Chapter Two
"Ve, Lovi, you've been so grumpy lately." Italy frowned a bit, tugging on his brother's sleeve. "You've been in a bad mood since the meeting the other day. Is everything all right, fratello?"
"Everything's fine, you damn bastard." Romano rolled his eyes, not bothering to look up from the sauce he was stirring.
"Romanooo," Italy called out, grinning. "I know what'll make you feel better!"
He sighed heavily. "If you say pasta, I'm going to punch you. I'm making it now. Be patient."
"Nope!" Italy stepped closer to Romano and latched onto him, hugging him tightly. "You need hugs!"
"Not your damn hug therapy again…." Romano groaned, trying to shove him off. "You know how much I hate that!"
"Ve, if you hate it, why do you let me?" Italy laughed, hugging him tighter.
"I'm trying to push you off!"
"No, you're pretending to try to push me off." He giggled.
Romano's cheeks flushed slightly. "You're my stupid fratellino, what do you know?"
"I know that you secretly love hugs!"
"I do not!"
Italy giggled.
"I said I don't!" He protested.
"Ve, I know you do!" Italy grinned, hugging him tighter.
Romano's efforts to push him off became more genuine and his brow creased in discomfort. "Stop it, you're hurting me now."
"Hm?" Italy hummed, not loosening his grip.
"I said that you're hurting me, Veneziano. Let go."
Italy sighed and let go, rather disappointed. People were fun to squeeze. "Mi dispiace." He apologized, feigning a look of sadness.
Romano sighed and looked at him, his hazel eyes annoyed. "You aren't going to smile again until I hug you, are you?"
Italy shook his head, grinning inwardly. Romano sighed heavily again and turned around to face him, his arms extended flaccidly.
"Then come here, damn it. Frowning isn't your thing, it's mine."
Italy grinned and stepped forward, hugging him a little less forcefully as before. He didn't want to have him think anything was wrong, not when things were just starting to get fun.
Romano sighed yet again, and patted his back. "All right, that's enough, Feli. Dinner's almost done, and I'm starving."
"Ve, okay." Italy let go, smiling. "Should I get plates?"
"Sì, whatever." Romano shrugged, turning back to tend to the bubbling pasta sauce and pot of boiling pasta. Italy nodded and sang to himself as he went to get plates out of the cupboard. Dancing a little bit, he hopped across the kitchen's floorboards, playing a little game of hopscotch with himself. When he reached the cupboard, he took two plates out and hopped toward the table.
Due to the fact that he was wearing socks, carrying plates with the hands he'd normally be using for balance, and jumping across a newly waxed floor, Italy didn't get far before he slipped. He landed on his backside, the plates following soon after and crashing on either side of him into several razor sharp fragments.
"Waah!" He exclaimed, startled. Romano spun around, his eyes wide with slight panic and concern.
"Merda, Feli! Stay there and don't move, I'm going to get the broom." He tossed the spoon he was holding onto the stove and hurried off to find the broom.
Italy sat upright, wincing as the glass shards dug into his palms. He lifted a hand to his face, frowning at the pieces of ceramic sticking out of his flesh. As he stared at it, his eyes brimming with tears, he realized something.
Feliciano liked the way it hurt. Not in a creepy, masochistic way, but in a more mesmerizing way, and he craved more. Using his other hand, which also had glass protruding from it, he pushed a shard deeper into his palm, wincing and smiling at the same time. It hurt, but it also felt good. The pain was sharp and harsh, but was accompanied by a rather pleasant tingling sensation that made him giggle a bit.
Romano returned a few seconds later, almost dropping the broom when he saw Italy picking at his hands, which had quite a lot of glass in them.
"Chigi!" He exclaimed. "Veneziano! I told you not to move!"
"Ve, I'm sorry!" Italy cried, now aware of the tears streaming down his cheeks. Why he hadn't noticed them before, he didn't know.
