A/N: OMGWTF IS THAT A NEW CHAPTER?
Well, it's taken a couple months of me procrastinating, but I've finally got a new chapter for you guys. And, no, I don't plan on all the updates being this slow ^^;
SO. to make up for all of that, I present FLUFF! Delicious, cavity-inducing fluff! Whee~
aaaaand it's Christmas in June, apparently. xD Would've been funnier if it was July, but then we would've had to wait another month and that's NOT COOl.
Don't own kthx, nao onto the fic~
Judging by the fact that Elizaveta was taking advice from a child, she could safely say that she failed in all matters of romance – not that she was in love or anything!
Fine. Maybe she was. Feliciano had practically tortured her (by overfeeding her) until she admitted it.
Well, huzzah. She was in love. That definitely posed two problems:
1. She had no idea how to go about admitting this to the object of her affections, or if she even wanted to.
2. Said object of her affections had been pissed off with her the last time they had spoken.
Feliciano was undoubtedly better at comforting than Roderich was, and, after much pasta, he had eventually managed to get the whole story out of her, including the argument. The embodiment of Italy had bugged her until she finally admitted – to herself and her best friend – that she was in love with the jerk. Of course, she had still been quite angry, and it wasn't until later that she had come up with The Plan.
On December 24, Elizaveta got up early, which she hadn't done since Roderich had left. All the servants took their master's absence as an excuse to slack off and play cards. As a result, Elizaveta was getting rather good at it, seeing as she was the only one who remained sober enough to think straight.
The only reason she had bothered to get up was because of her Italian friend's Plan. Shockingly, it didn't involve pasta… as far as she knew. Throughout the entire day, the boy didn't speak of his favorite food as often as usual. Instead, he helped her decorate the entire freaking house in a relatively festive fashion. Right now, an elaborate dinner was cooking in the kitchen, with Italy watching it while Elizaveta sat in the front room, alternating between staring and the clock and out the window at the dark, snowy yard. She had no idea when Roderich would be home, but hopefully it was soon…
She woke up firstly to the smell of smoke, secondly to the warmth of a tiny Italian in her arms, and thirdly to… well, she didn't precisely wake up to it, but the second she opened her eyes, Elizaveta saw Roderich staring at her in what was most likely confusion.
"May I ask what is going on?" he said finally, after their staring contest had grown awkward.
"Oh shit!" It seemed that words were all that were needed to get her to move once again. She sat up suddenly, displacing Feliciano and therefore waking him up.
"Elizaveta, please watch your language and explain to me what is going on. Surely that is not too much for you to handle."
She fixed him with a cold stare. "Your kitchen's burning down and you're freaking out about my language?"
"Yes."
Rolling her eyes, Elizaveta turned to Feliciano. "Feli, can you go make sure the pasta hasn't burned?"
The boy gasped in horror. "Ve~ the pasta!" was all he said before dashing off to go rescue his pasta (and, indirectly, many other, more important things).
Roderich stared after Feli for a moment, failing at hiding his bewilderment. "Alright, now that Feli is occupied, what is going on?"
She sighed. Why did her best ideas always seem to fall apart so grandly in the execution? "Well, I decided that I didn't hate you as much as I had first believed, and so Feli suggested that I make dinner."
"But you already do that every day."
"Oh, well, um, not like normal dinner. A special one, since I don't hate you."
"I… see." He was no longer looking out the door, but not at her either.
"Damn," she said under her breath. "I knew it was a stupid idea."
He still refused to look at her, but looking much more shyly adorable than usual. Oh God, now he's adorable. What is wrong with me? Amid her thoughts, Elizaveta heard him say something, if the odd combination of mumbling and total lack of volume could even be called speaking.
"Hm?" she said, just in case she missed something.
His blush became even more electric. "It was not a stupid idea, as you so crudely put it."
"I am quite crude, aren't I, Roddy?" Why did he feel the incessant need to insult her and compliment her within the same sentence?
"Why can't you pay attention to the compliment instead?"
"Oh, maybe because you insulted me as well."
It may have been imagination, but Elizaveta could've sworn that she heard him mutter, "God damn my pride!"
"Look, Elizaveta," was what he said for sure, "I do apologize if I come off as snappish, but I've returned from a stressful journey to find my house in danger of being burned to the ground. Please try to at least understand a fraction of my frustration. And… well, I've been unable to stop thinking of you. It's a bit unnerving, really."
The second-to-last sentence was quieter, forced out between pride and awkwardness. And he couldn't stop thinking of her.
"You just couldn't stop thinking of that foul-mouthed peasant, huh?" she said, purposely letting the bitterness flood her voice.
"No. I couldn't stop thinking of Elizaveta Hédeváry and all those idiotic, untrue things I said to her."
She looked at him skeptically, hoping that he meant what he said, but, then again, this was Roderich and she knew he was practically incapable of malice. Of course, she had forgiven him much earlier, but when it came down to it the situation at least deserved some last-minute doubt.
"And I couldn't stop thinking of you and how unfair I'd been."
Their eyes met for a moment before they looked away and Elizaveta gave an awkward laugh.
"I do wish you would tell me what happened, though," Roderich said. "Your violent reaction concerned me greatly. I… don't want you to be hurt. I swear, I will do anything, within my power or outside of it, to remedy the situation."
It was sweet, Elizaveta decided, the awkward and wordy way he expressed his feelings, and he really did deserve to know. "Well, let's just say I was nearly raped by two of your idiot guards."
Roderich's expression went from stunned to horrified to outraged in a manner of seconds. "W-who were they?" he managed to choke out amid his turbid emotions.
"John and Edward. The bastards can't even speak correctly."
