'SUP! I'm back with Chapter 10, this time with the first major Spamano moment, I guess. :) I'm sorry if the ending seems too rushed though, I've been kind of busy recently so. In this chapter, Lovino tries leading Antonio in dancing, but then realises that he can't lead for nuts. This was inspired by my own experience: my class had to take these ballroom dancing lessons and though I had paired up with my female friend I had to take the "guy's role" because I was taller, and I totally failed at leading. My partner kept complaining about how bad I was and how I was smiling so much though she didn't mean it and I kept staring at her feet because 0 confidence. Now that I think of it, it's actually quite funny.
Trigger Warning: Lovino uses his knife to slice his palm in order to save one of his people. I won't be using any cutting of wrists because it's extremely triggering for me haha. If you find any of the material I write triggering, even if it's only slightly, please do let me know.
Anyway! Do enjoy and thank you once again for reading!
It had been another one of the Queen's ideas again. The people were holding a carnival in celebration of the Kingdom's anniversary, and Emma had insisted that she and the King had to attend as the guests of honour. Not that Antonio was actually aware of how his Kingdom came to be, he only knew about a vague story that involved the first King of Aces discovering an abandoned castle that for some reason, had the words "Castle of Aces" carved into the first cobblestone of the long path leading to the castle.
The Kingdom of Aces had been the last Kingdom to be set up, and the Kingdom of Hearts had been its closest ally, in the sense that the King of Hearts had helped the King of Aces build his Kingdom. Even till today, the Kingdom of Hearts and the Kingdom of Aces still had a relatively close relationship, which was ironic because Lovino could never look at King Ludwig without glaring. Well, their thriving trade ties were probably a result of the fact that Lovino's younger brother, Feliciano, was Jack of Hearts and therefore was in charge of most of the economic issues of his Kingdom.
After the first King of Aces moved into the castle and the Queen was soon discovered, people migrated from the other Kingdoms and beyond to the new Kingdom, so in a way the Kingdom of Aces had sprung up from the blood of the other Kingdoms. The day the first group of people migrated to the Kingdom of Aces was the day the Kingdom had been formally "born", and that was decided to be the date of its anniversary.
After a round of warm welcoming by the people, which involved fanfare and a constant showering of confetti and rosewater, Antonio was finally able to thoroughly soak in the atmosphere. An upward glance revealed multiple lines of fairy lights being hung from balcony to balcony, accompanied by the specks of stars in the night sky, and everywhere else he looked, Antonio could see stalls set up by families.
While the carnivals of previous years were far more extravagant and crowded, Antonio could tell that the preparation for the carnival had been quite rushed, from the way some were still rushing to carry cakes from their house to a simple-looking table they had set up outside and how most people were merely dressed in their everyday clothes.
Perhaps it had been the work of the disease, but Antonio felt comforted by the fact that the way the Kingdom was lighted up that night and the way the stars shone for them proved that they had not completely lost to the illness, and the happy smiles on the faces of the people supported that. He brushed off a stray piece of confetti on his shoulder and ran his fingers through his hair, feeling the dampness from the rosewater that had been sprinkled onto the King and Queen's entourage earlier on.
Antonio stifled a laugh when he saw that the King was still trying to get a stubborn piece of confetti out of his auburn hair while muttering, "Stupid people… Who thought it was a good idea to throw this kind of shit?" But from the way his mouth kept threatening to curl into a smile and the way Emma giggled and reached up to gingerly pluck the paper off his head showed that his words carried no anger. Emma caught Antonio's eye and giggled harder, tilting her head sideways. It was a habit that Antonio recognized.
Emma and Antonio had been childhood friends. They had grown up together, often seeing each other often since they lived next door. Antonio still remembered the Emma then, a chubby little girl who often had her beige blonde hair pulled back into two cute pigtails. He remembered that when he was younger, he had been a lot more introverted and used to not like going out of the house, preferring instead to help in the garden or to play with the toy knights his elder brother had given him as a birthday present. He had been extremely interested in knightship and loved imagining that he was commanding his toy knights, and Emma had discovered this one day when she found him dramatically waving a branch at one of his family's tomato plants, yelling, "Surrender, Sir Tomato! Or you shall face my wrath!"
But of course, Antonio had loved tomatoes too much to hurt them. ("But alas, Sir Tomato, I can't bear to kill you!") The young girl had stood across the fence, asking if Antonio wanted to play with her and the boy had dropped his branch, embarrassed that he had been caught pretending to be fighting with a tomato.
