DISCLAIMER: Hetalia: Axis Powers – Hidekaz Himaruya

MÉNAGE À TROIS

ANTONIO

Toni, please," begged João, clutching his empty stein. A bubble of froth sloshed in the bottom, and the neon glow from the jukebox danced across his skin, shining in his glassy, pleading gaze. An old, tired rock song played in English, and the crowded beer hall roared as they sang along in a garbled mix of English and German, including Antonio's intoxicated boyfriends. He smiled as he watched Gilbert swing Francis in a wide, clumsy circle, pulling him back inches before a collision. Francis laughed gleefully, finding himself in Gilbert's grasp once more. He wrapped his arms around Gilbert's neck and kissed him, Gilbert's fingers hooked through Francis' belt-loops and teasing the sliver of skin bared by the Frenchman's low-riding jeans. Gilbert's skin was so white, it reflected the lights; Francis glowed golden. Antonio, himself, still wore a summer tan, which turned him a rich brown. Vanilla, butterscotch, and cocoa. Man, we taste good together! he thought, indulging in a long, lecherous look at his boyfriends. They were giddy and gorgeous and completely unaware of the glare João was directing at them.

Antonio sighed deeply and took a drink of soda-pop (he was designated driver tonight). João leant across the table and pressed gravely on:

"This phase," he emphasized, "needs to end. A couple—a romantic relationship—is for two people, not three. What you're doing here, what you've been doing for the past two years, isn't right. It's not healthy. What about actual, legal marriage and children? Don't you want those things?"

"I do have an actual relationship, João. And children. My boyfriends and I are moving to London for—"

"If you're moving to London, why not just come home?" João interrupted. "I know you think you're in love, but that—" he jerked his head at the dance floor, at Antonio's laughing boyfriends, "—isn't love! You're just confused."

Antonio curled his lip, clenched his fists under the tabletop.

"Look," he said tightly. "I didn't invite you out tonight to insult my boyfriends. They've been nothing but nice to you since you arrived and all you've done is scowl at them. I should've left you in the fucking hotel."

João shook his head, a long, dark tendril falling over his forehead. "I'm your brother, Toni. I just want what's best for you, and it's not them."

"Oh?" Antonio challenged. He crossed his arms defensively. "And what is best for me? What exactly do you suggest, dear big brother?"

"I'm not saying you have to become a monk." João rolled his eyes. "But this threesome thing you're doing is weird, okay? You can't possibly love them equally—"

"I do!" Antonio snapped suddenly, passionately, half rising from his seat. "Gil and Fran mean everything to me, so don't talk about things you don't understand!"

"Toni," João, too, raised his voice, "it's wrong!"

"What's wrong?" Gilbert asked innocently, puzzled. Francis was clutching his arm for balance and smiling in drunk, dreamy contentment. Antonio plucked the cell-phone from Francis' back-pocket before it fell out and he lost it, again. Then he pat the Frenchman's taut bottom for good measure. "Is everything okay, schatz—?" Gilbert prompted, looking between the brothers suspiciously.

João buried his nose in his stein, sucking down the froth.

Antonio said: "It's nothing, cariño. João was just saying he has an early flight tomorrow and he needs to go back to the hotel now."

His brother shook his head, then dropped a twenty onto the table and stood abruptly.

"Oh wow," Francis purred in appreciation, oblivious to João's bad mood. As if he had only just seen him, he dragged a playful finger down the man's chest. "Toni, you didn't tell us your brother was so handsome. You both look so much alike, it's—"

"Not interested," said João harshly, slapping Francis' hand.

Francis flinched and shrank back against Gilbert in surprise. His eyes grew wide, misunderstanding what he had done wrong.

Gilbert's growl was a warning when he said: "Easy. It was just a joke."

"Whatever," João muttered, yanking on his jacket. "Toni," he said, green eyes glaring, "are you going to come say goodbye?"

He didn't wait for Antonio to reply, but strode to the exit without a word to his brother's boyfriends, which, Antonio reasoned, was probably for the best. Gilbert's ruby eyes were following João unhappily. He didn't take kindly to people mistreating his boyfriends on a regular, sober day, but fueled with alcohol he could become quite aggressive. Antonio didn't want to risk either Gilbert or João making a scene—poor Francis hated conflict—so, with an apologetic look for Gilbert, and a reassuring stroke for Francis, he grudgingly followed his brother outside.

