Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: Problem: about a few more weeks, I'm going back to school. It starts in begin September and if I'll work hard, there could be a chance I might get my degree faster. I'll become a Dutch teacher – you know, a person who teaches others the Dutch language – and let me tell you one thing, if there's one language that makes you want to scream at the burning skies because of its tricky grammar and stupid ground rules, it's Dutch. Now, since I've been reading/writing stories and the like since I was ten, I think I'm pretty good at Dutch. But I just know it's going to be a pretty difficult study. I mean, I'll probably get very hard tests with stupid, mean grammatical asshole-questions that you'll find NOWHERE in real life, and that sucks.
What I really want to say is… there might be a chance I won't be uploading all that frequently anymore after school's started again. I know I've mentioned this before, but still. You should keep this in mind.

A/n2: In my country, there's a discussion going on about lowering the age of children being able to choose for euthanasia. Before this discussion took place, all people starting from the age of twelve years old and suffering unbearable pains and/or from an incurable sickness, were free to choose for euthanasia (you still wouldn't be sure to actually get it, since it's a very resolute decision the medics must agree with, but at least we have a say in it).
However, people recently 'discovered' that children below the age of twelve are also perfectly able to decide when it's okay to die. When it's okay to choose death over life, if living has become too painful for them.
It's a very complicated matter. As a pedagogue, but especially as a living, feeling and breathing person, I'm supportive of this development – kids aren't stupid, ignorant or oblivious runts that don't know what's going on, they are smarter and more realistic that one could imagine, and if they tell you, with dry eyes and a weak and dying body that they don't want to fight anymore – please just give them the right to say goodbye to this world.
But there are also people who believe that keeping a badly-hurt, unrecoverable baby alive – real life example: one that's covered in biting blisters and will die within a few horrible weeks anyway – is the more humane thing to do. Otherwise, you'd be killing it, they reason.
Is that really so, I wonder? Is it the exact same as killing a person? Are you a killer when you do that?
I beg to differ. But what do you think?

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 62:

Only the family, society's smallest unit, can change and yet maintain enough continuity to rear children who will not be "strangers in a strange land,"
who will be rooted firmly enough to grow and adapt.
Salvador Minuchin
(Argentinean family therapist)

We took the kids – who were all three excited because ohh, their Papa Lovi was going to tell them a story again, and a very special one, too, ahh! – to their bedroom and put them in bed. Or actually, on top of Alejo's bed, since that way, I could look at all of them while telling my story without twisting my head in directions and ways it wasn't meant to bend.

'Right,' I said while Antonio wiggled himself on the bed in between the kids – and found himself brutally manhandled by the kids, who all cutely claimed him as their own personal pillow by wrapping their short little tiny arms around his arms and legs, 'are the three… well okay four of you ready for this?'

'Certainly!' Antonio nodded.

'Yea!' both Alejo and Matteo cried.

'Hmnf,' Luisa snorted.

'Alright then.' I sat down on the chair next to Alejo's bed and cleared my throat. 'Just one more thing, kiddo's: the story I'm going to tell you is… a real one. It's not just a fairy tale or ancient myth or whatever – no, it all happened for real and it's all still happening. Just… just so you don't get confused or think it's all just a story, okay?'

'Gah,' Matteo gasped, comically clasping his mouth, 'a stowwy fur BIG kiddo's, ohhhhhh…'

'Cool, I feel… um… uhh… old!' Alejo grinned and flopped down on his tummy.

Only Luisa seemed to be less enthusiastic and puffed her cheeks demonstratively.

'I don't wanna hear a stupid real story. I wanna hear a story 'bout fat princesses and pink fight clubs.'

'Ah, you hear that?' Antonio said, giving me a slightly crooked smile. 'That's your influence talking, sweetie: mixing questionable princesses with questionable clubs and making our innocent daughter believe they are actually very normal. Aww.'

I looked at him, annoyed.

'Ohh, that's right, Antonio – I shouldn't tell them those silly stories, no, I should just tell them stories about girls getting trapped in tall towers and being totally spineless because of the simple fact they're girls instead. Yeah, that's normal!'

