Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine. Neither is Romano's wine bottle. However, his attitude towards cleaning is. (XD hooray for lazy-asses who don't like to clean!)
A/N: "YOU GAIZZZZZ! I'M IN SAN FRANCISCO! IT'S SO... cityish. Geez, I think our cab driver almost hit just about everything he passed. And right now I am about to DIE because it's Saturday at 7:52 pm PST, and it's bed time back home, and I've been going going going since 1:30 am PST. (over... a lot of hours, I can't count with this little sleep) But, I had a whole lot of NOTHING to do on my two flights over (two and four hours) and four and a half hour layover, so I wrote! If it's angsty... Well it should be. Four and a half hour layover. Oh, the headache that was. Haha that influenced the mood of this chapter a lot, and when I looked back like, "Can I make this happier?" I was like, nah, I LOVE this."
Oh yeah... And it was 7:52 PST on Saturday the 14th when I wrote this... and Saturday of the NEXT week when I finished it. (On a plane.) But I didn't post it 'cause my mom refused to let me tell ANYONE when we were going. And then grounded me. So... I apologize for my lateness. READ ON!
\(^.^)/ - Spain.
Leaving Spain at the door, for no more malicious a reason than I simply had nothing else to say to him, I made my way into the kitchen, and pulled open the fridge to see if there was a bottle of wine already opened. I didn't immediately see an open bottle, so I just tugged the nearest one out of the fridge and tore the cork out with my teeth, before realizing there was a half-empty bottle sitting behind it.
I shrugged, uncaring, closing the fridge again. I didn't even bother to get a glass to put it in, I just sat down at the kitchen table and nursed that fucking wine like a baby, after taking one long swig. A red... some recent year that I didn't particularly care about, because FUCK quality wine, I just wanted to get drunk, dammit.
"Are you sure you're alright, Lovi?" Spain asked, pausing at the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the doorway. "You seemed kind of... upset after a while."
"I WAS upset, dammit!" I snapped, hugging the bottle to my chest for support. "I... I don't know what's going on in the world! I don't know why everyone has changed so much! It's freaking me out, and you didn't explain it, you just let them all come and chit chat, and do you know what? They weren't even here for me, Spain. They were here for you!"
He looked appalled, but I continued ranting, even if only so that I could get this all off my chest. "The wine bastard and tea bastard- they don't like me! And America? Firstly, holy SHIT he got big! Secondly, who the fuck brought him anyway? And Prussia hates me and Canada's nice enough, but he doesn't know me! Hungary just wanted more pictures for her porn collection, Austria got dragged with her, and Russia's just a creepy bastard who doesn't even respect me as (half) a nation! Bella's the only one who might care about me, but the Netherlands came with her, and he's just an ass to everyone!"
I took another long swig of wine, before slamming the bottle back on the table, and looking back up at Spain.
His head was hung, and his arms, previously crossed, now hung limp at his sides. "I'm sorry Lovi," he said dejectedly, "I didn't know that's how you felt about it..."
"Yeah, that's how I felt about it, dammit! I don't like your friends! I can see that hasn't changed much in the last 150 years! And do you know what has? EVERYTHING ELSE!"
"I'm SORRY, Lovi!" he shouted, slamming his fist into the door frame. "I'm sorry, alright? I didn't know! I just thought everyone was trying to wish you well! I thought it would be nice! Alright? This is hard on me too, you know!"
"Dammit, Spain, do you think I don't know that?" I screamed, gesticulating wildly with my hands, wine bottle and all. "I do, fucking damn it all! But do you know what? I'm still the one who lost his fucking memory! Not you! And you can't possibly... Cristo, you have no idea how it feels! None! It fucking sucks balls!" I paused to take a breath, (because, HELL, could I rant when I wanted to,) and then continued. "Spain, you don't seen to... understand this. I don't know world history anymore. I don't know my history or your history or fucking anything! I don't know what the Euro crisis was, I don't know what went wrong with your economy, and I don't even know what kind of government I have. It's just a little fucking hard on me, alright?"
"I GET IT, LOVINO!" he roared, spluttering and spinning in a circle, tearing at his hair, trying to find a way to vent the raging energy I'm sure matched my own at the moment.
Even though his yelling and stomping had yet to do it, I froze when he called me Lovino instead of Lovi.
He'd been pulling that shit since I was just a little kid.
It was always Lovi.
Lovi this, Lovi that, Lovi mi tomate.
Never Lovino.
"I get it, alright! Just- just stop bitching at me about it! 'Oh, I lost my fucking memory, now I get to complain even MORE than fucking usual!' Will you give it a fucking break? I'm doing the best I can!" he finished, panting and glaring at me in a manner I couldn't ever remember seeing Spain glare at anyone.
