A/N: I've been internet-less for a while now, but I got around to reading all your reviews yesterday and would like to thank you all for your words of encouragement. It does me great joy to know that you're attaining some pleasure from reading this story, however little it may be. *bows graciously*
*****Important note(s): Just for future record, Belgium will henceforth be known as Farahilde or 'Fara' (since I couldn't find her real human name anywhere on the internet...), and she will henceforth be known as Francis' sister since French is one of her native languages anyway.
Title: If the Devil Wrote Poetry
Rating: M
Pairing(s): Ludwig/Feliciano; includes Antonio/Romano, Roderich/Elizabeta, one-sided Francis/Feliciano, one-sided Gilbert/Romano, etc...
Warnings: AU, swearing, a smidgen of violence, and, of course, a little smex. Also, Ludwig might come off as a bit of a jerk in the beginning (but that's because he doesn't have his loveable Italian to humble him yet—and besides, growing up with Gilbert is bound to rub off on a guy, even if only by a little) ;)
Translations: Because I am, most certainly, not a pro at this, I'll be posting what I assume are the correct translations at the bottom of the page. If you're a native speaker (or just an autodidact linguist), please feel free to tell me if I've made any mistakes.
Concrit: is appreciated, because sometimes I'm a doofus and I screw up when I'm editing (seriously, feel free to nitpick on anything).
Disclaimer: No matter how much I wish otherwise, Hetalia is not mine...
Summary: (AU) To avoid an invasion from the Beilschmidt Empire, old Roma Vargas proposes a marriage between the families to keep the peace. Ludwig accepts. Feliciano, on the other hand...
~*~/\\\~*~/\\\~*~/\\\~*~
"I can't believe he's doing this."
"Gilbert does drive a hard bargain."
Romano gave him 'the look'.
Antonio shifted uncomfortably where he stood on their bedroom balcony, the city spread out before him beneath the star-lit sky. It had been cloudier earlier, but a westerly wind had long since blown the coverage aside. No rain tomorrow, it looked like. "Ludwig isn't so bad, cariño. Nothing like his brother, actually, at least off the battlefield."
"I don't care! He's too...too macho. And his people have different expectations—you even said so yourself. Love is just a fairy tale affliction to them..."
Antonio winced a little; he did remember saying that, but only because he and Gilbert had drunk themselves into an almighty stupor the night before the eldest Beilschmidt's marriage to Farahilde. Granted, neither of them had ever met Francis' sister before, sweetheart that she turned out to be, but it had been a solemn experience when faced with the fact that they were born for the sole purpose of preserving their respective families' inheritances.
Duty always had a way of dulling the grander things in life, he supposed.
"Then perhaps give Feliciano a chance," Antonio sighed. He knew he was grasping at straws here, but if anyone knew Romano like he did, they were well aware of the lengths he'd go to just to get what he wanted. "He might find that he actually likes Ludwig."
"Doesn't matter," Romano huffed, collapsing onto their bed. Behind the diaphanous curtains of the four-poster frame, silhouetted by candlelight alone, Antonio could make out the young man's slender form as he slipped out of his clothes. "He's a Beilschmidt. He's large and intimidating—and demanding. Practically every moment of his pathetic life is choreographed to some asinine schedule his brother prescribed, down to the very last breath. How is Feliciano supposed to live like that?"
Ah, but his little Romanito had a point there...Feliciano was nothing, really, if not free-spirited.
"Perhaps Feli will change him?"
Romano snorted in disbelief. Antonio hardly noticed it, though, as he tried to edge along the wall of the room to get a better glimpse of his husband through the midline crack of the four-poster curtains. He was having a spot of trouble trying to figure out whether Romano was doing this to punish Antonio for siding against him or if the young man was seducing him out of habit with that magnificent body of his...
"He's got, what, a week before the ceremony?" Romano leaned forward to peek around the curtains; Antonio froze in place when those enticing eyes fell on him, like a child caught sneaking sweets from the kitchen right before dinner. "Nonno says I can't go with him, but you, on the other hand..."
"No," Antonio replied, and despite his being a weak, weak man when accosted by the sight of Romano's half-naked body, he was able to say it with enough conviction to sound as though he actually meant it. "I'm not going anywhere without my little Lovinito, and since we both know you're capable of a instigating a great many calamities, querido, perhaps it's for the best that you don't send an agent of darkness to do your bidding."
The look Romano shot him before diving back behind the curtains didn't bode well for his getting laid anytime in the immediate future. "¡Estúpido! You can sleep on the friggen floor tonight if that's how you feel!"
"Cariño, that's not very nice...I'm your husband."
"Some husband you turned out to be. All big and badass in the battlefield, but can't seem to find your backbone whenever I need you to kill someone..."
