*important* 'Insert words that someone would say here' means that from the previously mentioned gestures, this is what the character is trying to say. There aren't many in the beginning, but toward the end Feliciano and Ludwig talk more, so you'll see these more.

Story 1: Flowers and Waltzing

A bubbly Italian smiled as he walked through the sunlit park. He was out for a stroll in the good weather while it lasted—it had been very cloudy and rainy the last couple of days, and more cloudy days were forecasted. His pace was slow, and he didn't have a destination in mind, but he made sure to keep track of where he was. Now was hardly the time to call his brother to tell him he'd taken too many turns and gotten himself lost at the local park.

Ah, the warmth of sunshine. He thought absently. The slight redhead soon drifted off into his own little world, it was no wonder he ended up bumping into someone.

"Oof! Oh, so sorry! I forgot to tell where I was going!" He apologized.

There was no response, and the man frowned, "Um, ciao?" He asked questioningly. It had been soft so he thought it must have been a person… just his luck if it ended up that he was talking to a tree.

Suddenly something brushed his hand and he jumped. Nope. Not a tree. He turned his head wildly, trying to get a sense of where the other's head was so that he could look at it. The other seemed to know what he wanted, and there was the brush of fingers as someone tilted his head up just a bit. Oh, they're tall…and their fingers are callused, big, and strong too…

The man smiled, "Sorry again. I need to remember to keep track of where I'm going! My name is Feliciano. What's yours?"

There was silence. Did he not speak Italian? Feliciano tried English and repeated what he said. Still nothing. He was nervous now, and tried once more in halted, slow German. He was in Northern Italy… but surely this person would at least know one of those three languages, or at least enough of one to respond. They had to know something of one of those. They were in Italy after all! He just hoped it wasn't Ger-

"Bruder! Na bitte!"

…Uh oh. Feliciano tried desperately to drudge up his limited German, but failed to translate any of it. The voice was coming from his left; he could tell it was of someone who was older than he, but not by much. That and the voice was definitely masculine as well. He seemed to know the person Feliciano had stumbled into as well, which was good.

The distressed Italian tried talking again, but this time he directed it toward where he had last heard the voice from. "Um …sir? I accidentally bumped into your friend here, but he doesn't seem to know any Italian or English…" Feliciano asked in English. He waited for the reply.

There was a pause before the voice answered; it seemed just slightly nervous, but loud none the less. "Oh, ja. Es tut mir leid," there was a pause and the Italian hoped that the man would switch to English or the country's language, because otherwise this would be a very short and very awkward conversation, "This is my brother actually… And you're staring at my chest." Grazie…wait, oops.

The Italian let out a small squeak before raising his head up, "Sorry! Is that better?" Height must run in their family.

"Now you're staring at my hair. I know white is a rare hair colour, but I have a face too." The remark wasn't cold, but joking and followed with light laughter. Feliciano quickly adjusted where he looked before he could say anything else. "Are you blind or something?" the voice joked.

There was a pause as Feliciano tilted his head down to hide the pink on his cheeks and shuffle his feet. The German man seemed to finally get it, though and he quickly back-peddled, "Oh, scheiße. Dude, I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

"It's ok," a warm smile, "I don't mind." Feliciano turned his head so that he was looking back to the first, and still silent, person—the one he'd bumped into and started this whole scene. "Your brother is very quiet," he commented, "Can he talk?"

The voice suddenly became much more serious than before, "No actually. He can't. Hasn't been able to since he was a little kid…." The voice drifted off as if its owner had gotten lost in memories of the past.

However, Feliciano either didn't notice or chose to ignore it as he continued the conversation. "Oh!" he smiled again and giggled a little, "No wonder he never responded! What is his name?" The happy Italian tilted his head in question.

"He's Ludwig, and I'm Gilbert Beilschmidt." The voice—he now knew it to be Gilbert — perked up and Feliciano didn't have to see to be able to tell that he was smiling proudly.

"I'm Feliciano Vargas, it's nice to meet you Gilbert," he turned to look at the German, "and you too Ludwig!" Feliciano turned back to Ludwig and offered a hand. A rough, large hand took his again. It was much warmer than simple sunshine. This made Feliciano smile and he took his hand back, but only to take a step forward and hug the German. He was definitely very tall and strong.

"Ve~ Mind if I walk with you two? It's a lot more fun to walk with other people," he asked as he let go of Ludwig.

"I'm ok with it if Ludwig is. I'll ask him." There was the noise of rapid hand movements, and Feli's head swivelled between the brothers with a confused look.

"He says that's ok with him."

The blind man's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "Wow. How did you do that?"

There was a chuckle from Gilbert's direction before his accented voice answered, "I used sign-language. It's a way of communicating for people who can't hear using hand gestures."

"Oh! It's kind of like how I can read using Braille!"

The Italian could tell that Gilbert was smiling from the way he spoke, "Ja, I guess. Come on, we should probably start walking before it starts getting dark and cold."

