58. Spills and Dust and Scribbles

Date Written: May 10, 2019

Date Posted: November 6, 2020

Characters: Veneziano

Summary: Veneziano's secretary has trouble waking up his boss.

Notes:


When he walked into the room, the first thing that Francesco noticed was that it was cluttered and fairly lit with sunshine. Curtains, however, were blocking some of the light, to which he had the common sense to open them; thus, the brightness in the room exponentially multiplied as he blinked back tears from the sudden intrusion of the light source. Upon doing so, he noticed that the air was littered with tiny dust motes swirling about within the newly released rays of light.

For a moment, it seemed like a magical event; it was an event that most would probably would have found the time to relax and watch in awed silence at the small beauties of the world. Despite such an event, Francesco, unfortunately, had other things to do. He sighed; he would definitely have to have someone wipe away the dust in the room later. As his gaze traveled across the objects of the room (desk, chair, bookcases, knickknacks, etc.), he began to focus and hone in on one specific occupant in the room.

His employer.

As the dust motes settled, Francesco strode towards him, his movements cautious yet purposeful at the same time.

One Italia Veneziano—human name scribbled like spider's webs in differing languages across old pages that smelled lightly of mold and earth—sat sleeping like the fabled Sleeping Beauty. He was hunched a little into himself, giving off the impression that he was a child despite wearing a business suit that was neither rumpled nor wrinkled despite the position that he was in. Shrugging the strangeness of Nations and eldritch beings aside, Franceso leaned over his employer, hoping against hope that Veneziano would awaken on his own.

Francesco's stare did not achieve the effect that he wanted.

Instead, it appeared that Veneziano snuggled further into his suit jacket, utterly at peace in the world.

Realizing this, Francesco uttered a curse before he breathed in and out in what he hoped to be a calm, mannerly fashion as he reassessed his options.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Francesco sighed loudly and decided to bite the bullet.

"Sir? Signor?" The young man hesitantly began shaking his employer's shoulder. When his employer merely burrowed further into his chair, the young man stood tall, his mood souring by the minute.

He tried again.

When his constant shaking only resulted in a small little huff of discontent, he shuffled away to the nearest restroom.

"Mr. Italy," the man stated loudly, "if you don't wake up, I'll have to resort to desperate measures."

Italy, for that was his name, managed to raise his head from the warmth of his arms to give the young man an unimpressed look.

"Tired."

That was all he said, and without much else to add, he unceremoniously let his head back back onto his arms.

The man strode up to his employer's desk, a glass filled with water on hand.

A beat.

"Aaaaaah!" Italy burst from his chair like Pompeii on a bad day. His hair, usually tame and fluffy to both sight and touch, had become flattened to his skull. The auburn color had darkened to an almost earthen brown while his normally content expression had twisted into a monstrous scowl. "Francesco! Why—"

The young man simply gestured at the large pile of documents that were lying haphazardly atop his employer's desk. There were doodles and spare bits of poetry, all elegantly detailed on the margins of invoices and choice bits of legislation. Such creativity would have given Italy much adulation at an art class, but now, he was playing the part of a government official.

And not even government officials were given much leeway in procrastinating or putting off signing legal documentation and the like.

At the sight of his assistant just looking at him—not even glaring!—the Nation slouched in his chair. Arms crossed, lips stick in an unseemly pout. This was not how Italy wanted to spend his free day.

"Francesco," he tried again.

"Sir, you're two days behind schedule and you have a meeting in three hours."

Why did his assistant have such a bland voice? While his citizens were usually quite pleasant (he could vouch for that), this secretary of his was… he wasn't unpleasant per se… Francesco, bless him, was just really unfazed by Italy's bouts of creativity and laziness. Perhaps he had Austrian or German blood? Such a shame; Francesco had grown up within his borders and was just too straitlaced for fun.

(That was probably the reason why he hired Francesco in the first place, come to think of it).

"A meeting?" The brunet leaped up from his office chair, the process prompting an impromptu shower of water droplets from his hair to fly everywhere—courtesy, of course, goes back to Francesco, his assistant. "Thanks for the reminder, caro! I'll just head back to—"

Francesco placed a hand on Italy's arm. "You have to finish a third of that stack before you leave."

"But—!"

Francesco's dark green eyes glared down at his boss.

"Finish your work, Mr. Italy."

With one final glare piercing Veneziano's soul, the beleaguered Nation slumped down in his seat and pored over what appeared to be one month's work of pure and utter torture.