Antonio huffed, but drew back his horns almost instantly, muttering a soft 'sorry'.

'Well!' I snorted, still scowling at Antonio like a disgruntled sergeant because I simply felt like it, and sat up a bit more. 'Can I get started already?'

I was rewarded with two enthusiastic nods, one hesitant nod and one bored nod.

…

Fair enough.

'Okay.'

I licked my lips and looked at my listeners sternly.

'You may not know this, but in this world, this very world we live in, there are people that can't die. Ever. Hell, they can't even get older.'

'Ohhhhh,' Matteo mooed.

'For real?' Luisa frowned.

I nodded. 'I swear I'm not kidding. And it's not just… one or two people that are walking around the world – no no, there are at least… um… 190 people. Yes. At least 190 people, 190 persons, that can't die, can't get older, can't get mortally wounded (although there are a few of these special people that did croak, somehow – but that's extremely rare) and they can't, well, kick the bucket. They live all around the world – literally – and they try to make the best of their lives, as good as it gets.'

'AWESOME,' Alejo stammered. 'I wanna be one of those – but I think I already am, 'cause I kick buckets alllllll the time!'

'You don't just kick them,' Antonio sourly remarked. 'You once even melted one.'

Alejo just giggled and snickered at that. 'That was a fun day, heehee!~'

I made a very serious face. 'Yeah? You'd like to be one of those immortal beings. Allie?'

'Yea!' Alejo said, nodding furiously.

'It's pretty boring, though.' I grimaced as I thought about it myself. 'Imagine this, kid: you wander the earth, or at least the country in which you were born, and you can't do anything. You're actually… well, you're actually nothing.'

Alejo cocked his head in confusion. 'Wha?'

'The people I'm talking about, don't have any… magical powers or anything. Sure, they stay the same, young age they appear to be, and no, they can't die, but that's it. They don't have anything mysterious. They don't even look mysterious – they just look like people. Random, uninteresting people. Maybe… maybe you even met one of them already and you didn't even know they were these Special People.'

Antonio interrupted me with a cough. 'Are you sure they don't have anything special, Lovi?'

I paused for a sec, eventually moving my head up and down.

'…alright, they have at least one special thing.'

'Theiy cans fly!' Matteo suggested.

'No,' I smiled. 'Good shot, though.'

'They can… can… breathe… underwater?' Luisa mused.

'No – but god, that would've been pretty cool!'

'They can deep-fry DRAGONS and MONSTER FISH and GIANT MISTERS,' Alejo said.

I gave him a bewildered look. 'My god, Alejo, don't be such a creep – dragons don't exist!'

'So deep-frying monster fish and men from the Netherlands is possible,' Antonio concluded.

I shrugged. 'I don't see why not, you'll just need an incredible big… deep fryer. But moving on…

The only really special thing the Special People could do, was hurt the country they came from. Not because they were mean or evil or liked playing pranks – they simply didn't have a choice. If they were feeling very sad, it would start to rain. And it wouldn't stop raining before the Special People would feel better again. If they felt happy, there would be rainbows and sunshine everywhere. If they felt sick, the other people living in the country had to do their very best to make the Special People feel better again, or else the entire country would get… well, "sick".'

'Like a curse,' Luisa said.

Antonio and I stared at her after that.

'Yes,' Antonio finally said.

'Like a curse – yes, it was a curse,' I immediately jumped in on that outlook of our situation, since it would be so much easier to explain it like that. 'A very weird, strange curse. And all these Special People suffered from it. It was… it was a very nasty curse. I mean, come on, they didn't want to hurt the other people, they just wanted… they just wanted to be normal, really.'

'Yea,' Matteo very strictly said as he patted Mia's pointy "hair", 'I dun't wanna hurt anybody. Ow.'

'Wussy,' Alejo mumbled under his breath.

Matteo laughed and practically smeared his cactus into his brother's face. 'Noooo, no pussy – Mia!'

Alejo got angry and wanted to slap the plant out of Matteo's hands, but Antonio did some fast, wishful thinking and swiftly snatched Mia away from both boys, putting her on the nightstand.

