The neon sign was buzzing loud and obnoxious above Mattie, flickering now and again to cast a mysterious and eerie glow across his body. He leaned against the wall, feeling the corner of the motel's office building dig into his back as he watched people pass back and forth.
There were several potential targets, old men who shambled here and there listlessly, a few groups comprised of mainly young adults looking to be on their way to some event the way they buzzed excitedly to each other. Maybe if he were feeling daring enough he'd even approach the married couple walking past, arm and arm and squeezing each other's hands.
He settled however, for the tall gangly man who'd been watching him from his truck for the past twenty minutes. Mattie's eyes connected with his, holding for an obscene amount of time before Mattie jerked his head in the direction of his motel room. The man continued to watch, eyes fixed intensely on him, before he opened the door of his car and climbed out. Mattie sauntered in the direction of room number ten, glancing back now and again in a sultry way to both entice his target and ensure he was following.
The man sped forward in his direction, looking more like a stereotypical stalker or spree killer. Mattie had to swallow back an urge to run, to get away, and instead twisted the doorknob of the motel room and fell back inside. The man was on him the moment he crossed the threshold, hands in Mattie's hair and the two fell onto the back of the bed, twisting together into some grotesque human pretzel.
The man was not gentle or kind, instead he beat what he wanted from Mattie, using his body for his own purposes and nothing more. He was quick at least, moving to get things over with before he was up and out, throwing bills onto the dresser top as if he were paying for shots at a bar and not sexual stimulation from a child.
Mattie lay there amongst rumpled sheets, hair askew and knotted much like the rest of him, staring at the ceiling. Never before had he felt more dirty then he did now; actively selling himself in order to pay the rent money on the two motel rooms Grandpa had bought.
The door adjoining rooms ten and nine swung open then, Grandpa standing in the doorway as light flooded into the dark room. He flashed Mattie a tired grin, making his way to the dresser to count up what he'd earned.
"Fifty bucks, not too shabby I guess." Grandpa nodded, pushing the bills into his pocket, "Lovi and Luddy should be back any minute with something too, I think we'll have the next two days paid for if they do a good job."
"Then can I sleep?" Mattie asked. He'd been working the area almost all day, with barely anything to show for it except an embarrassing amount of hickeys across his collarbone.
"One more job, just to make sure."
Mattie sighed, that's what he'd said the last time too.
"And try to spread out a bit, don't want to attract to much attention now do we?"
Mattie sighed, sitting up and running a finger through his hair to try and give it some order. Ivan poked his head through the doorway, a thin jacket wrapped tight around his frame.
"Ah, take Ivan with you-head down the street to that strip of bars. Perhaps you'll get lucky." Grandpa said, pushing past Ivan and closing the door, plunging the two of them into darkness.
"Well, you heard the man." Ivan sighed, watching Mattie get out of bed and begin sorting out the disheveled state of his clothes.
"Yeah, wish I hadn't though…"
"Just one job each should be enough-if they're drunk they'll be more generous right?"
"Not necessarily."
There was something heavy flopped on top of him. It breathed, telling Antonio it was alive, and it was flailing, telling Antonio it was probably Feliciano trying to wake him up.
"Go'way…" He groaned, pulling his covers over his head.
"Get up already! It's almost noon!" Feliciano whined.
"Don't care." It was his day off anyway.
"Alphonso and Emma are gonna be here by two!"
Well that certainly opened his eyes. Antonio snapped up, throwing Feliciano to the floor with a painful thud.
"What?" He cried, throwing the blankets off and racing towards the bathroom, "What did you do?!"
"I invited them over!" Feliciano cried, rubbing his head and coming to stand by the bathroom door after it slammed shut, "You'd have known that if you were paying attention last night! I told you what I was planning!"
"Why?" Antonio groaned, looking over his appearance. Just-woke up Sexy had not been in his cards this morning; his hair stuck out in different directions, stubble peppered his face, and his eyes looked tired. His forehead had a sheen of oil over it, and he regretted not taking a shower last night when he'd had the chance.
"Well I thought we hit it off with Alphonso, and you know, the fact he's hung out with us a couple times after gave me the impression he was a friend of some sort!"
Antonio rolled his eyes, "You shouldn't spring these things on me Feli!"
"I didn't! As I already told you!" Feliciano snapped as the showerhead burst to life with a cold spray and Antonio cried out in surprise (although he shouldn't have been, that damn showerhead was a mean old thing).
Antonio climbed in, fiddling with the knobs until the water turned warm and then he proceeded to speed-scrub himself. He was going to kill Feliciano, the apartment was a mess, he was a mess, hell everything was a mess! Why would the kid invite anyone over?