"Well, have a safe flight. See you when the next relative dies—"

"Toni," João said, urgent but softer now, "please reconsider. I'm really worried about you, and so are Mamá and Papá."

"I think the disownment negates their parental concern," Antonio countered, bitterly sarcastic.

"But they are concerned, Toni! They love you!"

"No, they love what they want me to be, a version of me that expired a long time ago. I'm not that sweet little choirboy anymore, João. I'm a grown man, who doesn't need his brother or his parents to make decisions for him, so just go, okay? I really am doing just fine, you don't need to worry about me. I'm happy, and I'm in love."

João looked like he wanted to argue, but he wisely backtracked instead. "I know they'd forgive you, if that's what you're worried about," he said, referring to their parents. "They want you to come home, Toni. Just admit you made a mistake. Say you're sorry and repent," he begged, clutching the cross at his throat, "because everything you're doing is breaking Mamá's heart. She can't bear to see you live like this. Please, please just come home."

Antonio's hand instinctively went to his own cross, a twin of his brother's. It was the only piece of jewelry he wore anymore, and he wore it always. It was the only physical connection he had to his old life, his childhood, given to him at his Confirmation fourteen years ago and he hadn't taken it off since; not when he slept, or showered, or fucked his boyfriends. He rubbed it when he was nervous, he sucked on it when he was thoughtful, and too many times it had gotten caught in Francis' hair or on Gilbert's wristwatch. His brother saw it—saw his hesitance—and smiled hopefully, and in that moment Antonio missed him. He missed the brother João had been before the entire family had rejected Antonio for choosing Francis. ("He's married!" his father yelled while his mother sobbed. "He's committing adultery and you're helping!") He missed the way João used to defend him from bullies at preschool, and tell him what a lovely singing voice he had. ("You're going to be famous someday, Tonio, I know it!") He missed the way João used to look at him and see only the little brother whom he loved, and not a degenerate in need of saving.

Just then, the beer hall's door opened and Gilbert and Francis stepped out onto the street. Neither of them spoke, but both regarded the scene with weary eyes. Gilbert's reds were intense; Francis' blues were compassionate. They waited, trusting Antonio.

Antonio took one loving look at them and he decided. He yanked the gold necklace off and placed it in João's hand, and said: "I am home."

Then he slipped an arm around his boyfriends and led them back inside.

The next few weeks were spent preparing to leave Berlin.

Antonio overheard a telephone conversation between Gilbert and his terrifying father that he wished he hadn't—you knew Herr Beilschmidt was angry when he didn't yell, but got very, very quiet—but his younger brother, Ludwig, came by with pizza one evening, and gave Francis and Antonio an awkward hug each in farewell, telling them to keep Gilbert out of trouble in London. ("When are you going to let me introduce you to my cousin, Feliciano, huh?" Antonio teased the younger, bashful Beilschmidt brother. "I'm telling you, it'd be love at first sight!") He also heard Francis on the phone with Arthur, trying to get things sorted, but that was a much less impressive feat as they tended to fill the entire flat with their bickering. ("The same city as Arthur Kirkland—yikes," Antonio only half-joked. Gilbert theorized that exposure and routine would soften their relationship from hostile to civil, for their boys' sake. "Just as long as it doesn't soften him too much," Antonio muttered, crossing his arms. "I've seen the way he still looks at our Fran.") By the end of the month, Gilbert had several job interviews scheduled, and Antonio's friend from university had promised him a position bartending at his club in Soho. Francis would devote himself entirely to his children, and Arthur was happy not to have to pay for daycare anymore. ("Like he can't afford it," Antonio rolled his eyes.) Finally, it was the night before the move: luggage had been packed and shipped, a flat had been rented not far from Antonio's new workplace, and goodbyes and farewell gifts had been exchanged between them and their friends. ("I don't think they'll let us take four whole boxes of licorice across the border, Lars. Don't they have licorice in England?" Gilbert's—hot—cousin merely shuddered at the thought.) But there was still one thing left on Antonio's To Do List.