The trio walked for a while with Feliciano in between the German brothers after the two had argued that it would be easier for him to keep up that way. In Ludwig's case his arguing consisted of gently moving Feliciano so he stood with Gilbert to his left and Ludwig to his right when the small man started to protest. It was surprising how much Feliciano and Ludwig could communicate to one another without assistance. When a dog ran out in front of them and the Italian wasn't paying attention, a hand came from his right and held his shoulder so that he would not continue walking and trip.

Soon Feliciano remarked that his own brother was probably getting worried by now, and Gilbert commented that he should probably start dinner soon or they'd be eating their meal at midnight.

"I can walk home from here if we're still in the park….Um, where are we exactly though? Ve~ I lost track…"

"No way am I letting a blind guy walk home alone when it's getting dark out!" Gilbert actually sounded pretty worried.

The shorter just smiled innocently, "I'll be fine. Ve~ I walk in this park all the time!"

"Ok. Now there is absolutely no chance that I'm just gonna let you go off and walk to your house by yourself. Ludwig can go with you!"

Feliciano shook his head and was about to protest when he felt a hand on his shoulder, assuming it was Ludwig because it came from his direction; Feliciano subconsciously leaned into it. Hehe, he was really warm….

There was a pause, the hand lifted from his shoulder, and the same rapid shuffling noises as Gilbert and his brother talked before a verdict was reached. "Ok, I gotta go so that I can get the food started, and Ludwig is going to take you back home."

Feliciano didn't mind walking with Ludwig all that much, and he probably wouldn't win in an argument, so he just smiled and replied to Gilbert, "Alright!" He turned and nodded happily to the deaf German so he would understand that Feli was fine with Ludwig walking with him.

It sounded like Gilbert was chuckling and then noises as Ludwig shifted from foot to foot and moved his arm around. Feliciano could hear Gilbert's footsteps start to casually walk away, and then they stopped. "Oh, by the way, Feliciano, Ludwig's blushing red as a tomato." He let out a scary laugh that sounded like, "Kesesesesesese!" before taking off at a fast pace, if the rapid footfalls were anything to go by. The Italian realized that Ludwig was not at his side before he recognised the noise of someone running after Gilbert.

There was no way that Feliciano could follow after them without tripping or running into something, so he slowly oriented himself and found a bench where he could sit and wait. It was the little moments like this, when the cheerful Italian was all alone, that he could just lean back and really listen.

There was a bird, somewhere overhead—he assumed that there was a tree somewhere behind, or to the side of the bench. The bench's seat wasn't solid plastic; instead there were ribbons of it that went from the edge of the seat into a curve to end at the top of the backrest. The walkway wasn't concrete made, but instead there was gravel under his shoes that made a gritty noise when he had walked over it to get to the bench.

Feliciano tried his best to concentrate hard and build up a mental picture of his surroundings. Maybe I could paint it later… If he was where in the park he thought he was, then across the path there were some flowers that had sprung up along the edge of the grass. Thoughts about painting evaporated and he slowly stood, trying to stay quiet. No one else was around, but it felt like if he was loud, everything would break and suddenly the world would go dull and hard to read again.

A breeze blew from the right, causing Feliciano shivered a little from the chill it brought. He bent down and let his hand skim just over the tips of the grass until he found a flower. He let a finger run along the edge if it's small petals before he gave a gentle tug. The snap of the steam breaking sounded like a shout to the blind man.

He winced and mumbled apologies to the plant as he repeated the action until he had a small bouquet of the flowers. Feliciano smiled and stood, returning to the bench only to find when he tried to sit down that Ludwig was already sitting there.

"Ah! I'm sorry!" he exclaimed as he almost sat on his friend. He started to explain why he hadn't heard Ludwig's approach because he'd been concentrating on the flowers, but stopped himself. He couldn't hear anything I say anyway…

Feliciano sat down next to Ludwig and tried again to explain about the flowers, only this time using his hands instead of speaking out loud. Both Feliciano and his brother, Lovino, tended to use hand gestures when they spoke, so it wasn't all that difficult for him to figure out how to tell Ludwig what he wanted to.

It started with Feliciano pretended to pick a flower from the bouquet, and then pointed over across the road. He tapped his ear and then across the road once more, making a wide gesture toward the grassy park beyond. 'I was picking these flowers over there, and I was paying attention to the sounds of the park, so I didn't hear you come.'

There was a slight shift from the man next to him before Feliciano felt a hand patted his own reassuringly. 'I understand.' The simple gesture made the small Italian smile. He stood and pointed down the path—hopefully—toward his home. He then took Ludwig's hand and gave it a small tug. 'Come on, let's get going.'

The noise of the doorbell ringing announced the guest's arrival. Lovino was out with Antonio, so Feliciano had to quickly find a break in his cooking and go let the person in. When he opened the apartment door and greeted the guest they reached out and knocked against the already open door. Knock-knock, pause, knock, another pause, knock-knock.

Long ago Ludwig had devised a particular series of taps that he would use to signal to Feliciano that it was him if he ever opened the door, or they met. This had come about after their third meeting when Feliciano had on numerous occasions, not known that it was Ludwig, and been confused when no one responded to his chatter.

Said Italian opened the door wider with a happy-friendly smile on his face, "Ludwig!" He hugged his friend and felt unsure arms start to push him away, but he ignored them and let their one-way embrace last a little longer.

