Chapter Text
Finally, it was the end of grade 11 for Lovino. Apparently, like he had heard from others, junior year was the most stressful. Lovino realized he couldn’t screw around anymore since grade 11 actually counted towards his future. Knowing this, he made sure to put in the extra hours of work and ended up pretty pleased with his results. He had also found a job this year, knowing that university wasn’t going to pay for itself. He had started to work at his friend’s family café and was saving up for business school. Antonio had put in a good word with his parents to let Lovino work there, and knowing how close the two were when they were younger, his mom and dad basically saw Lovino as their own son, hiring him on the spot.
Work was decent that day, like it usually was. Ignoring the few irritating customers that got on Lovino’s nerves, he did his regular tasks of making coffees, cleaning up and hearing the senior gossip from Antonio. The two had sort of become a little more distant, focusing on their own lives, so being at work was a great time for Lovino to catch up with his “older brother”.
Antonio usually told him about his friend group, consisting of two other boys, Francis and Gilbert, and how much trouble they would get into. Lovino would laugh at their stupidity and crack a few jokes with Antonio while he was at it. Although Lovino wasn’t the most popular kid in school, his connection to Antonio got him invited to a bunch of parties.
On his closing shift, Lovino was peacefully cleaning up the café when he heard a loud voice behind him.
“Hey Lovi!!! I haven’t talked to you in ages, man!” the Spanish man stated while walking out from the back of the café. He had been on a graduation trip with his friends for the past week.
“It’s been a week, you bastard..” Lovino shot back, checking the time and realizing he had to get home soon. He started packing up all of his cleaning equipment and got ready to leave. “Anything interesting happen?”
Lovino knew the shenanigans Antonio got up to and would probably need to sit with him for a few hours to have a proper debrief.
“Of course, stuff happened. I have a bunch to tell yo- shit, you have to go soon so we can catch up another time,” Antonio paused for a second and remembered something Francis had asked him, “Oh yea real quickly, are you down to go out on July 14th? Francis is hosting his birthday party at his house and told me to invite a bunch of people I know!’
Lovino rolled his eyes, seemingly annoyed with whatever Antonio was suggesting.
“I’ll think about it,” he huffed as he began to walk out, “See ya, Toni”
“Adios!” Antonio yelled back.
It was dark at this point and the café was about a 30-minute walk from home. Lovino had recently gotten his license but wasn’t allowed to drive his Nonno’s car anywhere. What irritated him most was that his little brother, only being 1 year younger than him, had received a car for his 16th birthday. The little shit hadn’t even gotten his license yet and he got a car??? Lovino watched that day as his brother gushed and thanked his Nonno profusely, knowing that he didn’t even have a need for the car. He was always the one pushed to the side while his brother got all the praise. With that in mind, Lovino’s walk home was already ruined. He ended up putting his headphones in and blasting his music, quickly walking home so he could clean up and go to bed.
When he got inside, he locked the door behind him and lazily walked upstairs. His Nonno wasn’t home and was probably out either taking on some random job or gambling with friends. Reaching his room, he took off his work uniform, took a shower and changed into some random shirt and comfy shorts from his floor, not caring if it was clean or not. He finally had some alone time to relax in bed and scroll on his phone until he heard noises from the hallway.
“Lovi!! Lovi!! Lovi!!” his brother said with glee as he walked towards Lovino’s bedroom door. Guess he wouldn’t be getting his peace and quiet after all.
“I have something to tell you this is super important,” his brother said as he knocked. Lovino thought maybe if he ignored the knocking, his brother would think he wasn’t home and go back to his room. The knocking grew louder. “I know you’re in there don’t ignore me”
“The fuck do you want?!” Lovino yelled from the other side of the door as Feliciano opened it and went to go sit on his bed. “Ew, don’t sit on my bed, you stink!”
The younger brother rolled his eyes and continued to speak “So Ludwig told me theres this party going on at Francis’s house in a week and I really wanna go and I think that it would be super super fun if we went but I’m trying to recruit a bunch of people to go with me because the more people it is the more fun it is!”