With a roll of his eyes, Antonio reached up to undo the drawstring of his shirt before shrugging it off. Wrath bedamned, he was going to sleep in his own bed tonight, with Romano, because the floor was as cold as high seas in a deluge and he'd much rather wake tomorrow morning without a stiff back, thank you very much.
Romano threw a pillow at his head as he climbed on top of the mattress. Fortunately, Antonio was accustomed to such a greeting and managed to catch it before collapsing over his little tomato like the annoyingly dead weight only he knew how to be.
Romano 'eep'-ed in protest and tried to hit him with another pillow, but such a feat was ineffective at this proximity. "¡Culero!"
"Such language," Antonio tutted before stealing a kiss from the corner of his mouth. "Tomorrow morning we'll wake up bright and early so that you can impart all your martial wisdom upon your poor, little brother, and then we'll put our affairs into order so that we can join him for the ceremony at the end of the week. Alright, cariño?"
Romano mumbled something under his breath. It could've been either acquiescence or another lively string of swears. Regardless, his swift surrender could only mean that the clogs were still turning inside his head, thoughts churning dangerously in the darker recesses of his mind as he entertained the idea of murdering at least one, if not both, of the Beilschmidt brothers...
Usually this was a cause for worry, but, again, Antonio was such a weak man when it came to matters of the heart (ahem), and his conscience was promptly trampled underfoot by his libido as Romano turned his head just so to reveal the lovely line of his throat...
And like the weak, weak man he was, Antonio threw caution to the wind. Maybe, just for tonight, he could pretend that his husband wasn't plotting to kill someone.
There was plenty of time to worry about that tomorrow.
~*~/\\\~*~/\\\~*~/\\\~*~
Words couldn't describe quite how Feliciano felt when his eyes fell upon Ludwig. His heart was certainly trying to outpace the frantic staccato of one of Antonio's Tarantella as his fear had yet to dwindle, but seeing the man, so foreign and new, Feliciano couldn't help but feel intrigued.
Ludwig straightened from his bow eventually and returned to his incredible height before strolling over to the bed. And perhaps it was a small blessing that he didn't appear to be angry or annoyed, because Feliciano had certainly expected something a little less welcoming from the man after the chase he had gone through.
Instinctively, though, Feliciano pressed himself further back into his mountain of pillows. Ludwig's cool composure looked like the genuine thing, but there was really no telling whether or not he had a hairpin trigger of a temper like Romano. And what if it was just a ploy to lower Feliciano's defences? Make him feel safe and secure before—
No. No. He wasn't going to go there. Even if Ludwig meant to do something terrible, Feliciano knew, for a fact, that his screams were shrill enough to wake the dead. Romano had told him so, and Romano slept at the opposite end of the palace.
Internal dialogue bedamned, Ludwig eventually reached the side of his bed. The man made no move to come any closer though and merely stood there, stalk still, like one of the toy soldiers Feliciano used to play with as a child.
Putting his manners to good use, Feliciano leaned over a little to the side and patted his bed invitingly.
Ludwig stood there for a second, looking utterly dumbfounded, before he seemed to get the idea and took a seat at the very edge. Tucking one leg beneath him so that he could better turn to face Feliciano, Ludwig cleared his throat behind his fist and focused his gaze on something just over prince's shoulder. "...How are you feeling?"
"Oh, terrible!" Feliciano whined, still all too aware of the incessant throbbing of his head. "It hurts worse than anything Romano's even done to me."
"Es tut mir leid—it was never my intention to hurt you."
"Oh," he said, because it only just occurred to him how his complaint could've been interpreted. Nonno had always warned him about such things. "Well, it's not your fault, silly."
Ludwig cleared his throat again, cheeks a little red.
Feliciano wondered if the man was feeling a little ill himself.
"I'm...I'm glad. Yes. Danke. And I...I really don't know what else to say."
Cocking his head to one side, Feliciano blinked. Ludwig didn't look like the sort of person that was ever at a loss for words. In fact, he looked a lot like the captain of the palace guards, and that man could scream for hours on end at the men without so much as taking a single breath.
"You must forgive me," Ludwig murmured, eyes shifting nervously to the pattern of Feliciano's quilt, "my people usually don't meet their intendeds before the actual ceremony. I'm well aware that we'll be spending the rest of our lives together, but I only found out yesterday that you and I would be married, and as such, I...I realize this must be awkward for you. Too, I mean. For you too..."
Feliciano heaved a sigh of relief. It was good to see that someone other than Romano could see the madness of this whole affair. "Sì! It's crazy, isn't it?"
"Ja, it is."
"Want to call it off?"
"No."
Blinking in surprised, Feliciano waited a moment for the punch line. When he realized that nothing was forthcoming, he cleared his throat and tried to imagine why Ludwig looked as unperturbed as he did. "...Why not?"
It was Ludwig's turn now to look surprised, though he managed to pull it off a little less comically than the captain of the guards ever could, merely raising his left eyebrow ever-so-slightly. "What do you mean?"
