So this was kind of an experiment with a different styles of writing and using them to convey different things. Two beginnings, and two stories of the same people in the same universe all told at once. A little parallelism and what have you. I also wanted to include both points of view and all of the important parts, but nothing that would make it drag, so this is what ended up happening. A cyclical sort of thing that isn't cyclical or chronological at all.
Essentially, it's a bunch of snippets all arranged out of order. It turned out a lot longer than was acceptable for a one shot, so it will be split into two chapters, and the snippets will get shorter. Skillet helped majorly with this.
If something confuses you, don't hesitate to ask!
Enjoy.
-FEELS
Antonio- August 1681
Captain Antonio Santiago Fernandez-Carriedo was lost. Horribly. He was so lost, in fact, that he was hardly even sure which island he was on- and he was only assuming it was an island because of his pirate's intuition.
He'd been dumped on this island yesterday- though he wasn't really sure, time seemed to pass in waves nowadays- and had been wandering out rather uselessly ever since. The first day he seemed like a madman, he was sure. Tattered clothing swinging behind him, Antonio would stop people in the middle of their daily lives to question them ruthlessly about the date, and the location, and anything else besides thirst that burned at the back of his throat. The most he discovered was that he was on Tortuga-which was, indeed, an island- it was late August, and there was a rumor going around that he was dead.
Tortuga was notorious for its criminal element, which was essentially all the island consisted of. He had no money to bribe or buy or bargain, and most of the salespeople's eyes were keen and watching for desperate people exactly like Antonio. The chances of him getting decent information here were slim. The chances of him getting medical help were none. The chances of him dying, however, were higher than they had been on the brig of Kirkland's ship when he was cold and wet and malnourished, and perhaps that's just what Kirkland was hoping for.
He'd thought the pretentious rival captain would have known better than that.
Antonio didn't honestly know how he'd made it this far. He's lost hope, literally and figuratively, and he'd lost his crew, and somewhere around the second month when Kirkland told Antonio that something had happened to his cabin boy, he'd lost the rest of his strength.
He quit resisting around the fourth month. He didn't have the energy to glare or spit or curse anymore. And though it seemed like he'd lost everything at that point, he'd never lost the will to live. He didn't want to die, especially by his own hand. So he didn't.
Yet he still didn't want to live. Not really.
Perhaps that's why Kirkland finally got tired of him sitting around down there and breeding disease. Antonio wasn't any fun anymore, but he was also stubbornly refusing to die. One day the pretentious Brit had stormed down to the hull, where Antonio was being kept, all upset about something or another. His nose wrinkled (as it always did when he came down here, even Antonio was able to recognize that it smelled awful down here), which interrupted the rather impressive sneer. He told Antonio, plain and simply, to get out. As if staying down here had all been Antonio's idea.
The Spaniard didn't argue with this change of fate. He stumbled off of Kirkland's ship (half carried by some brutes) when he was finally hauled out of the brig with his head held high, and he'd walked away with the gait of a man who hadn't had anywhere to go in five months, and as soon as the ship was out of sight Antonio had fallen on the grungy cobblestone street and he cried out of sheer relief.
If there was one thing he was proud to admit from his time below below below below deck it was that he'd hardly cried. Sometimes when Kirkland's propaganda was too heavy, and he thought too much he couldn't help but let a few tears slip. When, for the shortest time, Antonio had believed everyone was dead the watering was inevitable. But he never really wept.
That first night back on dry, crowded land, he had sobbed for the sun, and for the people, and for the grace of God, and then he'd fallen asleep where he lay and woken up only a few hours later even more dehydrated and hardly able to stand.
There's something to be said for the good people on Tortuga, the ones whose problems don't overshadow that of others. One threesome had stopped, helped him up, and given him a canteen of water, a banana, and their best wishes. It wasn't much, but it kept him going for another day. Another man, decrepit and seemingly in the same sort of situation as Antonio himself, had spoken to him for at least an hour when he'd collapsed and had to sit on a crate near the old man's sitting spot.
That day, now, was winding to a close.
The sun was descending, though it hadn't quite given up for the night, and the people seemed to get darker with the sky. Everyone on Tortuga looked the same. Dark, dirty, and desperate. Antonio fit in perfectly.
The shock of white hair bobbing above the masses, however, did not.
At first he thought he'd been hallucinating. It had happened a few times underneath the ship, when he had gone a few days with no social interaction and absolutely nothing to eat or drink. Antonio stopped in the middle of the crowd and watched as the tall, pale head bobbed along next to dirty blondes and dirty brunettes.
No else around him seemed to notice, nor care that the pirate captain stood there gaping like a fish. Maybe he himself was a hallucination. Maybe he wasn't even on Tortuga anymore. Maybe he was actually dead and he was reuniting with his crew in pirate heaven.
It was about time.
Lovino- August 1681
Lovino Vargas didn't trust crowds. He didn't trust people, in general, especially not when they were all grouped together. Anybody could disappear in a crowd if they ducked their heads, except Gilbert. Pickpockets, thieves, bounty hunters, madmen. You couldn't pick them out from the average hardened workaday whores and sleazeballs. This was Tortuga, after all. Nobody here was innocent, least of all its pirate population.
The ex-crewmen of La Esperanza had been quietly assimilated into their ranks for the past week or two. Their stolen ship had vanished from the docks, likely snatched up by another band of sinners when it had been left unattended. They weren't exactly the force they used to be. Seventeen men had left. Thirteen sinewy, leery men remained, headed by a perceptive Frenchman. Hardened by five long months of scraping by. Stealing on land didn't have any of the charm it did on the sea, but it was risky to try anything while they'd been illegal passengers because they numbered so few.
Francis was, by no means, a bad captain. His crew was diligent, united by a common, burning goal. But he was not Antonio. Nobody would ever take his place, no matter how deep in the ocean his bones lay, or how the Brit had utterly humiliated him in front of them all. That much had become obvious within the first few days after they'd been kicked off of Kirkland's ship.
The hellish first month of not knowing what to do with themselves, of watching friends and comrades walk away shaking their heads, had been hard to say the least. Theirs was a gritty lifestyle, and Lovino couldn't blame them for turning tail once the legacy fell apart.
He'd thought about leaving once or twice himself, but there was nobody he'd rather be with. As much as it spited him, he'd grown exceedingly fond of the dedicated scoundrels who he walked among now. Francis was to his right, compensating for a blind side, and Gilbert walked slightly ahead of them both with his feet swinging into each step. Others filtered in and out of the crowd, jeering at women and whooping with each other.