'Now,' he said as he held Alejo back and gently stroke our growling son's hair at the same time, 'okay, Lovi, you told us about the Special People! What's next?'

'Well,' I said, 'I… I guess I should tell you about one of these Special People. It's a tale about a very handsome, relaxed and… and – fine, don't lurk at me like that, Antonio, sheesh – slightly… quick-tempered man, born in Italy more than… oh, more than hundreds of years ago.'

Matteo gasped. 'A grandpa's grandpa!'

'Maybe even older,' Alejo – not angry anymore because he tended to forget things quickly thanks to his short span of attention – gasped as well.

'You know him, Papa Lovi?' Luisa wanted to know.

'Oh I know him,' I admitted, snorting. 'And he's pretty cool. He even had a slightly younger, annoying brother that always beat him in everyth… I-I mean, that also was a Special Person, just like he himself. They lived in Italy and they were pretty happy, I guess, even though it wasn't always easy – living as Special People, that is.'

'Why not?' Luisa asked again.

'Because they had seen, experienced and participated in all kinds of… fights, wars and other terrible problems over the years.' I hesitated, thinking over my words carefully. 'It might seem kind of awesome and epic to fight wars and stuff, but it's not. It's really not awesome or epic at all. Still, the Cool Italian watched and joined many awful happenings. He sometimes cried, you know: he too got scared and… and lonely, partly because… because the Stupid Italian was away a lot, too.'

Antonio looked at me worriedly, as if he heard this for the first time. He had heard it before, of course he had heard it before – but I could imagine it still wasn't nice to hear.

Matteo's face fell. 'But, but, doesn't he has a papa?'

I smiled sadly. 'No, cutie. He didn't.'

'Oh! Oh! What about a papa?' Alejo tried.

I chuckled. 'No, not a papa either – not a single one of them.'

'What about a mama?' Luisa said.

'What's a mama?' Matteo asked, intrigued.

'A papa with boobies,' Luisa told him. 'And make-up.'

Antonio looked at her, amused, but not knowing what to say, and therefore he didn't say a word.

I found this all very funny – not to mention arguable – but I decided to just answer Matteo's question instead of starting a strange conversation with Luisa.

'Listen, kiddo's: Special People don't have parents. No papa's, no mama's. No siblings in some cases, either. It's just… them.'

'Oh,' Luisa said. She looked kind of troubled.

'Special People aren't normal people,' I tried to explain. 'They're all alone on this world, really. They can make friends with normal people, they can even fall in love with normal people and most of the things normal people can do, but… but in the end, they're still different. That's why they also have no parents. They weren't born – they just… appeared, one day. That's it.'

'So… so Mistur Cool Ibalian stayed all alonesome?' Matteo asked.

'No no, he didn't.' There was a happier part of the story coming up, so I relaxed a bit more. 'The Special People weren't always alone – they had each other! Because it's nice to talk to people that are just like you. The Stupid Italian, for example, liked to hang out with his friends, that were also Special People: the Buff German and the Shrewd Japanese... Guy. And there's this… this Goofy Spaniard-guy, that was good friends with the Dirty Frenchman and Fucked-Up Prussian.'

'Lovi,' Antonio warned, shaking his head dismissively. 'Language, my love – you do know what I mean when I say that, right?'

I very maturely flipped him the bird, to which he responded with an exaggerated sigh.

Meanwhile, the kids were busy pondering about the story so far.

'They had friendies and shit, so the Special Peoples weren't really lonely,' Luisa said to Matteo. 'Just a bit.'

'Ah,' Matteo responded, looking like he had no idea what his sister was babbling about.

'And they were friends with… like, other countries!' Alejo grinned widely. 'That's so cool!'

'You… you could say that, yes,' I slowly said.

'Ohhhhh, did Mistur Cool Ibalian had countwy-friendies?' Matteo asked me, his eyes big and sparkly.

'Er.' I let out an uncomfortable laugh. 'Um… well, I wasn't – I mean, the Cool Italian wasn't really… outgoing, you know? He had a pretty hard time finding friends. He thought he didn't need friends. He liked being on his own.'

