New fic update! Yay! Okay, so after my streak of slightly dirty and risque fics, I finally made something innocent and void of any references of sex and beds and characters sleeping together. INNOCENCE IS COMING BACK TO ME THANK YOU LORD. HAHAHAHA.
On a side note, I just watched Les Miserables today (totally late and not at all updated with the world, huhu, I know but my schedule was really busy that I couldn't watch it at all no matter how badly I wanted to and well we had a long weekend so I decided to take the chance to watch it now) and well, can I just say... OH GOD WHY EPONINE. I cried when she died. That moment when she was singing with Marius, it was just so beautiful like - oh Christ I'm just shipping them so hard right now. :((( ...ending my rant with this final note: I LOVED THAT MOVIE.
Alright, now on to the story. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia & its characters. All rights go to Himaruya Hidekazu-sensei.
"When will I see you again?"
His voice is soft and his plea is quiet, but it is enough to stop the man in his tracks. He pauses from his exit, stooping down low enough to adjust the younger's coat.
"I'll just get my work over and done with and I'll be back to see you again soon."
"How soon is soon?"
"Tomorrow," he says to the boy with a smile, running a hand through the locks of his curled, auburn tresses.
Romano tries to believe him. Tries.
But those tomorrows have always been too far away. Like a bird whose flight had been a few meters too high, whose distance had been too far out of his grasp; like a race that had been looped infinitely, a desperate chase for dreams he can never seem to fathom nor reach. Tomorrow was a cage that trapped him within an illusion, a world made up of only false hopes and brittle fantasies. Tomorrow was an endless period of waiting, seemingly cursed to last him forever.
"D-don't," he whispers in between scarf-muffled coughs, his breaths blurring like wisps of smoke in the freezing, still air. "Don't…go."
Spain rests his forehead atop Romano's warmer one, shrinking the distance gap between them as he lets his gaze fall and meet shimmering amber.
"You know I can't do that, querido."
The man says nothing else, a small smile playing on his features. It's the kind of smile that lasts for no more than a second, that dances on his lips as though in a fleeting, passing moment of a song. A smile that speaks of joy and amusement, an antithesis to the small hint of sadness and hurt that he had tried desperately to hide in his forest green eyes.
Romano catches it, though. Sees the pain despite the elder's lack of words. He opens his mouth to speak, but his voice only comes as a soft and hoarse whisper.
"Then," he begins with a cough as he clears his throat to speak, a little louder this time, "take me with you."
"I can't do that either, Lovi," his caretaker responds gently, though his words sting the boy and inflict upon him a small scar within his desperate and pleading heart.
"Per favore, Spagna. Take me with you."
He wants to go with Spain. He wants to stand up there upon that ship's deck – to be right beside him – not as his henchman, nor as his subordinate, but as his equal. He wants to see the world, and all its beauty as Spain claims it to be, in his eyes.
"Maybe next time," Spain finally concedes. "When you're feeling better, and have gotten over your cold."
The boy puffs his cheeks in a childish, stubborn pout. "I'm fine, bastard."
"No you're not. You're still coughing and you're running a fever," Spain reasons to his charge as he sends a kiss atop the boy's burning forehead. He tugs on the scarf, wrapping it once more around the neck of the boy in an attempt to ward away the chill of the late autumn breeze. "Now, I promise I'll let you join me next time, but for now, please just get better for me, won't you?"
It was just a kiss; lips brushing against his skin in a quick and fleeting moment. Nothing more. Spain doesn't mean much by it. Maybe it was a goodbye, an affectionate bid of well wishes and farewells of some sort. Not at all strange coming from the land of passion; not at all new for a man of his age.
It was just a kiss.
But for Romano, it means everything.
-x-
"Tomorrow" comes on later than expected.
The recent argument between the nations has escalated into a war, leaving Spain to fumble around for new tactics and schemes and plots in a desperate attempt to subdue his enemies. This doesn't leave him much room to talk nor idle around – and seeing his henchman while in his current condition was definitely out of the question.
Three decades had passed since then, Romano noted. Ever a loyal henchman; he had kept count.
The sound of footsteps creeps into the room, echoing mellifluously and loudening gradually with each passing step.
"Spain?"
He receives in response the sound of knees buckling and falling plainly onto the ground, the sight of trembling emerald gems, and of eyes which brimmed with tears that threatened to spill at any unguarded moment.
"Boss lost, Roma."
Night is falling and the sky – once a bright and vivid crimson shade of red – is slowly subdued into the darkness of a boundless, starry blue. The sun sets the sky ablaze in an ephemeral farewell, casting its rays as it sinks down with the dusk, painting the world with the same radiant, golden color as that of the Italian's eyes.
