With a heaving chest, Feliciano sighed into the humid, heady air of a homeland summer as church bells pealed softly in the distance. He heard it in his heart, where the scars were freshly healing, prone to bleed if the chime of metal became screaming, wailing sirens. They felt as thin as the wounds winding over the contours of his body, under the fresh, breathable fabric of a suit, not a uniform. A beautiful leather belt pulled down not by a sword or god help him, infantry gear but by powerful, thick fingers.
The recession was gone. He could feel it most in the relieved hush of the country side. Years, maybe to get there, but there he was, enveloped in the warm embrace of his land without an itch in his side and a cough in his lungs. This dirt he knew so well, that grew crops for him, harbored his people, his essence, felt glorious caked under his nails. Because he wanted it to be there. No crawling into foxholes or trenches or frantically digging shell casings from the mud amidst enemy firing. He clenched his fingers tightly into the earth because he felt like it. Because a behemoth writhed under the entrapment of his lean form and the sheer pleasure of it drove him to clutch onto anything sturdy enough to ground him while he ground down.
He would never admit it, of course. How much it excited him, turned him on, drove him absolutely crazy, to have this proud nation completely undone, at his mercy, and subject to his every whim. Not an issue of pride, given his general disposition. But respect. The titan had fallen not long before, battle pocked and shattered. His hugeness had been dwarfed by Progression. The seductive delirium of his Master undone, Might had tumbled into the skeletal wreckage of Despair.
Feliciano likened it to the crumbling of the Alps.
"Ve, Ludwig..."
His breath hitched at teeth catching the rogue curl of hair dangling at the side of his face. There came a following grunted response indicating attention, though it was distracted, and the thrust of muscular hips against his own, the smooth slide of clothing rapidly stripped from his skin, made language seem a trifling thing.
Never stopped him from attempting. "Veee, Ludwig! It's nice like this, yes? We can see the sky! I can hear the-" Gasps as palms fondled his bare chest. "Birds and the cows and the- Amore mio, sei incredible..."
He rode the wave of deep, rumbling laughter beneath him, giggles sliding off his tongue into an open, pliant mouth. The sound of an avalanche from afar. The echo of massive black forests, mysterious and endless. Foreign but every bit as loved as the gay squabbling of gulls off the coasts of his beaches and the clatter of mopeds along his cobbled streets. Feliciano grinned into flaxen hair, gripped it with soil stained fingers and pulled ever so slightly when German curses lay siege to his neck. "Come vorrei stare qui con te per sempre. Sempre così, ve...Solo con te."
Ludwig arched. "Küss m-"
Request accepted. Tall grasses rustled over head, haloed with a line of golden illumination. Evening. Beautiful. As comforting as the groans vibrating between their shared kisses. The scent of wine as it flowed where Feliciano poured it. Their torsos, his hands. Every drop slithering over muscles, he consumed. Licked, bit, sucked away with murmured endearments answering gutteral growls. When slender digits breeched muscle, pushed in deep, Ludwig bellowed loud enough to chase away every fool avian within several miles and that too, Feliciano devoured.
Once again he grasped into the soil at either side of Ludwig's massive shoulders and as he buried himself in the sensation of cooling grass, in a volcanic, raw, searingly powerful lover, country, friend, anima gemella, Feliciano prayed to God Ludwig would never look back, always remember and never forget that home was where the heart was and Italia had always loved him best.