Every day, it was the same.
His, his, his.
Spain's idiot friends would come to visit and talk down to him like a child, trying to help him picture the covers of books they needed to borrow because to be a colony, a slave to another nation, must mean you were illiterate and stupid. But he must be, right? He wasn't even just a slave, he was his, Antonio's. In his entirety, body, mind and soul.
No he wasn't. He fought against the idiot masses, he wasn't bred for the life of a pet. He worked more in a week than they had in their entire lives and so he demanded respect, damn them! They would laugh at him and say the strangest things. Only Antonio would keep a nation with the temperament of a chili pepper as a colony, apparently.
And back to that again!
And so Lovino slowly began to accept it, grudgingly. When Antonio would ask him to make paella with him, he did so, because a good slave did as he was told. He didn't do it quietly, oh no, Spain was fully aware of how much he resented him and his stupid spicy fish food. It didn't mean it wasn't nice to get a thank you kiss after. 'Colony' didn't mean 'unable to accept some well-earned attention', after all.
His, his, his.
The courting began a little later. A thank you kiss turned to two, and three, and then there were ones for good mornings and good nights, for any time he wanted and every single damn time he didn't. But he would close his eyes accordingly, and let Spain wrap his arms around him, pull him close.
Kisses changed from innocent to something more. Suddenly, the rest of his body wasn't off limits. And it was when Lovino noticed something, the day Antonio put a hand up his shirt and he stepped back shyly. When he asked, Spain stopped. All thoughts of anything sexual were aborted quickly, and suddenly he was cuddled and fawned over, actually apologized to.
Things changed after that, and Lovino tested the waters to find them absolutely perfect. If the soup was too spicy, it was made again, just for him. If he didn't feel like doing anything that day, that was fine, he was allowed to rest all he liked, and lounge around to his heart's content. If any of his peers said something about him that he didn't approve of, all he had to do was alert their master with tears in his eyes, ask for them to be scolded. The accused would slink around him from then on, glaring daggers at his face and whispering bitter words about him, but it didn't matter.
And though Antonio had the illusion of dominance – Lovino was the one who yielded to him in bed, took the moments of physical pain – there was but a one word chant in his mind as they made love for the first time, his master's soft words of total and complete adoration filling the room.
Mine, mine, mine.