Romano doesn't say anything. A lump tightens in his throat, and his heart squeezes painfully in his chest. His hands fall onto the elder's hunched back, hesitantly and carefully; the fallen empire now reduced to a seemingly precious, fragile thing. The tears escape him, pools of clear blue silently cascading down his pale cheeks, as he lets his body give into the warmth of his former caretaker's embrace.
For there are no words which could ever suffice to express just how much they mean to each other; and yet, as Spain wraps his arms around the small of his frame, Romano knows that that alone is enough.
It isn't much, but it is enough.
-x-
Romano has never really liked the cold, whether it be the bitter, piercingly cold stares that people would shoot in his direction, or the harsh, freezing cold of the streets that nips his cheeks, bites at his skin, and pricks him like a thousand needles all over his sore, aching body.
Austria was like that. Cold. The land had a boreal climate, being located farther above the world's equator, and the people – including its own personification– cynical, ascetic, and austere. They were introverted, judgmental, and almost always preferred to remain silent, quiet, and alone. Conversations would be kept to a minimum, and at most, would only contain the basic greetings, formalities, and factual necessities. The only sound one could hear would be that of the melodies of their songs, played by the people on their instruments. But even that, to Romano, appeared to be cold and void of much emotion.
It was nothing at all like Spain – where every word would speak of love, and where every song would sing of passion. Roderich was nothing like Antonio. Antonio was like the sun. Warm, inviting, and full of life.
The southern Italian clamps his amber eyes shut; tears that abandoned him hours ago now threatening to resurface, the back of his eyes stinging with a familiar ache as the tears beg for him to let themselves be shed. His hands ball up to fists as he blinks them away and heaves a long, quiet sigh.
He packs his things; stuffing his clothes into the suitcase hastily, no longer caring about the creases and wrinkles that rumple the fabric of his belongings. His pale hands slam the lid shut, buckling it to a close. He doesn't quite notice the presence of the Spaniard that has quietly slipped through the door into his room.
"Lo siento," Spain says, barely above a whisper – and yet, Romano still espies the pain and the regret that coats his voice.
"I'm sorry, Roma, for not being strong enough. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I'm sorry that I can't keep you anymore. That we can't stay together anymore. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
And it hurts Spain to let the boy see him like this. He wants to show the boy that there's still so much more to life than he thinks. To open his eyes and show to him - to prove to him - that there were still so many more things that made the world just as beautiful as he really, truly was. There were still so many books to read, wines to drink, tomatoes to eat, and paintings to paint. So many more mornings he wished for them to wake up together, and so many more moments he wants to spend holding him during the night.
There were still so many more memories with him that he had wanted to, but never have and never could make.
"Hey, Spain," Romano calls out to him. He's trying to be strong. His voice cracks midway, though. Because really, o Dios, he just wants to break down and scream no, no, no, please, I don't want to go, let me stay with you.
Take me with you.
He thinks about how he's going to lose Spain – how he's going to lose Antonio – the only person who ever actually loved and raised and cared and thought about him; the only person who was like the sun that gave him warmth and saved his life.
Per favore, Spagna, take me with you.
There's nothing they can do about it anymore, though. They can't save each other. Romano is still too young, and Spain is still too weak. The war has been lost, and no matter how selfish their pleas may be, no matter how many times they beg and pray to the Lord, both of them know that nothing will change. God can't save them now, either. Like sinners condemned for a life of living in a world of full and complete damnation – a world in which they are lost and set apart, deemed unable to seek, find, nor meet one another. And it scares Romano just as much as it frightens Spain.
But the greatest fear that they both share is that of being forgotten; for their memories to be stolen by the merciless grasps of time, and for their existences to be lost, like a blur, in the sea of the long-ago's and once-upon-a-time's. For all those times they've spent together to be reduced to something no more significant than that of a fragile dream coming to pass in but a split, momentary, second.
Spain is afraid that Romano will forget him; that he will seek love and find it in the presence of another – that he will come to cherish and treasure someone more than his life, someone who he'd be willing to give and sacrifice everything for – someone, Spain fears, who is not him.
Romano is afraid that Spain won't remember him anymore; that after a few – one or two or so – centuries later, he won't be as important in Spain's eyes as he is now. He fears that he'll be cast aside and left alone, and that he'll never remember the feeling of that warmth, those hugs and kisses and kindness. That Spain, who was like the sun – no, Spain was the sun; he was his sun – would be, in his mind, nothing more than a quick and passing dream. Fictional. Imaginary. Unreal.
His pale arms wrap themselves around the fallen conquistador as the young henchman looks up to face his former boss. Spain can't help but smile.
"When will I see you again?"
There's a soft peck on his cheek, a hesitant yet chaste kiss; and in his ears, lay a whispered promise of all their tomorrows.
-x-
Reviews, please and thank you. :)
Translations:
querido [Spanish] = dear
Per favore [Italian] = Please
Spagna [Italian] = Spain
Lo siento [Spanish] = I'm sorry