Chapter Text
The fairy lights danced across the pavement, strung high above the train station like necklaces of diamonds, and snowflakes fluttered into a laughing Alberto’s hair, haloing him in a gentle crown of white. A laughing Alberto who had not registered Luca’s presence in any way whatsoever. An Alberto who had an arm slung around another boy. Something burned black and hot in Luca’s stomach.
“Hey, you all right?” Giulia asked besides him, her voice tinged with concern.
“I’m fine,” he managed through gritted teeth, plastering on a smile as his family embraced him and Massimo, Giulia’s hulking father, gently lifted his daughter up and swung her around, laughing. His parents, afflicted by the snow, appeared to have stripes of green-blue across their cheeks. “Oh, Luca!” his mother cooed, wrapping him in a tight hug.
He smiled. “I missed you too, Mom.”
“Hey, Luca!” He whipped around, and Alberto was running across the snow towards him, hair flying, eyes sparkling, and Luca forgot how to breathe. All the air in his lungs left him as Alberto wrapped him in a tight hug. “I missed you!”
“I missed you too,” Luca mumbled into the crook of his friend’s neck. He smelled like sandalwood and sea and just the slightest hint of cherry, and, guiltily realising what he was doing, Luca stepped back. Awkwardly, because his treasonous hands skated across Alberto’s waist for the briefest of moments before he snatched them back.
Alberto, ever oblivious, grabbed his hand. “Come on! Massimo’s made the best dinner for Christmas Eve!”
The families filled the cozily lit streets with chatter as they all filed into Massimo’s house, set with a long table and a checkered tablecloth. “Neat, isn’t it?”
Luca only mumbled in response as he caught a glimpse of sun-kissed skin beyond Massimo’s gate out of the corner of his eye. The boy whom Alberto had been chatting with. No, flirting with. Alberto followed his gaze.
“Hey, Angelo!” He waved enthusiastically, and the boy in question waved back, sunshine-blond hair glowing in the candlelight, and Luca hated him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow!” And Luca watched, rooted to his seat, and Alberto grinned up at him and blew him a kiss. Smiling, Angelo caught it and ran off into the night.
Luca was about to blow a fuse. Who was this beautiful stranger, and how dare he flirt with Alberto like that? Alberto was his and his alone.
Well, not really. Apparently not anymore.
He barely touched his food that night, much to the chagrin of his grandmother, who was complaining that he was far too skinny. He made his excuses, though, ducking out of their protective embraces, and ran all the way to Giulia’s room. The epitome of efficiency, she soon followed and sat down cross-legged on the bed. “All right, out with it.”
“He blew him a kiss!” Luca seethed, pacing back and forth. “Angelo, with his pretty ocean eyes and his golden hair and he’s charmed Alberto! I mean, where did he even come from?” He clenched his fists, trying to mask the hurt bubbling beneath his anger.
“Alberto blew him a kiss! Alberto! He’s never flirted with anyone, and I thought I knew everything about him. He never mentioned stupid Angelo. Oh my god, is that why his letters got shorter? He doesn’t need or want me anymore! Giulia, do you think he loves him?”
The look on Giulia’s freckled face was one of pity, and he didn’t like it one bit. “Listen, Luca-”
“I knew it!” Luca exploded, then dropped heavily onto the floor. “I’m sorry. I just didn’t think it would happen so fast.”
“What would happen so fast?” As subtly as she could, Giulia moved her snow globes and other fragile objects away from his reach.
“Alberto getting stolen away from me. I mean, I knew it was inevitable, but.” He dropped his head onto his hands. “How could anyone not want him?” Frustrated, he gestured vaguely in the air. “He’s just so beautiful with his turquoise jewel eyes and his
hair,
and, and the way he talks, and he’s so funny, and so charming, and so
intoxicating
, and have you seen him in his true form? Iridescent scales, and, and his tail-” he flopped onto his back, his head hitting the ground with a thump- “I just, Giulia, what do I do? He’s so beautiful, even a boy like Angelo would fall for him!”
“Whoa, whoa, easy there, tiger,” Giulia said, pulling him to his feet. “Nobody said he ever liked Angelo. He’s still your best friend.”
“Yeah, but he might be someone’s boyfriend, ” he fumed.
“And you want that someone to be you?”
Luca blushed. “What? Giulia!”
She gave him a don’t-argue-with-me look. “You just ranted for like, ten minutes about how beautiful he is.”
“He’s not just beautiful, his personality is-” Luca trailed off, defeated. “Never mind.”
Giulia grinned triumphantly. “See? Now go get him.”
“But how?” Of all the things he had learnt onshore, courtship was not one of them. “I’m not familiar with human...mating rituals.”
She threw a pillow at him. “Ew! Alberto is my brother, idiota ! First rule, never, ever call it that.”
“And the second rule?”
“He likes you already! Just be yourself.”
A pebble hit the window and they turned to see Alberto’s grinning face. Treehouse, he mouthed to Luca, whose lips, despite everything, curved up into a smile.
“See?” Giulia fairly pushed him out the window. “Go.”
He didn’t need any further incentive as Alberto offered him a hand for support as they crossed the bough of the tree. Over the years, the square plank they had slept on had been transformed into a cozy cocoon for stargazing and giggling whispers as they slept together, reunited after a long year of Giulia and Luca being away for school. Alberto had put up walls, giving them some privacy, and as it was winter, thick blankets had been heaped onto the ground. He’d even strung up some fairy lights, and below it, he’d painted constellations and taped the picture he’d drawn, of the two of them riding away on a Vespa.
“I love it,” Luca breathed, and Alberto beamed. “Thought it’d be too simple for you, cuz you’re a scholar now and all,” he said, uncharacteristically shy.
