Italy had slept like a rock that night. He had too much booze when they visited Japan, and Germany ended up having to carry the boy all the way home on his back. Though the auburn haired Italian slept like a rock that night, it was not a particularly pleasant slumber.
Italy woke abruptly, bolting into an upright position, his brows knitting together in fear. Blue eyes. Those blue eyes. They had filled his dreams with an unfathomable feeling of loneliness, as if he were waving goodbye to someone he loved, knowing they would never meet again.
"Ge...Germany!" he cried, springing off his bed, the light yellow covers falling to the floor as he ran down the hall, his bare feet pounding against the wood floor. He burst into Germany's room, but stopped abruptly after busting the door open, standing on its threshold. "Germany...?" Italy frowned, staring at the large bed. It was empty. "Eh?" he stood there in surprise, wearing nothing but a light colored pair of boxers and a wrinkly dress shirt, buttoned only at the very top notch. His hair brushed along his forehead as he tilted his head to the side. He wasn't here?
The boy turned on his heel, rushing down the swirling stairs to check where the muscular blonde man was at. He was home, of course. He had to be. Germany never left Italy here alone. But he wasn't in the kitchen, or the parlor. He wasn't in the office, closets, bathrooms, or even on the patio. There was no way...
Italy inhaled as much air as his dainty lungs would allow and planted his bare feet firmly on the floor. "GER-MA-NY!" he called as loudly as he was capable of. He held a hand up to his ear and listened. There was no 'shut up, I'm working,' or a 'what is all the racket this time,' not even a 'don't tell me you got your hair stuck in door hinge again.'
"Eh...?" Italy wined quietly, cold panic slowly creeping up his skin. Hold on! Germany must be in the attic, that explained why he couldn't hear Italy call him! The amber eyed boy walked over to the hallway where the hatch for the attic was. Italy gave a nervous gulp as he looked at the string hanging from the square board that blocked the attic from the rest of the house. It was really high...what if Italy fell and hurt himself? 'No!' he thought as he vigorously shook his head. 'I hafta find Germany! No matter what!'
"Nya!" he let out the sound as he jumped, his hand extended upwards for the pull-string. No good. "Nya!" he jumped again. Again and again he tried, but it was no use, he was to short. If Germany were there the man would have no problem reaching up and pulling it down without having to hop around like a fool. However, if Germany were there in the attic then it would not be closed up the way it was. Of course, someone with as little common sense as Italy would never have realized that.
Still in his sleepwear, Italy ran downstairs to the kitchen and retrieved a chair, dragging it back to the hall and setting it directly beneath the attic door. He slowly climbed up, his loose shirt rustling with his movement, he stretched up, and his hand grasped around the string.
"I did it!" Italy said to himself excitedly, and gave the string an enthusiastic pull. The hatch swung down, the compacted ladder came with it, smashing down right on the back of his head with an equal amount of enthusiasm. The Italian was knocked forwards, off the chair, clattering to the floor.
"Hyaaa!" he cried, clamping his hands down on his head, rolling spaztically around on the wood floor, wet beads in the corners of his eyes. "Fa male!" he cried as he rolled back and forth with his teeth clenched. "Fa male! Fa male!" After a dozen or so more revolutions on the floor the quivering Italian picked himself up and set a hand on the back of the chair. He looked up into the dark hole and took in a deep breath. "I really hope you're up here Germany..."
Italy wrapped his fingers around one of the rungs of the ladder. Then the other. Then his feet. His limbs alternated with each other as he hoisted himself up little by little. Finally he was close to the top. Italy slowly raised his head up, just enough so his eyes could peak over the ledge of the square hole. He blinked a couple times, then squinted. It was really dark in there.
"G-Germany?" Italy called nervously into the blackness. "A-are you h-here?" The attic was really creepy, especially since he couldn't see much of anything. Everything smelled musty, and his nose tickled whenever he breathed from all the floating dust particles. He dared to hoist himself up another inch or so, his pointed nose now peaking over the edge as well. "Hello?"
