Argghh! so basically the reason why I put the story on hold for so long is 1) school and 2) I'm not into Hetalia anymore. But since I hate leaving things unfinished, I'll be finishing this. However, I put in crappy fluff as compensation for not updating \o/
-x-
The birds surrounding him flew away suddenly, disappearing around the buildings and through the trees as though they had never been there. Antonio sighed, and leaned back, tying up the small paper bag of bread. A strong gust of wind blew through the park, making the trees rustle and his hair blow everywhere. As he stood up, he noticed many of the people staring in one particular direction. Curious, he turned, and saw a crowd of people gathering near the roadside, the murmurs and yells of shock able to be heard from where he was standing.
"Ah, what could be happening now?" he mumbled to himself, as he let his curiosity drag him towards the scene. "What's happened here?" he asked a woman, who was searching her bag.
She pulled out her mobile phone, and turned to Antonio, "A guy got hit by a car, apparently," she said quickly, before dialling three numbers – 911, he presumed.
His face fell, "Oh I see," and he tried to look over the crowd. Surely enough there was a car parked on the road, and he could hear many a few people yelling. The one yelling the loudest of course was the driver.
"He was just standing in the middle of the goddamn road, and it's a bloody one-way street, how am I supposed to do anything to dodge him? God!" he yelled in exasperation. "If anyone's in the wrong here, it's him!" he cried, pointing at the ground.
"Shit," groaned a voice, and a collection of gasps and murmurs erupted throughout the crowd. Whoever was lying on the ground was sitting upright, and was clearly not impressed. "Dick, can't you watch where you're driving?" he slurred, his hand to his forehead. It was a voice familiar to Antonio, and if he had not seen him with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it was Lovino sitting on the road with blood trickling down his arm.
Only it was.
"Hey man, watch it," grumbled someone, as Antonio put his thoughts behind him and made a mad dash through the crowd. He almost knocked over a woman at some point, but why did it matter when it was Lovino sitting there injured? Did they really expect him to stand at the back and patiently wait his turn to catch a glimpse of his friend bleeding from the head?
"L-Lovino!" he said, stumbling slightly as he kneeled over the Italian, "oh my god, what happened?" he asked.
"Well I was nicked by a car, dumbass," he muttered, smirking slightly only to recoil in a sharp pain. "Fucking hurts."
But Antonio wasn't joking, "No shit," he replied lowly, "but that aside, are you okay?" he asked.
"I'll live, probably," he replied. "My head throbs like a bitch though, and I think something happened to my leg," he said. "But I think that guy," he said, glancing at the man who had hit him, "is taking it worse than me."
"Me, taking it worse than you?" said the accused man, "No way man, you were out for a good 5-10 minutes!"
Lovino blinked, "I..I was out?"
"Yes! God, I was so scared that I'd killed you, jesus, you weren't moving and all the blood was coming out of your head, I-I thought I'd go to jail for manslaughter!"
Lovino was uncharacteristically silent, he seemed to have no sharp words or witty comebacks for a change. Or, he was just holding his tongue. Either way, an unruly silence filled the air as the crowd dissipated and both Lovino and the driver sat in silence, paying no regards to one another.
A siren rung in the air as an ambulance arrived, and he sat in stony silence as the paramedics checked his pulse, his heart rate, blood pressure and other medical things, while Antonio sat on the curb watching him with a worried expression. Antonio couldn't even make a conversation with the other guy, because the police were busy questioning him. He tried tuning in on the conversation more out of boredom than nosiness, but all he could make out was a string of, 'He was in my way!' and 'You guys are lucky I didn't bolt!'.
"Yeah," murmured Antonio. "You are." Had it been a hit and run, he would have considered going through every apartment in the city looking for this guy. He had all the time in the world, after all.
"Sir, we'd like to take you to the hospital for a quick check," the paramedic said.
"No, I don't need it," replied Lovino curtly, rising to his feet and running his fingers along the fresh bandage around his head. "This should be enough. The only injury I got was this."