"You can choose whatever you want to play," Emma had suggested. "My brother has a couple of wooden swords that you could use." At the mention of swords, Antonio's eyes had lit up and he had dashed to Emma's gate after asking for his parents' permission. From that day onwards, Emma and Antonio had played almost every afternoon and their most favourite activity had been playing make-pretend. Antonio had loved playing the knight and Emma had loved acting as the princess. They would create an obstacle course out of chairs and tables, and Emma would enlist her brothers to help. They had been mostly unwilling, but she had always managed to get Henri to be the evil monster (though he had been a rather weak monster, often losing after a stab from one of Daan's wooden swords) and Daan had been a great guardian of the treasure, because for some reason, he had always been super protective of the fake shiny coins.
Daan had been Antonio's greatest nemesis in the living room, and his stoic face and crossed arms were often enough to awake the childish determination in the bright-eyed kid, to the point where he would spend hours strategizing how he could get the treasure. Interacting with Emma and her brothers had brought Antonio out of his shell and together with puberty, had turned him into the man most people knew him as: the upbeat, ever-optimistic guy who was always smiling, and whom everyone had expected to expand his family's small farm business due to his talent in gardening, but he had applied to join the Knights of Aces, much to his parents' chagrin.
Antonio had moved to the castle to begin his training relatively early in his teenage years, and throughout his occasional visits back home he had watched Emma grow from a talkative girl into a mature-but-still-slightly-immature woman and had considered asking her out for a date, but he had thought that it would be weird due to how he had grown up treating her as a best friend and sister. Nevertheless, when Emma had been taken to the castle years after Antonio had started his training, he had been convinced that they were meant to work together.
"Maybe one day I will save you from a fire-breathing dragon," he had teased her when she had walked past the line of Knights standing at attention outside the castle waiting for her arrival. Emma, upon seeing Antonio, had stopped to exchange a few words with her childhood friend, whom she had not seen for quite a while apart from his rare visits.
"Are you sure? I've got tons of Knights at my command now Toni," she had joked, smirking and gesturing to the line of Knights.
Antonio had shaken his head, smiling at her usage of his nickname. "Well, I guess I have to call you Your Majesty now, right? Looks like your wish has finally come true," he had continued, voice thick with nostalgia. Emma's eyes had been flooded with emotion and she had reached out and hugged her best friend.
"Good luck, Your Majesty," Antonio had managed to force out despite how tightly Emma had been squeezing him.
"Thank you, Antonio. Thank you for everything."
Now, when Emma had found out that Antonio had been chosen to be the new guard, she had been overjoyed unlike the King, whose face had fallen when he had realized that the two of them knew each other. "Great, now I have two idiots by my side," he had lamented when they had been making their way to the carnival.
The organizer of the carnival, an excitable young woman who seemed to be unable to stand still for even a second, was currently announcing for everyone to gather in the town's square for the dance segment. Antonio waited for Emma and Lovino to move in front first before taking his place behind, face splitting into a grin when Emma sent him a look that said, "Catch up with you later!" that was closely followed by a look from Lovino that said, "What are you grinning for, you bastard."
Antonio knew that he could be a bit oblivious at times, but even he could tell that the King was a lot harsher to him than to his other subjects. For example, he never heard Lovino scolding the other guards. Words like "idiot", "fool" and "stupid" were only thrown at him and Antonio took them all like the well. Fool he was.
Maybe it was because of how whenever his King fired those words at Antonio, his face would be dusted with pink, though whether it was from anger or blushing, Antonio did not know, and Antonio found that sight rather endearing. Or maybe it was because Antonio's skull was just really too thick like what everyone around him often said.
But Antonio kept on trying, because he really wanted Lovino to like him. So he took whatever opportunity he had to help the King, until the other guards started making fun of him for "having the hots for His Majesty". Alright, maybe offering his hand to help the King up his horse was a bit too much, since Lovino normally did it on his own. Antonio still remembered the incredulous look on the other's face when he had extended his hand, saying, "Allow me to help you up, Your Majesty!" Lovino's eyes had nearly popped out of their sockets and he had smacked the tanned hand in front of him away, much to the other guards' amusement.
The petite announcer was standing on top of a small makeshift stage, a loudspeaker in hand as she announced for the King and Queen to make the opening dance. "Now, may we invite our dearest His and Her Majesties to open this wonderful evening for us!"
Unfortunately, Emma had run off a while ago, exclaiming that she had seen Henri and Lovino stood, frozen, unsure of what to do. Antonio saw hundreds of eyes staring expectantly at the King, and when the announcer finally realized that the Queen was absent, she nervously asked, fingering with her collar, "W-well, it seems that our Queen is not available… Would His Majesty like to choose another person?"