It had been a good day, which was a rarity. They still hadn't found a navigator, but the little raid they'd pulled off on a spot just outside the bustle of the busy port city had gone remarkably smoothly. Even Lovino wasn't dreading tomorrow as he usually did. There was often very little to look forward to, but the prospect of having a little bit more in his stomach when he went to bed and sleeping in an inn instead of a barn and squinting at the descending sun didn't feel as depressing. It was more peaceful.
There was a sighing breeze off the sea, but the air still smelled like sweat and dirt and booze. The crowd was still loud and boisterous. There was laughter on every doorstep and yelling from every window, but Lovino still felt more at ease than he did when he was alone. He was distracted by the noise and the movement. Distracted from their goal and their motive. These last five months had been a long, trying five months. From where they were, fanning out and circling up and constantly reshaping there didn't seem to be a way that the next five months couldn't get any worse, and that was the most gloomy comfort Lovino had ever felt.
Lovino was distracted from his distraction by a barking yelp from behind him and the slapping sound of two bodies colliding roughly. Even before he turned around he recognized it as Felipe, one of the oldest men Lovino had ever known. He was at least forty-five. A leathery, Spanish sea dog through and through. Loyal, if not a little daft.
Nobody seemed to think much of it at first. There was so much chaos around them that one more exchange didn't seem uncommon. But Felipe's next outcry wasn't "Get off me!" or some foul curse at whoever had run into him. It was cracked exclamation of "Captain!" so emotional that it sounded like the man was ready to burst into tears. That had twelve men turning their heads all at once, as if drawn to some beacon.
Truly, they were.
An oblong bubble formed. A complete halt in the midst of the bustle of the main street beyond one of the many taverns they'd been headed for. Other people moved around them like rapids around a stoic river rock, but there was a new kind of chaos in the group. A shocked, euphoric kind.
Eleven bodies rushed the emaciated Spaniard, forming a tight circle of vibrating energy. They let howls up into the gathering dusk like crying wolves, some shedding tears, others laughing. Lovino watched as Gilbert fought his way to the middle and held on for dear life, but the Italian himself was slow to react. The steps he took towards the pulsing mass of warm bodies were halting and baffled, his expression similarly conflicted. He could barely even see anything over the tops of tall, brawny heads, but he kept hearing them shout about their captain being back, being alive.
It was a miracle.
It was a godsend.
Lovino just wished he could, you know, fucking see him.
So he got mad. He didn't allow himself to feel anything but dull anger as he grabbed onto a shoulder here and an arm there and jabbed an elbow into a side somewhere, yelling to be let through the thicket of limbs.
He was out of breath despite not moving much, overwhelmed by the deep, aching need to be by Antonio. If there was even the slightest possibility that it was really him, and that he was still alive, he had to get to him now. Lovino was desperate. He started kicking and pulling hair, fighting his way layer by layer through the knot until he got to Francis and Gilbert- and Felipe, poor man.
Lovino raised his voice over the racket, screaming at everybody to just back up and calm down , damn it. Everything was too close together. With a subtle shift of his head, just a few degrees, he could see Antonio as clear as day, but he looked awful. A husk of a man. Thin and pale, weary, but still so obviously Antonio.
Lovino didn't say another word. He simply threw his arms out almost violently and stole the captain away from the group and into his arms alone, seized by savage possessiveness, and Antonio responded just the same. If somebody had tried to pull Antonio away from him, he would have clawed their eyes out. Lovino didn't cry. He hadn't cried in a long time now, but every bone in his body was quaking. Out of relief, maybe. Sympathy. Satiated desire. Hysterical happiness. He didn't know. But it got harder to breathe right with every second that passed.
Lovino knew that nobody would ever be able to reach quite as deeply into him as Antonio did. Lovino had been stupidly brash as a twelve-year-old, when he'd completely given up on trying to make a good life for himself in Italy. There hadn't seemed to be a place for him with his own family. They were all so alike, and Lovino, scoundrel as he was, was so very different from them all. None of them had ever gone out of their way to alienate him. In fact, his mother and brother were often quite kind to him. His father favored Feliciano. His grandfather favored Feliciano. His mother, though her maternal instincts were strong, favored Feliciano.
Truthfully, Lovino himself had been the catalyst in the downward plummet his self-esteem had taken. Even after he'd lost his family in tragedy, little had changed in the dynamic. When Antonio found him, small and afraid, and offered him a place on his ship, Lovino eagerly took the chance to become somebody else. In the end, he hadn't really fit on La Esperanza either, a fact which wasn't helped by his tender age. Inherent nature was something he had no control over.
For some reason he still couldn't fully understand, where he fell short as a functioning social creature didn't seem to bother Antonio. The Spaniard, manifested as the God of Sea and Sun and Light and all things Good and Sweet and Warm in the world, had given Lovino more than he could ever repay him for.
Lovino felt like a sizable chunk of himself had been ripped off when Antonio let go and his jutting ribs and shoulders moved away. The Spaniard took a deep breath, took a few steps back, and wiped the tears off of his cheeks with a watery kind of smile. Looking at him now was nearly painful, with how sickly and drawn he was, but even still, he never stopped smiling. Francis' arm around his waist, and Gilbert's around his shoulders and the rest of his crew just in front calling him a miracle. With a crooked grin and green eyes filled with immortal life he regarded the crew, calling out something celebratory with a hoarse, scratchy voice that Lovino was too busy listening to to understand.
There was obviously something seriously wrong with Antonio in a medical sense, but that didn't stop his eyes from glowing in the twilight and his voice from raising infernal exhilaration in Lovino and the crew around him. They swelled forward, that band of loyal thieves, tossing their arms up into the sky and hollering, sending their triumphant chorus up into the air. Individual voices were lost, instead all weaving together into one song. Lovino's was among them, high and hoarse, his hands up grasping at the humid air over his head. He was lost in his own rapture. El Hacha. Captain Fernandez. Antonio. Antonio. Antonio. Lovino felt like he belonged again. An impressive feat to be pulled off by just one man, if a little cheesy.
Antonio's smile dimmed, though it didn't fall completely, and he leaned more on the two supporting him. He looked exhausted. The Captain asked for the duo's attention again with a simple "Ay, friends," and a smile that landed somewhere in between exhausted and sheepish. He didn't manage to look at them while he spoke, and his voice was much quieter than it had been before, though not quite ashamed. "I think I may need to go sit down-"
Before he'd gotten to finish they'd already carried him off towards a barrel, which he sat down on gratefully. It took him a second, a long moment of catching his breath before he looked back up and Lovino felt like his eyes were blazing right through him. They weren't as bright and powerful as he remembered, but there was still life, still a spark, and that was good enough for him.
