The Turn of a Feather

Chapter 7

Lovino, Antonio, and Belle sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and chatting absently. It had been a week since Belle had treated the angel, and she had checked on him every day since then. All three wounds had healed up quite nicely, and were on their way to being fully healed. The dog bite was now completely closed, no more than a shimmering patch of pink tissue. Of course there would be scars, but that was unavoidable. For now, they were all just glad that the infection was gone.

Lovino wrapped his hands around his mug, breathing in its scent deeply. He sighed, playing absently with the handle.

The action didn't go unnoticed by Antonio and Belle, who looked at each other, frowning. "Lovi..."Antonio started hesitantly, "are you alright? You haven't been yourself lately."

Lovino shrugged in response. "I'm fine."

His two companions' eyes went wide. He hadn't even said the words sharply, or said a single curse. The heat that usually sparked in the Italian's words was gone, missing as it had been more and more lately.

Something was definitely up, and it was time that they found out what that was.

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Lovino wandered around the house, looking for his missing Spaniard. The missing Spaniard, damnit! He finally located him in the living room with Belle, and couldn't help a not-so-tiny twinge of jealousy at seeing them sitting together. It hadn't taken much to figure out that they had once been a couple, by the way they acted. He just hoped that it really was over for good.

"Ah, Lovino. Sit down." The angel raised an eyebrow, but complied to Belle, settling himself down on the plush chair across from them.

"Haven't heard that one in awhile." He muttered. "It's all been 'Lovi' or 'Lovinito' or 'you overly cantankerous Italian' or something."

Antonio snorted, causing Belle to give him a look, before they both turned back to their target with serious expressions. Lovino felt an alarm start to go off in his head, and he figured that he probably wasn't going to like this.

Antonio took a breath. "Lovino, you haven't been yourself at all lately, and you won't tell us what's wrong. That's why we're here. You aren't getting out of this until you tell us what's on your mind."

Belle nodded. "We're your friends, and we need to figure this out so that we can help. So, talk to us."

There was an uncomfortable silence in which Lovino simply stared at them. Then: "...are you staging an intervention on me?"

The two humans blinked, not expecting that reaction. Antonio opened his mouth and closed it again. "I... Well... Yes?"

The Italian snorted. "And you two didn't think to just, oh, I don't know, ask me what was wrong?"

More silence. Then Belle spoke.

"We tried, but... You never really answered and... Yeah." She finished lamely.

Lovino sat back and sighed. "Well, thanks for the concern, but I don't need it. I'm fine. You don't need to worry about it." He got up to leave, but was pulled back down onto the chair by Antonio.

The Spaniard leaned in close, studying Lovino and causing a blush to creep onto his friend's cheeks. "H-h-hey, bastard! What the hell do you think-" Antonio smiled a bit, causing poor Lovino's face to turn scarlet.

"I told you this would help. See, he's cussing like a sailor."

Antonio seemed oblivious to the discomfort that the small, wriggling person under him was feeling at the moment, his face turned towards Belle.