Disclaimer: Axis Powers Hetalia belongs to Himaruya Hidekaz
Sour Grapes
"Hey now," France calls, with a slow smile stretching the admonition out of the words, "stop glaring at the fields like that, or they'll never grow. You're worse than salt."
Romano shifts on the low stone wall to scowl over his shoulder, and that's one thing that hasn't changed in all these centuries, since he was small and pudgy and barreling up the slope to the farmhouse while shouting obscenities at the top of his out-of-breath lungs to catch France's attention. Now he's taller, arrives from the south-east rather than the west, and sends a casual text message chiming in France's back pocket to the effect of "Where are you, stupid fucker? Molesting someone again?"
To which France naturally types "5 minutes, love," and stops to memorize his place in the field before he walks off. He imagines that Romano makes a noise somewhere on the spectrum between a scoff and gagging, and that his knuckles go white for a few moments as his fingers dig into the stone beneath him and he wonders, like a startled rabbit, if he should really stay at all. But that's only supposition, since Romano is always sulking on the wall by the time France arrives.
He sits down a stone's width away from Romano, but facing the opposite direction, and stretches out his legs. A dusting of dirt adorns each knee of his pants, so he brushes at them until they've faded and distorted into new maps: good enough. He wouldn't allow for any dirt if this were Paris. But while Paris is dear in his heart, on occasion he submits to the itch and he can't help but go off and indulge in, perhaps, Bretagne's shores and the Celtic sounds of Breton, or bask here in the sunshine of rural Provence where they still speak the old langue d'oc.
Romano generally seeks him out in the countryside, though not always in Provence-but somewhere in the Midi, where the sun and the hills and the Mediterranean and the languages and the changeable borders all blend together so that none of them are far from familiarity in the foreign houses of their neighbors.
France lifts his wide-brimmed hat for a moment to push his hair back from his face, and then offers, "Spain's an idiot. We all know it."
Romano can't kick his heels against the stone the way he used to, as if his compact self would break these hand-set walls that have resisted crumbling under the elements for centuries. So he scuffs his feet into the ground, amassing small piles of dirt that leave dry streaks along the toes of his very nice shoes. He has a tie as well, France notes, that complements his dressy ensemble-but then again, Romano wears ties most days.
He misses, with romanticized nostalgia, the aprons and tunics and the way Romano's wildly-waving fists balled up in their fabric when the sheer number of insults he wanted to yell choked off his voice. He simmered on the wall bordering the fields and stalked around the farmhouse red-faced and hopping mad, shouting a fairly consistent litany: "That jerk's dense, and he's too happy, and he's loud, and he's annoying, and his house is too big, and his chores are too hard, and his climate's too hot, and he sleeps in too late, and his food isn't right!"
"My, that is terrible! So ditch him and stay at Big Brother's house, hm?"
And at the end of the day France stood at the edge of the field while Romano, still grumbling cross words, left bundled up on Spain's back. Well, that part-France thinks to the cloudless sky-he doesn't miss. But the childish fury, the inability to express himself except in trivial complaints, the zeal and vitality of his insecurity, the protests and denials that Romano's since given up on-the memories warm him like the Provençal sun beating down on the back of his shirt and draw a full-bodied laughter to his lips.
Or maybe it's just that a grown-up Romano who has learned to give in is a more formidable force.
France guesses it's habit that keeps Romano visiting him when everything else has changed-habit, and the lovely and quiet countryside, and the fact that France isn't Spain or Veneziano. So France leans back on his hands and volunteers to be the one to fill the space between them with noise now, as a proper host should.
"Spain really is terribly, hopelessly dense. And he's too optimistic, too-all ideals and no common sense. I've known him longer than you have, and he hasn't changed a bit, so there's really no use getting your hopes up." France rubs his chin, the stubble there catching on burgeoning callouses on his hand. "It's pitiful, but it's also too bad. Going on like that, even though he puts his heart into it and works his hardest, he'll never be able to get his house into better shape without a dash of realism. He'll just continue being as poor and happy as a church mouse."
Romano doesn't respond, just raises a hand to shade his eyes from the sun as he looks out to the hills, his curl bobbing when he lifts his head.
"And the country of passion," France scoffs. "The French are renowned for romance, and Italians are famous for love; but all passion means is that he throws his love out indiscriminately. It's so free that his affection is meaningless. All around, he's nothing but a useless country. A nice neighbor, but nothing more."
France stretches further, just to feel the resistance as he fights not to lose his balance and tumble off the wall, and tips his face up until his hat flutters to the ground. He lets it lie there; he'll remember to retrieve it later, when the sun burns too hot on his hair, and for now he just laughs and smiles.
"You're truly lucky that you don't love him."
When Romano has gone and France crouches in the fields weeding once more, he'll repeat it to himself as many times as it takes until he believes it.