Lovino had been around these people long enough to be influenced by them. It was visible in his actions, how he spoke, how he acted, even in how he stood when he was with them, with his shoulders pulled back and his legs apart, open and almost inherently challenging posture. This was seen especially often with young children surrounded by older, better, faster, stronger men whom they aspired to be like, at least to some degree. So it wasn't that strange, in Lovino's mind, when the incoherent whooping became words. Chiming battlecries of victory in a battle fought by just one man. Exclamations of hatred, sultry, hot, thick animosity for the British captain that had been the root cause of all these emotions in the first place. Lovino joined in their yelling, because he liked yelling and because there was nothing else to do. They kept moving around, shifting, every once in awhile someone remembering that there was cause for joy and then praising God or Antonio and damning Kirkland and his ship to the locker.
There were frequent revivals of the group jubilation, in which one man would cry out and then all the rest would follow. In another circumstance, Lovino might have tired of it. To be fair, he couldn't realize how the others had stopped screaming constantly already. He still felt like he was screaming in his head, the vigor of the wail renewed every time he turned away from the huddle of pirates to glance at Antonio instead, as if scared he would disappear if left unattended.
Some people were still cheering, others fluttered over to talk to Antonio. Even as he looked around the group, or turned back to see Gilbert and Francis still standing dutifully on either side of him, his eyes always found their way back to Lovino's, and each time Lovino could feel himself getting sucked in further and further until he was much closer to Antonio than before.
Antonio wasn't trying to smile anymore, but the corners of his mouth seemed to naturally curve upwards, characteristic of a joyful spirit as he watched the most loyal members of his crew dance around. The soft curve faltered, however, and didn't get a chance to say anything before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell right off of the barrel.
The internal scream he'd been carrying took a tone dive into panicked when the man up and fell right off the barrel even paler than he'd been when he stumbled into the group. Gilbert exclaimed, caught him, and straightened up to holler at the pack of howling wolves that they had to shut up and stop drawing attention to themselves. Lovino trotted towards Francis and Gil, who'd come to the conclusion that Antonio wasn't dead- Thank God. A quick back and forth between the two formulated a plan, which was then relayed to the group via Francis.
They moved like a funeral procession towards the inn, once again wary of every passing Juan and Scarlet. Paying for their board didn't take as much of a chunk out of the money they'd earned as they'd thought, when it was combined with the meager amount they'd had prior to today.
The day seemed to catch up to most of them. Some of them stayed in the common room to drink, while others crept upstairs and fell into a cheap bed. Fewer still stuck by Antonio, as he was carried up the stairs and laid into bed and covered with the holey, scratchy blanket. When Lovino returned from filling a jug with water and buying some stew from the grungy innkeeper from downstairs, whose eyes looked like little black chunks of coal lodged in soft dough, Gilbert was leaning against the wall in a chair by the window with his eyes closed, and Francis was saying something to him in a quiet voice that stopped when Lovino walked in.
There were a few words exchanged between the three of them, a tumbling laugh or two, and then they'd agreed to make watching Antonio a shift-based group effort. Gilbert left first, presumably to head down to grab a drink or two for celebration. Francis followed him soon after, but not before staring between the unconscious man and Lovino for far too long to be considered inconspicuous. Lovino pulled the chair from the window around to the right side of the bed and sat down. He didn't look at Antonio much, because he looked small and gray. Instead, he busied himself by chewing his nails and untying and retying the laces on his boots until he got sick of them and took them off altogether.
He wanted Antonio to wake up, but at the same time he almost hoped he was asleep and it was Gil or Francis who was around when he did. Talking to him again was likely going to be difficult for Lovino, for no fault of his own. They just had to ease back into their dynamic, if at all possible. Lovino wasn't the same boy he'd been, but how could something so natural, and so right, be changed by something so trivial. He was still Lovino. Looking at the thin man on the bed, he could only hope that Antonio on the inside was more truly Antonio than his body had become.
Lovino Vargas had leaned back against the wall behind his chair at some point after having eaten a couple spoonfuls of the stew before deciding he wasn't hungry enough to eat half of it, like he'd planned to. He dozed fruitlessly, unable to nod off for more than a couple minutes at a time and not really meaning to in the first place. There wasn't much else for him to do other than doze and fidget with things while he waited for Antonio to wake up.
A few times in the couple hours between when everybody got settled and when Antonio woke up, they were joined by a couple well-wishing crewmen drunked up on tavern swill. Francis and Gil returned in the quieter times and offered to take over for awhile, but ended up soundly defeated by a younger, stronger will. They left to sleep just across the hall with the promise to get up if they were needed.
Antonio- 1669
His father had been a sailor as long as he could remember.
He'd always admired his father for being able to do such a noble, freeing job. Antonio loved watching the boats in the harbor, and often got a bunch of the neighbor boys to play sailor with him in a make pretend ship. It had been his dream, since an early age, to be just like his father.
Every time Antonio would declare such a thing, his mother would get this odd look on her face that bordered somewhere between pitying and disappointed. Antonio never understood what it meant, or why it happened for years. And even then he only assumed it was because his mother missed his father so much that bringing him up made her sad, or that she didn't want her son to be gone as much as his father was.
He was such a naive child.
That was why, when his father came home one day after a nearly year-long absence (which wasn't odd for him. They lived far inland, and Antonio's mother always told him that his father didn't have time to come hiking back home every few months or so) and asked Antonio if he wanted to join the ship he agreed almost instantly.
Many nights, before and after leaving the port, Antonio had wondered why he didn't pick anyone of his other siblings. Marco was stronger, Emilio was wiser, but his father assured him with was because none loved the ocean as much as Antonio.
Antonio took the explanation without question. It made sense, after all; He had adored ships and boats and the ocean even before he'd gotten to see it for himself.
His first, and only role on the ship had been a very, very early apprentice for his father on different merchant ships that may need him. His father got many more jobs with Antonio, as anyone who hired him could get twice the work for the price of one. When one of the indignant workless men still on port told the little boy that the extra jobs were the only reason he was keeping him around he had punched him square in the nose.
However, working on the ship with his father wasn't the joy Antonio had thought it would be. His father was often angry, always drunk, and took out most of his frustration on his young son who had tried to do everything he could to avoid the man's wrath. Antonio swabbed the deck, did most of his father's duties as well as whatever meaningless tasks someone assigned to him, but he still found himself cowering later that night from the very man he had always- and still did, much to his own chagrin- looked up to.
