Author's Corner
This is just a little drabble since I'm struggling on getting Chapter One out on A Look Behind Bars, and I thought I might as well write something up for you all. :3
Sorry that everything is so backed up, I had a con last weekend, and the weekend before was just fjdskfnsk
So here we are, readers. Apple is truly sorry for everything ;^;
Enjoy~
Lovino's finger dug into the collar of his necktie, rough and commanding as he loosened the tug off the dreaded piece of neckwear. Long days of paperwork, long hours standing on his unsupported shoes, and not to mention those horrible minutes running back and forth with a briefcase in one hand and a cappuccino— extra milk, cream, and a bit of cinnamon, just the way he liked it— in the other. His feet were begging for mercy by the time he dug out his keys to his house, or Antonio's house, either way, it was his house now. He wasn't even close to the house, and the city hall's secretary had taken his vespa back to the house. Being a nation was tough.
Very tough—so tough, Lovino could barely move his knees. They wobbled and cried out for help, a sitter, a breather, if you will. He knew though, if he sat down on a bench decorated with cold raindrops from the early morning's dew, he'd ruin the pair of his favorite, very expensive, designer work pants. It hadn't been the first time, at least, with Antonio's favorite nightly escapades with Lovino himself, seducing him so much that the mere thought of being in those pants was intolerably excruciating. He shrugged off that thought with a violent blush to adorn his hollow, pale face, and placed his briefcase full of paperwork he still had to do tonight for a very important meeting the next morning on the bench, sweeping away icy droplets of water that clung to its cold metal surface.
He sat down, cringing at the water that sunk in to the fabric and dug out his phone, flipping it open, noticing about fourteen new text messages from various people, mostly the man he was supposed to meet at home, Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, country of Spain, residence in the country away from all villages and or towns. Antonio liked his privacy. A few years ago, which was practically a month in nation times; a near blink of an eye, Antonio had lived in the city, in a loft overlooking most of Valencia. He whined during dinner to the Italian that the noise in the city was terrible at night, so horrible and disrupting during their secret, never-to-be-talked-about-outside-of-their-home embraces that occurred in the night. The messages had been all about how he couldn't wait until he got home how he had a surprise for him, and questioning with emoticons how late Lovino would be and when he would be back so he could prepare this 'surprise' proper. Lovino sighed deeply and raised his hand from his lap to enter in his number and 'surprise' the damn bastard himself. Lovino was greeted with the sound of dialing and a smooth, yet drawn out tone of the call reaching Antonio's cell phone. He sighed, relaxing back on the hard bench and crossing his legs, placing his right arm behind him to clutch the back.
"Hola," Antonio's singsong voice was even cheerful through the crunchy and robotic sound of a phone, so cheerful even though it was eleven o'clock and Lovino was nowhere near the double-leveled ranch in the Spanish countryside.
"Don't you 'Hola' me, Antonio." Lovino grumbled, raising the right hand from the back of the bench to his temple, rubbing profusely. "It's Lovino, dipshit."
"Ah, it's you!" Antonio laughed and tried to hide the clinking and clanking of metal of his pots and pans. "I was just doing the dishes. The china looked really dusty, y'know?" The attempts were futile, given that Lovino was growling under his breath at all of the loud noises. "So, are you on your way home?"
"Yeah, but my bike's back at the house. I have to walk." He murmured, swinging his legs up to the bench and hugging them in to his chest. "I mean I'll be fine and all, but—"
"I'll come pick you up, Lovi, don't worry." Antonio interjected; dropping the pot he was mindlessly scrubbing in the dishwater and skipping off to grab his keys from the small dish that rested on an end table beside the door. Lovino sighed and shrugged, telling the Spaniard his location and ending the call, only to be called back with a prolonged whine about how Antonio wanted to talk to him while he drove.
The call was ended again, rather unemotionally.
…
About a few minutes later, possibly fifteen, he was greeted with a pair of headlights and a small honk of a horn. He looked up from his laptop that he had been working in and sighed, meeting emerald eyes with his own. He tiredly picked up the mess of the papers strewn about the street bench and shoved them without care into the black leather briefcase, keeping a paper or two out and his laptop open. He walked to the car, nodded to Antonio's greeting of 'Hola, cariño~' and tossed the briefcase in the back. Lovino sat down next to Antonio in the passenger side and closed the door, setting the laptop in his lap and a few other papers beside him so he could look back and forth while his fingers started to fly against the keyboard.
"¿Usted todavía está trabajando?" Antonio asked, leaning his arm into the armrest to stare at his work. Lovino looked baffled in the cold glow of the laptop, whereas Antonio made a mental note to brush up on Lovino's Spanish later. "You're still working?" He repeated, his voice holding a hint of annoyance. Lovino looked up from his spreadsheet and all of the mindless numbers to him and bit his lip.
