I'm thinking that this is the longest chapter thus far!
Okay so news: I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year (idk if you can search people, but my user on there is also nerdyfanchick, so if you can, add me as a writing buddy!), which is great! Unless you're someone that wants updates before December.
During November I'm going to focus mostly on my NaNovel and I might end up writing a couple of one-shots/chapter parts if I have the time (I've never done NaNo, so idk if I will)
Also I went back and minorly edited some chapters, nothing that'll affect the story, but like just housekeeping stuff, y'know
But I hope you guys enjoy your surprise update ( it's a surprise for me too, I didn't think I'd finish this so quickly omg)!
"What?" Matthew's voice cracked on the simple word, sounding surprisingly like a dying cat. He and Lovino were stalled in front of his house - Monika and Alice were apparently going to get a ride from Julchen or something - and he was sure that there was no way he had heard Lovino correctly.
Lovino huffed and looked out his window. "I just suggested it because it would make it easier to brainstorm ideas to get the Mercury Lamp to notice you if you stayed over, but whatever."
"No, no, I mean, I have to ask my parents, but that'd be great!" Matthew quickly assured Lovino, carefully avoiding telling him that they would probably be delighted that their reclusive son had a friend, before asking, "But, uh, 'Mercury Lamp'?"
"Julchen," Lovino clarified, before mumbling, "I need friends that get my references, damn it."
"Oh, okay, cool. So just let me go ask my parents and pack a bag? And you can come in if you want?"
Lovino shrugged, but hopped out anyway and followed Matthew to the porch. Matthew paused with a hand on the doorknob.
"Okay, fair warning, my mom is...Well, she's not bad, per say, she's just... a lot like Al; I'll leave it at that. If you're lucky, then we'll only run into mere."
"Wha-"
Matthew didn't give Lovino time to finish, whipping the door open and immediately dodging the large white blur that was Kuma. Lovino, who made a noise that could only be rendered as 'urblasmth' as he was tackled by the overexcited dog, was evidently not as lucky. Marianne Williams-Jones was outside seconds later, her normally-ponytailed hair falling loose and framing her distressed face in curly loops.
"Kuma!" His meré yelled, not even trying to remember the second, much debated and forgotten part of Kuma's name, "Get back inside right- Oh dear."
Matthew and Marianne worked to pull the Great Pyrenees off of Lovino, which was extremely hard because Kuma was heavy and neither of them were particularly strong, but they did eventually get him off, even if he was still lingering around Lovino's general area.
"I'm so sorry for that, Kuma just gets overexcited... all the time," Marianne apologized to Lovino, who was honestly more preoccupied with getting the dog spit off his face then her. Nonetheless, he responded politely, something that Matthew was actually really surprised by.
"It's fine, signora, I've dealt with worse."
Marianne smiled gently, before scrunching her face up, "If you don't mind me asking so, um, who are you?"
"How rude of me; perdonami, signora," Lovino held out a hand, the picture of a gentleman, "I'm Matthew's... school friend. Lovino Vargas."
Marianne gasped, looking from Matthew to Lovino, "You're Matthew's friend?" Matthew prayed to every God he knew of for the ground to swallow him up. When it didn't, he was subject to incredulous looks from his meré and Lovino obviously trying really hard not to laugh. "I'm sorry; I've just never met one of Matthew's little friends, other than that slightly terrifying German girl that came over once. I have to- Amelia will be ecstatic."
Matthew inwardly groaned as his meré rushed back into the house. They'd have to face mom's enthusiasm now.
"You took the time to warn me about your mom - who was a fucking delight, for your information - but you didn't think to tell me that you were harboring a hellhound."
"That was meré," Matthew shrugged as the boys followed Kuma, who had apparently lost interest in Lovino, inside. "Meré's normal... mostly. It's mom that I'm worried about."
Once the boys were in the entryway, Matthew could hear his mothers' excited voices. Great.
The Williams-Jones house wasn't anything particularly special, just a typical Himaruya suburban house; 4-bed-2-bath, mostly open downstairs. With Lovino, Lovino who drove a Maserati and (probably) imported clothes from Italy, Matthew felt sort of self-conscious of their mostly average, sort of cluttered decor (The only things that stood out were the intricate dining room table that grandmeré had sent them, and the old, worn couch that mom had gotten out of pop-pop's will).
"It's so... homely," Lovino muttered, flushing when he realized that Matthew had heard him. "I meant that in, y'know, a good way. Looks lived in and comfy and shit."
Matthew cocked his head in confusion, but before he could ask a loud voice interrupted them.
"So I hear that my Mattie's brought someone home! A Vargas, right?" Amelia Williams-Jones' voice boomed as she came sliding out of the kitchen, stopping just before crashing into the boys, leaning forward to examine Lovino. "Oh gee, isn't he just fancy-looking? What was you name again, sugar? My Annie is just the worst with names and by the time she started talking she couldn't remember what it was."
"Um, Lovino, ma'am," Lovino answered, obviously offput by her loudness and energy. He should be here on Sundays when Amelia and Alfred watch football together, then he'd know energy.
"Hahahahaha, he said 'ma'am', ain't that just the cutest thing?" Amelia stuck her hand in Lovino's face, and Matthew had to stifle laughter when Lovino timidly shook it, "It's just Amelia, kiddo!"
"Mom," Matthew interrupted before Lovino could self-combust in embarrassment, "Can I stay over at the Vargas' tonight?"
"Ohmondieu," Marianne's voice came from around the corner, "Our little Matthew wants to have a sleepover!"
Oh my god, why.
"Meré, please stop," Matthew whined.
Amelia winked at the boys, "Yeah Annie, they're teenagers now, and teenagers don't have 'sleepovers', right? They have some other lingo for it."
Why.