It held me frozen in fear for a moment, but then I got my breath back in a rush of anger and hurt. "WELL APPARENTLY IT'S NOT FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH, SPAIN!" I shrieked. "AND DO YOU KNOW WHY I'M COMPLAINING MORE THAN USUAL? BECAUSE I CAN'T FUCKING REMEMBER 'USUAL'!"
With the last word, I flung the wine bottle towards him, not thinking about consequences at all, just acting on the raw fury driving me to keep shouting at him.
He ducked, with the agility only someone truly used to executing such maneuvers would be able to. Maybe to him it looked like an arrow from the French, or a cannonball from England.
Because the way he dodged that shit...
Well... while I suck at many things, I've got a fucking good aim.
The wine bottle hit the wall behind him, and smashed there, sending droplets of red liquid and shards of glass flying all over the room. Most of it rained all over Spain's head, and his previously-clean white shirt, quickly turning it pink and showering his shoulders in glass.
The sound of shattering glass seemed to break something inside of me, and I crossed the thin divide from anger to upset, because really, was there a difference between the two? The room remained deathly silent but for my now-ragged breathing, and Spain's quickened breaths, which were barely audible compared to my own unattractive gasps.
He looked up after a second or two, eyes wide, to find me standing now, tears streaming down my cheeks. I blinked at him once, and remorse began to flood into his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, reaching out to me, but I shook my head, running from the room before I could really crash and burn.
\(^.^)/ - Spain...
Half an hour later found me lost sufficiently deep enough in Spain's house to have let my anger out, and under the covers in a room I didn't remember, with the broken remains of more antique Spanish vases surrounding the bed. Tears of anger and frustration had already drenched the pillows, so I had to settle for resting my head on the blankets when I finally calmed down enough to consider sleep an option.
I was just... so done.
So done with this bastard and his fucking expectations.
What did he think, I would be able to just go back to being his l-lover again?
Did he think I could just remember the last 152 years like fucking magic?
Because...
I wished it worked that way too, but it didn't.
Spain expected a lover...
I expected an older brother or cousin or... father or something!
I don't know, dammit!
I just knew that I definitely wasn't prepared to take Spain on as anything like a lover yet.
If there was just some way to make him understand this... see this from my perspective!
Spain's been through a lot of shit in his day, but this isn't something he's experienced.
It seems so small, when you say it.
Amnesia.
That's because you're not experiencing it.
Imagine not being able to remember the last five years of school, your friends, your relationships, but still know everything you learned there.
Imagine learning to ride a bike, swim, run, throw a javelin, ANYTHING- and know how to do it, but not remember where you learned or who taught you.
Imagine waking up, expecting to be in Italy with your brother, fighting a rebellion for your independence... and waking up instead over a century later with your caretaker claiming to have been in a relationship with you, and all of the world's history eluding you.
It's... It's hard, alright?
And I can't scrape up another ounce of sympathy for Spain while I'm still missing most of my history -national and otherwise.
At first... yeah, I felt bad for him, but there was nothing I could do! I had no memory!
What, did he want me to pretend to remember? No, I didn't think so.
And surely he didn't expect me to just make a miraculous recovery.
Because my bones were healing quite nicely... my memory? Not so much.
Quite frankly... I think a big part of why I'm so upset with him now is just that he's being his oblivious self without being his happy self at the same time. Happy and oblivious. That's Spain. Well, after his pirate days anyway.
He was too oblivious to realize I wouldn't want all the other nations practically swarming me the day I got out of the hospital, too oblivious to think that maybe it was a lot harder for me to cope than I let on, and yet...
He looked so down in the van. And again just before our argument.
It's like he's upset it's happening... but he's making me feel like its all my fault this is happening at all.
It's... not my fault.
The amnesia or the fight, I suppose... Or, no... The fight, I guess.
I... I refuse to accept that it is.
Because do you know what?
I'm the fucking victim here.
I'm the one who got hit by a car.
I'm the one who lost his memory.
I'm the one who can't remember his relationship.
And none of those things are my fault either.
Holding that notion comfortingly in my chest, I finally fell into a deep sleep, more from exhaustion from the day's events than because I deserved it.
\(^.^)/ - Spain...?
...And with that I tore my hand back from my Spanish companion, and stormed on ahead of the pair of them through the lot.
I didn't need anyone holding my hand, dammit. I was fucking old enough by now, and if I wasn't by Spain's books, well hell, I sure as fuck looked it!