"He gave me the biggest spreadsheet ever, and he's making me make a speech to the council about the road conditions and the Mafia, how everything will be improved," He rambled on, his voice near the cracking line with all of the fatigue in his voice. "And it has to be done by tomorrow. I have to pull a fucking all-nighter."
"No you don't," Antonio began to shut the top of the laptop. Lovino shrieked and slapped him away, yanking the laptop back up to his lap. He practically slammed his fingers on the keys 'ctrl-s', just to make sure that his precious labor wouldn't be sent into an unreachable abyss. "Ay!" He cried out, throwing his hands in the air to show that he was not a threat, and that he wasn't going to try anything else any time soon. "Lovi, you're acting like a dog protecting his toy." He accused, starting to pull out of the street and onto the road. "You don't need to pull an all-nighter, okay?" He comforted Lovino with a hand to his back, rubbing small circles into his tense spine.
"Yes, I do," He retorted, spinning the laptop to Antonio and showing him how much he still had to do. "I can't finish if I sleep. Do you have any coffee at your house? I'm going to need it." He murmured, spinning it back to his lap as his strained red eyes begged for the contacts to come out. Antonio smiled softly at the display of determination, reflecting briefly at the red stoplight on Lovino's younger days when he was so stuck on a jigsaw puzzle or even planting the perfect tomato plant.
"I do, but you don't need coffee this late." He responded, continuing with the rubbing of his back. He hummed softly, noticing how frustrated Lovino was getting. "Honey, you need sleep. I'll call you in sick so you can rest. You've been working so hard lately." Antonio continued, adjusting his eyes to the darkness of the car. "Trust me, Lovino." He added, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. The Italian snarled at him and rubbed his face to get the 'Spanish germs' off his skin.
"Don't get involved, you asshole." He growled, looking up from the laptop to rub his eyes, noticing the close distance between the city limits, where it was only five minutes away from the impressive house decorated by Lovino himself. He took a moment to have a quick moment of rest before hitting 'ctrl-s' one more time, shutting the laptop with the two papers lodged in the middle.
"Oh? Are you stopping for the night?" Antonio asked after he began to pull in the driveway. Lovino answered him with a deadly glare once the car was at a complete stop. He reached for the briefcase in the backseat, unbuckling his seatbelt. Quickly, Antonio locked the doors and crossed his arms, frowning slightly. The Italian jerked to a halt at the sound of the blunt, thick lock of the door. The childproof locks on the door were useful when you had a raging boyfriend in a rush with you in the car, yes, but the look Lovino gave him turned to Antonio wasn't very safe. Antonio began to crumple under that look, but he merely shrugged that off, assuming he was dealing with one of his younger, Latin American colonies back in the day. His smile now was empty, yet at the same time pushing, and controlling. "You're not getting out of this car until you promise me you'll stop working." He sang, leaning back into the car controls. Lovino felt himself falter, seeing as he had seen that face too many times on the battlefield.
Antonio was serious.
He didn't sound like he did, but he meant everything that came from those lips.
"…W-What if I get to work on my stuff while I get ready for bed?" He asked with his eyes hopeful.
Antonio pondered this for a moment, pursing his lip, nodding stiffly as he thought it over. "Making a spreadsheet while you bathe by yourself? You'll take forever." He replied. Lovino felt his heart sink, knowing there was no way around this one. "I said once you go to sleep I'll finish your work. Now," He stretched out his hand and flicked his fingers. "Can you hand over the laptop?"
"No."
"Lovino,"
"I said no, damn it! Take no for an answer!" Lovino shouted, shoving his laptop in the briefcase. Antonio took a deep breath and nodded, closing his eyes. The Italian watched as he did, straightening out his collar.
"Fine, fine, you can work while you get ready for bed." He agreed, turning around to unlock the door. "But—there's one condition." He flicked his head back at the house. "I'll help you with everything while you work, but once I'm done with one thing we move on to the next." He turned his head back to Lovino and waited until their eyes met. "¿Estamos claros?" Antonio asked, watching as his companion's face turned into pride, probably since that was near the only Spanish that Lovino had remembered when he was but a charge.
"Sure, sure, whatever, I have to piss." He hissed from behind his teeth. "Unlock the door." Antonio did as such, swinging open his door and unbuckling his own belt that he didn't realize he had on still. The last he saw of Lovino for the next few minutes was his ass and a trail of spreadsheet papers.
…
"I can brush my own teeth, you know." Lovino mumbled from the laptop, swiping the brush from Antonio's clutches.
"¿Ay, puede usted?" Antonio questioned with his voice thick with frustration and edginess. He took the brush back and placed a good amount of mint on it, handing the tool back to the rather drowsy looking Italian. Lovino's eyes were now a fierce, raging red, since he didn't seem to be in a hurry for anything. "Usted parece tardar su tiempo, Lovi." He added, watching as he wet the brush and moved the laptop away from his lap so he could clean those teeth at were never even shown in the first place.