Shkshkshk. There was a rustling sound coming from the abyss before him, but what was it? It sounded much lighter than a person, much less Germany. Nervous shivers began to travel up Italy's back. "Germany...?" he said, almost in a pleading whisper. Shkshkshk. Italy's lips started to tremble as the sound came closer. He squinted, attempting to see what was lurking in desperate hopes that it would be Germany. A small pair of round yellow eyes gleamed in the darkness. Italy's whole body was quivering at this point. Pii! The high pitched squeak was what broke the camel's back. Italy let out a loud "Hyaaaa!" as he climbed -more like ran- down the ladder with easily twice the speed that he had when he had ascended it. With rapid motion he landed on the chair beneath in a frog-like position on all fours with a violent thud that shook the floor. He stood stretched as high as he could on the chair and pushed the ladder back up into the compartment. He shoved and shoved but it would not stay closed. The auburn haired boy began to panic at this point and after running in terrified circles he left the hall having patched the solution with the only solution he could think of at a time like that. Duct tape.
Acting on impulse and instinct, Italy retreated not to his own, but Germany's room, plopping himself in the center of the large mattress. His brows furrowed as a melancholy pout formed on this lips and pulled his knees in under his chin. 'Where are you, Germany?'
Italy sat their for a while before his eyelids started to feel heavy. He let out a loud sigh as he let himself fall back onto Germany's pillows, spreading his arms and legs loosely as if he were going to make a snow angel. He gave a small groan as if he were a puppy waiting for its master. He turned on his side, inhaling deeply, all the bedding wrinkled and bunched up around him. It smelled good, comforting. It smelled just like Germany... The boy curled his fingers around the edge of the light blanked beneath him and pulled it closer, burying his face in it. It smelled like beer and gunpowder and crisp morning, and made him feel the way one does when they wake up smiling, knowing that their day will be a good one. Italy drifted off to the thoughts of seeing Germany smiling at him, and he smiling back.
Italy dreamed that England was chasing him around with a spell book in hand whilst spouting magical nonsense after the fleeing Italian. Then Germany came and chased the Brit off with a potato cannon, but then France came and trapped Germany in a giant coo-coo clock. Each time the clock went to chirp Germany's angry face came out instead spouting orders like 'tie your shoes!' and 'stop retreating!' The coo-coo continued and the sound morphed into a repetitive chime. Ding dong ding. Ding dong ding. Louder and louder, it continued until Italy slowly opened his eyes.
The auburn haired boy rubbed his eyes as he usually did when waking from a siesta and slowly pulled himself out of the bed. He stumbled lazily out the door and into the entry room to look for an off switch on the grandfather clock. The more he searched the large antique the less groggy he became. After several minutes of searching whilst the clock chime continuously, he realized the sound wasn't coming from this clock. In fact, this clock was rendered incapable of making noise ever since Germany tore the coo-coo extension out.
The Italian pricked up his ears and listened for the chime. It was coming from the opposite end of the house. He left the room and followed the sound, which seemed to slowly morph into a more melodic tone, until he came to the downstairs hallway. The sound was definitely coming from the other side of the door at the end of it. As Italy slowly walked closer and closer, the tune started slowly fading away. He was almost sad, it really was a pretty sound, but now it was barely audible. He reached the door at the end of the hall; it was the door to the wine cellar. Italy apprehensively reached for the knob and wrapped his fingers around it, but for a few moments he did not move. In those last few seconds the chime completely died, so he twisted the knob and turned it in hope that he would hear the sound once he opened the door.
But there was no sound. Nothing at all. The only thing audible came from the click of the light switch that Italy flipped, and the creak of the steps as he slowly walked down them. The only things in the dusty cellar were racks of glass bottles, a couple of wooden crates, and-
"The mirror..." Italy said softly, walking up to it. He bent over slightly, squinting at the mirror. "Were you the one making all the pretty music?" he asked the inanimate object. Of course he wasn't expecting it to reply, and he certainly wasn't expecting a large pair of light blue eyes to be blinking back at him.
"Gah!" Italy cried in surprise, stumbling backwards, landing on his backside. The amber eyed boy blinked up at the mirror, and to his surprise he wasn't quaking in fear, in fact, he wasn't scared at all. The eyes staring back at him were sort of...calming.
The eyes belonged to a round, boyish face that seemed faded, almost transparent, and was difficult to make out. Combed blonde bangs fell evenly across the top of a pair of golden eyebrows that floated above the blue pools. That's all Italy could make out, that and the fact that those eyes were filled with a soft sadness.