“I didn’t know that potato eater got invited to parties,” Lovino said, clearly annoyed with how much his brother would talk about Ludwig, “that guy always has a stick up his ass there’s no way someone invited him. Also, you guys are 2 years younger than everyone, why are they even inviting you?”
“Oh no, we weren’t technically invited but when he told me that, I went to Gilbert and asked if I could come and he said sure and told me to invite as many people as I could!” Feliciano said with glee, “Anyways, can you come please?”
Lovino stared at him, “No.”
“Pleaseeeee..?”
“Antonio already asked me today at the café and I told him no!”
Feliciano was quick with his response, “Well, you wouldn’t want your poor younger brother going to a party alone with Ludwig and a bunch of older people, right? What if something happens? Ludwig is such a bad person! He’s so scary and I shouldn’t hang around him!!! He could seriously hurt me!!” he teased.
Lovino let out a slight laugh and thought about it. A party at Francis’s house honestly didn’t seem that bad. Although he wasn’t particularly fond of Francis, they had a middle ground on some things. Good food at the party was guaranteed since Francis took pride in cooking. He and Francis also shared a love for wine and knowing that Francis’s parents were going to be gone to take care of family business back home in France, they would definitely be able to drink.
“Ughhh okay fine I’ll go,” Lovino finally said, giving in to his brother’s pleas.
“Yay! I’ll go text Gilbert and tell him you’re coming so he can add you to the birthday group chat,” he said as he started to walk out.
“Okay,” Lovino said back as his brother left, leaving his door wide open, “shut my door, you bastard!”
“Sorry!” Feliciano yelled back and slammed his brother’s door, happily running to his room.
In all honesty, other than his brother and Antonio, Lovino had absolutely no other friends that were going to that party. He was somewhat excited to see the group chat to see who was coming. Knowing Francis, he would probably invite all the friends he had. Lovino wasn’t the chattiest, so he was a little scared of not having anyone to talk to. He should have thought about that before he agreed to Feliciano’s plans, knowing his brother would definitely be off hanging out with Ludwig and maybe Kiku if he showed up. Just then he started receiving messages from a giant group chat. Not replying to any of them, he found the list of people who were confirmed to be going.
Members:
Gilbert
Antonio
Elizabeta
Arthur
Roderich
Alfred
Matthew
Michelle
Feliciano
Ludwig
Kiku
Feliks
Lovino
Oh boy. Although this wasn’t as many people as he expected, he knew that everyone would bring friends. For example, Feliks would probably bring the Lithuanian boy that Lovino had no clue the name of but would always hang around him. Since most of the people weren’t in Lovino’s grade, he was very unsure of who they were. He had heard his fair share of stories from Antonio about Francis and Gilbert, knowing both of them were just a big mess. From his impressions of them, Francis was a stuck-up whore who slept around with basically the whole school and Gilbert was a loud, narcissistic asshole who would always drink way more beer than he really needed to. The number of times Antonio had told Lovino the stories of how Gilbert ended up beat and on the side of the road was embarrassing. What made it even worse was that Gilbert was Ludwig’s brother. When Lovino had found this out he could not believe that Ludwig, the strait laced, strict, organized, clean guy who wakes up every morning at 5 am to go on a run and keeps to himself was related to Gilbert, the dirty, loud, egotistical creature that parties all the time and had to take summer school because he got a 26% in one of his classes. Can German people just be normal?
Other than that, he knew that Arthur and Francis had a strange history of being friends? Wait, no lovers? Enemies? Lovino honestly had no clue. They would go from making out on the floor of Antonio’s basement to screaming about how much they hate each other. Alfred and Matthew Lovino sort of knew as Francis’s childhood friends but other than that, he had zero impression of them.
Lovino put his phone down, too tired to think of the upcoming party and decided he needed to sleep.
They needed a gift for Francis. As per usual, Ludwig was the one to remind Feliciano that the party was in 2 days and asked him if he had bought anything. When asked, Feliciano paused for a second and nodded his head. Ludwig called bullshit the moment he saw his friend nod and told him to go to the mall later and find something for Francis. With that, the Italian left Ludwig’s house a few hours later and called his brother.