He'd learned to do just about everything there was to know about sailing in those months. The other men on the ship had pitied him at first, and had been kind enough to take him away from his father's heavy hand for an hour or so when they felt generous to teach him their job on the ship. It had started with an old coot who, as he told Antonio, had been much like the little boy's father until his son knocked half of his teeth out, took everything of value- including his wife- and left. Antonio liked to pretend that that man was his real father, and he'd just managed to skip years on until he was nicer and didn't hit him when he didn't understand something.
Unfortunately, Antonio had never gotten to see his father turn into that man.
One day they were docked in a small coastal city, and, as usual, everyone was in the pub, when a notorious band of pirates came in for a drink themselves. His father had gotten drunk- had probably already been- and started a fight with one of the high ranking men on the pirate ship out of something he considered personal spite.
His father lost, but swaying and bleeding had quickly asked for a rematch. Everyone in the pub had laughed, except for Antonio and a few others. The lithe ten year old sat in his seat behind his father quietly, as he'd been instructed to do, and was trying not to make eye contact with the men across the room. The pirate took his father up on the offer on a condition- he was only interested if there was something for him to gain, for he'd already bruised a knuckle or two beating the other man's hard head in.
So Antonio's father offered up something.
He grabbed Toni roughly from the stool, making him stumble a bit but offer no protest, held him tightly by the upper arms, and offered his own son. Antonio had hoped someone would do something, or say it wasn't fair. Maybe the old man would talk his father down and apologize to the pirate for all the trouble. They never did, offering pitying glances that Antonio was getting very, very tired of, and offering no real help. The pirate expressed his interest, and his father lost a few teeth, his pride, and his son within five minutes.
Antonio was forcefully taken by a band of pirates terrified, and impressionable. The band of rowdy men ended up being more of a family than anyone else- including his own mother- had even been. Especially after he was able to impress them by knowing more than some of the other men on the ship they became a paradox of nurturing teachers and bloodthirsty pirates that Antonio began to imitate.
Even now the Spaniard believes that it was fate.
Lovino- 1675
Lovino had never felt anything like this. It was a little bit like turning inside out, every bit of his being feeling exposed and sensitive and fragile. Everything hurt, though he hadn't so much as been touched.
It was lucky the men in his house were making such a ruckus, or they would have heard the twelve-year-old's labored breathing as he stifled his emotions into his damp sleeve while hiding in the pantry not twenty feet away. There was a strange sort of claustrophobia tightening the walls of his haven around him as the sounds just past the door raged on, echoing in his head. His mama's wavering Italian and broken Spanish, pleading, distraught, tearful.
Feliciano and his father were silent as the grave now, and Lovino couldn't fight the violent guilt anymore than he would have been able to fight the violent men. He knew it wasn't his fault that this was happening, but he felt that he should at least be out there dying with his family. They should die as a family. He wasn't dumb enough to think that his mama and Feliciano would survive this. He didn't even think he would. When they ravaged the house for their valuables, they'd find Lovino in there and they'd kill him. Laugh and spit at him like they were now, like deep-voiced hyenas with swords for fangs.
Mama was quiet now too.
Lovino's lungs ached deep in his chest as he cried his silent tears, and he hardly flinched when he heard the front door bang open again. There was a new voice, more powerful than the others, and it wasn't laughing.
There was heavy silence from the hyenas and he could faintly hear a new, low, furious cadence in the main room followed by the slow, alarmingly heavy taps of authoritative boots against the ground. Lovino could hear himself now, quiet sniffles and swallows of dusty air, but he couldn't have been any quieter if he tried. So what if they found him. What else could he do but die, now, anyway?
He didn't have to listen to his own pitiful whimpers for long, however, because the new voice yelled, screamed at the men that they were horrific and disgraceful ("And a child!" He screamed), as soon as he heard them try to explain themselves and Lovino couldn't help but be happy that this new man felt the same way he had. Based on the fire and hatred in the man's voice, the passion with which he regarded them for what they'd done, Lovino would have thought it was the man's own family that lay slaughtered in the other room. The man's voice emphatically switched between Italian and Spanish as if he couldn't remember what language he was supposed to be speaking in his distraught rage.
Lovino Vargas heard footsteps leaving the house, heavy and rushed and he knew the hyenas had left when they stopped with a slam of the front door. Lovino wished the new man with the golden, angry voice would have killed them instead of just yelled at them. Lovino wanted to kill them. He could see himself chasing them down and driving daggers into their chests. Overwhelming them as they had been, though he knew it was nothing more than a vengeance fantasy that was suicidal at best.
He couldn't even be grateful that they had left, because that meant Lovino was expected to leave the pantry and witness the carnage for himself. What choice did he have? Sure, he could stay in the pantry for the rest of his life. He would end up a skeleton in the closet, half-witness to the destruction of the entire Vargas bloodline all at once.
The men had not killed him, but they had doomed him. The longer the silence beyond the door continued, the less worried he became with concealing his presence, and his sobs grew in volume to a hysteric pitch. He figured that the latecomer had left, until he heard the steady footfalls entering the kitchen. Lovino sucked in a breath as he spoke in a foreign, but vaguely familiar, language. The same language that had been taunting, and then yelling not much earlier. He was desperately still, clutching his knees to his chest and pressing his lips together in a trembling line as he quickly stifled his whimers.
Maybe the man would just go away. Just because he didn't sound dangerous didn't mean he wasn't.
When the man spoke next, Lovino could understand it; it was in Italian this time. "It's alright to come out little one, I won't hurt you. The bad men are gone now, it's only me."
He still didn't respond. He didn't move, except to take a short breath. In any other situation, he would have glowered and replied that he wasn't little. He was practically a man by now. But he couldn't. He wanted to believe in the compassion behind those words like he'd never wanted anything before, but he just couldn't. He had no idea who "only me" was. And so his measured breaths continued and his eyes, scared into dryness, kept flickering between the rectangular halo of light around the door and the solid darkness surrounding him.
Any second now the man would walk away, and if he didn't now, he would when he saw that it was just Lovino and nothing worth feeling sorry for.
But he didn't. The man with the golden voice waited patiently, squatting outside of the pantry, only a few feet away, for the child to open the door- he could vaguely see him through a slit in the pantry door, but he couldn't bring himself to look for more than a second.
The other man sighed, and there was a rustle of fabric- the man standing up, he assumed- followed by a few steps forward with feet so light they couldn't have possibly belonged to the man who was stomping around earlier.