Antonio watched as Lovino turned to his people, and almost all the ladies started screaming for him to pick them. It was, after all, the only chance they would probably get to dance with their handsome sovereign and none of them wanted to miss out. Lovino's eyes rested on a gorgeous woman in a scarlet gown, but when she batted her eyelids at him seductively, he quickly looked away and settled on another shy-looking woman in a green dress. He flashed her a winning smile, one Antonio had learnt was saved only for the ladies, and moved forward towards her.
The poor girl looked like she was going to faint, and the other women, upon seeing that their King was approaching them, quickly pushed their way to the front and claimed that he had chosen them, and Antonio winced when someone fell, resulting in more screeching and trampling. Lovino soon realized that that was not going to work out, but another look at the announcer confirmed that there was no time to be lost, and he whipped around, scaring Antonio and the other guards.
"Which one of you can dance?" the King asked, his tone holding a hint of menace, as if daring any one of them to lie. Paul and Alexandre both shook their heads, but the way their bodies were quivering from muffled laughter suggested that they were up to something. Lovino's eyes narrowed when they rested on Antonio, but the Knight could see rising desperation in those eyes, afraid that he would disrupt the celebration his people had so painstakingly organized.
"I can dance, Your Majesty." Antonio was slightly taken aback by how steady his voice sounded. He had expected himself to squeak or stammer, for he could see what was coming and boy was he stressed. Thank goodness he had had a practice session with Emma once when he had returned for his visit and she had asked him to help her practice for her upcoming school dance.
Lovino did not even reply, he just grabbed Antonio's arm and headed towards the centre of the square, which had been converted into a dance floor. "I'll lead, understand? And don't you dare screw up," he warned as he forcefully grabbed Antonio's hand, bending his own elbow and lifting the other's hand up. Antonio rested his left hand onto the King's cloth-clad shoulder, suddenly discerning that he was taller than Lovino and trying to adjust to the awkward position.
The band, composed of several violinists, cellists and even a harmonicist, all from the people of Aces, began playing a slow, soothing melody, and Antonio felt Lovino's hand shyly shifting down his back to above his waist, unable to stay at his shoulder blade without feeling discomfort. He lost himself in the feeling, the slight pressure exerted by the shorter man's palm making his skin prickle in anticipation and his cheeks warm. His throat suddenly felt too dry and his tongue was too stiff and it felt like someone had reached into his brain and crushed whatever that was inside into mush. Slowly, he felt his thoughts start to trickle in from Lovino's hand on his back to Lovino, who was staring intently at his chest and blushing furiously. Antonio abruptly took in Lovino's sweaty palms and his shaky steps, finally figuring out that the King was just as nervous as he was.
God, he looks like a tomato, Antonio mused, the most coherent thought in his muddled brain ever since the music started. The pair glided towards the left, less than gracefully but rather more jerkily, for Lovino's eyes still remained below Antonio's face and he seemed like he could barely register where they were moving.
"Your Majesty," Antonio whispered urgently. When his partner did not respond, Antonio tugged gently at his hand, moving his left leg backwards and leading Lovino to put his right foot in front, easing him into a slight turn of his body.
It turned out that Lovino was bad at leading, given the countless times they had crashed into other couples and Antonio had to apologise while Lovino muttered a simple "fuck", but he was a natural at following and his legs moved as if they had a life of their own. When Antonio stepped back, Lovino moved forwards, and they were soon able to progress across the dance floor, avoiding any further collisions. Despite how Antonio was in the follower's position, he managed to lead Lovino past the hooting guards, who were sniggering and winking at their fellow colleague. Antonio was feeling more confident of himself, until he felt a sharp pain shoot up from his toes. He grimaced and realized that Lovino had stepped onto his foot.
"What the hell are you doing?" Lovino hissed. "Why are you leading me?"
"No offence, Your Majesty, but I have led you from there–" Antonio gestured with his chin while sneakily stepping backwards to pull Lovino forwards, "– to here and we bumped into five couples when we started."
"That's because you suck at following," Lovino huffed, his cheeks puffed out and his trademark scowl returned to his face.
"No, you suck at leading," Antonio retorted immediately. Then, becoming conscious of the fact that he had just answered his King back, quickly added, "Your Majesty."
"Because you're a good dancer and have a decent-looking face, I will not throw you into prison for that," Lovino countered, and Antonio spotted a spark of amusement in the other man's eyes. "But if you don't do a fucking good job of l-leading, I will lock your perfect ass up."
Antonio wasn't sure he had heard correctly, but it had been enough to make his own face redden further as Lovino flipped his hand over, moving the hand previously on Antonio's back to Antonio's palm and landing the other hand harder than it should have on Antonio's shoulder. The curly-haired male broke into another grin when he saw Lovino blushing even harder.
