Chapter 18: Ties of Brotherhood

Everybody was gathered in the living room, Romano included. His eyes were slightly red, but nothing else betrayed his earlier breakdown. Wisely, nobody brought up the last memory either.

"Is everybody all right to continue?" England asked, his gaze lingered a little longer on my brother.

"I'm fine." He snapped.

"R-right. Sorry." England averted his gaze.

I gently tapped on the back of Romano's hand before opening our Twin Link. 'Are you okay, fratello?'

'I'm fine... I'm just... frustrated, I suppose.' He answered, mentally sighing. We followed the group to the door and back out into the memories.

'You've Blinked Out again.' It probably would've been a question if I couldn't already tell.

'Yeah. This next memory will probably explain it, anyways, won't it?'

I looked around, recognizing my past self and Lovino sitting around a sparse living area. Lovino seemed out of it.

'Yup. Most definitely.'

"So you really can't hear me at all?" Feliciano asked, but Lovino showed no indication of having heard him.

"If you're talking, I can't hear you. I already told you, I'm apparently deaf." Lovino answered, making the nations startle.

Good Time! Talk about jumping right into it! I sighed.

"Wait, what?!" Spain whipped around to Romano, who'd been standing in the back with me.

"I suppose I should explain a bit." I sighed. "We don't know why or how, but one day fratello just woke up... deaf. Completely and entirely deaf. I think someone had slipped him some kind of poison or something, because it affected him right up until we connected with our nation. Though it sneaks back in from time to time. We call it 'blinking out'. It's usually a result of stress, though we've learned how to manage just fine despite these disabilities when we do blink out." I explained.

"Wait, what do you mean 'we'?" Germany asked, his eyebrows knitting together in concern.

"Ah... well, it wasn't too long after fratello lost his sense of sound, that I..." I trailed off, a blush of embarrassment on my face.

Japan's eyes lit up in sudden understanding. "You went blind, didn't you?"

"Yeah. I sometimes blink out, too, but I've learned a lot of tricks to help me when I do. It's part of the reason why I don't like quiet rooms... I feel severely disadvantaged and vulnerable when there's not some kind of ambient noise in the background." I admitted.

"Wait! So you went blind," France started, pointing to me, "and you went deaf?!"

"Pretty much." Romano said. "Also, if you're wondering, I'm actually blinked out right now, so while I can read your lips pretty adeptly, you do need to face me first. So if you're talking to me while facing away from me, I'll just ignore you."

"Felice..." Lovino spoke again, his words sounded somewhat slurred. "W-what am I going to do? I can't even hear myself speaking right now. I'm scared."

Asher whined and pushed his nose up against Lovino's hand, but his words weren't translated into comprehensible English for the other nations, likely because Lovino was deaf, and I hadn't been able to understand wolf at the time.

The nations winced as Lovino's voice trembled with uncertainty and fear. They'd never heard my brother speak like that before, and it unsettled them. They were so used to the loud, brash, confident persona that my brother had built for himself, that this meek scared little boy was a frightening contrast.

"I-it'll be okay, fratello." Feliciano spoke slowly, annunciating his words carefully so his brother could try to read his lips.

"H-how will it be okay?" Lovino whispered, looking to his baby brother for comfort.

"We'll figure something out." Feli promised, though it was unclear if that promise was to Lovino or himself. Lovino looked down at his feet, deep in thought. Feli tried to get his attention, but quickly remembered that his brother couldn't hear him.

With a sigh, he sat down next to Lovino, whose head quickly shot up. "Maybe..." Feliciano's eyes lit up with realization. "Maybe the vibrations?"

"What? I can't hear you!" Lovino spoke a little too loudly, and Feliciano was quick to repeat his earlier statement, slower this time.

"Vibrations?" He tilted his head, confused. Feli nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! You could learn to sense stuff. I hear that when you lose one of your senses, the others become stronger!" He grinned.

Lovino looked at his brother, unsure of how to handle his sudden enthusiasm, or understand the words that were spoken too quickly. "I'll try..." He sighed.

The scene faded away into a montage of Feliciano throwing harmless items at his brother from different angles as he tried to dodge. It also showed them sparing quite spectacularly, reminding the nations that these two were not as innocent as they first seemed. They also saw brief glimpses of some diction lessons that Feliciano gave his brother so he could speak clearly and at a proper level without tipping anyone off about his disability.

It finally slowed a bit, showing a very concerned Lovino talking to a rather panicked Feliciano.

"I... fratello, I don't know what's wrong! I-I can't see!" Feliciano cried, tears running down his face. He looked terrified as he reached out blindly ahead of him, nearly jabbing a concerned Asher in the eye. Lovino reached out and pulled his brother into a hug.

"You... you went blind?" Prussia looked at me in shock.

Didn't I just tell them about this?

You know, even after the Mansion, some of them are still a little slow.

"Yeah. You'll learn fairly fast that whenever something happens to one of us, something similar will happen to the other." Romano said, shrugging his shoulders.

"That's usually how it works." I sighed. "He goes deaf; I go blind. He loses his left shoe; I lose my right shoe. He gets hit by a car; I get hit by a goddamn airplane." I glared at my brother. "And then he hits me with his fucking car."

"Oi! That wasn't my fault, and you know it!" He huffed, crossing his arms.

"Right..." I rolled my eyes. "So if that wasn't your fault, then I suppose that my crashing your speedboat was cool?"

"You what?! You said it was an accident!"