Maybe Antonio would get lucky and he'd walk out to discover Feliciano had been cleaning all morning, or even better, Alphonso wouldn't in fact be coming over because some important something had detained him.
Dripping wet and skin clean but a bit raw, Antonio emerged from the steam-filled bathroom to find he was wrong on both accounts-the apartment still screamed the need for a maid, and Feliciano was currently on the phone making plans with Emma for when she and Alphonso got here.
Alphonso…
Antonio wouldn't deny there was something there between them. The way the dude grinned, that laugh… it sounded right in Antonio's ears. He liked being around Alphonso, they gelled in ways he didn't even gel with Feliciano or Emma and it was intriguing to explore this connection the two of them shared.
But on the other hand, there was that small yet ever-present part of his heart that wouldn't surrender to anyone but him. It still remembered being kids and running around laughing and screaming, getting ice-cream on hot summer days and sharing puffy old quilts in the dead of winter. All kids stuff, stuff he did with Feliciano a dozen times too, but with him, with Lovino Vargas (damn him, wherever he may be), it meant a lot more than just two kids having fun.
It made it a bit difficult hanging around Alphonso, knowing it was totally possible to go there with a guy like that. And yet he couldn't, no matter how much his brain tried to logic it out to his heart, he couldn't do it. It felt like it'd be a betrayal of some sort, like breaking a promise he never even had a chance to make.
"So are you posing for me, or are you trying to mop the floor?"
Feliciano's sarcasm snapped Antonio from his thoughts, making him realize he'd left a sizable puddle of water on the kitchen tiles (just adding to the mess, dammit) and was no closer to getting things presentable for company. With a muttered curse he turned back towards his room, trying to find something to wear that didn't make him look like a total slob (how'd he get so many stains on his t-shirts anyway?).
The next step was the apartment, running around picking up clothes, towels, rags of all kinds, and shoes dropped lazily across the carpet. Feliciano hopped from spot to spot, straightening and dusting where he could with his shirt sleeves. They ended up throwing a lot of the debris into Feliciano's room (because he wouldn't let Antonio throw anything into his own room for some reason), and just as the apartment was transforming into something a responsible pair of people might live in the doorbell sounded.
"They're here!" Feliciano sing-songed like the girl from Poltergeist, grinning madly and crooking his head at Antonio before racing for the door with Antonio on his heels.
"Welcome friends! I invite you to poor-living paradise!" Feliciano cried with a deep bow, swinging the door open to reveal Emma and Alphonso on the other side, looking amused at the greeting. Antonio stood before them a bit awkwardly, giving a forced-half grin when Emma pulled Alphonso through and Feliciano shut the door-the lock clicking with a sort of finality that comes when doom was prevelant.
"Wow, you guys actually cleaned up?" Emma raised an eyebrow as she marched in, already feeling at home in the small apartment, "I'm impressed."
"You'd be surprised what motivates Antonio to speed-clean." Feliciano grinned, casting glances between Antonio and Alphonso.
Feliciano, understanding of Antonio's feelings of course, was also a hard core fan of Alphonso and Antonio's potential to have a relationship. It seemed like he was watching some TV drama and it stared his roommate and some dude they'd met on a beach. Emma too had firmly secured herself to this bandwagon and it seemed the two were putting all their effort into pushing Antonio and Alphonso together.
Emma giggled, leading Alphonso towards the couch as Antonio paused to shoot Feliciano an unamused side glare. Antonio waited until Alphonso and Emma had seated themselves before sitting down on the side of Feliciano that was the furthest from the two. He wasn't blind to the brief shadow of disappointment that crossed Emma's face but he pretended to be.
The conversation dwindled into something easy, with everyone grinning amiably and beginning to gel so smoothly it was jarring when Emma's eyes widened as she checked her phone almost two hours later.
"Feli!" Emma cried, springing up from the couch, "Feli I forgot!"
"What?" Feliciano asked.
"The pizza! I ordered a pizza twenty minutes ago!" Emma said, darting forward and grabbing Feliciano by the arm, "They might give it away or something! We gotta go get it!"
"You guys opted to not eat Feliciano's cooking to eat pizza?" Antonio asked, raising an eyebrow, "And when did you order this? I don't think I saw you do it."
"Thus we forgot about it!" Emma whined, "And I'm not wasting almost twenty bucks either!" She pushed Feliciano towards the door, pausing in her demands for them to leave only long enough for him to grab the car keys and slip shoes on, "We'll be back in a few minutes!"
Feliciano paused as he walked through the door only long enough to fix Antonio and Alphonso with an amused smirk. Antonio realized Emma had completely ignored his question of how she'd ordered it when they'd been talking, thus he'd been watching her.