Italy shifted forward from the position from when he had fallen and moved forward, slowly crawling on his hands and knees towards the mirror. "Um... Can...can you hear me? Are you really there...?" Italy asked softly, unsure. He wasn't imagining things was he?
The faded face gave a small nod. It was like the mirror was filled with a fog and the boy was peeking through it, for the most part enveloped in the mist. Italy could still see a light reflection of himself and the cellar behind him, as if the mirror were a window, reflecting on either side.
"Who are you?" Italy asked, leaning closer to the glass.
The blonde boy blinked softly and tilted his head slightly as if he were thinking about what to say. But before the boy in the mirror could do anything else, a loud door slammed up above somewhere in the house, and Italy turned his head towards the sound in surprise. When he looked back to the mirror the boy was gone. Italy frowned with his eyebrows knitted together. Would the boy come back?
"Italy, I'm back! Sorry I was-" a familiar voice called from above, but suddenly halted to be taken over by a "Why is there duct tape all over the attic hatch?"
Italy's mind was wrenched away from the mirror as a large smile spread on his face. He jumped up off the floor and ran up the creaky steps and out of the wine cellar, and up the stairs leading to the second floor. He almost passed Germany in his eagerness to find him. The man was standing just outside the archway of the hall, watching Italy run.
"Ah!" Italy chirped, turning on his heal and jumping up onto the Aryan, wrapping his arms around Germany's neck, and legs around his waist like a child clinging to its mother. "Germany, where were you? I was real worried, I woke up from a bad dream and you weren't there so I looked in your bed and you weren't there and you weren't in the kitchen or the closet or the toilet or the-"
"Halt die Klappe!" Germany interrupted the babbling Italian. "Calm down, you'll give yourself a heart attack."
Italy's words dissipated as he looked up innocently at Germany. "Where were you...?" he asked in a soft, almost hurt tone.
"I take it you didn't see my note..." Germany replied. He responded to Italy's inquisitive look by saying "I wrote you a note because you wouldn't wake up, no matter how violently I shook you."
Italy blinked.
"Mein bruder called this morning, screaming about Hungary chasing him down with a frying pan. Something about him making fun of her femininity... By the time I got there she had beaten Prussia into a pulp, so I had to...mediate the situation."
"Uwah, Miss Hungary did that?" Italy cooed.
"Er, yes. Now," Germany said oddly, "do you think you could get off of me?" The boy was still in the same boxers and oversized dress shirt from that morning.
Italy loosened his grip on the Aryan and lowered himself to the floor, keeping his arms loosely around Germany's neck, though he could barely reach, having to stay on his tip-toes to do so.
"So, um..." Italy said in a small voice, almost inaudibly. Germany looked down at him inquisitively. "P-please don't leave me alone like that anymore Germany!" Italy blurted, tightening his grip around Germany into an embrace.
The German blinked with wide eyes of surprise as his cheeks began to flush. He was momentarily frozen. After a second or so he moved awkwardly, patting Italy's head with one hand, letting the other dangle at his side because he didn't know what he should do with it. "J-ja... Bitte, I won't do it again." Germany's hand shifted from the top of Italy's head to the back of it and brought him in closer to show his apologies.
"Ngh," Italy flinched.
Germany cleared his throat awkwardly and backed away, searching for anything to look at but Italy. "S-sorry..."
"Oh, no, it wasn't you, I hit my head on the attic hatch when I was looking for you earlier." Italy said cheerfully with one eye closed. He gave a little tap to his head with his knuckles.
"I'm not even going to bother asking..." Germany sighed. "I guess that explains the duct tape...sort of...never mind..."
Italy clasped his hands together behind his back and smiled up at Germany. "I'll go make some pasta to celebrate your return!" With that the Italian boy turned, his auburn locks whipping around with the motion, and skipped down the stairs.
Germany couldn't help but let a small, serene smile slip across his lips as he watched Italy's figure descend the stairs and vanish after the boy turned the corner.
Chapter three already! =D
I'm so excited that this story is getting so many views, or, more views than I expected anyway. This is my first fanfic after all =3 I do hope you enjoyed it and will continue to read and post reviews! I also started another story with Japan and America, but the stile is considerably different from this one. All your guys' support makes me want to write and update as quickly as I am able =D
See you next chapter~!
