Summary; Lovino feels in touch with the world only through his brief, sexual encounters. Desperate not to be alone, he attempts to find someone to hold onto... Only to find himself smitten with an emotionally-troubled Spaniard.

Rating; M. You should know what you're getting into, based on the summary.

Warnings for this chapter; Mentions of sex, language.

Pairings; Spamano.

Disclaimer; I do not own Hetalia or the characters. I also do not own Somersault, the movie that this story is based off of.

Notes; So, I'm sorry about not updating the other stories, but any of my readers should have seen that message by now...
This fic is very different for me, but it's not something that i'll lose inspiration on.
It's based off of an Australian indie film, "Somersault".
Now you can all go and watch it and ruin the plot for yourselves.
Only not, because I made it my own, of course.


Lovino's mother had once looked so big and strong; he respected and (sometimes) feared her, but she was the only person that he ever really had to look up to. She'd tell him stories, occassionally giggling as their family cat would rub up against her slim, bare ankles – her voice had always been comforting, musical and soft - kind of like the old wind chime that the house's previous owner had left behind. His mamma had always been a beautiful woman, and he was lucky enough to have inherited some of that beauty (even if he didn't often see it). They both shared the same dark chocolate hair, those sharp eyes that seemed to fluctuate between hazel and a dim green. Their skin was the same shade of light olive and both seemed to have surprisingly slim bodies. The two were stubborn and quick to anger -although his mother could never hold a grudge like Lovino- and he would never have the same smile or sparkling eyes that she did. Still, he admired her and nothing would change that.

When Lovino was younger, his mother would always carry him out into their small backyard as she put their bed sheets out to dry. She'd set him down on the old, plastic lawn chair; the hot seat always burnt his thighs at first, on account of the sun beating down on it all morning, though he tried not to complain about it. Many of his mornings were spent like this, watching his mother putting up their white bed sheets with the Spanish sun always reflecting off of her olive skin. She always smiled and told him those tales about princes who found their princesses and witches who kidnapped children from the forest under false pretences. These were his favourite memories, watching his mother hang up those sheets and hearing the stories that she had to tell, as odd as it might have sounded. He liked being able to quietly listen to her speak as the sun's warm rays washed over them. Though Spain had never been as warm as Italy, when Lovino was outside he found that he could at least pretendthat he was back home.

She was always around back then, and that probably had to do with the fact that she wanted to take on the role of both a mother and a father for Lovino; his father having left a few years after Feliciano's birth. Lovino never understood why this happened, and whenever he asked his mother, she'd get quiet and try to change the subject; he'd long since realized that bringing it up was a bad idea. When Feliciano was about six years old and Lovino was eight, it was decided that they'd move to Spain. However, Feliciano was to stay back with their grandfather since it seemed like the boy had a flourishing talent for painting and the man wanted to take him under his wing. Admittedly, Lovino felt quite jealous - he didn't want to go to Spain, he just wanted to stay in Italy with his family- But his mother wanted a change of scenery, she wanted to go somewhere new, and so Spain became his new home.

Naturally, the Southern Italian was horribly unhappy at first, having put up quite the fight as his mother had to almost drag him onto the airplane. Truthfully, he was just afraid to be so far away from the place where he'd grown up; a place that seemed so comfortable and safe... Not to mention the fact that, as a young child, he still held onto the possibility that his papa would come home one day, and he was afraid that if they weren't there, then his papa would leave again. Every time his mother told him that it wasn't going to happen, he would throw a fit; he'd yell about how much he hated living in Spain and on a few occasions, he even tried to run away (although after getting about two blocks away from the house, he always ran back home in a panicked fit). As the Italian grew older, he came to realise that his father would never come back to them, and he begrudgingly accepted the fact that he wouldn't be leaving Spain for quite awhile.

So Lovino got used to the cooler, Spanish weather and the laid back nature of the country's people; he learned their language and (somewhat) assimilated to their culture. Albeit, he could never truly say that he was happy there. It always felt like there was something missing, like there was something more that he could never quite grasp onto; he had a void to fill. Whatever that something was, Lovino could never seem to pin it down. Perhaps it was because whatever it was, he had never had it, and so there was no possible way that he could tag a name onto something that was unbeknownst to him.

As Lovino's mother slowly began to distance herself, that void he felt grew larger and larger. Oftentimes, it came to a point where he could feel an overwhelming emptiness consuming him. Like any other soul-searching teenager at the time, he was desperate to find something to fill that void – even if it only served as nothing more than a quick fix.

Sex proved to be said quick fix.

No one truly knew or even expected that Lovino Vargas, the feisty foreigner from Italy, would ever lower himself to that level. However, Lovino could hardly see it as "lowering himself" simply because when he was having sex, no matter whom with, he felt like that void in his heart was being temporarily filled. When hands, skilled or unskilled, ghosted over his sweat-slicked skin and lips burned trails across his neck and over his collar bones, he wasn't alone. It was comforting to be able to rest in another's arms; at least until they disappeared when the dim morning light roused them from Dream Land. Maybe he'd feel slightly hurt when he awoke to an empty bed, but it was sickly reassuring to know that he could always find a new partner before the day was done.

It was easy to hide what he was doing from his mother, who was slowly falling into the clutches of alcoholism and was rarely home anyways. From the surprisingly young age of fourteen, Lovino was immersing himself into situations that were just as intimate as those that some adults experienced. It felt like these acts were the only things that were keeping him grounded; without the comfort and acceptance of others, there seemed to be no point in living.

Lovino liked to make excuses and blame others for many things, but he could never bring it upon himself to blame anyone for what he was doing – it was all on him. Yet, in the back of his mind, Lovino was aware that he still did blame his regrettable actions on those around him; especially his family. He harboured an inferiority complex geared towards his brother, he felt angry at his grandfather for not taking him in, and he was disappointed in how his mother seemed to fade away from his life so suddenly... But more than anything, he was angry at his father for leaving.

All of this seemed to bombard him at once, as he stood on his tip-toes, carefully tearing down his white bed sheets from the clothes line set up in the back yard. Perhaps if his mother wasn't already out, hitting the bottle, they could be doing this together. Instead of telling him the juvenile fairytales that she used to, she could tell him about her life; she could tell him about how she used to be, how she had once handled high school, how she was popular and all the boys tried to hit on her... Maybe she could even tell Lovino about how she met his father. He had always wanted to know about his mother's life, but he was sure that he would never get the luxury of hearing her stories.

Shaking his head, Lovino rid of these thoughts and reached down, pulling the now full laundry basket from the grassy lawn and propping it against his sharp hip as he started towards the house's side entrance. Ever since he was little, Lovino had disliked the interior of their home. Everything inside seemed too old, the lighting was too dim, and the paint and wallpaper was peeling so much that they looked to be hanging onto the walls for dear life. Sometimes he felt afraid that the roof would fall in on them, even if he knew that house was fairly sturdy. To him, it had never been home, because there was always something missing… Worse now that his mother was never home.

'At least I have the cat...' Lovino thought to himself, placing the laundry basket atop the washer, feeling Gino rub against his ankles briefly.

'And then there's him.' He added, turning the corner and looking into the living room, where he spotted that head of messy, brunette hair peeking up from over the couch.