Losing My Religion
Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia or REM's Losing my Religion.
Why couldn't Antonio take a hint? Why couldn't he figure out that he didn't want to talk to him, Lovino wondered as he kicked a small black pebble down the street. His hands were stuffed into his faded looking jeans, his chest shivered into the brown sweatshirt he wore. October in Canada was cool and it would only get cooler, and snowier. He walked down his street with his head looking down at the cemented sidewalk, his shoulders hunched over, away from his house where his homophobic father was ranting to no one in particular that gays shouldn't be allowed to run for public office. He wasn't sure why this rant in particular had driven him away from his warm house, where he could play X-box or do his reading homework for English, to the cool world outside the walls. Maybe it had to do with the fact that his best friends were gay, not that his father hadn't ranted this way before, rants like this were a daily occurrence sometimes, or maybe it had to do with reoccurring dreams he had begun having about Antonio the night before school started. Whatever the reason, Lovino was cold and miserable.
"Stupid fathers, stupid weather, stupid Canada." He mumbled kicking another pebble into the street. "Being so fucken cold." Another rock kicked into the road.
"You know you cold flatten someone's tire with all those rocks you've been kicking into the street." A familiar, cheerful voice said from behind. Lovino froze and didn't dare turn around to look at him, he felt like a kid who'd just gotten caught sticking his hand in the cookie jar, something that had happened to him quite often when he was a kid thanks to the boy standing behind him.
"Why the fuck do you care all the sudden?" Lovino snapped angrily,
"Cause people drive on the road, silly Lovi." Antonio laughed his voice was still cheerful, not even the cold could make his cheerfulness disperse, Lovino lamented.
"So? Why are you out here anyway?" Lovino finally turning to look at his longtime friend.
"You looked lonely." Antonio said with a shrug, his hands were tucked into the pockets of his red hoodie, a red and yellow knitted hat covered his chocolate brown curls, he looked as if he was in his element dressed like that. But anyone who knew Antonio knew he hated the cold even more then Lovino did, after all it didn't get very cold in Spain.
"So?"
"So, what's wrong? You know you can tell me anything." He poked Lovino's side with his elbow in an almost teasing manor.
"Leave me alone." Lovino snapped starting to walk down the street again. Antonio didn't follow him and Lovino started to feel guilty for making him upset, Antonio had always been there for him.
The once warm and inviting church with its beautiful stain glass windows depicting different scenes from the New Testament, making green and purple light shine into the room sometimes during mass, no longer felt inviting to Lovino. A congregation of people sang songs of requiem in the ancient langage of Latin. At the front, on a plain brown wooden table sat a casket with a beautiful woman with long brown hair and tan Meddeteranian looking skin lay inside. Romina Vargas, Lovino's mother.
Lovino sat in the back row of pews, the farthest away from his mother. No tears were shed from the eight year olds eyes, unlike his younger brother who could have filled a fountain with all the tears that fell from his eyes. No one paid any notice to him. No one, save the boy sitting next to him, Antonio Carriedo.
"It's going to be okay, Lovi, you'll see." Antonio promised, putting a hand on Lovino's back. "I'll protect you." He was smiling still even though he was at a funeral.
"I'm not sad!" Lovino said angrily, "You don't know anything!" Antonio chuckled at him. "I'm not! If anyone's sad its Feliciano whose sad."
"It's okay to be sad at first, you just can't be sad all the time. Mrs. Romina wouldn't want that." He stretched his arms out welcoming the younger boy into a hug.
"I miss her." Lovino said into his chest. "Bring Mommy back." Antonio laid his head on top of Lovino's while he cried into his white shirt. "Please bring Mommy back."
"Antonio," he said turning back around to face the distressed Spaniard who was no longer smiling. "Antonio, I just- I'm confused and I need some time. Away from you."
"Oh, okay," said Antonio his face crestfallen. "Well, if- if you ever need anyone, I'm always here."
"I know," Lovino said with half a smile, Antonio was always there for him, and call Lovino selfish but he relied on that, craved it. Antonio was sometimes the only one who Lovino thought really actually cared about him. "I'll see you around."
"Yeah," Antonio turned dejectedly away, back to his house. Lovino sighed, why did he always hurt those he cared about? Why couldn't he find that happy medium?
"Antonio, I- I'm sorry." Lovino shouted, but Antonio didn't even acknowledge that he'd spoken. Fine, he didn't give a shit either. Letting out an angry huff, Lovino turned back around and continued walking in the other direction. He had apologized; didn't Antonio know how difficult it was for him to say he was sorry?
He continued walking not sure of where his feet were taking him till he was standing in front of the Church he had attended since he was a baby with his father and mother until she died, it was Catholic obviously, he was of Italian decent after all. He walked in, God was obviously trying to tell him something. "Hello Lovino," said Father Remus, an elderly Italian man who looked younger than his age with his slightly grayed brown hair. He'd worked once with the Holy Father before he had come to Canada to do the Lord's work here.
