Oh, this chapter is a lot shorter than the last, but oh well. I know, though, I'll update my other stories as soon as I get out of the rut I sort of stuck myself in with them. Ahaha.
I decided Saturdays will be my writing days, and I'll do actual work on Sundays. Perfect, si?
Spain had decided after the incident that the best thing to do was to rest his sickly body. Dragging himself to his feet, he wearily cleaned up the many corpses as best he could, spraying bottles of air freshener everywhere to cover up the smell of death. It was difficult work in his sickened state, but it had to be done. For the sake of traumatized Romano, if nothing else.
The next morning, Romano still didn't come running to him. He wandered the house, restless with worry. What if Romano hated him for what he had done? No, that couldn't be right. He was just trying to protect his henchman. Romano knew that. He knew that it was completely necessary for Spain to kill all those intruders. Didn't he?
Hours passed, and Spain's anxiety only increased. His house was eerily quiet, even more than usual. Admittedly, it was a large house, and often he could go a long time without running into one of the other three occupants (particularly the Netherlands), but this was just ridiculous. He hadn't heard the crash of a fallen bookshelf, or the clatter of pans falling from the kitchen cabinet.
"Romano?" he called into the house, and waited. Silence answered him.
The Italian was just hiding. That had to be it. Romano was just so shaken up from the previous day that he hid himself under the bed, or the closet, or something. Spain smiled in relief. Of course. He couldn't expect his innocent little henchman to be ready to face him after the first massacre.
"Belgium?" he next called. Once again, his entreaties were met with that eerie silence.
He frowned. That was strange. Where could Belgium be? Maybe she was off doing errands, or shopping, or whatever it was that girls liked to do. It wasn't odd for the female nation to be off doing something on her own, or with one of the other few female nations in the world. She was always back before sun down, so her absence wasn't much concern.
It was Romano he was worried about. He needed to get the Italian out of hiding, in case another invasion came, so he'd know where Romano was and the intruders couldn't sweep his henchman right out from under his feet.
As lunchtime approached, Spain decided to make pizza—the kind with small chunks of tomato in the sauce. It was Romano's favorite, and the smell would be sure to drive him out of hiding.
So Spain set about the business of preparing the pizza. He prepared the dough and went into the backyard to pick some fresh tomatoes. The happy tune he was humming came to a halt when he stepped outside and he froze.
His precious tomato plants were absolutely trampled. Not only that, but a few of the plants were uprooted or cut in half. The sight broke his heart, and actual tears sprang to his eyes, seeing his beloved tomatoes ruined—dropped to the ground to rot and brutally squashed for good measure.
Spain loved tomatoes almost as much as he cared for his cute little henchman, and it was probably because of Romano that he loved tomatoes. After all, it was Romano who showed him that tomatoes were, in fact, edible, and not filled with deadly toxins that made them fit only for decorative purposes.
"You bastard, how can you just let those beautiful tomatoes waste away there without eating them!" Romano had cried the first time he saw the plants placed upon the windowsills as decorations. He'd said that after Spain prevented him from snatching one of the bright red fruits straight from the plant to devour it whole.
Spain had been taken aback by Romano's reaction, believing he'd saved the Italian from a horribly painful death by poison. "Romano! Just because they're beautiful doesn't mean they're edible! You could die from eating those awful things!" he had replied (although admittedly his henchman probably have only gotten sick, being a half-nation and all), thinking that he'd have a lot to teach his charge if Romano did stupid things such as eating strange objects because of their aesthetic properties.
The response had only seemed to anger Romano even more, and he'd even kicked the Spaniard's shin to demonstrate his frustration.
"Damn it, idiot, tomatoes are not poisonous! I ate them in Italy all the time, before you came along and kidnapped me like the perverted bastard you are!" Romano had said angrily.
Spain had given Romano a puzzled look. "What are you saying? Tomato plants have to be poisonous. They look almost exactly like nightshade, and those are very toxic," he had explained carefully, as if logic could overrule experience. He conveniently ignored Romano's very ill-formed accusations of his personality and how he'd acquired South Italy in the first place.
Romano had kicked him again. "Dumbass! I've eaten them lots of times! Italians eat them a lot, without ever getting sick! They're perfectly fine!"
After some more arguing (and a few bruises on Spain's shins), Romano convinced Spain to at least taste some tomato soup. Spain had spent the entire next day anticipating the sickness he was certain would come from the toxins, but it never did. So he was forced to admit to Romano that he was wrong, and tomatoes were perfectly ok to eat, and not only that, but they were delicious. After that day, Spain had eaten a lot more tomatoes, and even planted an entire garden full of them.
That was all gone now. Because of those damned invaders.
The sorrow quickly transformed into heated fury, as Spain concentrated on the knowledge that those soldiers, their bodies now nothing but ash, destroyed the things he held near and dear to his heart. It wasn't only the tomatoes themselves he cared for, but the memories they brought to him. Precious memories, of his precious henchman, and anyone who sought to destroy those deserved a horrible death by his favorite battle ax.