"Lovi, wait!" Spain exclaimed, and seized my shoulder, effectively stopping me from walking out from the shadow of a mini-van.
I struggled against his hand instantly, slapping it off of my shoulder and shouting, "Get the fuck off of me!"
In the next instant I whirled around to step back out from behind the shadow, when I was stopped by a rush of air as a sleek black car went whizzing past me. The gust of air blew so hard, it actually sent my curl bouncing over to the other side of my face in the after-draft, and tore open my unbuttoned suit jacket.
So enraptured in my little self-confidence boosting mental session, I hadn't noticed a car pulling out of the parking lot, and coming towards me, very quickly.
Stupid American fuckers! Drive slower in the parking lot, dammit!
"Fuck," I muttered, starting forward again after a few seconds, and looking both ways this time. I sped up my pace again, disregarding the undeniable shaking in my legs.
A collision with that car wouldn't have killed me, certainly, but... it would have hurt like a bitch, and I might've been in the hospital for a... a long time.
"Lovi," Spain said, catching up with my quickened pace as we reached the entrance to the lobby.
I frowned to myself for an instant. I mean, not that I wasn't grateful he hadn't just saved my government some hospital bills, but Spain wasn't sounding at all like himself today. He was always happy; always. Even when I broke things, or Feli said something blatantly rude, or the tea bastard was pissing him off. Always happy. (Too fucking happy, if you asked me, but whatever.)
The point was, he was always happy. In fact, the only times he had ever been truly unhappy in my presence had included his return from that terrible loss to England, and maybe that one time I peed on his floor when I was really really little.
He was acting a little bit off today, no doubt about it. There was no cheerful smile when he woke me up at the corner across from Walgreens, and no exclamations of how like a tomato I looked when I was blushing after Feli's awkward sex-question.
But... I mean...
What the crapola was I supposed to do about that?
\(^.^)/ - Spain.
I managed to get inside the first set of doors before his hand closed on my shoulder again, and he spun me around. I slapped it off as soon as I could, just as in the parking lot.
Ugh, now I owed the bastard... once again. Fuck.
Feli passed the both of us by in favor of greeting Japan, who was in the middle of the lobby.
"Take your meds!" I shouted after him, but he just waved over his shoulder in response. Stupid bastard.
"I know you wanted to have a night to relax, which I don't understand at all because frankly you relax all the time, amigo..." Spain said, and I graciously decided to ignore that remark, and let him finish his thought. "But I think you've forgotten that there's a night meeting tonight. Meaning you won't have any time to yourself until tomorrow night. That's when the last meeting ends."
"Merda!" I exclaimed, slapping a palm to my forehead in frustration. "Che cazzo, stupid American bastard, is it too much to ask for a break between these gatherings of the demons?"
"But Lovi, we just had an entire day off..." Spain interjected quickly. "You just happened to waste most of it sleeping..."
"Vaffanculo, Antonio!" I cursed as I pushed past the second doors, and began to storm through the lobby.
"You said my name!" Spain gasped, his voice returning to its usual happy tone. "Oh, mi Romanito, you do care about me! And how cute, now you're blushing! Your face looks just like a tomato!"
Now that was the tomato bastard I knew and loved.
Wait... what?
However, before my startled brain could process the facts that Spain was back to normal and I had just unconsciously admitted I loved him, he very unceremoniously GLOMPED me.
In the middle of the lobby.
With everyone watching.
(Including China, who I think was still glaring daggers at me over that mental China-products-suck comment from before! Shit!)
And proceeded to coo over how like a tomato I looked now, and how precious I was, and how I really did care about 'Boss' Spain.
I proceeded to elbow him and get in the elevator alone before he could catch his breath.
The elevator was nice, I observed. All... Elevator-y and shit. And that elevator-y music. That was nice. I could focus on how much I hated it instead of what had just happened.
It was a... reflex, I tried to tell myself.
I was only a little worried that he'd been smoking the Netherlands' shit, and was in withdrawal or something now.
With all that freaky non-Spain-like unhappy shit.
And... I was just pleased to see he wasn't high.
Because that could be dangerous to... Feli.
That's right.
...
Okay, it sounded like a half-assed excuse to me too.
We shall never speak of this again.
Never.
Capisce?
\(^.^)/ - Spain.
Thank God, that damn meeting didn't start until 6. It was still only 3 in the afternoon.
Well, screw normal eating habits, I was hungry and I was making myself a damn pizza.
It would take an hour or so for the dough to rise anyway.
And I would enjoy it, dammit.