'But he was lonely!' Luisa reminded me. 'You don't like being alone when you're lonely – duhhhh!'

'Who was Cool Italian's friend?' Alejo asked. 'Goofy Spaniaria… thing?'

'Y-yes!' I looked at Alejo in surprise. 'How… how did you know that?'

Alejo shrugged and didn't say anything else. I did notice he looked somewhat differently at me now.

…

Oh god, he was trying to decipher my ramblings, wasn't he?

Better speed things up a bit, before he'd start asking questions I was not ready for yet.

'The Cool Italian was friends with the Goofy Spaniard, yes – they were pretty good friends, too, even though the Goofy Spaniard was a total weirdo and smiled all the time for no good reason. He was, like, the exact opposite of the Cool Italian. Very annoying, very persistent and very dweeb-ish.'

'Nice,' Antonio bluntly said.

I ignored him. 'Anyway, they visited each other on a regular basis and they had a great time spending time together. But… w-well, the Cool Italian actually liked the Goofy Spaniard. He wasn't really aware of it at first, but he… h-he actually wanted to be… more than just friends with the Goofy Spaniard.'

'Ohhh, he lieked him!' Matteo giggled. 'Kissy kissy, liek you and Papa Toni, ehehehehe!~'

Luisa now looked at me just as weirdly as Alejo was still doing, but, like her brother, she didn't say anything. She just sat and stared at me, her mouth hanging open just a little bit.

At that point, Antonio spoke up.

'The Goofy Spaniard didn't really know the Cool Italian liked him like that, but he wasn't really… fast, when it came to things like… love and such. He had some… some feelings for him as well, but he didn't know what kind of feelings they were supposed to be. In all fairness, he just thought he had eaten a bad tomato whenever he felt it.'

My jaw dropped. 'God – seriously?'

Antonio blushed and chuckled. 'The Goofy Spaniard had never been in love before – how should he have known he was?'

'I-I don't know,' I muttered, bashfully looking away. 'But a bad tomato… did it really feel like you – like he had eaten a bad tomato?'

'A little bit.' Antonio smiled gently at me. 'It changed later, though, when I – when he realized it was love… a love that was mutual, too.'

'Is tis a romanitically stowwy?' Matteo chirped. 'I'm confuuuused.'

I looked over at both Alejo and Luisa, who kept staring at me like I was going to hand them over a huge present any second now. I licked my lips and hurriedly try to think of what to say next. This was a bad story – it just made no sense, it was all over the place, and I barely swore. All signs that the story was lame. However, Luisa, who had like an internal alarm-sensor that always started to go off whenever I told her a bad story, kept her mouth shut. And Alejo, who always lost all interest in the stories I told him as soon as he found out they weren't freaky enough to his liking, didn't blink or talk either.

Both of them had been silent for a steady five minutes now, even though my story, that wasn't even a story, sucked balls. That could only mean one thing.

They were waiting.

Not Matteo, though – that kid still didn't understand a flying fuck about the story and was getting bored.

'Um…' I stammered, realizing I didn't have much time left before the patience of the kids would reach its limit, '…s-so, the Cool Italian and Goofy Spaniard eventually got together, and they really loved each other a lot, and then the Cool Italian decided to go travelling around Europe for reasons I'll tell you once you get past the age of seventy, and then at one point the Goofy Spaniard asked him to marry him, and they did, and it was very lovely.'

'Uh-huh,' Matteo said, yawning.

'And then, one day, after they had woken up, they found three kids in their House.'

I looked at the kids, took a deep breath, and pointed my finger at them – one kid at a time.

'A-a Grumpy Kid…'

Luisa blinked rapidly.

'…a Creepy Kid…'

Alejo's grin started to grow.

'…and a Dumb Kid.'

Matteo frowned and picked his nose.

'And… and so, the Cool Italian and the Goofy Spaniard had become papa's and needed to take care of their demon children, and… and you… um, you are those demon children.'

Luisa blushed a little bit while Alejo watched me carefully. They both looked like they wanted to understand what I was trying to say – but they also looked extremely confused and baffled. I guess their brains just didn't know how to process all of this new, complex, weird information yet. They were still very young, after all – reality and fiction were still hard to tell apart. Or… or something like that.