Luca thought he might melt. “You’re the expert, aren’t you?” he said instead, trying to mask his adoration.
Alberto laughed, summer-sea eyes glimmering in the starlight. “That I am.” He patted the bedsheets. “Come on, lie down.”
The floor of the treehouse was no longer rough wood, and Luca’s head sank into the feather pillows. “Wow, you must’ve caught a lot of fish,” he murmured, already feeling sleepy.
Alberto affectionately ran his fingers through his hair and Luca valiantly attempted not to shiver. “I know everything, remember?” He could hear the smile in his friend’s voice.
“When Massimo and I go fishing, I bring the nets down and swim till I catch enough fish,” he explained. “They all hate me.”
Luca snorted, then wondered if it was an unattractive sound to make. No matter, he wasn’t attractive anyway. Alberto, ever observant, picked up on his bitterness immediately. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?”
He turned away and put a pillow atop his face. “‘M not good-looking enough for people,” he mumbled, his voice muffled by the fabric. People, quite obviously, being Alberto.
It was pathetic, but he waited for Alberto to disagree.
“What? Luca, no! Never think that! Which idiot at school gave you that ridiculous idea?”
Even though he knew it was a lie, Alberto’s voice sounded sincere. He peeled the pillow off his face. “Look at me,” he instructed, and Luca, drawn to the intensity behind his eyes, automatically complied. “You’re pretty, okay? Smart and pretty, and whoever doesn’t see that is a rotten egg.”
Blushing, Luca laughed. “Okay, then, I’m a rotten egg.”
Alberto swiped at him playfully. “What did I just say?”
“Sorry!” He ducked but Alberto still managed to ruffle his hair. He hated how he liked it.
He lay down beside him and drew the covers up to his chin. “All right then, spill the beans. Tell me who you wanna look good for.”
“Nobody!” Luca protested, a knee-jerk reaction. “Absolutely nobody!”
“You’re not very good at lying, tesoro.”
Luca’s heart skipped a beat. Tesoro? Darling? Did Alberto just-
“Angelo taught me that word,” he explained with a light laugh, and Luca’s heart dropped all the way to the bottom of the ocean. Right. Of course he did.
“Do you like Angelo? Like, in a romantic way?”
Alberto grinned slyly. “You answer my question first.” He paused, as if deliberately thinking as he dramatically stroked his chin. “Did you ever like Giulia?”
Luca spluttered, his brain short-circuiting. “ What? Giulia? No, oh my god. No! She’s like a sister to me!”
It could have just been the light, but Alberto looked almost...pleased. He shrugged nonchalantly. “When we first met her, you were hanging on to her every word, looking at her books, and you didn’t seem to need me anymore.”
What? If anything, Luca was the one that Alberto didn’t need.
“Of course I still want- I mean, need you!” he blurted, face reddening. “‘Berto, you’re you!”
Back to his usual cockiness, he grinned. “I know, I’m amazing.”
Luca choked on his own laughter. “All right, then how’s seducing Angelo going?” He tried to play it off as a joke, to gauge where they were in their relationship.
“I wouldn’t call it seducing!”
“I would,” Luca shot back. “You blew him a kiss! I’m surprised you haven’t moved on to real ones.”
He hadn’t meant for his tone to sound so sarcastic, but the anger he had bottled up earlier was back.
“Oh, you know me,” Alberto joked breezily. “Ever the gentleman.”
So he did want to kiss Angelo. Maybe even more. What if Luca returned from school next year to find them... lovers ?
“Now, come on!” Alberto continued, oblivious to Luca’s simmering jealousy. “What big plans do you have for your birthday?”
Luca was turning seventeen in a week’s time, and the only person he wanted didn’t want him back. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “Maybe I’ll go for a swim.”
A snowflake fell onto his nose, as if to punctuate his point, and Alberto laughed as it turned blue. “You look ridiculous, mi amico. Winters here are brutal.”
“So you’re just going to let it snow on us all night?” he whined, not even caring that he sounded petulant.
“No, like a genius, I came prepared.” He undid a spool of cloth over Luca’s head, revealing it to be a long tarp that he then attached to the opposite end of the treehouse. “See?”
“That’s amazing,” Luca breathed, and for a brief moment, they were children of twelve and thirteen again, laughing at Alberto’s latest and greatest creation.
Alberto smiled, perhaps thinking the same thing, and lay back down. “I missed you, you know,” he muttered, resolutely facing the ceiling. “There’s not much to do here besides fishing when you and Giulia aren’t here.”
Thankfully, the treehouse was dark under its roof and Luca’s blush remained undetected. “Come to school with us!” He smiled, imagining it. “We could go swimming in the sea, and go to astronomy lessons together, and everything!”
“I’m sorry, Luc, school just isn’t for me.” He curled up onto his side to face him. “Although…”- a grin crept across his face, visible even in the dark- “I could swim over to visit you!”
Luca gasped. “It’s possible?” He smacked Alberto on the head. “Why on earth didn’t you do it before, idiot?”
“I only just thought of it!” His friend jokingly held up his hands in surrender. Hands that had gotten bigger and more calloused since the last time he’d seen him. Luca wondered what he looked like, muscled and tan, diving into the ocean.
Suddenly struck by a thought, he undid the hooks that held together the tarp roof, and the snow came fluttering down upon them. “What on earth are you doing?” Alberto asked, the smile on his face betraying his mask of irritation.
Luca felt the familiar sensation of scales washing over him, of his hands turning into claws, of his tail re-forming, and he breathed the cool night air in satisfaction, finally in his true form. He couldn’t help but stare as Alberto transformed, too, scales rippling in the moonlight.
“Come on, idiota. We’re stargazing.”