"Elizaveta…" His hand rested on her knee as he sat down beside her. "You should have told me. Oh God, I can't believe… what I said… can you even forgive me? I… I don't even have the words to express how terrible I feel… how I treated you…"
He looked as if he were about to suffer a mental breakdown, so Elizaveta placed her hand on top of his and offered him a small smile. "I almost burned down your house for a reason, Roddykins. I felt awful, too. I overreacted and-"
"No, you most certainly did not overreact. Your actions were completely justified."
She laughed, gripping his hand tighter. "Let's just say we both messed up badly, and we need to work on our communication skills."
"Alright. That should work." And in the almost-companionable silence that followed, Elizaveta finally noticed that they were practically holding hands, and her cheeks finally started to heat up.
"Ve~ Lizzy!" Feli came barreling into the room at the perfect moment, almost as if his entrance had been planned. "I saved the pasta!"
Elizaveta smiled and hastily removed her hand from Roderich's and hoped the boy, with his Italian love instincts, had not seen. "Good job, Feli!" She turned to Roderich. "I hope you won't mind eating pasta. It doesn't seem like we have anything else…"
"Pasta sounds wonderful." He stood up and offered his hand to Elizaveta, who took it, not bothering to suppress her blush. The three walked into the kitchen, led by Feli, the two older countries sitting down at the tiny table shoved into a corner for the servants to eat at. The little Italian hummed a cheerfully obnoxious tune as he put ladleful after ladleful of pasta onto two plates and set them in front of the two. He smiled a not-so-innocently smile at Elizaveta before skipping off to another part of the kitchen.
After everything that had happened, for some reason it was unbearably awkward to talk, and that left picking at their pasta as the only other option. In all honesty, it was excellent pasta, but it just was as excellent as Roderich was looking right at that moment, and oh God she did not just think that.
The part of her brain that was actually concerned with how the food tasted made her hand reach for the salt that Feli must have set out earlier. However, the rest of her brain, the part that was trying to deny her attraction to the man across from her, made said hand tremble and the laws of physics did the rest. The container fell over, spewing salt across the table.
"Sorry!" Elizaveta said instantaneously, not looking at him due to embarrassment. She reached to grab the overturned container, and, of course, her hand accidentally brushed Roderich's. It only lasted a second before she started blushing again (what the hell was wrong with her?) and laughing awkwardly.
"I'll… have Feli clean it up," he said, although it was much too stiff to even be considered part of even a one-sided conversation.
"Guess that means I don't have to do it." Really, Elizaveta only added that sentence in order to make the situation feel more like normal dialogue.
"I suppose it does not…"
Since there was not much else to say, they were forced to go back to eating pasta, with things still quite awkward. The tense silence prevailed, since after the conversation in the other room had been cut off, neither really knew what to discuss.
Elizaveta was busy enjoying the taste of the tomato-flavored pasta sauce when she heard the scrape of a chair against the floor. She looked up and she barely registered Roderich's chair empty and the man himself beside her dabbing at a spot of sauce right next to her lips with a cloth.
She tried valiantly not to pay attention to the gentle electricity of his fingers through the cloth or wonder about what he'd been staring at to have noticed the tiny spot. And then she gave up and admitted to herself that she loved it.
To soon, he was merely standing beside her awkwardly, hands clasped around the cloth with his gaze trained on it.
"Um… Roddy, why are you still standing there?" she asked, suspicious of something – she didn't know what, but his behavior was abnormal.
"Because I… want to?" he ventured, a sad attempt at humor, given the fact that it came out as more of a question.
"Oh. Okay."
"Um… so…" It sounded like he was trying to say something, the way he couldn't manage to complete his sentence.
"Yes?"
"Um…"
"What?" She tried not to sound annoyed, but the fact that Roderich was over here blushing and acting like a 13 year-old girl wasn't helping.
"Well… Elizaveta, I must say that over the years I've known you – it's been a rather long time, has it not – I believe my feeling have evolved quite a bit… that is, I believe that I find you much more agreeable than I had originally planned to – no, that's not it at all, it's more like… I find that I enjoy your company quite a bit, um… yes, I do believe that, even though my feelings are a bit of an impropriety, I now understand that they are much stronger than I had ever imagined."
Elizaveta knew that there was a declaration of something within that tangle of words, and she knew that it was special enough because Roderich was blushing and straightening his clothes and fidgeting and generally looking like the nervous wreck he was.
"Roderich… could you please repeat that?" she asked, hoping not to offend him in her need for a translation.
"Well… Elizaveta, I must say-"
"Um… I meant, normal-person language, please."
He let out a sigh, and whether it was defeat or exasperation Elizaveta never figured out. "What?" she asked, analyzing his face in concern.
For a moment, he looked around furtively. She was about to ask what was going on (once again) but that was before she felt his lips touch her cheek ever so gently. And then she couldn't breathe and was this really happening?
She wasn't quite sure, because in the next moment the warmth of his lips was gone and instead the drafty air of the kitchen teased the slightly moist spot. He was gone too – having left as soon as his lips left her cheek.
She lifted her fingers to touch the spot to make sure it was real. No, she wasn't imagining it. It was real. Roderich had kissed her.
And then it was her turn to look around the kitchen to make sure no one had seen her. Too bad that someone had. Feli was standing by the stove, eyes glistening in wonder.
That was when she blushed, refusing to look at Feli as he blabbered about how wonderful amore was. "Ve~ Lizzy, I knew Mr. Austria was in love with you!"
"S-shut up, Feli!"
"But you two are so cute~"
"You know, I think it's your bedtime now, mister." She rose from her seat and grabbed the little Italian's hand, eager to get away from this conversation. Truly, it didn't embarrass her as much as it made her absolutely giddy, since, after all, Roderich loved her.