'I dun't get it,' Matteo complained. 'Tell a stowwy 'bout pickles, papa. Bearded ones!'

I uttered a weird sigh and rubbed my head in frustration. Maybe I was wrong to think that telling a bizarre story would make my and Antonio's non-human status easier to comprehend – I mean, hell, I knew that at least Luisa was pretty clever, and Alejo apparently took more after me than his Spanish caretaker when it was about connecting the figural dots, but…

If I really wanted my kids to know about us, I should just call a spade a spade.

Okay.

I shove the chair against the bed and leaned forward, putting my arms on my lap. The kids watched me curiously, while Antonio silently encouraged me by nodding.

'Long story short,' I started, 'Papa Toni and I are Special People. I'm a Special Person from Italy, he's a Special Person from Spain. We, and many other Special People, like your uncle Feli and Uncle Germ-Germ, will live… well, most likely, forever. We won't get older, we won't get different and we won't—'

'You won't die!' Luisa shrieked, beaming with happiness.

My face forced a smile. 'That's right, baby.'

Alejo jumped up. 'AWESOME! MY PAPA'S ARE… like, LIVING ZOMBIES! SO VERY AWESOME!'

'That… actually pretty much sums it all up,' Antonio said.

'I dun't get it,' Matteo said again, pouting. 'Who's zombies and who dies?'

Luisa – absolutely overjoyed because of the long-awaited answer to her angsty question – grabbed her brother's chubby cheeks and squished it.

'You're so dumb, Teo! Papa Lovi and Papa Toni – they say they don't die! EVER!'

Matteo, who was making whiny noises at first, stared at his younger sister, bewildered.

'…n-never die?'

'Never!' Luisa giggled and smooched his nose.

'Oh, oh! OHHHHHH!' Matteo stammered. He laughed and giggled as well and hysterically flapped his arms, since he seemed to be unable to express his immense joy any other way, and almost fell backwards when Luisa suddenly let go of him – because she now wanted to hug Alejo.

'EWWWWW,' Alejo cried out as he cackled and tried to wiggle himself out of his sister's arms, 'Let go – GIRL-COOTIES, EWWWWWWS!'

'Shut up!' Luisa nagged back, still smiling. 'I-I feel happy, dammit – and I kissed Teo already – and I – um – s-so lemme hug you!'

'But I wanna hug Papa Lovi and Papa Toni!'

'NO YOU TURD, ME FIRST! I wanna hug them FIRST!'

'I hug Papa Lovi!' Matteo yelled, claiming me by hastily getting up from the bed and stumbling past his brother and sister, giving me just enough time to save him from smacking his face against the floor.

'I hug Papa Toni!' Luisa responded, pushing Alejo away and pouncing Antonio.

'Calm down,' Antonio chuckled as he cuddled Luisa's small, slightly quivering frame. 'I'm not going anywhere – I'm right here!'

Alejo looked from me to Antonio and back, his eyes getting big and glassy.

'B-but I wanna hug, too…!'

I looked at him and felt I choked up. Oh god I want to hug you too, you creepy little bastard!

'W-wait a minute, wait just a minute,' I therefore said and got off the chair. I crawled into the bed, snatched Alejo's blubbering small person off the sheets and sat down next to Antonio – who immediately put an arm around me, Luisa and Alejo and pulled us close.

'There you go,' he mumbled in my hair as his grip around my shoulder grew stronger. 'Now we can all hug – is that okay?'

'That's okay,' I hoarsely said, smiling when I felt Matteo's fingers closed themselves around my own, heard Alejo's relieved giggles and saw Luisa hug Antonio's arm tightly.

Now they knew. I closed my eyes for a bit. They knew.

\0o0/

'That went well,' Antonio said as he softly closed the door of the kids' bedroom.

'It sure did,' I replied and rubbed my slightly bruised wrists. All that hugging and grabbing had left its marks on me, apparently. The kids sure had surprised me with that. It's just… yeah, I had expected them to be very happy with the fact their dads weren't going to die any day soon, but god, I felt like I had been run over by a fucking stampede!