"Sorry sir but it's not our decision, it's just our instr-"
"I said I don't fucking need it!" he yelled, and turned his back to the man. His eyes swept to Antonio, and his gaze lingered on the Spaniard for just a moment, before shaking his head and running in the other direction, a slight limp to his step.
"S-sir!" yelled the paramedic, ripping off his mask, but even if he heard him, Lovino didn't turn back to see him.
"Leave him be, it's always those ones that end up in trouble later on. More money for us, eh?" said the other one, to which the first agreed. Antonio gritted his teeth, springing up from the sidewalk and chasing after Lovino. What exactly was wrong with him?
He eventually caught up to the brunet, and he sighed loudly. "What's wrong with you?" he asked, slightly annoyed. "Why'd you run away like that?"
Lovino sucked in his breath, "It's nothing."
Antonio opened his mouth – probably to yell at Lovino, but decided against it and simply sat beside him on the grass. He didn't have anything to say to him, not when Lovino was in a crook mood. Besides, he was quite content with just sitting in the sunlight with Lovino and stare up at the clouds, trees, buildings, whatever. He was just glad that he was beside him. Did Lovino know how fucking scared he was when he saw his figure hunched over the ground with the smell of blood he was so used to running down his skin?
Next to him, Lovino outstretched his leg and rolled his ankle around, wincing slightly.
"Did it get hurt?" asked Antonio softly, leaning forward slightly.
"Yeah, sprained or something."
"What else?"
Lovino hesitated, "Aside from my head, I got a long graze up my arm from the asphalt, and this huge bruise on my knee."
Antonio almost smiled, "You're pretty lucky, then, I've seen people get… worse than that from so much less," he said, looking away. Part of Lovino was curious to ask what it was, but something inside him told him not to press it. It was already painfully awkward sitting here, especially since Lovino knew that Antonio was probably holding himself back from playing nurse and fawning over him. Sure, he was injured, but he felt fine. The only thing was the annoying stinging in his arm.
"S…so… what have you been up to this past week? It's been a while," he said slowly.
The Italian stiffened, "O-oh, yeah, it has, hasn't it?" he laughed quietly. "I've… I've been pretty busy." A lie. "I was searching for a job, applying at a few places and other crap." Another lie.
"Fun," replied Antonio, and the two drifted back into uncomfortable silence.
"It's been great," Lovino said absently.
Antonio glanced up, "What has?" he questioned.
He was silent for a bit, before speaking again. "Everything, I guess. It's been quite a while since I've met you, and…" he stopped. Where exactly as he going with this? He was saying all these things without a second though.
"It's been what?" he pressed.
Lovino turned stare at the ground, "I've just had a lot of fun, I guess. To be honest, I actually rather… hated the guitar at first, it burned my fingers before they calloused, and I got every chord wrong. It was absolute hell stretching my fingers and tuning the damn thing was the worst. But…"
He turned to face Antonio, and for once he had neither a frown nor a scowl on his face, but rather he was completely calm. He wasn't smiling, but Antonio could tell that he was content. "You made it so much more fun. You never yelled at me, you let me take it at my own pace, and you helped me a lot, even though I'm probably the shittiest person you've ever had to make yourself comfortable with."
"You think?" asked Antonio, raising an eyebrow.
"Of course," he murmured. "Everyone's always preferred Feliciano. Even my goddamn friends would get sick of my attitude eventually and talk to him over me. Not only is he more friendly, but he's more artistic and a better cook, he was always the favourite, to everyone," he said, jealously lacing his every word.
"He always has been, and always will be fucking-"
Before he could get another word out, his vision was obscured and his lips occupied. His eyes opened wide in shock, as he sat there on the ground unable to comprehend what was happening. The next thing he knew, he was kissing him back, his body acting on its own. The beginning slow and unsure, but built up to more, his fingers soon interlocking with Antonio's, his free hand wandering around the other's back, and…
Enough, Antonio thought, jerking back. Lovino staggered back, holding out his arm to stop himself from falling, saying nothing but looking at Antonio curiously.
"S…sorry," he said quietly, not making eye contact. He bit his lip, "ah, come on, let's go," he said, getting up abruptly.