Lovino thought he was finally leaving. The footsteps stopped directly in front of the pantry.
The new voice was still gentle, and warm, and golden when he spoke again, and Lovino was surprised. The tone hadn't changed. The man wasn't frustrated or upset. "I am going to open the door, yeah?" He warned, and then he did just that.
The kid would have lurched to make an attempt at holding the door shut with all of his adolescent might if he'd been given enough time between the words and the opening of the door. As soon as the sturdy wood swung away from him he shifted rapidly, pressing himself harder into the shelves behind him and wishing that he could morph with the wood and disappear as light flooded in to reveal Lovino among ill-stocked pantry shelves.
Lovino didn't know how long he'd been in the pantry, maybe ten minutes or several hours, but it was long enough that the sudden light made his wide eyes ache as his pupils adjusted. All of the stillness he'd been forcing left him as he trembled, meeting this new man's eyes, simultaneously challenging and fearing him. It could have been a trick of the light, but this man seemed just as golden as his voice. Lovino looked a mess, and he knew he did. His face was pale and blotchy, with still visible tear tracks- he angrily rubbed at his cheeks to try and rectify his appearance though he knew it wouldn't do any good.
Golden Guy crouched so they were more or less eye to eye. Even in the low light, Antonio had the most hypnotizing eyes Lovino had ever seen. Not that he'd seen anything much other than browns and hazels, but he'd never seen a color so vibrant and piercing. They were green, really green. Like legendary emeralds. Like fairy-tale poison. Those eyes curved when he smiled, though it was rather grim and didn't involve any teeth. "Look, you're okay."He assured "I'm not going to hurt you." He held out his empty hands, as if to prove that point. "Will you come out for me, please? You can't stay in there forever, you know."
If he couldn't trust this man, and he knew that he couldn't, then he was downright determined to stay in the pantry forever, regardless as to what the man said. The pantry, at least, had some semblance of safety. That was more than he could say for the rest of the house, gutted and assaulted as it was.
This new man certainly wasn't dressed like a hero would be. In fact, he was dressed far more like a villain, but the seriousness and the gravity still steeping his words had an almost mesmerizing quality. Lovino opened his mouth to speak, though he didn't move yet. "Who are you?" he croaked, his voice raw.
As charming as he was, Lovino refused to move, and his skepticism brought a little smile to the man's face. A small, slightly yellow-tooth smile graced Lovino, and he realized with no small amount of confusion that it was supposed to be reassuring.
"I'm Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. Captain." he answered, moving to sit in front of the boy cross legged, close to the entry, but not so close as to make the boy feel trapped. His voice was amiable, and soft, as if he wanted nothing more than to have a nice chat with the sacred thing hiding in the pantry. It made Lovino suspicious because he desperately wanted to trust him. "Can you tell me your name, little one?"
After staring at Antonio for a moment more, eyes narrowed and posture rigid, he slowly, quietly answered "Lovino." He didn't dare give a last name. He wasn't stupid. He knew his last name could have very well been what the rest of his family had just been killed for.
Antonio smiled again, encouragingly, and scooted the slightest bit closer. Lovino pressed himself even harder against the shelves. "Lovino? Well, Lovino, tell me, do you know what your father did for a living?"
Lovino let some of the stiffness ease out of his posture at that, but he still perched warily in the pantry. He'd stopped crying almost completely for now, only sniffling every once in awhile. He scrubbed at his eyes, cautiously watching the man that had introduced as Antonio Fernandez Carriedo sit comfortably, amiably, on his kitchen floor. If he was going to kill Lovino, he figured he would have done it already, unless he was some sadist and had some awful plan in mind for Lovino that was worse than death. "He is a sailor," Lovino replied.
He didn't realize until after he was finished speaking that he'd have to use 'was', now, instead of 'is'. The thought earned an odd, slow-moving shudder that meandered up his spine and stopped at the nape of his neck, raising the hairs. He felt no aching sorrow at the loss of his father, who had scarcely even acknowledged Lovino as a son, but what his mother and brother would leave behind would more than make up for that.
The word 'captain' had struck Lovino, though. Captain, like on a ship "Are...were you his captain?"
Rather pleased that the kid was responding and wasn't in some horrible state of panic or shock, Antonio seemed no longer concerned about the chaos outside.
Antonio nodded, solemnly. "Aye, I was. But, see, he wasn't just a sailor."
Lovino didn't see what Antonio was hinting at, when he said that his father hadn't just been any old sailor. Lovino didn't know there were different kinds of sailors. He figured Antonio was going to flip it and tell it like his father was the best man Antonio knew to comfort him. It would be a lie if he did, and they'd both know it, and Lovino desperately wanted to know the truth. It didn't take any more prompting than an expectant silence and searching eyes to get the captain to continue.
"Your father was a pirate. The navigator. A very good one, in fact. I was always as loyal to him as he was to me." Antonio leaned in as if he were telling a secret that the corpses in the main room couldn't know. "He talked about his family often, you know. Fairly certain that's the only reason he ever hit the high seas with us. To provide for you."
Lovino was surprised, to say the least, when Antonio said that he was a pirate. Aghast, more like. Sure, his father was a deserter with uneven income, but that didn't mean he had the stones to be a pirate. Much less someone who only did it for his family. Lovino's expression morphed from its sorrowful glower into a taken-aback frown, angry. He might have looked a little more intimidating if his face wasn't still round and elfish with youth. "You're lying!" he spat, a sudden, shaking strength padding his words. He couldn't exactly explain why Antonio might lie about this. Maybe, still, because he thought it would make him feel better about his father's passing. Maybe to frighten him. His eyes were tearing up again. "I don't believe you."
Antonio smirked, as if Lovino's reaction pleased him somehow, and raised his hands in a mock-surrender. Lovino regarded him with narrowed eyes and a shaky countenance. "Alright, there's no need to shout." Antonio soothed, "What reason have I to lie? I assure you, I'm not that cruel, but I cannot convince you of this if you don't want to believe me. It's not as if we can ask him anymore."
Lovino started to yell something about how Antonio couldn't tell him what to do, but he didn't finish it before it became incoherent. The sobbing had returned, tenfold the sobbing from just before their brief conversation. It was as if his subconsciousness had decided that the captain wasn't a threat worth its whole attention and melted back into its comfortable lenient zone of tears and trembling. He couldn't even pinpoint exactly why he was crying, now. It was obviously to do with his family, but it was the mention of his father who'd brought it on- and Lovino harbored no particularly warm feelings for the man. He supposed he'd never have a chance to prove himself as worthy to him now that he was dead. On the other hand, what did it matter? For such a young thing, he was acutely aware of his own misery, and that only made him cry harder.