We had hugged for a long time – longer than I initially thought. The kids had firstly been exhaustingly energic, and happily chirped about all the things we all could do, now that Antonio and I turned out to be immortal (which were the exact same things normal people could do, really, only we could do them for-ev-er as Alejo very smartly pointed out), but then the excitement and giddy feelings finally got the best of them and they suddenly realized that they were actually pretty damn tired.

When Matteo was practically snoring against my shoulder (open-mouthed, drooling all over me), Antonio and I concluded they needed to go to sleep. So we put them in their own beds, told them goodnight, yadayada, the usual stuff… and then we quietly tiptoed out of their room.

Now, as we walked to our own bedroom, we muttered in quiet voices about how the talk went.

'I'm still the best storyteller of all,' I bragged. 'Even when my story's shitty as fuck.'

Antonio chortled. 'Yeah, well, I think telling the kids that our mood and health can influence the weather was pushing it a bit too far. Because, you know. We can't.'

I grunted. 'I know that, I just wanted to spice up the story, dammit.'

'You do realize they will ask you questions if it's rainy tomorrow, right?'

'I'll just tell them you're peeling onions.'

'…now why would I be peeling onions?'

'I don't know, you're the weirdo that wants to peel them.'

He rolled his eyes and snickered some more. 'You have a solution for everything, don't you?'

I shrugged. 'I just have a lot of imagination.'

'That's good. We'll need that.'

'Yes, we will. But it'll all work out. Just have faith.'

'Hm-hm.'

Upon arriving at our bedroom-door, Antonio opened it and – very gentlemanly – allowed me to get inside the room, first. I smiled faintly at him in the process and although a very small part of me really wanted to flirt back and maybe even convince Antonio to make love with me, I just put on my PJ's and unceremoniously slipped underneath the covers instead. It merely was a very small part of me that wanted to have sex, after all.

Luckily, Antonio was in the same weird, content-but-not-really-content-more-like-sort-of-content-content kind of mood, and he pretty much copied me: he simply put on his pajama's and got into bed as well.

We could go to sleep now. We still weren't really tired yet, though. So I took my book from the little nightstand and flipped it open where I had left. Meanwhile, Antonio grabbed the remote and turned on the television hanging on the other side of the room.

We didn't say much for a while.

Until Antonio clumsily – and pretty loudly – cleared his throat.

'Sweetie?'

I turned another page. 'Yeah?'

'Telling them we're Special People was too vague. When they get older, we need to tell them more.'

'I know. I just wanted to avoid making things too weird for them. They're still too young to fully understand everything.'

'You think…' Antonio groaned and ran a hand through his bouncy curls, '…you think they'll get mad?'

I didn't answer him right away.

'When they get older and we stay like this. Young and fit and… and twenty-something.' Antonio swallowed.

'I-I don't know,' I mumbled. I tried to read that one sentence again, but the words just didn't reach me.

'Sorry.' Antonio apologized, sighing. 'It's just… wh-what if they get kids? What if they want one of us to push their child in a little baby stroller? What if… if people come to me as I push that little stroller with Luisa's kid in it as she herself walks next to me, and want to know if Luisa and I still get enough sleep at night?'

I put the book down and looked at Antonio's sorrowful eyes, concerned. 'Antonio…'

'What if people think Matteo's just one of my friends, or my brother – or worse, my lover when I take him to a pop concert on his eighteenth birthday?'

I wordlessly scooted over to him.

'What if…' Antonio's lips started to tremble a bit, just like his voice '…wh-what if I take Alejo for a walk when he's getting old and forgetful, and people tell me I'm doing such a great job, taking care of my grandpa…'

'Fuck.' I harshly pulled him against me and bit the insides of my cheek so very hard I tasted copper. 'Stop it already – seriously, just stop making yourself feel bad with those kind of thoughts. You'll only depress yourself, dammit.'

'But it's going to happen.' Antonio buried his face in my chest – kind of roughly, too, so I tumbled on my back. 'It's going to happen. All of that is going to happen. I'm so scared.'