"The marriage. Don't you want to call it off?"
"Nein. Why would I? Other than the alarmingly short span of our betrothal, I think it makes perfect sense."
For a moment, Feliciano felt as though he'd been dropped on his head again... Yes, that had to be it. Why else would the whole world be reeling before his very eyes? "Ve—but how does it make any sense at all?"
"My brother wants to expand his territory; your grandfather wants to keep his kingdom safe. Through our union, your people will become part of the most powerful empire in the world... I think that's probably the most reasonable decision your grandfather could've made, given the circumstances."
"But...But I don't know you."
"...I'm sorry, but I fail to see what that has to do with any of this. Is that one of your customs? Is there something you'd like to ask me?"
Feliciano would've cried if Ludwig hadn't look so sincere in his confusion. Instead, he sunk down a little further into his mountain of pillows and pulled his quilt up to his chin.
His future was still looking pretty dismal.
"...Are you alright?"
"What about love?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Love," Feliciano whimpered. "Isn't there some pretty girl back home that you're madly in love with?"
"No... Are you currently in love with someone yourself?"
"No, but—"
"Perfect." And he said it so matter-of-factly, Feliciano was briefly reminded of the way Nonno sometimes dealt with his grandsons to make sure that they were keeping out of trouble. "Are you a virgin?"
"Huh? Sì, but—"
"Thenthat's all that matters."
"No it doesn't!"
Ludwig looked perplexed. "What do you mean?"
"Do your people have pasta?"
"... Pas-ta?"
...
That did it.
This wedding was not happening. Nonno could string him up by his ankles from the bell tower if he wanted, Feliciano could honestly care less.
"I'm not marrying you," he muttered, then rolled over onto his side, away from Ludwig, and closed his eyes.
"Wait—what? Why?"
"Because you don't know what pasta is."
"B-but—that is not a valid excuse!"
"Yes, it is."
"I beg to differ!"
"Ve~ but you obviously know nothing about pasta."
Ludwig made an interesting noise just then, a deep rumbling in the back of his throat that sounded like a cross between a growl and something vaguely painful. In fact, it was so unique Feliciano couldn't help but roll back over to take a look.
Ludwig was red in the face—just a dusting of colour across the cheeks, really, but it was an alarming shade against the man's otherwise fair complexion. "Nein," he huffed. "But there will be no compromises, Liebling. You will return with me to the capital tomorrow, and you will adjust. That is the way of the world."
"What do you mean?"
"Change," Ludwig muttered. Then he stood, not a hair out of place, and dusted his sleeves off sharply, almost as though their conversation had besmirched more than just his mood. "Change—or perish. That was my vater's apothegm."
"I'm not going," Feliciano retorted, although he very badly wanted to pause their conversation and ask him what an apothegm was. He didn't care if he sounded petulant, if he didn't put his foot down now there was no telling what would happen to him. He was not an adventurer; better to leave the long and perilous journey of marriage to someone like Romano, who ruled his husband with an iron fist (at least when Antonio would allow it). "You can't make me."
Ludwig snorted in mild disbelief, but he was smiling—a little quirk at the corner of his lips that suggested, more or less, that he thought he knew something Feliciano didn't. And it was with this that he clicked his heels smartly together and bowed deeply at the waist. "Gute Nacht, Majestät."
"...I mean it," he said, but even to his ears it sounded weak.
"I know."
"But you say that like Nonno does."
"That is the king, ja? Well, he's blessed this marriage and given his approval to my plans, so unless you think your Großvater is in the habit of putting your life in jeopardy, perhaps you should respect his wishes?"
Feliciano bit the inside of his cheek... Well, there was no use arguing with that logic, now was there?
Ludwig took his victory for what it was and continued smirking as he turned to leave. Feliciano merely sat there, somewhat dumbfounded, and stared off into the forevermore as Ludwig left him to his peace.
He was starting to get the feeling that he had been beat...
Time for Plan B, he supposed.
~*~/\\\~*~/\\\~*~/\\\~*~
A/N: And so, the plot thickens...
Translations:
"Cariño" ~ 'darling/sweetheart' (Spanish)
"Nonno" ~ 'grandfather' (Italian)
"Querido" ~ 'darling/dear' (Spanish)
"¡Estúpido!" ~ 'idiot!' (Spanish)
"¡Culero!" ~ 'a**hole!' (Spanish)
"Es tut mir leid" ~ 'I'm sorry', although literally it means 'it does me sorrow' (German)
"Danke" ~ 'thank you' (German)
"Sì!" ~ 'yes' (Italian and Spanish)
"Ja" ~ 'yes' (German)
"Nein." ~ 'no' (German)
"Gute Nacht, Majestät." ~ 'goodnight, your majesty' (German)
"Großvater" ~ 'grandfather' (German)