"Damn it, now you're hurt." Romano scolded, walking over with the broom and sweeping away enough glass for him to safely stand and walk away without getting any in his feet. "Come on, stand up."
Italy nodded, sniffling. He stood, almost falling again, as he wasn't able to use his hands. Romano steadied him and helped him to the bathroom, where they kept the first aid kit.
"Sit." He ordered, pointing to the closed toilet.
"Ve, Lovi-"
"No whining, damn it!" Romano huffed, grabbing the first aid kit from the cabinet under the sink. "Sit, Feliciano."
Italy sighed, not wanting his fratello to worry about him so much, but complied anyways. "It's a minor injury; it shouldn't take very long to heal at all!"
"It won't heal right if there's glass in it, idiota." Romano rolled his eyes, opening the box and taking out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. "Hold your hands over the sink."
Italy furrowed his brow, having accidentally injured himself enough times to know what the evil liquid did when poured on open wounds. "Ve, that isn't necessary! I'm a nation; it'll heal on its own. It won't even scar."
"It won't if there's anything in there to interfere with the healing process." Romano answered, his eyebrow twitching in annoyance.
"But it'll hurt, fratello!" He whined.
"Don't be a bambino," Romano groaned. "It doesn't even hurt that much." Grabbing his wrists, he pulled them over the sink and dumped a generous amount of the liquid over his brother's hands.
Italy grimaced, inhaling sharply at the pain. Though, the sting didn't last long, it soon faded and was replaced by the pleasant tingling, just like earlier when he first got hurt.
"See? It isn't bad at all." Romano rolled his eyes and started to take the glass out of his hands, being very gentle, despite his bitter attitude.
Italy whined nonetheless, complaining about being hungry and bored as his brother carefully plucked the fragments of ceramic from his skin.
"Stop whining, Feliciano." Romano huffed. "We would be eating dinner right now if you hadn't been jumping around the kitchen like a damned frog on crack."
He laughed a little. "It's fun!"
Romano rolled his eyes. "I don't care how 'fun' it is, we'll run out of plates if you don't stop." He took out the last piece of glass and tossed it into the trashcan with the others, sighing heavily.
"Ve, done?" Italy asked, peering at his hands.
Romano nodded, feeling his palms for any shards he might have missed before wrapping them in a bandage. When he was done, he put everything away and shoved the box back into the cabinet.
"Now let's go…." He trailed off, his eyes widening in fear. "Dio mio, I forgot about the pasta!" Without another word, Romano dashed out of the bathroom and flew to the kitchen with such speed, Italy was surprised he didn't break through the sound barrier.
Rather worried about the pasta as well, he followed, glancing briefly at his feet and smiling back at his happy pizza socks that Japan had gotten him for his birthday earlier that year. Just when he was about to enter the kitchen, a horrified, unnaturally high pitched screech startled him.
"I've ruined it!" Romano cried, appalled. He stood in front of the stove, holding a single, deformed noodle in his palm, almost on the verge of tears.
"Ve, it can't be that bad!" Italy said, walking over to assess the damage as well. He poked at the noodle in Romano's hand, shrieking when he felt how unnaturally squishy it was. "What do we do?"
"There might be enough flour left to make a pizza…."
"Fratello, no, we can't have pizza on pasta night! That's worse than having pasta on pizza night!" Italy exclaimed, rather shocked that his own brother had suggested such a blasphemous thing.
"Well then, what do you propose we do, idiota?" Romano answered, dropping the noodle back into the pot with its severely over-boiled kindred.
Italy began wailing in virtually indecipherable Italian, Romano joining in soon after, arguing that they could just go out to eat instead. Feliciano, having been looking forward to eating his big brother's homemade pasta, adamantly refused that idea, thus beginning another one of their quarrels.
After almost an hour of bickering, the evening ended with both of the Vargas brothers passed out on the couch, exhausted from crying and petty squabbling, the former mostly on Feliciano's part, and the latter mostly on Lovino's. It had been a rather chaotic evening, but, though one of them would never admit it, those were their favorite kind.