Antonio catapulted himself forward when Lovino abruptly started crying again, and Lovino thought he was going to hit him. He couldn't see the troubled expression through all the salty water in his eyes, after all. The captain never quite made it to the boy, however, before he stopped himself and moved to sit back on his haunches.
They sat there until Antonio's feet went numb and Lovino was on his way towards dehydration, waiting for him to calm down and wondering how to comfort the kid that he'd grown rather fond of. Eventually Antonio moved to pick him up, stooping awkwardly into the pantry and trying his hardest not to jerk Lovino around to get him up into his arms. He came complacently enough, and even held onto the cloth of Antonio's shirt once he was situated. He asked Lovino if he was alright, and if he wanted to go back to his father's old ship with him. He only received babbles and sobs in response.
Carefully Antonio made his way through the house, holding Lovino in some combination of bridal style and fireman hold that ended up being the most convenient. One arm was under him, supporting Lovino like a makeshift chair while the other kept him steady. Physically, of course, because it had never been in the Italian to be emotionally steady and he highly doubted that he ever would be. Antonio had the mind to perch him precariously on that one arm as he exited the house so he could cover the boy's eyes with the other hand.
Lovino assumed he was trying to keep him from seeing the carnage even if he heard it in action and could smell the metallic twang of blood and sweat in the air. Lovino, at the time, had no idea that this was when his life finally began.
Antonio- August 1681
Antonio hadn't been able to sleep well. It was understandable, really, that when a captain who was usually too paranoid of attack to sleep very heavily was put directly into the hands of his greatest enemy sleep became even harder. Had he not been so hard pressed to occupy himself one way or another in the hull of the ship he probably would have stopped sleeping entirely. Even now, when he knew he was safe subconsciously, he couldn't kick the instinct that sent him shooting up not three hours after he'd passed out and searching the room like he was in immediate danger. He couldn't remember his dream, but by the racing of his heart and the cold sweat he knew he'd been having another nightmare.
He was disoriented at first, and he stared around the room like he was ready to fight it for not making sense before he saw Lovino- he looked like he'd been nearly startled out of his chair- and everything clicked into place slowly. It calmed him down exponentially to know the Italian was right at his bed side. A familiar, friendly face, and a familiar hopeful feeling.
Leaning back against the wall, he let out a heavy sigh which quickly turned into a coughing fit that took him an embarrassingly long time to suppress. He threw the small blanket off of himself. He felt like he was burning up. Knowing Lovino watched the entire waking up ordeal didn't help the unnecessary heat in his cheeks either.
"Morning, Vino- Uh, is it morning?" His voice was even more hoarse than before. When he tried to chuckle it sounded more like the hacking coughs from before. "I don't really- uh... what happened?"
Lovino waited in frozen awkward silence for a moment. "No, it's...it's late. I don't know what time, exactly. The sun went down a couple hours ago." He stood up to move his chair so it was facing the bed, and, Antonio noticed, just a little bit closer to it, before he sat down again.
"You passed out and fell off of a barrel." Lovino said it matter-of-factly, confirming the truth that Antonio was as much of a wreck as he feared. "You should eat."
Antonio knit his eyebrows and shook his head, running his hand through curls that had long since turned into something frizzy and unruly and altogether unpleasant to have on his head. He probably had lice or something. He needed to cut it. He also needed to eat, and he was well aware of that fact, but between eating very little, sometimes nothing, for a few days at a time and likely being sick he was in no mood for any kind of food. He shook his head again, as if to solidify the thought in his head that he didn't want food so it could, perhaps, pass the message on to his growling stomach.
"I'm fine at the moment. I had a banana... yesterday? Some nice travelers gave it to me." He smiled, trying to push all the feelings he didn't want to show below the easy action. "Who'd have thought people like that even came to Tortuga of all places." He was smiling, if only slightly, and he couldn't seem to pull his eyes away from Lovino, whose face was twisting in some kind of aghast confusion. Either the past few months had been very kind to him, or Antonio's memory had been off. He suspected some combination of the two, though it would have been the first time anyone had ever been more attractive in real life than memories.
Lovino scooted forward in his chair, his palms flat on his legs just above where his knees folded. His frown was easy and familiar. "All kinds of people end up in Tortuga," he replied, noncommittal. That was something that could be picked up within the first day or so of being here, if not by the rumors about the place. But that was a mere acknowledgement. Antonio knew Lovino didn't actually want to talk about the diverse rascals that populated the pirate haven. "I think you misunderstood," he continued, reaching for the bowl of stew on the nightstand and holding it out to Antonio. "I wasn't asking if you wanted to eat. You're going to eat. At least a little bit. If you don't want this I could find something else."
Remaining in his leaning perch, Lovino handed over the stew and watched, completely still and expectant. When Antonio thought about not taking a bite after all, and with how intensely he was scrutinizing the lumps of meat and vegetables it didn't seem like he would, a challenging glint flared golden eyes and Antonio raised his spoon to meet it.
The Captain didn't think seeing someone frown would ever bring him such happiness. It was old times, it was familiar, and it was comfortable. And yet there was something new about it. Lovino didn't seem like the same scared teenager he'd remembered. Lovino now was more confident, assertive, and it took him by surprise that someone from his crew besides his First Mate or his Quartermaster were telling him what to do and he was following it without question. Something told him he should have been bothered by the switch in positions, but it seemed too natural to take issue with.
Antonio raised a brow, though he didn't look upset so much as he looked impressed. He was staring so hard at a carrot floating in the unnamed broth that when he spoke it almost seemed like he was talking to the stew instead of Lovino. "I'm telling you, I'm not hungry." He pushed, feeling guilty at denying Lovino's caring gesture. His stomach growled, and he stared at the bowl for a minute before he visibly deflated. "But if you insist. Just a little bit."
Staring at it for just a little longer, as if that would make it settle easier, Antonio took a cautious bite. It certainly wasn't the best stew he'd ever had, but in that moment, when he only had months of gruel to compare it to, it was the most delicious thing he'd ever tasted. He didn't even have time to express his love for it before he scarfed down half the bowl, hardly chewing before swallowing to make room for another spoonful until one spoonful stopped halfway to his mouth, and Antonio turned a little green. His head, and consequently his stomach, was spinning again, but he handed it back to Lovino claiming that he felt so full he could hardly think of another bite. Lovino took it with a skeptical look, but he didn't press.
