Title: Tomato-Red
Rating: PG (some blood?)
Genre: Angst
Characters/Pairings: Romano, Spain | No pairings
Summary: The reality of Spain's trips away from home hits Romano. Hard.
Notes: Fill from the kinkmeme, the request was for Little Romano realising for the first time just what Spain goes through for him and very emotionally showing him gratitude (Hugging, crying, clinging to him)
--
"Wha- Oi, bastard, what do you mean I have to take lunch by myself?"
Spain squats down to Romano's level, affectionately ruffling his hair. "Ahh, I'm sorry Romano, but I really have to go now, so you'll have to-"
"Why do you have to go?"
Spain hesitates here, because what should he say? He has to go because he's going to war with his best friend again? That as a Nation, he has to attend to a bushy-eyebrowed idiot over seas, who was constantly sinking his ships? Romano may be growing up, but he didn't need to hear this right now.
"Because I'm going to get us more tomatoes, of course!" He grins, and almost believes himself for a second.
Romano doesn't.
"We have plenty in the back. And you don't need to go to the market now in those clothes just to get tomatoes," Romano says, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
Spain laughs again, fiddling with the top button of his uniform.
Nothing gets past this kid, doesn't it? He's going to be a handful in the future...
"They're special tomatoes, I'm sure you'll love them!" He smiles and stretches back to his full height, reaching for the door.
"Don't wait up, alright Romano?" The door clicks, and the boy is left staring at the back of it.
Romano walks away, muttering. "They better be some damn good tomatoes..."
Outside, Spain walks down the worn dirt path, axe in hand. He knows that he won't be seeing any tomatoes for today, but there will definitely be some red where he's going.
--
Two days later, Romano honestly doesn't give a damn about those "special tomatoes" Spain was talking about. He wasn't nearly tall enough to reach the stove, and even if he was, the large iron-cast pots were still far too heavy for him, which means two days without pasta, only raw tomatoes. That, in itself, was frustrating enough. With the added fact that Spain had lied (Back by tonight my ass) and kept Romano waiting... The younger Nation had no choice but to simply vent his anger onto the ripe fruit, chomping viciously.
So viciously, in fact, that he almost missed the sound of the door clicking shut.
"... Oi, bastard, is that you?"
No reply, except for the tap of boots on hardwood flooring.
"Spain?"
The front hallway is now empty, with no sign of anyone having been there--
If you ignored the small puddles of red on the floor, the axe leaning against the banister, and the caked mud not-quite blending in with the brown of the floor.
Romano stoops down, bending over the red. He knows it's not tomato juice, he really honestly does, but he can't help but need to check. He knows that it's just not the right consistency or colour, but he dips a finger in and--
And he recoils by reflex as the scent hits his nostrils.
He doesn't want to think about it, think about anything else other than tomato juice which is red and wet and hasthatmetallicsmelltoit....
Shit.
"Boss?"
He follows the trail of red, up the stairs and into the second hallway, and he finds more pieces of Spain on the way up, and he doesn't want to know why (or how) Spain's gold earring could have gotten out of his ear and onto the parquet, why the loose pieces of bandages are now more red than white.
Romano stops calling out, because he's not sure if he wants to find Spain after all.
But by some seemingly external force, he follows the trail, picking up whatever he finds along the way, the blood now steeping into his white sleeves, but\ couldn't be bothered enough to give a damn right then, because when there was a bloody hand-print on the wall, what were a few stains?
A small hand pushes the door open, and for once in his life, he doesn't loudly announce his displeasure with his guardian and barge into his personal quarters. Instead, he stares, the door open just a silver, enough for him to look in, as his hands numbly clutch fragments of the man before him.
Spain's in there, bloody, battered and half-naked, as he slowly strips off the jacket's slashed sleeves as the fabric sticks to the barely-closed wounds. The sunlight streaming through the room does weird things, as it reflects off the dried blood and the sun-tinted brown of his hair. His hands are crusted with blood, bruises under that, but they still make an effort to hang up the ruined jacket onto a hanger.
Romano's breath catches at the sight of Spain's back.
He knows. Even though Spain doesn't always tell him, he knows that the older Nation goes to wars, but he never really knew that he went to war.
War which gave him that long, healing scar along his lower back, that new gash which stretched from his right shoulder to left mid-torso, still bleeding, barely scabbing over. The multitude of cuts and bruises peppering his face and arms (And later, much later, as Spain would tell him, the one broken rib and dislocated shoulder as well).
It hits him all at once, the shock and nausea and sadness, that Spain was doing this for him. That Spain had been doing this for decades, perhaps even a century now, and all he did was complain about how stringy the pasta sauce was that night, or how Spain wasn't around enough.
The emotion hit him sickingly in the gut, right where it hurt, and it's all Romano can do to clutch his stomach and stop the appallingly loud sob from escaping his mouth.
It doesn't work, and Spain whirls around, surprised at the sight of his young ward at the door, crying.
"R-Romano! What--" He hastily pulls on a clean white shirt, over the scars, over the wounds, as he runs over to the boy.
"I don't care about tomatoes," Romano chokes out, throwing himself into Spain's left shoulder, hands wrapped around him as far as they can reach. His weight isn't very much, but it's the shock of this sudden burst of emotion which sends Spain backwards onto the floor with a thump.
As Spain rubs comforting circles into Romano's back, the boy can't help but feel the nausea, the overwhelming amount of sadness build up again, because he's not the one that needs the comfort right now, is he?
He tries to enunciate it, to say all those words which don't seem to come, to express this new rush of emotion which has hit him harder than most things in life so far. He honestly tries, but no fitting words or sounds seem to be at hand, and so he cries.
Romano cries, openly, for the first time in the presence of Spain, his tears soaking the new shirt, clutching at him like he had never found the courage to do before, like he would vanish if he let go.
"Don't go," is mumbled somewhere, when sobs turn into hiccups, and the blood has mixed with both their tears.
Spain nods, his chest heaving, bringing Romano along with him as he lies back and hugs Romano closer.
--
A/N:
Man, I really do like these two more than I consciously let on, don't I? There's probably a bit of historical-cock-up in the front bit, because Spain's wars with France don't actually collide with the Spanish Armada with England, if I'm not mistaken.