fic: songs of childhood.

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It was because his mother had the horses, six Selle Français, that his father employed the Ferrari family at the manor. The mother helped cooking and cleaning at the estate, while her husband and her oldest son were in charge of the stables. When Philippe spent his summer holidays at home, he and Antonio, the Ferrari couple’s youngest son, would borrow the horses and go on daytrips to the Belgian border, eating on Philippe’s father’s tab at the expensive gourmet inns there. He got in a lot of trouble for that. They didn’t do it again, but they rode around the nearby towns and villages, staying close to the Sauer. The summer greenery was lush and heavy and the horses wanted to stretch their legs, so they had to temper them somewhat.

Philippe was 14 that summer, Antonio two years older, though they treated each other like equals, regardless of Philippe’s family looking down their noses at the friendship.

One day, as they’d passed through Esch and were trekking in the fields up north, Antonio had said, let’s go swim in the river, in his dark voice with the guttural Italian accent that made his German a bit feisty to listen to. Philippe had shrugged and turned his horse around, taking it down towards the Sauer, to the place where they knew the riverbanks were sandy and welcoming. They’d been many times before, usually by bike. Tying the horses to each their tree trunk, giving them enough free rein to eat some grass, they kicked off their clothes and ran for the water, Antonio shoving Philippe back with one, big hand on his shoulder, gaining enough momentum to jump head-first in ahead of him. Philippe was right at his heels, though.

Philippe was always right at his heels.

Afterwards, they lay side by side on their dry clothes on the riverbank, the sun harsh and scorching above their heads, Antonio shielding his eyes with one hand, dipping his toes in the water lazily. Pesciolino blu, giù, giù, giù, nel mare se ne va, he sang under his breath. He had a nice voice for singing. Philippe didn’t understand the words, though. He had trouble enough with English in school.

Well, three languages are more than enough to get by, his father always exclaimed when he complained about his English homework, in a way that didn’t mean ‘don’t worry about it’, but rather it meant, ‘fuck the English’. Not that fucking the English would necessarily get Philippe better grades, he felt fairly sure. He hadn’t fucked anyone in his life yet.

About to ask what the song way about, Philippe fell silent when Antonio rolled onto his side, halfway leaning in over his upper body, shielding him from the sun like that. They looked at each other for a few, tense moments, then Antonio reached up and ruffled his hair, making Philippe exclaim loudly and try to wave his hand off. It made him laugh. Antonio still just looked at him.

“We have the same name,” he suddenly said, softly.

“No, we don’t,” Philippe kept laughing.

“Your middle name’s Antoine. That’s the French version of Antonio.”

A pause. Philippe blinked, “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“There’s a rule, you have to kiss people who carry a version of your name,” Antonio insisted.

No, there’s not, Philippe wanted to say, you’re just making that up, but he couldn’t find any good reasons why Antonio would invent such a thing, just to kiss him. They were both boys, boys didn’t…

“So, if you meet a girl called Filippa, you have to kiss her,” Antonio continued before Philippe could make up a satisfactory answer.

“I don’t want to kiss a girl called Filippa.”

“But you do want to kiss a girl, right?”

Another pause, longer. “Of course. This is a stupid game, let’s go back.” Philippe was about to sit up, but Antonio grabbed him by the shoulders and squashed him down against the carpet of t-shirts and trousers. Their faces were very close now. He couldn’t really breathe and not because of how Antonio held him. Or maybe exactly because of that.

“I have to kiss you first.”

“No, you don’t, it’s stupid, stop being stupid -”

Antonio kissed him. Right on the mouth. Pressed in against him and Philippe could feel his exhalations like huffs of heat over his lips and he suddenly realised, neither of them were dressed in any way and all that heat was going straight down, when he wasn’t wearing pants to… hide… Antonio pushed his tongue past his lips, opening him up and it was wet and kind of messy, but Philippe also really liked it and parts of him definitely liked it more than others.

He squirmed, tried to get away, while at the same time he didn’t want it to end. Antonio didn’t let go, he kept going, he kept going and Philippe was going to… he needed… to…

He sat up, all but banging his head into Antonio’s face and biting his tongue off, but he just needed it to end, not to continue, to stop, stop, stop. Quickly scrambling to his feet, trying to conceal his boner and failing, he dressed wordlessly and without looking at the older boy even once. “Let’s go back,” he said. His t-shirt was clinging hotly to his back. It smelled of his sweat and of Antonio’s. “No more stupid games.”

“It’s not just a game,” Antonio replied, getting up as well and getting dressed. Philippe noticed he was at least half-hard, before he tugged himself into his pants, then his trousers. “It’s just a rule that applies to some of us, okay?”

“Not okay,” Philippe muttered, stalking up to his horse and getting into the saddle without any real elegance. His balls hurt.

After a moment, Antonio shook his head and got onto his own horse. He kicked it into a trot towards the main road further up through the clearing, before yelling over one shoulder, like a warning almost, “maybe not okay, but that’s how it is anyway!”

Still tasting him on his lips, Philippe pretended not to hear.