After sitting there for another minute or so, legs crossed, hands on his knees, and his eyes staring intensely into Lovino's he spoke again, looking considerably less green. "That was very possibly the best stew I have ever eaten," He sounded like he was speaking of something of dire importance. "Which is very very sad because I'm sure it was actually very mediocre."
Lovino's eyes were warm, even if his lips stayed in their easy frown. He looked pleased. "I'm amazed you even tasted anything, you ate so fast," he commented dryly, finally setting the bowl on the nightstand from where he'd held it while Antonio tried to keep himself from throwing it all up. "There's water too, if you're thirsty."
Instantly he nodded to the offer of water. He had long since stopped thinking about fresh water to try and forget such a luxury existed, as he was mostly given fermented remnants of whatever the crew gave up and never even any proper rum, which was much less of a rarity than water on board a ship. It was a little pathetic, even Antonio knew, that his eyes sparkled so at the mere mention. He held out a hand, and once he had the entire jug of water in his hands he raised it to chapped lips. It disappeared almost as quickly as the stew had.
Finished and properly waterlogged, Antonio set the jug on its side on the bed, and Lovino's frown lessened into more of a neutral state. Most people drank alcohol when they had to drink something. Even the water jug tasted faintly of old rum, and Antonio wondered what lengths Lovino had to go through to get it in a place like Tortuga.
A comfortable silence had fallen on them, where Lovino was staring at Antonio's gaunt features with such a despondent expression it almost made Antonio self conscious. He was aware he was a mess in every sense of the word, but there was no reason anyone besides Antonio needed to know it as well. He was sure Francis had already gone out in search of some doctor that he really didn't need. It was common knowledge at this point, how to treat these kinds of things. Rest and fluids and plenty of tomatoes would take care of the scurvy and the fever and anything else that plagued him.
The two of them stayed like that for a while, staring at one another, saying nothing, and feeling like they were sharing everything. They had been close before the separation of nearly half a year. Antonio wasn't sure how they seemed to be even closer now.
"You need a haircut," Lovino murmured after a while, his voice quiet, almost shy, and incredibly endearing.
Antonio reached up to finger the greasy split ends of his hair. Lovino was right: his hair was nearly as long as Francis' and in a far worse condition. Had he seen his reflection anywhere after getting off of the ship he probably would have stopped and shaved it all off. Antonio was never a man who cared about aesthetics, but simply by running his hand through his hair- which was always a bad idea, frizzy and matted or not- he could tell it was very, very bad.
"I do. Very badly." He agreed, and he let go of his dark hair to fiddle instead with the light brown, unraveling ends of the blanket that had been draped across his lap. It almost looked like a potato sack. It felt like one too. And it felt so much better than the wet planks. "Maybe you could cut it? You do such a good job on your own, after all." There was the flash of a smile that was reminiscent of the sun, but now seemed more like a very bright, very far away star instead.
"It's not like it's hard," he shrugged, rolling his shoulders and leaning back in his chair. "But whatever." He conceded. There was a light dusting of pink, hardly noticeable in this light, across the bridge of his nose and spreading over his cheeks.
Antonio had forgotten how much he missed that color.
Everything was silent for a while after that, and Antonio took the time to fully notice some of the differences in Lovino. He looked a little... fuller, like he'd finally grown into his clothes, and he seemed to radiate more confidence. The boy that Antonio had helped raise since early adolescence was turning into a man now, and he was a very very achingly attractive one, as much as Antonio would have liked to ignore it for the sake of his moral compass. He'd had a hard time controlling his thoughts before his stint in isolation. And absence, as they say, makes the heart grow fonder.
Antonio almost wasn't thinking anymore. Both his eyes and his voice had gone soft, and he was confronted with the foreign feeling of having no idea of what to do. When he did break the silence, it was almost subconsciously. He might have surprised himself had he not been desensitized. "You look well, Lovino. Much better than I imagined." He paused for a second, contemplated, and then decided that he might as well elaborate. "Kirkland was devastatingly clever, you know. He told me you were sick, and injured, and then he told me you were dead along with most of the rest of the crew, and I could have given up right then. In a way he won because of that. I didn't want to live on- there was enough water in certain areas that I could have drowned myself if I tried. But I didn't, and I couldn't figure out why. I thought about it, about you, a lot." He had looked away during his babbling, but now his eyes locked back onto Lovino's as they were wont to do. "I'm glad I didn't now. I would have never gotten to see you again. Vino, you look so good! Ay, I remember when didn't yet have hair on your upper lip and now look at you." Antonio shut up then, and he left it with that, though his eyes and the somber quirk of his lips continued to say what he hadn't the words to.
The dim light from the single lantern on the nightstand tossed wild shadows on the walls as the light sputtered bravely onward into the night. It seemed to get just a little bit darker. Just a little bit draftier. The shiver that roamed up his spine was well-timed with a thud and a cry from a clumsy drunk down the hall.
"What are you talking about? That sounds creepy, you know, do you even listen to yourself? Stop staring at me," Lovino forced out, trying to force his tone to sound like it normally did when he was invested in defending himself. His heart just wasn't in it, even Filipe could have seen. Antonio couldn't help but smile at the reaction that was so characteristic of Lovino it almost hurt. Five months may change a lot, but it didn't change everything.
With a wide smile Antonio mumbled something along the lines of "But you're still staring at me", though he didn't comment any further, and he never looked away. How could he, when Lovino was so captivating? His eyes were even more golden that he remembered. They put Kirkland's treasure stash to shame with how they sparkled when he was happy. This was not one of those times.
The Italian's tone remained just as flat when he opened his mouth next, but it waivered on the edge of the deep, aching kind of emotion that Lovino knew best. "He- Kirkland, I mean- only kept us for a few weeks. One day he told us you were dead and that we had to get the Hell off his ship in the same breath. Most of us didn't believe him. Everybody started yelling all at once. Gil kept screaming at him to show us the body if you were so dead, but Kirkland just laughed at us and had his crew drag us onto the dock. He just laughed. Like it's all some big game to him. He was still laughing when he went back into his cabin." He shrugged once, and then twice, staring at the dirt beneath his fingernails in an effort to seem nonchalant. "I guess it is a game to him. He's clever, sure, but a bigger bastard has never existed."
Antonio was practically leaning off of the bed he listened so intently to what Lovino had said. They were only there a few weeks? With how accurately Kirkland could describe everyone well into his stay, Antonio had figured they had to still be there. Hell, he'd figured that meant he had to be right. "It is a big game to him, and he thinks he's got it all figured out. Gets a kick out of playing God."
