautiful gorgeous sexy beta Lily Winterwood for editing and title help! ILY GIRLFRAAAN ;D

Chapter 1 - that's a huge fucking mirror

So I was dreaming.

That much I'd discerned, because I was standing in a meadow - like the flowery, muddy one Antonio liked to take me to - when I quite clearly remembered climbing into bed. And then my grandpa Romulus, the one I'd gotten my middle name "Romano" from and the one who didn't like me and the one who was very dead - was standing across the clearing in a designer suit and Prada sunglasses. He looked pretty grumpy and was scowling at me.

Oh, right. In case you can't remember who I am, my name's Lovino Vargas, I live in the perpetually rainy town of Forks, Washington, with my emotionally constipated dad Ludwig, and I'm dating a ridiculously attractive vampire named Antonio.

Except that he's not, you know, cool, because I don't think you can be cool if the sun makes you look like you bathed in glitter glue.

But who cares about my boyfriend? I sneered and raised a hand to flip my grandfather off.

He did the same exact thing, the bastard, so I stomped over with the intent of punching him. I'd always wanted to when he was alive, but Mom would inevitably walk in right as I was about to sock him one, and smile in that creepy Vargas way that had totally skipped over me. Mom and Gramps looked like idiots but all hell broke loose when they were mad; me, I was grumpy all the time, so nothing was too different.

Then I saw sparkling, like the sun reflecting off glass shards, to my left, and turned to see Antonio in a frilly pink apron with a tray of churros in his hands.

I twitched. What a marshmallow.

He skipped over to me, sparkling and smiling gayly all the while, and stopped right in front of me.

I crossed my arms and turned to face my grandfather with the intention of flaunting my regrettably glittery but still inhumanly hot boyfriend.

Gramps had his arms crossed too, and the look of shock on his face probably mirrored the one on mine.

Then I noticed the gold frame, and realized that I'd been trying to piss off a mirror.

"Happy birthday, Lovi~!" sang Antonio.

I promptly punched him, and the shock of punching a marble face woke me up.

Jolting up in bed, I reached up and yanked my curl to make sure I was awake.

I was.

Ludwig stood at my bedroom door with a weirded out expression on his ridiculously German face. "Uh. I'm off early today."

"Che. Whatever."

As soon as I heard the garagre door shut, I stood and padded over to my closet, rifling around for clothes.

I knew exactly why I'd had that dream. Arthur - my vampire boyfriend's mother figure, dubbed so because I seriously doubted that he could top the actual father figure, Francis...but technically, Antonio was older than Arthur, so maybe that title should be edited to "stepmother who could be your sister"? - had removed the cast on my leg just the day before. One of Antonio's 'sisters', Liz, had immediately called, excited over the long-postponed birthday party that we could finally have! Oh em gee! It was two months after Mask had snapped my leg like a toothpick and bedridden me for like two weeks.

...god, I hate recaps. Hold on to your seat, we're having a -

Flashback

"AUGH, MY LEG! GET OFF ME, YOU FUCKTARD!" Lovino screeched, flailing about on the floor like a deformed fish, kicking the guy currently balancing on his knee.

Sadiq grinned maliciously before something slammed into him and sent him flying towards the opposite wall. A tall, bronze-skinned man hovered over the still-thrashing Italian, pressing a kiss to his face and mumbling something before straightening up and turning to fight.

End Flashback

- flashback. Okay, got your undies? Good.

So yeah, my leg had been broken and I'd been graced by an oh-so-pretty bite mark on my forearm from where Mask - the guy who broke my leg in the first place - decided to start gnawing on me. His scrawny little boyfriend, some Egyptian guy whose name I can't pronounce, ran off, and now I lived in slight anxiety of when Pipsqueak would reappear.

But back to the story. Ugh, May 5th. I groaned and reached for a pair of jeans.

Antonio's wide grin as I got into his car thirty minutes later made me grimace harder.