Feli had actually managed to get the shit I needed, too. Surprise, surprise. Chigi, well I wasn't complaining. The yeast, the bread flour, the olive oil, and both the salt and sugar; it was all here. And naturally, everything I needed for the tomato sauce, the best part of the pizza pie.
There is NOTHING better in this world than an Italian handmade pizza pie.
Then again I brought myself up on this amazing shit, so I might be a little biased.
\(^.^)/ - Spain...?
When I woke up the next morning, (read: jerked bolt upright in bed, in a cold sweat, at 12:59 pm and whimsically wondered why the fuck I could never finish a memory) I decided I'd been a little shit to Spain yesterday, even before our fight, and I at least owed it to him to clean up the wine bottle's mess. I got out of bed (read: worked my way out from the tangled mess of blankets I had hidden in all night,) and neatened up the room a bit (read: almost impaled my foot on the glass shards of the former-vases I hadn't cleaned up last night, cursed loudly, and brushed them under the bed) before heading down to the kitchen to get cleaning shit (read: bleach, a cloth and a broom, because Spain's walls were white anyway, and so far as the glass went, I could just sweep it somewhere Spain never went) and get to work.
I stopped first at the closet I remembered Spain to have left cleaning tools in before, and pulled out everything I thought could be of use. There was a dustpan and a bunch of rags, and I did find a container of bleach. There was no broom though, and after searching another five closets, I gave up, resolving just to use a rag or something.
When I reached the kitchen, I found the light still on, and the glass still all over the tile floor. There was a huge pink splatter stain on the white wall by the doorway into the sitting room, and it had dripped over the few hours I slept, now getting darker as it ran in stripes down to the wooden strip at the base of the wall. Spain was sitting in a chair but his arms laying splayed across the kitchen table, hair a mess and the glass shards from on his shirt now scattered across the tabletop.
I scowled at his carelessness, before brushing the glass on the table into the dustpan with my hand. My left arm had been broken in the crash, but a week later, it was almost healed, enough so that I could hold the dustpan without issue. There was one stubborn shard left wedged in a large crack in the worn wood, and I brushed my hand along it a few times, trying to unstick it, but instead only managing to create a gash a good centimeter long along the side of my palm.
I hissed, pulling my hand into my body and dropping the dustpan with a clatter, before inserting the bleeding area of skin into my mouth and sucking. A grunt (it totally WASN'T a fucking squeal, dammit) of pain escaped my mouth around my hand, but since even the dustpan hitting the floor hadn't woken Spain up, this didn't accomplish the feat either.
Well... I see his sleeping habits haven't changed.
\(^.^)/ - Spain.
I managed to get the rest of the kitchen relatively back to normal, before I finally collapsed into a chair next to Spain. It was already 4:30, but I felt accomplished, at least.
The stain on the wall was now just a few speckles of pink, on a wall slightly disintegrated from the intensity of the bleach I'd used (it had been a while since I cleaned, okay?) and a little bit whiter than the rest of the wall. I got the piece of glass that had cut my hand out of the crack in the table, and thrown it, along with the rest of the glass from the table (and Spain's hair... I picked all that glass out too) in the garbage, versus a closet or cupboard. (So I'm lazy... sue me.) The glass on the floor was the biggest pain in the ass.
Or... more accurately, pain in the hand. Because even with rags wrapped around both my hands, well, I'm a klutz, and nothing can stop me from fucking cleaning up in some way.
Because while I was sweeping it all up, I fell over backwards and had to catch myself on the floor, and embedded about five shards of glass into my palm.
And... I only got three of them out.
But, despite the bodily harm the cleaning caused me, (and the negative effects that bleach might have on me... it's not bad to smell bleach, is it?) I felt better for doing it.
The memory dream definitely helped me swallow my pride, I think, even if it was randomly unfinished. Any memory I have of Spain, (especially one that seemed so recent like this latest chain of them did,) helped me take a sort of calming breath in regards to this whole amnesia situation.
(Shut up, it makes sense to me.)
And... since it was so absurdly early in the morning, I just laid my head on the table next to Spain and fell asleep there, because dammit all my hand hurt, and it was 4 something in the morning and SCREW beds, I wanted to sleep.
\(^.^)/ - Spain.
...And rather reminiscent of the memory when Spain woke me up across from that intersection back in Connecticut, I woke up some time later to his voice, although it didn't sound as though he was talking to me. And why couldn't I feel my hand...?
"Gracias, Belgium," Spain started to say, before Bella cut him off.
"I didn't do it for you, Spain, I did it for Roma." she said coldly. "He's an adorable klutz, and I'll patch him up whenever he needs it. You, however, lost that privilege when you lost me."
I raised my head and looked around groggily.
When Spain lost Bella?
