Hello my sweets! I honestly cannot believe the story got so popular! Over 15,000 people have at least seen it and just. Thank you all. So much. Thank you all for the nearly 60 reviews and thank you all for being there to give me ideas and just in general be supportive. You guys deserve another chapter, and that's what you're getting.
Antonio sat on those cemetery walls with the love of his life – and death – for what seemed like an eternity. It probably was an eternity. At first, Lovino had been angry with Toni for committing suicide and not living his life to the fullest, but he slowly warmed up again. Every time Antonio would sing, trying out his voice to make sure he still knew how to speak, Lovino found himself at his side, mouthing the lyrics to whatever his Spanish lover was singing. He loved Antonio's voice, just as he loved the feeling of Antonio holding him – even if it didn't feel the same as being alive, more faint and distant, but there nonetheless.
Lovino spent centuries, never moving on no matter how many times the light presented itself to him, with just Antonio in that cemetery. They were bound there, though they could move on if they wanted. But Lovi didn't see the point. As long as he had Toni, he was in heaven. And besides, he didn't know what would be waiting for him in that light. It might separate him from his love and he didn't think he could handle that.
One day, Lovino was passing by a gravestone and actually looked at it. Of course, he'd looked at every gravestone there hundreds of times, but this time he actually examined it. It had his last name. Vargas. But it was no one he'd ever heard of. There was another grave next to it, like one of those that couples sometimes got. Lovino was sure the other name was also a man's, but he didn't recognize it. It seemed a little bit familiar, but it had been centuries and he had forgotten nearly everything about the life he used to live. If you'd told him now that he'd had a twin, he would have scoffed and said, "But I would have remembered growing up with them."
Antonio, too, had forgotten much of his life. He hadn't forgotten those bastards who had killed his sisters and his precious Lovino, but he'd forgotten nearly everything else. He'd forgotten that he used to live in Spain; he'd forgotten Tino and Berwald who had worked with him at the forgotten gelato shop. Antonio had forgotten the elderly lady he'd used to run errands for.
They'd both forgotten Feliciano Vargas. They'd both forgotten Ludwig Beilschmidt and his brother and when Antonio walked over to Lovi and saw the names on the gravestones, he didn't bat an eye. "Hey, look, Lovi! That person had the same last name as you! Do you think maybe you were related somehow?" He sat next to Lovino, who was tracing his forgotten brother's name with his finger.
"I don't know." Lovi whispered softy. "The name seems familiar, but it's been ages. I don't remember if it was put in before or after yours. I don't even remember if it was here before mine or not. Oh well. I guess it's not that important. If this person were, I would remember them."
There was a tug at his heart as he said that. Somehow, seeing that name and labeling it 'unimportant' made him want to die all over again. Lovi, deep down, knew the name – the person the name belonged to – was one of the most important things to him, but he just couldn't remember. "Hey, Antonio? Did w have any friends when we were alive?"
It took Toni a long time to answer. "I don't know. I suppose we would have had friends, I guess. After you died, I had to go somewhere. I don't remember names or faces, though. Why?"
"I just… I don't know. I had this feeling. I don't remember anything from when I was alive. I didn't really notice until now. Or at least, I didn't care. I'm not sure now." Lovino mused. It was actually beginning to scare him that he hadn't noticed his grip on life fading away over all these years. He couldn't remember a single thing about life except for Antonio, no matter how hard he wracked his brain. Well, mind, that is. He didn't quite have a brain anymore.
"So what do you want to do about it?" Toni asked, wrapping an arm around his Italian love.
Lovino thought for a while, unsure of what Antonio meant. His eyes kept skimming over the stone.
Feliciano V. Vargas
March 17, 2020 – December 25, 2044
'A loving grandson, fiancé, and twin brother'
The poor guy, Lovino thought. He died on Christmas Day. Oddly, it was just a few months after Lovino passed away. And the twin brother part of the engraving certainly made his head spin. They shared the same last name. Feliciano sounded very familiar to Lovino, as if he should know, but the information escaped him every time he tried to pursue it. Their deaths were only months apart.
In a flash, a memory returned to Lovi. It was between Christmas and New Year's. That was why the funeral had been so small. Only a few people came to it. Just the priest, the man known as Ludwig, Ludwig's brother, and Gilbert's boyfriend, Matthew. It had snowed, so no one stayed long. No one except Ludwig stayed, watching from afar as a casket was lowered into the ground not far from Lovino's own. Lovi had been a very confused spirit at the time, lost without anyone to guide him through getting used to being dead.
Lovino knew deep down, even back then as well as the present, that the person in that casket had been his twin brother. Feliciano. As soon as that memory was over, Lovino broke down into tears. He remembered every single detail about his happy-go-lucky twin that had been forgotten until a few seconds ago. How could he have forgotten? Antonio comforted Lovi as he cried. The time could have been minutes or days – in death, time is nothing.
"I want to see him again…" Lovino managed out between sobs, his breath and voice shaking. "I want to say that I missed him and that he was the best brother and that I'm sorry I forgot him and that I'm sorry I was always so mean-" He kept going on, stumbling over his words.
Antonio sighed internally. He'd wondered when Lovino would want to move on. "Then you should go see him. And tell him all of that. It's been a thousand years at least, my amazing Lovino. I think it's about time we did something other than wander around this place until everything ends."
Lovi soon stopped crying, holding and kissing Antonio's hand and along his fingers over and over again. He now missed his brother and his family with a hole in his heart aching need to be filled. The two of them just embraced each other, waiting for the inevitable return of 'the light' to take them to wherever they would go.
And Feliciano was waiting for them.