"And you said that it didn't really matter because you didn't use it anyways." I countered. "And don't you dare think I've forgotten about my fucking Lamborghini!!"

"I got you a Ferrari!"

"I want my Lamborghini back, you asshole!" I glared.

"I said I was sorry!" Romano put his hands up in surrender as he took a step back.

"As much as I hate to break this up..." England cut in, gesturing to the memory that was now showing my past self attempting to navigate an obstacle-filled room.

"Ah, I remember this. We saw some bats flying around once, and fratello heard someone talking about their echolocation clicks. He got the idea that maybe I could learn how to do the same thing." I informed the nations, wincing as my past self ran shin-first into a rather heavy wooden crate.

"Did it work?" France asked, curious.

"You tell me." I smirked as the memory changed.

This new scene showed Feliciano and Lovino surrounded by fifteen grown men armed with various weapons. It looked like a street fight of some kind. Feliciano's eyes were a milky white color, disturbing the watching nations, and making Hungary tear up.

Asher was sitting in the shadows, yawning. He didn't seem concerned about his bonded in the slightest. With a smirk, Feliciano closed his eyes and hummed a random tune, easily dodging a swipe of a sword to his side.

With that, the fight began. Lovino and Feliciano dodged and struck back with incredible fierceness. Feliciano, despite being blind, was accurate enough to still kill or severely incapacitate his opponents, while Lovino, though he couldn't hear them coming, had sharp enough instincts that he could easily dodge oncoming blows.

The nations watched in awe. While it wasn't the most graceful fight they'd ever seen, indeed, parts of it involved crude and unrefined movements, it was still an incredible battle.

"All things considered, you are doing very well." China complimented.

"Ja... Especially since you've had no formal combat training." Germany agreed.

"Though I am being disappointed that you are not using General Winter's abilities." Russia admitted.

"Well, I wasn't entirely confident in my ability to fight blind, yet. So I tried not to use those powers unless I knew exactly where my enemy was. I didn't want to freeze my brother by mistake... again." I replied, watching my past self fight. I ignored Romano's mutter about how it took him a week to re-grow his curl. Wow. I was so...

Weak? Vulnerable? Pathetic?

I was going to say unrefined, but sure. That works, too.

"Apparently fighting blind originated in Italy." South Korea blinked. "Can you teach me?!" He turned to me suddenly.

"Wh-what? Teach you? Uh... I'm not sure..." I chuckled, not sure how to handle the situation.

"Oi, leave Veneziano alone, would'ya?" Romano butted in. "He learned it out of necessity, not for some cheap party-trick." He glared lightly at South Korea, who sheepishly backed off.

"Sorry."

"There. All done." Lovino said, smirking at his brother, though Feli couldn't see it.

"That's all of them?" Feli asked, tilting his head to listen for any more foes. As he spoke, he used hand signals that the other nations didn't really recognize.

"I don't see any more." Lovino replied verbally as he scanned the surrounding area.

"You made up your own sign language?" Japan asked, pleasantly surprised.

"Si. It wasn't really even a concept back then, but we had to find some way of communicating. And since Vino couldn't always see my mouth, this worked out perfectly." I smiled. "It's our own secret language."

"That's handy." America grinned. "Mattie and I sorta have our own thing, too, but that's just because nobody else really knows ASL."

"Wait, you do?!" England blinked rapidly, sharing a look with France. "Well that explains a few things."

"Oui. Like all those times you two got out of trouble. And here we thought you had a twin link." France crossed his arms as he leveled a stern look at Canada.

"O-oh, well... Y-you see..."

"What Mattie means to say is... It's been decades, man! We got away with it when we were kids, so you can't hold it against us now!" America grinned.

"AL!" Canada whisper-shouted at his brother. "That is not what you're supposed to say here! Are you trying to get us in trouble?!"

"Hold on. I think we need to take another break so I can speak to my son in private." England said, sending America a stern look as he once again called up the Break Room.

"Well... should we start dinner?" I asked my brother, who shrugged and nodded.

"Yeah, sure. Why not?" We made our way to the kitchen, leaving the FACE family to take care of whatever business they needed to in private.

"Grandpa Rome's next." I said softly, knowing my brother could read my lips.

"Si... Though it's what's after that that worries me." He sent me a concerned look.

"You mean..." Holy Rome... I shook my head. "I'll be okay." I reassured him, though he didn't seem convinced.

"Don't pull that crap, Veneziano. You know as well as I do that—"

"I'll be fine, fratello." I stated again, more firmly this time.

"You're so stubborn."

"I learned from the best." I smirked.

"Shut up." He rolled his eyes and turned away from me, ending the conversation. "Pass me the tomatoes."

"Sure, sure." I chuckled as we began making pizza together. At least... right now... everything's okay.

A/N: Wow! Still on a roll~! Another chapter! Next should be Grandpa Rome!! This concludes Arc II Of Memories of Old~! *Throws confetti*

Next we start Arc III, the Re-Childhood Arc. It shouldn't be too long, as I count Holy Rome as its own Arc. This'll mostly be a 'filler Arc' or an information type Arc. That being said, I'll do my best to make it enjoyable.

Please comment; I love hearing what you have to say. Again~ I now have a Telegram account, so feel free to send me messages on there. It's a free app that doesn't charge for messages to/from other countries. My username on there is still SilvermistAnimeLover.

I dedicate this awesome chapter to my friend RewriteTheMoon. Hang in there~! You can make it through Finals! :D

Words: 1,794/1,959

Pages: 4/5

Posted: 12/21/2018

Edited: 03/06/2019