As a colony?
Hell if I remember when that was, but why does she sound so angry with him?
I saw Spain and Bella standing by the doorway opposite the sitting room, Bella glaring at the Spaniard, and Spain just looking at the floor guiltily. But then he seemed to have noticed my shift in position, and he glanced up at the table, and realized I was awake.
"M-Morning Lovi," he said shakily, attempting a cheerful smile. I just blinked at him, not exactly sure if he was trying to forget the events of last night or what.
"Hello, Roma dear," Bella smiled in my direction, the nasty snarl on her features from before gone now, and she offered me a dainty wave. "Feeling better?" I nodded, not trusting my voice to say a word after the screaming and the crying of the night before.
"Lo siento, Lovi," Spain said after a moment's hesitation when I didn't say anything. "I... I didn't mean what I said last night! I really didn't! I was just so tired..."
"It's okay, tomato bastard," I muttered, flexing my fingers and conveniently watching their movement instead of his reaction. "I... forgive you."
"Oh, thank you Lovi!" Spain exclaimed, rushing to my side and wrapping his arms around my waist. "I'm sorry, I won't yell at you again, I promise!"
"Yeah, yeah," I murmured, my hands finding their way into his hair and stroking his head as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
We sat there for a moment, just being comfortable in each others presence, until I heard a tiny coughing noise, and I glanced up. Bella locked eyes with me, her olive green irises boring into my own mixed color eyes with an intensity, trying to convey a message.
Meet me later, she seemed to be saying. We'll talk.
I nodded almost imperceptibly, and I knew she understood when she slipped around the doorway and disappeared into Spain's corridors. Meanwhile I just pulled Spain closer to me and hugged him tighter, trying to wish away the previous night's existence and pretend we were still alright.
\(^.^)/ - Spain...
A/N: Yeah... A fight. And then it got resolved. Kind of a bit of a filler chapter, I realize, but CHRIST this was hard to write.
On another note... I know I didn't mention this before, but there is a past USUK in here. So Alfred wants to win Arthur BACK from France. It'll come up again in the flashbacks, I promise lol. Next chapter (Christ knows when it'll be finished~) should probably be Bella and Roma's chat~!
But... Yeah, working on this is hard because I'm so stressed now we're back from vacation. (San Francisco was AMAZING! Oh and you guys can expect a PruCan oneshot sometime soon ;D me and my Gilbert made up and were texting all week.) Seriously, it was so fun. (All my acne even went away, I had so little stress :D) But now that we're back, I can't sleep right and my stomach is all messed up. I'm SO stressed cause soon I have a TWO HOUR driving session with my driving instructor and I HAVEN'T DRIVEN SINCE OUR LAST SESSION THREE WEEKS AGO. So screwed. I don't know how to park and I can't figure out a Y or K turn for my life. And on top of THAT I have four books to read! And journal entries to write on them! And a LOT of essays to do! And it's JULY! I'm so fucked!
Yeah... I've also realized you guys may not like all this personal rambling. But um... I feel a lot better when I can put it down somewhere, you know? I always love reading A/N's, unless it's like, "So, um, yeah, please review!" ...so don't hate me please. XD
Also... since I'm now phone-grounded (and that's where ALL my drafts are) I'm gonna have to start the next chapter soon but not necessarily TOO soon. Because I don't have my phone. And when I'm on the computer I can only be "on facebook". XD Thank you fanfiction for having a blue bar at the top. So uh... I'll try to get that out ASAP but no promises~! Love you guys~!
Also: Okay... Belgium. (If you hadn't figured it out yet, I'm setting her up as having dated Spain in the past.) Does she get someone in this fic, or not? I don't really care either way, but it's another sub-plot you all can vote on~! I'm pretty sure there are almost 40 of you little follower peoples now, so I expect some votes!
AND STILL UP FOR VOTING is the RoMerica issue. I know two of you (out of the five who voted -_-) DIDN'T want it, but I swear, if I put it in, they'll be just like friends with awkward moments. And I want to see it happen because I think it could be ADORABLE. But I need your guys' opinions! Seriously!
Awkward extra A/N: Yeah... I can only post one poll at a time... and right now I have the RoMerica one up, (but that's subject to change, naturally,) so can you guys maybe vote for who you want Belgium to end up with in reviews? So far I have one FraBel vote, which means an ending with either single!Iggy or USUK. Anyone want something... specific? Like... I dunno, RusBel (Sunny Day in February's favorite), NethBel, BelBel (that's just me suggesting crack XD) or I dunno, like... AmeBel or something. PLEASE vote, you guys? I don't know what to do with her. She's awkward.