We watched Romeo and Juliet in lit that day. Miss Braginskaya sat at her desk, grading papers, and the movie played loudly on the old television. I sat with Antonio at the back, whispering to each other quietly enough for the film to drown us out. Lieve, the blond Belgian, and Maddy, the Seychellois chick, were both sniffling, although Jason - that's Lieve's little Luxembourgian brother, who'd transferred into our class at some point or other - looked bored out of his mind.

"God, I can't believe Liz is really..." I cut off with a growl muffled by my arm as I whacked my head against the desk.

Antonio smiled. "There're worse tragedies, Lovi!" he whispered dramatically; I continued thumping my forehead. "I mean, look at Romeo! He kills his girlfriend out of stupidity!"

"Should I be worried?" I drawled.

He didn't seem to hear me. "But I do envy him one thing..."

Yawning, I hunched over the desk and rested my chin in my palm. "Yeah, yeah, Juliet's got a nice rack. Sorry."

"Aww, Lovi! You should know that you're the only one for me! Noooo, I envy him the easy death!"

My eye twitched. "Feeling suicidal, are we?"

A moment passed, and then Antonio sighed. "No, but I was. When you were in the hospital."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, we've only been dating like two months, how're you already prepared to kill yourself?"

"Because I love you, and I've been waiting fifteen hundred years for you," he said placidly. I shuddered at the mention of how old he was...I'm not really sure that's what they mean by the whole age is just a number thing, you know? "But I wouldn't be able to live without you."

I arched an eyebrow. "Uh, one, technically you're already dead; and two, aren't you kind of indestructible? For some reason, I don't think that your dysfunctional little family would willingly rip you apart and set your remains on fire. Just a hunch."

"That's true..." he sighed. "So I planned it out, back then. I didn't know if I'd reach you in time."

"Do I want to know the plan?" It sounded gruesome already.

"I'd go to Italy and harass the Volturi long enough that they'd kill me," he said cheerfully, as though I'd not made one of my awesomely witty remarks. Bastard.

I stared blankly. "...the whut now?"

There was a bouncing sound and the clicking of a button hitting the floor. Miss B'd stood up and paused the film. "Kay, guys. Who'd like to show that they were listening, and repeat the last few lines of iambic pentameter?" Her eyes scanned the classroom as she sewed up her shirt with a spare button, so used to the gesture that she hardly looked at the work. "Mr Vargas?"

Of course, I had no idea what they were. Antonio whispered the phrases to me and I said them, revelling in her pleased smile before she replayed the movie and sat back down.

"The Volturi are really old and really powerful," said Antonio later that day as we stood in Arthur's upstairs office. Liz was still setting up the party downstairs, so Antonio offered to finish the whole Volturi thing. There was a large gilded frame hanging on the wall, and he motioned to it. "They're a family, kind of like us, except that they're practically monarchs in our world."

I squinted at the ornate painting - it was of a large marble court, with four men standing on a balcony and glancing out regally on the activity below. Well, actually, one of them was kind of standing there awkardly, as though he couldn't wait to leave; another looked pissy, and the one in the front looked like an idiot. The picture looked like oil, with lots of detail on the faces. Probably done by another vampire, for the work to be so skillful. But who cared about that?

"Is that - Arthur, way up there?" I asked, leaning close and regretting my lack of glasses.

"Yep." Antonio scowled; I didn't really know why, but he didn't seem too fond of Arthur. Nobody was, really, except the women at the hospital, Nat, and Francis (but Francis was probably fond of everything with legs, so he didn't count). "He spent a couple hundred years with them, I think, while he and I were having an argument...when he came back, he said that even I was bearable compared to Yong-Soo!"

"...Yong-soo?" I tried, totally butchering the name.

"That guy!" He pointed to the first person, a tall dark-haired man standing at the front of the balcony.

Then I noticed something.