"Something about time and taking," Lovino babbled from the mass of minty paste inside his mouth. He narrowed his eyes at the mirror and looked at how pissed Antonio was looking about now. It wasn't the 'I-just-saw-England-and-all-of-that-tension-makes-me-want-to-shove-my-cock-up-your-ass-so-let's-just-do-it-right-here-right-now' look he gave when we was mad, but it was more of the look that he gave to Lovino when he was only at Antonio's waist height-wise, when he wanted to stay up past ten o' clock and his Boss wouldn't let him. This look was less horny and a lot more comparable to a soccer mom who just got a stick up her ass, but give and take, you know. He spit out his toothpaste after running over his limited Spanish and threw his hand in the air like a child, smirking with toothpaste running down his chin. "Oh! Yeah, I am taking my time, aren't I? Huh. Tough shit for you, then," He shrugged, rubbing at his eyes.
"Lovino, you need to go to sleep. It's been a long day for you, with all of that running around." Antonio struggled to keep his voice level, trying not to shout or yell as he did his other colonies way back when. "So rinse out your mouth, and by the time I get back you better be in that bed or I won't be a happy man, sí?" He handed him his glass and took the laptop, kissing him on the lips before turning around to stomp out of the room with a slam of a heavy oak door.
Looks like Lovino was going to bed, considering that his job as a nation was now fucked.
…
This morning, there was no alarm clock to disrupt his sleep so he could rocket out of bed and into his suit, comb his hair, shoes on, watch on, and a horrible excuse for a breakfast in his hand. Usually it was a fistful of grapes, or sometimes an apple, maybe if he was lucky a tomato. This morning, he awoke with his head buried in the sheets, body curled up against the cold spring morning. Antonio was talking on the phone beside him softly, as if to not wake him up.
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry, Mr. Vargas can't work today, economic downturn and all, he should be fine by tomorrow," He paused, his arm that was resting right next to Lovino's head shifting just a tad as Lovino's boss started shrieking. "Excuse me? I was his caretaker for the longest time, and you've only been in office for 3 months, good sir, longest time being centuries. That's longer than your family has even been in existence." He piped back, imagining Antonio rolling his sharp emerald green eyes. "Yes, yes, I'm Spain." He added. "I'm Mr. Carriedo, si." After a long pause of Lovino's boss talking, he heard a content sigh and a small, light-hearted laugh come from the larger man. "Ah, yes, I'm glad we can be friends. We'll have to meet up sometime." Lovino shifted in his cocoon of blankets to reach an arm out forward snatch the phone before he hung up. He managed to get it, ignoring the surprised yelp from the Spaniard.
"Yo, boss." He murmured, his voice still clouded with sleep.
"Ah, Romano, are you feeling alright?" The boss asked, now wary of where he was treading. "I'll just have you present the spreadsheet to me tomorrow, and then we'll give the message to city council the day after around noon. Sound good?" Lovino made a mental note to thank Antonio later for reducing the tight-assed boss to such a powerless servant.
"Yeah, whatever. I tried to get it done, I really did." Lovino had switched over to his Italian tongue, flicking his amber eyes to the Spaniard to see if he was baffled yet. He was only getting a few words because of the relation to Spanish.
"That's what I heard from Mr. Spain." His boss flicked over too. "So, that's the plan for tomorrow and the day after, but you need to rest up today." He laughed, which really was rare from his boss since he was much nicer to Feliciano then he was to himself. "I'll see you at eleven tomorrow. Ciao~" And the other line was cut. Lovino smirked and shut Antonio's phone, poking his head out into the air. It was cold already. The air nipped at his nose like how mice eat at their cheese.
"Buenos tardes, querido," Antonio mumbled, shuffling down to lay on his stomach, his arms folded underneath him as his head rested right next to Lovino's. "You've been asleep for a long time."
Lovino turned his head to the phone and noticed it was nearing 3 o'clock.
"Its siesta time, already, y'know," He added, taking the phone back. Antonio seemed to be in no rush, seeing as about this time he was done with the daily chores of the huge mansion-house.
"Did you finish the spreadsheet?" Lovino asked, narrowing his eyes. "Because if you didn't, I swear to god…"
The expression on Antonio's face explained it all, and Lovino did not rest at all that day.
Moral of the story, never trust a lazy, bubble headed Spaniard to do your work when you are physically incapable to do it.
Because you will get in trouble.
Big trouble.
Translations:
1) "¿Usted todavía está trabajando?" -
"You are still working?"
2) "¿Ay, puede usted?"
"Oh, are you?"
3) "Usted parece tardar su tiempo, Lovi."
"You seem to be taking your time, Lovi,"
4) "Buenos tardes, querido,"
"Good Afternoon, dear."