Feliciano released the deaf man and grabbed his hand to steer him into the apartment that he shared with his brother. Feliciano squeezed Ludwig's hand and pointed to himself and his apron, before pointing into the kitchen. 'You're just in time! I'm cooking dinner.'

He felt two return taps on his hand. Among other little things, the two had agreed that a double tap would mean 'yes' or 'I understand', while three meant 'no'. One tap was just to get the other's attention, and four translated to 'I need to leave' as well as 'goodbye'. Gilbert had once witnessed his deaf brother and blind friend have an entire argument through taps and hand gestures. He'd marvelled at their silent language and how the two had gotten past the barriers of communication between them.

Ludwig was led to the kitchen. Feliciano blushed and tapped his head, pointed to Ludwig, then the ground, and made an 'X' with his arms. 'I didn't know you were coming…'

The Italian felt two taps on his hand and he could hear Ludwig as he looked over at the small dinner of spaghetti, tomato sauce, and meatballs. There was only adequate food for just once serving. Feliciano pointed to the food that was cooking on the stove, to the plate on the counter that was waiting to be used, and then held up one finger. 'I have only made enough for one of us to eat. Sorry.'

They were still linked at the hands, and Feli could feel Ludwig give two taps and squeeze his hand. 'It's ok. You can have it.'

The two of them ended up sitting on the couch while the smaller quickly ate his meal. He paused with a meatball half way to his mouth when he had an idea. Feliciano smiled and tapped it. By now he knew exactly how tall Ludwig was when he sat or stood, so he hoped that when he brought the fork up toward his friend, that he'd gotten it to his mouth.

Ludwig's large hand covered his own and moved it slightly to the left. Oops! There was the sound of the German leaning forward and steadying Feliciano's hand as he ate the meatball. There was silence, and then two taps on his hand. 'It was good.' Then the hand moved to gently transfer Feliciano's hand—and by extension, the fork—from the plate, back toward Ludwig. 'Can I have some more?'

They ended up sharing the dish. Feliciano would take a bite, and hand the fork to Ludwig so that he could eat some of the spaghetti too. In this manner the dinner was finished shortly, and Ludwig tapped the plate from Feliciano's lap and the fork before taking his friend's arm and pointing it toward the kitchen. 'I will wash the dishes.' He moved again so that now Feli's arm was pointed toward the radio sitting off to the side of the room. Ludwig tapped Feliciano's shoulder, and let his finger travel down his arm. 'Can you go turn on some music?'

The Italian gave two taps to Ludwig's hand and got up after he heard his friend head toward the kitchen. Gilbert had once told Feliciano that even though Ludwig was deaf, he liked to have music on. He'd asked why, and the albino—both of the brothers once told Feli what they looked like—had smiled and said that his brother may not be able to hear music like they could, but he felt it.

Sure enough, when they'd both returned to the couch, Feliciano could hear Ludwig tap his finger on his knee in time with the music. Feliciano added his humming, and to his surprise, so did Ludwig. Gilbert had told Feliciano that even though his brother was deaf, he could still laugh and shout. It was still surprising when Ludwig did little things like humming to a song.

After a while, an energetic, bouncy song came on. Feliciano smiled and stood up—he was already swaying to the music—and tugged on Ludwig's hand until he stood too. Once the latter had finally been coxed into it, they danced in Feliciano's living room. The German was a bit embarrassed, Feli could tell, and for the most part he just swayed in beat and hummed, but soon Feliciano was laughing and having a good time.

The song ended and another, much slower song started. Feliciano started to return to his seat when a hand quietly took his own and brought him back to the centre of the room. The blind man smiled and took up position to dance a box step waltz. Ludwig lead, and Feliciano didn't mind taking the female's role.

They fell into the routine of the simple slow dance and the Italian's eyes grew heavy. His head started leaning forward, and after attempting to keep himself from falling asleep, he gave in and rested with his ear over Ludwig's heart.

The other stiffened, and his steps faltered for a second, but Feli noticed that he kept dancing. Feliciano's arms had slipped from his shoulder and hand to bring Ludwig into a lazy hug. Arms came hesitantly around him in return.

It wasn't long before Feliciano felt his German friend pick him up and start carrying him off in the direction of his room, but he was too tired to do anything about it, if he had even wanted to. Everything was hazy after that, just a dull sense of movement and soft sounds as sleep started to take over.

He could tell though, when suddenly his side and back was cold. Something took his hand and held it for a while before it started to slip from his grasp. Feli desperately clung to it and gave a lazy tug. It's warm…and I don't want it to leave me. I want that warm feeling to stay.

He was deaf to the world—he'd drifted off, but a dulled sense of feeling was still alive. All the same, everything was quiet, and nothing moved. He could feel himself slip farther into the land of dreams when there was a dip, and his body slid forward a little. He could do nothing about it; all control of his muscles had been shut down a while ago.

The last thing he could feel was the warm of something from one side and he smiled ever so slightly before slipping into the calm, unmoving world of sleep that was just as black as his own. The only difference was that in the waking world, there was Ludwig to guide him.