Antonio didn't cry, but he didn't let me get back up either. He kept holding me down, his head feeling like a heavy weight on my chest. But I didn't complain or nag, I merely placed a hand on his head and tenderly stroke his hair.

'Listen, Antonio – it's just life. All that's going to happen? That's life. It's normal. I know the concept of life is pretty hard for us personifications to grasp, since we don't obey the rules life has written down for humans, but that doesn't mean we can't at least try to be part of it.'

Antonio raised his face, his chin still resting on my chest. He sighed deeply and tiredly.

'What… what do you mean, Lovi…'

'In spite of everything, we… we can still raise our children,' I explained. 'We can take care of them, watch them grow up, fall in love, make mistakes, come to us for comfort, go live on their own, marry, have kids, have worries, maybe even have a divorce or suffer from a disease or unsolvable problems, accept things the way they come and go, and, in the end, they will leave this world, hopefully after having lived a life without regrets.'

Antonio made a muffled sound.

'And that's great.' I smiled at him and collected his face in my hands. 'Our kids will show us how to live life as it's meant to be. Is that so bad?'

'I-I…' Antonio blushed as I softly caressed his cheekbones. 'I don't know, Lovi… maybe not, but…'

'Antonio, we'll get to be part of their lives. It's like the closest we've ever been to the concept called life. We'll mean something. God – we'll actually mean something!' I laughed a bit, even though my eyes started to sting. 'Do you know how much I've wanted to mean something for people – just… just ordinary people, people that I happen to love and care about?'

Antonio gave me the smallest of nods.

'We should… we should cherish that.' I flushed as well as it now was Antonio's turn to softly touch my face. 'N-no matter what happens, we should cherish this opportunity to live a normal life. At least for a little while.'

'You're right.' Antonio's body felt less tense when he wrapped his arms around my waist and lovingly pecked my lips. 'Ah, you're right, Lovi… you're very right.'

I swallowed when one of his hands started travelling south, but I didn't try to stop him.

'Also, please don't get all freaked out by all the possible things people might say to or about us. They're just blissfully oblivious to our situation.'

Antonio smiled and kissed my lips a bit more, while his legs intertwined themselves around mine.

'So – hmnh – s-so fuck those dumb shits,' I ended my speech and had intended to pull him on top of me and kiss and touch him silly – but my last comment had kind of ruined the mood, since Antonio snorted and even had to roll over to his side to try and stop his laughter.

'I-I'm sorry,' he giggled, 'you're so funny – being all serious and then all of a sudden saying something like that… oh god!'

'Hum.' I frowned, feeling slightly embarrassed, and folded my arms together. 'I-I just wanted to make you feel better, dammit.'

'You did!' Antonio rolled back – almost flattening me in his crazy rolling process – and managed to both grab my hands and minimize the distance between our bodies in that one, rapid movement.

'Y-yes?' I mumbled, getting shy as I noticed how close we were, once again.

'Lovi.' Antonio smiled, touching my forehead with his own. 'You're like a living painkiller.'

…

Pfffrt.

'Oh god. Was that supposed to sound romantic?' I snickered. 'Yeah, thanks. You're one hell of a sedative as well. You fog up my world, Antonio.'

He pouted. 'Don't laugh.'

'Hey, you laughed at me, first! You bet I keep on laughing! You—'

Antonio interrupted my sentence by suddenly kissing me. It was a raw, rough and demanding kiss, a kiss with a few teasing flashes of tongue and teeth that made my chuckles and mocking words drown in a sea of lust and… and… oh goddammit, I don't know, I just forgot all about what I was saying.

I moaned quietly and helpfully raised my arms when I felt Antonio was trying to work me out of my shirt with impatient, hard tugs. Good lord, that delicious bulge against my thigh… oh, he sure was horny, hmm, that's nice—

'Papa Loooooviiiii,' a small, whispering voice suddenly said, right…

Right next to the fucking bed oh my fucking goddesses and flying dwarfs in a bucket full of shit.

'Matteo!' I cried out, throwing Antonio off me with a very focused kick that send him crashing out of the other side of the bed. 'What… wh-what are you doing here, kid?'