No response.
The only reasonable thing for Feliciano to do at this point was to dial his number over 20 times.
“I’m going to block your number!” Lovino shouted through the speaker, “My shift is ending in 15 minutes call me back then.”
The phone hung up and in 15 minutes Feliciano called back.
“Lovino, this is urgent! We need to buy a gift for Francis!”
Lovino responded with a scowl, “This is what you call me for??? Why didn’t you think about this before and go get one when I was busting my balls working?”
“Well, I was going to, but I told Ludwig I would drive to the mall quickly and pick it up and he got mad at me,” Feliciano said, knowing he didn’t have his full license yet and if he was caught driving without an adult in the car he could be in serious trouble.
“Stupid bastard, I don’t know why you even have a car,” Lovino argued through the phone. “Whatever, I’m halfway home right now. When I get home, I’ll drive us both to the mall. Just make sure you know what you’re getting the frog so we can be quick.”
With that, Lovino hung up again and Feliciano waited for his brother’s arrival. When Lovino returned home, the two of them hopped in the car and drove to the mall. Feliciano had pulled up Francis’s wish list on his phone and decided he would buy Francis a new cologne he had been wanting. Lovino decided to buy Francis a shirt that was also on the list. What was supposed to be a short mall trip ended up being multiple hours due to the nature the two brothers had for wasting time.
When they first arrived at the mall, Feliciano spotted a bakery the two of them liked and begged his brother to go. It didn’t take much for Lovino to give in as Feliciano offered to pay.
The first store they decided to go to was to get Francis’s shirt. Although sometimes Francis’s style was questionable, the shirt in mind was actually quite nice. It was a navy polo shirt with a red logo and red lining. Simple, but he knew Francis would style it extravagantly. It also fit the budget, being $50 and knowing that Francis would definitely be grateful that Lovino purchased it. After even more dillydallying from the two brothers, Feliciano bought Francis a small size of the cologne he wanted.
“The cologne smells like ass,” Lovino stated, laughing while saying so.
“Don’t judge him Lovi, remember he’s French..” Feliciano said in a joking manner that had the two of them laughing.
After 3 hours of being there, Lovino ended up with a new pair of jeans, a snack and Francis’s gift and Feliciano ended up with the cologne, a snack, 2 new shirts and for some reason a bag of dog food for Ludwig’s dogs since he knew that they were running out.
When Lovino got home that night he quickly wrapped Francis’s gift and went downstairs to make some food. Feliciano was in the living room, texting on his phone while Lovino started taking out all the stuff he needed to make pasta.
“You want some?” he asked his brother, the usual response being yes. Between the two of them, Feliciano was the better cook, always being praised for his cooking skills while Lovino’s food was just “alright”.
“Nope! Not tonight, Ludwig’s having me over,” Feliciano said with a grin that slowly faded, “nooo, that means I have to pass on pasta tonight! Can you just save me some then?”
“Fine,” Lovino replied as he took out enough pasta for two people, “weren’t you literally just at that potato bastard's house this morning? At this point you live there.”
“Oh, yea I was, but I wanna drop off the dog food before I forget. I think he said he’s also making dinner too!”
“Passing up pasta to eat that German slop of dry meat and potatoes, what has he done to you Feli?” Lovino said jokingly. “Also, how are you going to carry a flat of dog food 30 minutes to his house? Think that one through?”
Like usual, Feliciano didn’t.
“Can you drive me.. please...?” he pleaded, quickly following up his sentence with a deal. “If you do, you can drive the car to work all summer.”
“You’re lucky I haven’t started boiling the pasta water yet,” Lovino stated as he swiped the car keys off the counter and put his shoes on. “Hurry before I change my mind and I’m not driving you back, find your own way home.”
“I’ll just get Ludwig to walk me,” Feliciano said as he jumped into the passenger seat, “or, on second thought, I’ll just stay the night!”
Lovino rolled his eyes and drove off, dropping his brother off 5 minutes later and driving home. He could finally enjoy some relaxing time to himself before the party.