"H-Hey, wait up," replied Lovino getting up, but as he did he lost his balance and fell forward. He made a noise as he fell, and Antonio glanced back and gasped when he saw Lovino on the ground. He stifled a laugh. "Don't laugh," he mumbled, slightly red.
"Sorry, but you made a funny noise," he smirked. "Are you okay?" he said as helped him get up.
"Just fine," he replied, "f…fi…."
"Lovino?"
-x-
"It's aftershock," the nurse explained. "Sometimes after an accident, the brain doesn't trigger the effects until well after the incident, like in Mr. Vargas' case. He just has a slight concussion, hardly anything serious, but we've put him to sleep just to be safe. Also, did you know that he had a large gash on his arm?" she asked him.
Antonio shook his head slowly, recalling Lovino say something about his arm earlier, but didn't he say it was just a graze? He thought of those paramedics, and how they'd missed that. Good use they were.
"It was bleeding quite a bit, so we will have to get stitches on that ASAP. Um, Mr…" she trailed.
"A…Vargas," he replied.
"Oh, a relative?" the nurse asked, tilting her head slightly.
"Yeah, his brother."
"Oh good," she smiled. "I was just going to say, that at this time of the day only direct relatives are allowed to be visiting. If that's the case Mr. Vargas, please note that visiting hours end at strictly 8pm, and that there will be a maximum of 3 people visiting at once."
The nurse flashed a big I-really-wish-I-was-anywhere-but-here smile at him, before lowering her head back towards the book in front of her, typing up notes or whatever onto the computer.
"Well that's handy," Antonio murmured to himself, surprised that he was able to pull off a trick like that. To be honest, he was surprised that the nurse bought the lie that he and Lovino were siblings, due to the fact that they didn't look anything alike, really. He was sort of irked at himself for not saying cousin, because that would have been slightly more believable, but that nurse didn't seem to notice. Or care, to be closer to the mark, as he glanced back at her and saw her to be busy on her phone.
He hesitated outside the room. He knew that it was nothing serious, but he was still nervous to go in. Was he awake? No, probably not, since they had induced him into sleep.
He opened the door and poked his head in, and saw Lovino to be sleeping. Well of course he was sleeping, they induced him. He'd be more worried if he wasn't sleeping.
Closing his eyes, he turned his head from the bed. Antonio couldn't stand seeing Lovino sleeping, because it made his angry features relax. He didn't frown, and he looked at peace, and it took up so much of his willpower to not stand over him and touch him.
The kiss from earlier flashed in his head, and he swore quietly. That exactly was an example of him not being able to restrain himself, and if he stayed in the room any longer, he was afraid it would happen again. Mumbling an apology to nobody in particular, he got up and opened the door.
"Antonio?"
Oh, it was the brother. Of course he'd run into someone he didn't want to see right now. He didn't want to see anyone right now. Feliciano probably hated him, and underneath that cute exterior his brain was probably screaming, 'this is all your fault! Why didn't you protect him! Now look at him, he's in the fucking hospital.'
He didn't need to hear things he'd already heard in his head a thousand times. He took a glance behind him, and lowered his head. "I'm sorry," he muttered, before dashing out the door, and pretended to not hear the puzzled calling of Feliciano as it echoed in the hall.
-x-
There was a buzz from his mobile as he sat in his car, his head pressed against the steering wheel. He hated hearing that ringtone so much, but for once, he seemed almost relieved to hear it.
"What is it, sir?"
It was the ringtone specifically set for his boss.
".. I understand, I'll come back right away. And I'll stay this time."
-x-
A/N: IM THE WORST THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A HAPPY CHAPTER WHY IS IT SO DEPRESSING AND I RAMBLED AND WHY DOES IT SEEM OOC AND I HAVE REALLY BAD CLIFFHANGERS HELP IM GONNA GO DIE IN MY ROOM NOW
ALSO WHY IS THIS LIKE TWILGHT ONLY WORSE CAN SOMEONE PLEASE KILL ME?
PS: only 2 chapters left! I'll be finishing before February hopefully.