I hastily switched on the lamp on the nightstand, which lit up the room enough to see that not only Matteo was standing next to the bed, oh no, oh no no no noooooo, so were Luisa and Alejo.

'Hiya,' Matteo said.

'Did we scare ya?' Alejo grinned.

'Why're you panting?' Luisa asked.

I let out a peep – that's right, a peep. I mean, the WHOLE FUCKING KID-COLLECTION WAS HERE, dammit, and we almost had sex in front of them. Sweet Jesus.

'H-h-how long have you been here,' I stuttered as I clumsily pulled down my shirt, 'did… did you hear all of that?'

'Papa Lovi was giggling like a gurl,' Alejo explained.

'Oh. Okay… just that part, huh? That's not all that bad.' I gulped and straightened the sheets with my hands – why did I straighten the sheets, I don't know, I just did, whatever – and forced myself to calm down already. 'So. What are you twerps doing, coming out of bed?'

Alejo, Matteo and Luisa all looked away from me – one studying the floor, one fidgeting with the hem of his shirt and one poking the nightstand. In the meantime, I heard Antonio climb back into the bed, groaning and muttering something in Spanish.

'Ohhhhhhh,' Matteo instantly said, 'Papa Toni said a bad word, ohhhhhhh!~'

Antonio, suddenly remembering Matteo indeed had the strange ability to understand Spanish without being able to actually speak it, got a beet-red head and swiftly sat next to me.

'A-anyway!' he said, clearing his throat and meaningfully putting a pillow down on his lap, 'Is… is there something the matter? Why're you here?'

'I can't sleep,' Alejo muttered.

'I feel alone,' Luisa also muttered.

'Ah peed mah bed!' Matteo beamed.

'What?' both Antonio and I said.

'NO WAIT MIA DID,' Matteo very subtly corrected himself. 'She's a BAD GRILL! Bad, bad Mia! BAD!'

'Alright,' I sighed, glancing over to Antonio (while Matteo was still wrongfully and loudly accusing his poor cactus). 'What shall we do?'

Antonio scratched the back of his head and shrugged. 'I guess I'll go clean up Matteo. You and Alejo and Luisa can… well, get into bed and go to sleep. Is that alright with you, my love?'

'I don't know. Is it alright with you?' I said. I know it was pretty selfish and egoistic of me, but I still gave him a disappointed look. I mean, god, I sure had wanted some hot, passionate action tonight.

'It is.' Antonio shot a remorseful "I also want you but we'll continue this some other night okay" -ish look right back, before he hopped off the bed again and took Matteo's hand in his.

'Come on, Teo, you little… rooster-block.'

'Blocks!' Teo chirped as Antonio dragged him out of the room. 'Ehehehehe, I liek blocks, they're pwetty!~ Ohhhh, do ya like them too, Papa…'

…aaaand then they had actually left the room.

I huffed and growled and glared into the direction of the door for a sec or two, feeling helpless and even sort of desperate, as if I was being punished for something I didn't even do, but then I realized Antonio was right, dammit, and snapped out of it.

'Pull me up!' Alejo jumped up and down like a freaking hamster on pep pills. 'Pull me up pull me up pull me up papa!'

'I can do it myselves,' Luisa haughtily said to no one in particular, grabbing the covers of the bed.

'Well…' I said with a grunt as I pulled Alejo up the bed and helped Luisa climb on it as well (even though she immediately screamed I shouldn't), 'you can sleep here, sure, but… can you promise me one thing?'

'What?' Luisa asked as she made herself comfortable and installed herself next to me, ignoring the fact Alejo was fluffing the pillows behind them by murderously pounding on them with his fists.

I let myself slide back in-between the sheets and carefully pulled both of them close to me.

'Be happy.' I smiled at both of them in turns. 'Can you promise me that?'

'Yea!' Alejo said, painfully wrestle-cuddling my arm. 'Okay!'

'Luisa?' I looked at the girl clutching my shirt and stroke some thick strands of hair out of her face. 'You too, baby?'

'Yea,' she mumbled softly, closing her eyes.

I smiled, feeling a lot less frustrated all of a sudden, and dimmed the light.