"Wait...if they're called the Volturi, why the fuck are they Asian?"

Antonio burst into laughter. I scowled and crossed my arms, tapping my foot impatiently and waiting for him to finish.

"Sorry," he said, still grinning. "But actually, apparently the Volturi was originally led by three Italian guys, and they had their big army of other vampires. But then Yong-Soo, the Korean guy in front, decided that he didn't like the Volturi's laws - which were really long and complicated - and rounded up a bunch of other Asian vampires to wage war."

"I'm guessing they won," I replied dryly.

He nodded cheerily.

"Why not change the name, then?"

"I dunno," Antonio said with a stupid grin. "The city they stay in is called Volterra...they just took the original Volturi's castle after destroying their army. I guess thinking up another name would've been too much work!"

I decided to call them the Fobturi.

"They're not too bad, I guess," he continued. "I mean, they're really interested in the arts, and science and math - but also the law. The original Volturi were stiffs; since Yong-Soo took over, the rulebook's been condensed into two major laws: one, don't draw too much attention, and two, don't give yourself away to humans. But they're far more strict on those two laws than the originals were with their two million!"

"So does that mean that they can screw you over for telling me about your little condition?"

"Yeah, but who cares," he shrugged. "They're not gonna find out unless we tell them, and if they think something's wrong, Liz will see them coming."

I sighed. "And you were thinking of going to them if I died?"

Antonio leaned over and cupped my face, smiling crookedly. I batted him off and reached up to try and rub some warmth back into my cheeks. "I was, sì."

"You've...gotta stop talking like that," I grumbled, crossing my arms. He tilted his head in confusion. "About going to get yourself killed!"

It took a second, and then - like a waffle-machine heating up - realization started to glow in his topaz eyes, and he swept me up in a massive hug. "You're worried for meeeee!" he squealed in delight.

"N-no I'm not! I- I just don't want you to go and get hurt, like the idiot you are," I said with a roll of my eyes.

He was smiling again. "No worries, Lovi! The only thing that can hurt me is you, and I've not got anything else to be afraid of!"

"...that's so not true, and you know it," I huffed, thinking of a certain tiny Egyptian.

I guess Antonio was on the same train of thought - which was creepy in itself, I don't want to think the same way as that idiot - because he laughed. "Gupta will come at some point. Liz'll see and we'll all be fine~"

"...I could protect you," I started, totally not squeeing at the loving smile on his face. "If you change me."

His smile popped like a bubble, and his brow furrowed. "Lovi...you already do protect me, though. You're the only reason that I've not kicked it already!" He thought for a second, and then added, "Well, for a second time, because I think that turning killed me...but it's my job to protect you!"

C-che, that was so not happiness in my gut. Duh.

Then a smile, almost disturbingly lewd, broke out on Antonio's face.

"...from everyone but my sister," he finished 'apologetically', the tone kind of destroyed by his grin, as the door swung open and Liz stepped inside, holding something in her arms.

I started trembling, because that thing in her arms? It was nothing other than a strapless, knee-length dress of bright red - was that silk?

Oh, shit, get ready for -

Flashback

"So, Lovino," said Liz with a bright grin as she motioned to his tomato red cast, "I just want you to know that, as soon as you can fit into the dress I picked you, we're going to have a belated birthday party for you!"

"D-dress?"

End Flashback

- another flashback. Fucking recaps, don't expect any more, asshats.

At least now you know why I swallowed as Liz drew nearer.

A/N: L'HOHOH CLIFFHANGER IS CLIFFHANGER

AND I TOLD YOU I'D BE PUTTING ROMANO IN A LOT OF DRESSES, DIDN'T I? ;D

As for the flashback thing, I stole the idea of having spazzy narrators right before them - cuz you know, after a flashback, there tend to be inconsistencies with the story from before it, setting-wise - from a kink meme author c: I hope you didn't mind, they're only gonna be here and then NEVAR AGAINNN.