"I will, Your Majesty. Don't worry!" Antonio chirped, placing his hand lightly on Lovino's shoulder blade – unlike previously, it rested there perfectly – and pulled the other closer, crooking his elbow. He continued guiding Lovino across the floor, at one point daringly dropping his right arm and easing Lovino into an underarm turn, which earned himself a "fuck you". But it felt great dancing with him.
It was totally different from when he had danced with Emma; they had not been uncomfortable with the close contact because they had been nothing more than friends, but when he was dancing with Lovino it was strange. Antonio didn't really know how to explain, but it felt like all of the world and everyone and everything that he knew suddenly disappeared and all that was left was him and Lovino. With Emma, the couch and the lamp had been very much present, but with Lovino, the tens of couples around them had vanished and only the music remained, a symphony urging the pair on. It was wonderfully strange. Or strangely wonderful. Either way, it felt right. Lovino's fingers in his hand felt soft, and Antonio adjusted his hold on them, the contact sending more tingles down his spine.
Yet Antonio felt something was missing, and it was then that it occurred to him that Lovino was still not meeting his eyes. "Look at me, Your Majesty," he encouraged, voice low and soothing, and he saw the other gradually turn his head, revealing the first bit of brilliant amber that Antonio was suddenly so sure that he could let himself fall into, fall past social classes and new guards and "Your Majesty" into something much, much deeper and a thousand times more wonderful than how the stars were shining that very night. It was suddenly at the tip of his tongue, His Majesty's name, something everyone had always known but like others he had been forbidden to say it. Sometimes, Antonio felt too reckless for his own good and that moment was unfortunately one of those times. Forbidden was beckoning to him with a perfect, slender finger, and he felt himself mouth it, felt himself form the beginnings of an "L" and finish with a light puff of an "O".
But then everything was gone when someone screamed.
The next thing Antonio knew, Lovino had pushed him away and was running towards a crumpled form. It was the lady in green Lovino had wanted to approach. She was lying on the floor, her hand to her chest as she hurled blood, staining the floor. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she cried in fear, her face already reddening with rash. All around, people were backing away, afraid of catching the disease and someone banged into the banquet table, sending food careering to the ground. Paul and Alexandre had spun into action, shouting for everyone to get away from the lady and for any doctors to step up. However, from the way everyone was panicking, no one seemed to have heard the men. Lovino was at the collapsed woman's side, and Antonio saw him reach out for the woman, only to pull back when she shook her head vigorously. He rushed to the pair and was instantly shouted at by Lovino, "Get back! I don't want you to get infected!"
"But what about you?" Antonio argued, attempting to rush forward again.
"I won't get infected!" Lovino cried, pulling out the dagger he had kept in his belt for protection and pointing it at Antonio. "Stand back, or I will fucking stab you."
Antonio took one look at Lovino, golden eyes aflame with a fusion of fury and pain, and instinctively stepped back.
"Get the medicine! Does anyone have the fucking medicine? Anyone?" Unfortunately, a majority of the people was still in shock and merely stood, shaking their heads frantically.
"Fuck!" Antonio heard Lovino curse. "There's no time, fuck."
The swear word came out as a hiss, as Lovino drew the dagger across his palm roughly, opening up a gash in his skin. The crowd gasped, and Antonio's heart leapt in disbelief.
"Stop!" He moved forwards again, this time round hearing Alexandre and Paul heading towards them as well.
Lovino was holding his hand over the lady's mouth, cupping his hand so that the blood flowed past her lips. The lady was struggling to stay still and kept writhing in agony, causing some of Lovino's blood to drip uselessly onto the ground, and without thinking Antonio dashed towards her and grabbed both her arms. He could already feel her rough skin as the rash emerged, but he held on tightly and ordered her not to move. The other guards got the message and pinned the woman's legs to the ground. When Antonio looked up at Lovino, he heard a loud crack and his face was turned violently to the side. The pain on his cheek told him that he had just been slapped, and the deep heaving of Lovino's chest as well as the biting glare he was receiving told him that Lovino had been the one who had given the slap.
"Didn't I tell you to back the fuck off?" Lovino berated.
Antonio quickly shook the shock from getting slapped away and regained his firm hold on the lady's limbs, before raising his head and meeting the King's livid stare, speaking in a voice that was surprisingly calm.
"I don't know what you're doing, Your Majesty, but let me tell you–" Antonio winced as his attempt to smile provoked his stinging cheek. "You're not alone."
"We're here for you, Your Majesty," Alexandre interjected.
"No matter how many times you tell us to fuck off, we won't. Because we're stupid that way," Antonio resumed, feeling his insides surge with sincerity. "Or maybe it's just me."
He could have sworn that he had seen the desperate fire in Lovino's eyes die down and a grateful smile grace his lips before he ducked his head downwards again.
And Antonio was determined to make that happen again.