"Can I talk to you, Father?" Lovino asked watching the man light the candles on the alter. Father Remus was like a grandfather to him and Feliciano, and most of the times he found it easier to talk to the holy man then his own father.
"Certainly, what troubles you?" Remus asked sitting down on one of the front pews beside Lovino. The sanctuary hadn't changed much since his mother's funeral and the green and purple glass created sanctified shapes on the floor.
"Does God hate gays?" Lovino's voice remained even despite talking about a seemingly taboo topic in the Catholic Church.
"No, is this about your friends or your father?"
"Both."
"No, I don't believe God is capable of hating anyone. Not even Satan himself. Do I believe we are to treat gay people and differently as heterosexual people as your father does? No, and I'm sure that is shocking coming from a Catholic Priest." Remus smiled at Lovino. "You are very wise, Lovino, and very mature. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
"I wish you preached mass, Father."
"The Lord does not will me to."
"Thank you, Father." Lovino said standing up.
"I hope I have brought some peace to your troubles."
"Yes, thank you." Lovino said, "Will I see you tomorrow at mass?"
"No, I will be doing Confession."
"Oh, well maybe afterward then." Lovino said shrugging and turned to walk out of the church. Lovino didn't normally attend Confession like he should, he wasn't fond of the idea of spilling his secrets to anyone but God himself.
"Purhaps."
The walk home didn't seem as aimless as his walk to the church. He thought about Antonio and Matthew, both had come out of the closet that they were gay and Gilbert, who was all but come out with his shameless flirting with Matthew. The blond Canadian had told Lovino that he was in love with Gilbert, but he was terrified to the albino in case he didn't feel the same way. They were hanging out today, and Lovino had been tempted to ask Feliciano to go to Ludwig's house to spy on them to make sure the older boy didn't break his best friend's heart, but he really didn't want his little brother hanging out with the German boy.
"Fratello." Feliciano said running outside the house to greet his older brother. The auburn haired boy wore no shoes and Lovino knew that his feet must have been cold touching the freezing concrete underneath them. "Where'd you go?"
"To see Father Remus, I had some questions for him." Lovino gazed up to the top right window of the house to the left of his own where he could see the profile of Antonio gazing down at the brothers. The curtain moved and Antonio disappeared. Lovino sighed, now the one person he had always depended on was mad at him, and he still wasn't sure how to fix the issue. Antonio had never been mad at him before.
"What kind?"
"The religious types," Lovino said with a shrug, walking in doors. "Why all the questions?"
"Dad was worried." Feliciano said almost skipping along beside him. "You've been gone for a couple of hours."
"Dad was worried? Dad hardly gives a fuck about you and me. Just another way of getting taxes deducted." He didn't care if his father heard him or not.
"Fratello, don't say that."
"You just don't see it cause he dotes on you." Feliciano frowned and water began to form around his eyes.
"Mi dispace!" he cried hugging his brother and leaving tear marks all over his sweatshirt.
"Get off of me!"
Lovino sighed as he listened to the priest, he never could remember what his name was, talk on and on about some particular topic that Lovino didn't care to pay attention to. Two rows diagnolly right of him sat Antonio in between his parents; Francis was sitting right beside Mrs. Carriedo. Antonio was fidgeting while he sat, he never could sit still too long without getting ansty, Lovino thought with a small smile.
He longed to go sit beside him and talk about the issues that had sprung up between the two of them the dreams, the homophobic father, high school, hormones. To run his hands through those curly locks and feel how his lips felt pressed against his, and to run his hands down- whoa- he was at church, he couldn't think those kinds of things. But he wanted to and that scared Lovino most of all.
"You okay Lovi, you look upset." Feliciano whispered quietly so that Octavious wouldn't hear them.
"Yes," Lovino said quickly, damn that Tomato Bastard making him this flustered.
"Okay," Feliciano didn't seem convinced.
Confession always took place in a side room away from the sanctuary, and the priest, Remus this time, would always talk to you through a box so that they couldn't know who they were talking to. Lovino was sure that they recognized people by their voices though, maybe even better than their faces.
"Father," Lovino said calmly, he already knew what he was going to confess.
"Speak my child." Father Remus said,
"Father, I-I think I love a man."
Every whisper,
Of every waking hour
I am choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool,
Oh no, I've said too much
I've set it up
Consider this,
Consider this, the hint of the century,
Consider this, the slip
That brought me to my knees, failed
What if all these fanstasies come
Flailing down,
Now I've said, too much
I thought that I heard you laughing,
I thought that I heard you sing,
I think I thought I saw you try,
But that was just a dream,
That was just a dream,
That's me in the corner
That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep a view
And I don't know if I can do it
Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough
Author's Note (the part of the story where the author comes out and writes a silly note): Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers! I've actually had this chapter written on notebook paper for quite a while, I just had to write chapter two…. Yeah sometimes I write like that. Hahaha. So yeah…. Hm I have nothing more to say, that's weird. Oh well.