"Oh, oh, je vois," Marianne winked as well, her eyes glittering behind her glasses, "Oui, Matthieu, you can go 'hang out' at your friend's house for tonight!"
"Merci, mamans," Matthew nearly sighed in relief, before dragging Lovino up to his room. "Dieu, they're embarrassing."
"I don't know, they seem nice," Lovino shrugged, before scowling at the ground and muttering something like "At least they try."
Matthew stared at the Italian's scowl for a second, before deciding that it wasn't his place to ask and turning to pack up his duffel.
The second he stepped into the Vargas' home - More like mansion, Matthew thought - he understood what Lovino had meant when he called Matthew's place homely. From the outside, the Vargas' was nice; a pretty whitewashed three-story with lots and lots of pillars, professional landscaping, and a cast iron gate that just scream Rich!. The inside was sparsely decorated, lots of closed doors with crystal knobs, and the few things that Matthew had seen were bright, organically shaped 'modern' stuff, sticking out sorely in the Vargas' traditional and lightly colored home.
("Nonno's got this new girlfriend - Da-something, I think - and she's really into post-modernism or what-the-fuck-ever. He lets his flavor-of-the-weeks pick out the decor, not that they're usually here to actually see it, because he thinks its a nice gesture or something," Lovino had said when he caught Matthew looking at the out of place furnishings. "In my opinion, the only 'nice' thing about it is that when they break up, he ships all this shit out to the chick so that we can go back to ma-normal furniture."
Matthew had pretended not to notice his 'ma'-something slip)
Lovino led him up a grand staircase, past the occasional piece of impressive artwork, and to a deep red door. Lovino opened the door to reveal what Matthew thought was a bedroom. Keyword: thought, because wow , it had a huge floor-to-roof mirror and a flatscreen and an xBox and beanbag chairs and is that a mini grill?
"This is your room?" Matthew breathed out, barely able to believe it.
"Sort of. This is like," Lovino made some vague gestures, ears red, "Like the... 'foyer', I think the word is? That door's my actual bedroom, that one's the bathroom, and that's my closet. I'm going to go get my pajamas on, you can use the bathroom to change."
Matthew nodded, grabbing his bag and going into the (Huge! Extremely nice! With a jacuzzi tub!) bathroom and quickly putting on his flannel pants and old Maple Leaves shirt. When he was done, Lovino still hadn't finished, so he started to look around.
This isn't snooping! He reasoned with himself, You're just making sure that he's not some sort of... axe murderer! Yeah, we'll go with that.
From his not-snooping, Matthew found out that the cabinet beneath the hanging T.V. was filled with movies. There were VHS's and DVDs, and most of the cases were labeled in Italian, but the English ones were mostly documentaries. Matthew thought that it was a bit weird, since Lovino hadn't came off to him as a history buff, but he supposed that lots of people wouldn't think that he was into hockey at first either. He picked one on the American Manifest Destiny years and opened it up to see...
27 Dresses?
Matthew stared at the disc, the case cover, then back at the disc. "Eh?"
"Oh cazzo," Lovino was frozen in his doorway, his face rapidly reddening in a bad contrast to his orange sleepshirt and black shorts. "You weren't supposed to find those."
Those? Matthew rose an eyebrow, looking back at the cabinet, Does that mean that there are more romcoms in there?
"If you tell anyone that I have a collection of dumb romantic movies, like I'm a girl or some shit, then I swear to god, I'll- I'll-"
"Don't worry about it, Lovino," Matthew cut him off as he shut the case in his hands, glancing up at Lovino's still-panicked face, making a split-second decision. "That's what friends are for, right?"
Matthew held his breath. Lovino's face was back to it's normal impassive scowl, plus a magnificent blush, but his golden eyes flashed with emotion.
"Y-yeah," Lovino said finally, coming to sit next to Matthew on the floor, "Friends and all that."
"You know, I actually really like this one. Al and I marathon romcoms sometimes, and this is one of his favorites."
Lovino blinked owlishly and Matthew had to suppress the grin that was threatening to spread across his face, "Really?"
"Really," Matthew confirmed, finally letting some of the smile bleed through.
"Do you... do you want to watch it? I haven't seen this one in for-fucking-ever, but like, it's pretty good," Lovino reached in and pulled out one of the Italian cases, popping it open. "My favorite right now is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days though, because it's so great that the southern bastard gets a taste of his own medicine in it, and then they fall in love anyway. I actually have a bunch - way more than I need, that's for sure - plus the few that Ali owns... if you want to watch any of them, that is."
"Why not?" Matthew said, because even if his favorite movie genre was psychological thriller, he still liked getting gross mushy feelings from movies. And because, he thought, Lovino definitely deserves to smile more.
/FRIENDSHIP INTENSIFIES
Even if Matt doesn't know it, he's just taken it onto himself to become the best of best friends with Lovi. We're talking like Troy and Abed levels of friendship up in here guys.
Also, I said last chapter that the parents were all Nyo or 2p? The Williams-Jones parents are Nyo!Canada and Nyo!America, who had Al and Matt by the same surrogate father at about the same time (It was an accident. Amelia's pregnancy test results had shown a false negative (shhhh of course it happens irl) and so they decided to try with Marianne (Because Amelia wanted to pass on the pretty eye gene to their kids) and voila! Months later, they discover that they're both preggers, and the rest is history). Himaruyans (I'M UNORIGINAL WITH TOWN NAMES BUT AT LEAST IT'S NOT NAMED HETALIA) are super accepting, which is why the Williams-Jones' moved there, so no one gave them shit for accidentally having two kids at once, and for the boys' first five years, everyone in town thought they were twins (The same surrogate thing is why they look so similar).
Next time: Pancakes! Shopping! Romance! Actual prucan! Probably not any snuck-in spamano!