"Behave." Feliciano commanded before Emma pushed him out the door again and he was sent forward with limbs flailing.
The door shut and locked behind them, the click of the tumblers releasing unease in Antonio's gut as he was left completely alone with Alphonso, who had moved from his spot on one side of the couch to the spot beside Antonio.
"So…" Alphonso started, letting the word hang in the air by itself for a moment.
"So…" Antonio reiterated, pulling his legs under him.
This was a great way to start a conversation.
"Look… I'm sorry." Antonio sighed after another moment of awkward silence.
"For?"
Antonio waved his hand towards the door, "Feliciano and Emma… there's no pizza they forgot-"
"Actually I watched Emma order it," Alphonso said. That at least had Antonio thinking he probably wasn't as observant as he thought he was, thus restoring faith in a best friend-and wondering what else he was not picking up on around here. "So there was a pizza, just they didn't forget about it."
"That aside," Antonio swallowed, "They wanted a moment alone for us…"
"Oh I know," Alphonso said, a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth as he inched somehow closer, "I asked them for it."
"You what?"
Alphonso leaned forward to rest his chin on Antonio's shoulder, grinning up like a mischievous cat.
"I asked Emma and Feli to set up a moment between us, so we could get to know each other better." That grin was so sappy, those eyes so big… Antonio couldn't bring himself to even try and stop the groan he issued as he let his head fall to the back of the couch.
"What?" Alphonso chuckled, sitting up, "To smooth for you?"
"Yes…" Antonio sighed, "Way to smooth. Way to perfect."
Alphonso smirked, pretending to take on arrogant air as he sighed, "Well thank you."
"I hate you."
"Most do." Alphonso sighed, "I think they're just jealous."
Antonio rolled his eyes and turned to look at his ceiling. Why him? Why?
Alphonso hoisted himself up, turning and dropping himself into Antonio's lap, their faces inches apart. Fingers reached down to thread through hair and Alphonso fixed Antonio with a serious expression.
"Love me."
"If Emma could see you now." Antonio laughed, pushing Alphonso to the side, landing on the couch before rolling to the floor. Antonio fell further against the couch, doubled over with laughter.
"You're beautiful when you laugh." Alphonso grinned.
Antonio sighed, reaching out with his foot to run it across Alphonso's face. Alphonso turned his head to press his face to the foot and Antonio quickly drew away.
"Alphonso… you know I can't."
"But I can still try." Alphonso picked himself up off the floor, reseating himself beside Antonio and reaching out to trace his jawline with light fingertips, "And I will try."
"Alphonso…"
Alphonso took Antonio's hands between his, eyes wide and childlike, "I've never met someone more alluring Antonio, no one's as wonderful as you in my book. Your smile, your laugh, hell even your serious faces are all heartwarming endearments to me."
Antonio tried hard not to smirk, "That has to be the most articulate phrasing I've ever heard you use."
"And there's more," Alphonso grinned, "You're perfect in every way, and I want to fight for your heart. The greater the challenge, the sweeter the reward, and you've presented me with the greatest challenge known to man: a taken heart."
"Alphonso…"
"I won't dream there's a light at the end of the tunnel, or that there even is an end of the tunnel. I could be wasting my time but better to have loved and lost right? I have a chance, I can see it in the way you look at me when no one else is around, and I'm going to fight for you. Antonio… I want to love you more than anyone ever can. And I want you to love me the same way, if it's ever possible."
Antonio swallowed, what was he supposed to say?
"I know I can't erase this first love from your heart, I won't even try, but I will try to be on par with him. I will try to win you over, because you're very special to me."
"A… Alphonso…"
Alphonso pulled Antonio forward, locking his arms around Antonio's back and pressing into a tight embrace. His nose pressed into Antonio's neck and there was a hand rubbing softly at his back.
"Just… just give me a moment." Alphonso pleaded.
And Antonio remained where he was, because it was better than pulling away from an embrace he'd only dreamed of since he was a kid. It was easier than running away again, and Antonio was beginning to grow tired of running.
But he did try to imagine it might be a certain someone else in Alphonso's place, if only for a few moments.
So I would like to mention this is also up on Ao3, and there is where I'll be announcing possible upcoming sequel/prequel/other Hetalia stories. It's just kinda easier over there, looks nicer with that end notes option too.
If you're interested: works / 3465929 / chapters / 7606499 (you can literally just throw it into google, it's the very first link!)
But also, someone finally noticed a small easter egg I slipped in here. A little easter egg that's bound to come cracking down (see what I did there? Eh? Eh?) on the characters later in the story).
If you're curious as to what it is I invite you to look at the comments. Then go back if you have to because it's rather subtle but I'm so happy someone noticed! (And no, it's not about Carlos being Cuba)
Night!