"I need three, please."

"Three, sir?" asked the saleswoman, confused.

"Yes," Antonio smiled, hoping she couldn't hear his pounding heart. He wondered how many other men had stood in this same spot, sweating and fidgeting.

"Here you are, sir. Um, good luck," she smiled awkwardly, handing him the bag.

"Thank-you!"

Because the trio were feeling nostalgic—and Francis and Antonio were sentimental—they went to the public-house Gilbert had brought his boyfriends to on their first night in Berlin, and insisted on paying just like he did then. Francis, somehow, remembered what they had each ordered that night, and ordered it again. ("You have such a weird memory for food," Antonio teased.) But they didn't talk like they had back then: when Francis was fragile from his divorce, and Antonio resented his family's disownment; when both of them were eager and excited and still raw from what they had done, and both a little bit nervous about starting life over together in a new place with the German they had both fallen in love with. ("It was your smile," Francis said romantically. "It was your abs," Antonio winked, sliding his foot provocatively up Gilbert's calve under the table.) "Do you remember..." they said now, and the other two nodded, a little sad it was ending but grateful it had happened.

"Hey, let's take a detour," Antonio said when they left. He led them into the park, his fingers dancing across Gilbert's hand on the small of Francis' back between them. When he was certain they were alone on the footpath, he took a deep, brave breath and stepped in front of the others, stopping them. They stared expectantly, but didn't speak.

"I have something for you," he said, holding up his closed fists. "I didn't get the fancy boxes, but..." Slowly, he opened his hands, presenting his boyfriends with rings.

Francis covered his mouth in surprise, blue eyes soft and smiling. Gilbert looked from the rings to Antonio in disbelief, and a nervous chuckle escaped him. He said: "Are you asking us to marry you, Toni?"

"I would if I could," said Antonio seriously, honestly. "I don't want anyone else to think that either of you are available, because you're not. You're mine. I never thought I'd ever love anyone as much as I love you," he admitted, blushing now. "I never thought I'd find one person I wanted to spend my life with, let alone two, so... thank-you," he smiled, "for loving me in return. I want us to always be together.

"Te quiero mucho," he repeated softly.

"Oh, Toni," Francis sighed, wiping away a happy tear as he slipped a ring onto his finger. "Yes, of course we'll be together."

"Always," Gilbert agreed, doing the same.

Antonio fished the third ring out of his pocket and put it on himself. A single piece of jewelry he would never take off. Seeing it, he smiled big and bright, and a laugh escaped him. He couldn't remember ever being so happy.

The next thing he knew, he was wrapped in his boyfriends' arms, and their hands were on his back and in his hair, and their warm, smiling mouths were kissing his neck, his face, and they were squeezing him, and laughing, and he was pretty sure that Francis was crying, and he didn't want them to ever let go. He knew then, indefinitely, that he had made the right choice leaving his home, his family, as much as it had hurt him to do so. He had been unsettled—angry, even—as a youth, never happy in his relationships; always feeling incomplete. Then he found Francis, and that gnawing feeling quieted. Then they found Gilbert, and the feeling was silenced. Maybe their love was unconventional; maybe it was hard for others to understand: "How can you love two people equally?" they asked. "You must love one of them more than the other. It's not fair. It's a lie." Antonio—usually—ignored these people, because they didn't feel what he felt; they didn't know what he knew. Francis Bonnefoi and Gilbert Beilschmidt were the people his heart had chosen, and Antonio's heart was perfectly capable of loving them both.

"Thank-you," he whispered, holding them close. "Thank-you for choosing me."

Gilbert cupped the back of Antonio's head and kissed him, long and deep. Then Francis pressed himself to the Spaniard's chest, hands coiled in his dark hair, hot, slick tongue in his mouth.

"Is that a yes, then?" Antonio grinned.

Gilbert laughed, and said: "Yes."

"That's a yes," Francis confirmed, smiling.

Then Antonio's beautiful boyfriends took his hands in each of theirs, rings glinting in the lamplight, and they walked back to their Berlin flat for the last time, together.

THE END

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