Really, why? No one ever likes me best. I know what everyone thinks. That I'm cranky, that I'm difficult. That I'm a nuisance, I'm a coward, I'm stupid, I'm useless…"

Do you remember me telling you? People want what is easy. But if they can't spend the effort to really see you, Lovino, to know you - then they don't deserve you."

I do just that, mi corazón, every moment I am with you. Every beautiful, perfect moment I am with you. Because what they don't understand… and what you don't even realise… is that everything you are, everything you feel, Lovino, is written in your eyes."

The moment we met, I saw it. I saw you. You are such a wonderfully kind person, but you don't want anyone to know it. You have secret depths of passion that you hide within yourself out of fear. You love too deeply, but you try to deny it, because you know that the deeper you love, the more you hurt." Lovino blinked rapidly, still refusing to look at Antonio, but allowed him to very briefly reach out and tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear. The simple touch sent shivers of fire across his skin. "Your heart is so fragile," Antonio whispered gently, his fingers lingering on Lovino's cheek, seemingly reluctant to pull away. "Which is why you keep it locked in an iron cage."

Lovino finally looked up and met Antonio's strong, even gaze. Antonio was good, was honest and true and sincere. He couldn't be lying about this. There was nothing fake in his handsome, glowing face, and Lovino suddenly wondered what right he had to doubt what Antonio believed. "A cage?" asked Lovino, unsure what Antonio meant.

Antonio nodded, his smile small and reflective. "But I am pretty sure that this cage has a lock. And if it takes me five years, or ten, or fifty… I am determined to find the key. Because, Lovino, I will never break something so precious, just to find out what is inside."

But I don't understand! You're brave and handsome and funny and, yes, irritating and stupid, but strong and passionate and…"

In this dark, empty alley, Antonio's gentle, unfathomable words echoed like thunder in Lovino's head. "Lovino. I could give you a thousand words, and describe you a thousand ways. But in the end it is very simple. I want you because I love you. No one else. You, Lovino. You are the only one." Lovino blinked forcefully against the tears, but was starting to lose the fight. "You are my only one."

"And if you decide you will never feel that way about me, then I will accept it. I will never love anyone else, but I will accept it. But if there is the slightest spark - the tiniest flame of hope there that maybe, possibly, one day you can let yourself feel just a fraction of what I feel for you - then I will wait, Lovino."

"I will wait however long it takes until you are ready."

One lingering, unchanging month that had felt like an eternity and passed like a lifetime.

He was caught between wanting to die of embarrassment and wanting to smash something against the wall.

Antonio was everything. He took away Lovino's uncertainty, took away his loneliness.

There was a void in Lovino that only Antonio could fill, and it was frightening just how empty Lovino was without him. Antonio reached into Lovino, into a place he didn't even know existed, and filled him with a happiness and a belonging and a brilliant joy that went beyond anything he had ever thought possible to experience. When Antonio was away, Lovino existed. It was only when he was with Antonio that Lovino actually lived.

And that was what Lovino risked. That joy, that bliss, that completion. It was what he was so scared to feel, and what he fought so hard against. Because it was what he was scared to lose. Lovino knew if he accepted it, believed it, felt it, and if he then lost it, that he could not survive.

"No." Lovino did not even bother looking. The sky was just light enough to show the gold in his eyes, and the suppressed laughter behind them. "There is no constellation called the wheelbarrow. You made it up. You're making all this up."

Your understanding of history is as exhaustive as your knowledge of constellations."
The question came from nowhere, and it hit Lovino like a bullet. The room swayed dangerously around him. All rage drained from his body, drained like the blood from his face, leaving him frozen white and utterly defenceless. For a moment he refused to accept what he'd heard. When he did, the urge to run fired through his nerves, but he simply could not make his legs move.

"Yesterday, they tried to threaten us. But it will not work, and we will not stop. We will continue to prepare for the American landings. We will continue to undermine enemy operations. We will continue, until this country is our own again."

The words were like a lightning strike through Lovino's head, while Antonio's eyes held his in that unbreakable green hold. No, they would not stop. It seemed they would never stop. Year after year after year… It was this war keeping him from Antonio. It was this bloody interminable, broken battle that drove the light from Antonio's eyes and the smile from his lips. This fear, this hate, this constant, ugly terror of it. Antonio was the most wanted man in Europe, who fought for Italy, and would probably not survive this war.

As he laughed, Antonio's too-often careworn face was bright and untroubled, and for the first time, Lovino wondered - maybe it was not just Antonio who filled the emptiness inside Lovino. Maybe, just sometimes, Lovino did the same for him.

Antonio almost looked about to laugh, but he stopped himself. "Oh, Lovino. You have this angry scowl on you all the time, this cute little frown. That's why they all think that – because that's all they see. They are too ignorant, too indolent, too bloody stupid to even try looking beyond that." Lovino looked away. He could not look at Antonio as he said that