The withered pirate captain couldn't figure out if he was flattered by the fact that everyone believed him to be stronger than Kirkland made him out to be and that they had been so loyal as to bellow and fight to stay on the enemy ship, or if he should have been worried about the sway he seemed to have. He'd known he was a well loved captain, but he'd never figured that their loyalty would spread so far. It filled him with the same kind of warmth in that small moment of time as when everyone had scrambled to hug him and cheered and called it a miracle before he had passed out. It felt like family. It felt like home.
There was a second or two of heavy silence before his Lovino's eyes flared with flashbang fury that had Antonio hanging on every word he said before he had even spoken in a dark, determined tone. "I'm gonna kill him, you know. Even though you're alive, I'm gonna kill him." There wasn't a shred of humor in his voice, nor his expression.
Antonio's first response was a chuckle, dark and just as humorless as the smile that accompanied it as he waved Lovino's declaration off without so much as a thought to the loyalty it expressed. To think he'd once been afraid of mutiny. "That's sweet, but I'm sorry, I just can't allow you that honor." He shifted on the bed, moving so he was sitting back against the wall. "I'm going to kill him, Lovino. You can help, of course, as long as I get to be the one to take his smug little head off. Do you know how much I've fantasized about that?"
Lovino didn't argue. He didn't say anything, in fact, he only looked a little guilty.
Antonio paused, staring at Lovino across the wide space between them. He spoke in a subdued whine."Come here, Vino," He patted the bed next to him, making it very obvious exactly where 'here' was. "You're too far away."
Lovino squinted at him as if questioning his reasoning before standing up and walking over to the bed with little hesitation, and a frown that meant nothing, though he wavered at the edge of the bed for a moment before he actually moved to climb up onto it. "Move, dammit," he said, waving his hand in a shooing motion. "This bed isn't big enough for your fat ass to sit right in the middle of it."
The bed was hardly a double, but there was enough room for Lovino to slide in and make himself comfortable without the two of them touching when Antonio did as he was told and shuffled over to make room. Antonio, however, didn't scoot over as much as he could have out of the hope that maybe, perhaps, they could touch. He blamed it on being socially starved for almost half a year, but he gave into it anyway and reached forward to grab Lovino's hand once he was settled and it was resting so so close.
At first he simply placed his hand on top of the smaller one, fully intending to let Lovino decide what to do with it, but it was hardly there a moment before Antonio grew impatient and moved to hold it properly anyway. It seemed that Lovino had grown callouses to make up for Antonio's now smooth palms, like he made up for all Antonio lost. Months with only a stuffy Brit for company wore away at Antonio's social skills to the point that he felt a little wary of everything he was saying. The horrible company hadn't, however, eroded his need to say everything on his mind and currently, with Lovino only a few inches away, he was drowning in gold and he could think of nothing else. All he could comprehend at the moment- and even that was little muddled- was the hand in his, and the way it felt like they fit together perfectly. When he spoke without thinking his words were hardly more than a whisper, something meant for only Lovino to hear and not the people next door that it would have been profoundly easy to eavesdrop on. "I missed you, Lovino. So much. Every night. One of my biggest regrets was that I couldn't see the stars, because at least I could have pretended we were gazing up at the same sight just to feel a little closer to you."
The Italian shifted, making like he was trying to get more comfortable on the old musty bed and inching a little closer. The words whispered between them were saved in the vault of the night. The rose coloring his cheeks, ears, and neck the only visible sign that he had heard him while he tried to look at everything that wasn't Antonio and pretend that the words hadn't caused his eyes to water as they were- and failed at both, mind you. All Antonio could think of was how stupidly lucky he was to have survived and found this angel of a man again who felt so deeply and so truly and had so much trouble expressing any of it.
"I missed you too," Lovino replied what felt like hours later, matching the Spaniard's pitch. Antonio had almost forgotten what they were talking about before. "If it makes you feel any better, though, we were both looking at wood a lot. Wood is pretty consistent wherever you go. That's gotta count for something."
Antonio could have died happy then and there when Lovino said he missed him too, and it showed on his hardened pirate face. He knew that Lovino wouldn't be sitting here, allowing this, if he hadn't felt something akin to the overwhelming adoration Antonio did. Even so, there was something to be said for confirmation of those thoughts, whether vocal or in the way their hands stayed entwined underneath the blanket. A secret both of them knew, but neither were willing to admit quite yet.
Despite all of the years spent on the high seas with many comrades coming and going and coming again he had never found one that affected him like Lovino. Under Kirkland's ship he had thought of Francis and Gilbert, of course, and everyone else on his crew, and it hurt to think that he may never see them again, and that they'd remember him as a failure of a pirate captain. But when he thought about Lovino it was different.
It was overwhelming how just the thought of him would make Antonio's heart swell and fall at the same time, like he had swallowed a giant cannon ball. When he saw him in person again, finally looking like the man Antonio always knew he'd be, it was intensified. He didn't know what it was, this great need to be closer in every way they could, this feeling that nothing was ever quite enough, that he always wanted more even if he wasn't sure what more was.
"That must count for something, no? Next time I'll look to the wood then. I'm sure it'd be more symbolic anyway."
"Next time?" Lovino repeated hotly, yet keeping his voice down to save their neighbors the bother and the interest. He sounded like Antonio had just said the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "There sure as hell won't be a next time."
Antonio didn't respond. His eyes were glossed over, stuck in memory and thought simultaneously, and he wasn't looking at Lovino anymore. His eyes were directed somewhere beyond the corner edge of the bed until they were interrupted with a yawn so forceful it closed his eyes for him as if it were trying to force him back to sleep. He came back to reality with a small chuckle and moved on. If there was anything he didn't want to talk about, it was that horrible ship.
"I think I may need to go back to sleep soon. This bed is horribly comfortable." Antonio paused for a second, moving to get situated while he sunk further underneath the blanket. "You can stay, if you'd like. Actually, you should. I really don't want to be alone." The last part was said quieter, hesitantly, as if it were a secret he didn't want to keep, but didn't want to say.
Lovino tossed his eyes in a roll that would make a stormy sea envious and complied, settling down beneath the scratchy blanket and stifling his own yawn trying to act as if he was bothered by it all. Antonio could feel his heart melt just the slightest bit more.
"You're a big baby, Toni," Lovino chided, but his voice was thick and warm and affectionate as he cuddled himself into the mattress. The light from the lantern on the table was barely enough to see by, but he still caught glimmers of rich, glittering gold turned brown by the darkness, slipping away as eyelids drooped and content smiles were lost to sleep.