Spain clenched his fists so tightly that his nails dug into his palm, painfully marking their place and reminding him were he stood. He let out a careful breath that he hadn't known he was holding, suddenly dizzy with the force of his anger. It made his skin burn and itch to try and control his boiling blood, as he lusted after the painful death of the nation who ordered this invasion.
"I—I need to get Romano out of hiding," he reminded himself in a shaky voice.
Miraculously, a couple plants still survived, albeit with only a few tomatoes a piece. Still, it was more than enough to make the pizza sauce, and Spain gingerly placed each one in the basket he brought out for the purpose of carrying the tomatoes (although he'd expected to fill the basket to the brim with the red fruit).
Soon, the smell of baking pizza filled the kitchen air, and gently wafted throughout the house. Spain waited patiently for when the mouthwatering aroma finally reached Romano, breaking down the Italian's reservations and sending him rushing into the kitchen with the speed of his nation.
The minutes ticked by without any progress on the "Get Romano Out of Hiding" front. In that amount of time, Spain discovered how much he really, really hated that clock.
Ten minutes later, he demonstrated this hatred by taking his ax to the wall clock, littering the ground with glass and mechanical clock-parts, as if it was to blame for Romano's lack of appearance. Surely it was the clock's fault, with its wicked, steady chants that had to contain some kind of black magic causing Romano to stay away. It was an English-made clock, after all, and knowing England, the clock was probably made for the sole purpose of making Spain's life miserable.
What possessed him to purchase something from England in the first place? There must have been something in his wine. Hell, maybe it was the wine itself. It had been a gift from France after all, and although they were friends, he still wanted Romano for himself, and would probably do anything to steal what he wanted from Spain.
That's it; it was definitely a combined conspiracy of France and England. Those bastards.
The smell of something burnt him broke him from his feverish thoughts. With a shout of surprise, he quickly pulled the pizza from the oven (after covering his hands of course, he wasn't quite that much in a daze).
"Just great! Now the pizza is ruined!" he shouted, with a frustrated growl. Now he was in a horrible mood, his best friend and worst enemy were probably working together to do him in, and he had nothing to lure Romano out with on the slight chance that the henchman would suddenly appear any minute. On top of that, he still felt like crap!
Today had to be one of the worst days of his life.
With a final glare at the offending clock (damn wine-induced English-purchase clock of doom), he stalked out of the kitchen, feeling absolutely murderous as he went to find Romano himself.
"Romano, where are you?" he called, checking Romano's room, top to bottom. When he saw there was no one in there, he went to Belgium's room, receiving the same results.
If he hadn't been worried before, he definitely was now. The search took on a more frantic tone as he hurried from room to room, flipping over beds in the guest rooms, knocking books from bookshelves (logically, there was no way Romano could hide behind books on the shelf, but Spain decided it was better to not be too careful), and in general making an unnecessarily large mess of his entire house.
His entire, way-too-large-for-only-a-couple-people house.
And Romano was no where to be found.
In fact, not only did it turn out that Romano wasn't in the house, and Belgium off who-knows-where, but the Netherlands seemed to be missing as well.
Damn it.
Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Someone was messing with his charges.
His charges.
Whoever stole Romano was going to pay dearly for that fatal mistake. Spain was definitely not in the mood for these games.
Breathing heavily, he ran through a quick list of nations who would want to steal Romano from him.
There was England, of course. That tea-drinking, aristocratic, arrogant bastard was always looking for ways to make Spain's life miserable.
Turkey—er, the Ottoman Empire—was probably in his "conquer all of Europe in the name of Allah" moods. He never passed up the opportunity to gain land, especially land much sought after such as Italy's.
There was a slight chance that Austria could have taken Romano. He was always saying how Spain was an incompetent fool and simply decided Romano would be better off with his brother.
It could have been that Holy Roman Empire guy, who was always trying to join forces with Italy without realizing that both halves of Italy were boys. He may have thought that it would be easier to get to Italy if he had Romano first. Such forceful methods seemed unlikely though.
Spain wouldn't put it past the Netherlands to steal Romano. The Dutchman hated him after all, but there were currently no Dutch troops at the disposal of the Netherlands to organize an invasion, so Spain felt it was safe to say the Netherlands was not the culprit.]
Come to think of it, there were a lot of nations who would be happy to steal away Romano. None of them would think twice about hurting Spain to get him, especially while the once-empire was sick and vulnerable with a weak economy. Even Spain's alleged best friend, France, would come up with all sorts of painful plans to wrench Romano from his grasp.
Spain stiffened. That's right. It was definitely something that coward, weak friend of his would do. And when he really thought about it, those soldiers did seem a little French…
His fingers slowly tightened around the handle of his ax, which he'd forgotten he'd been holding this entire time.
It would seem he'd be able to decorate the shiny blade with a nation's blood after all.
Dark!Spain is really wonderful.
Do I smell some history in here? I believe tomatoes were "discovered" in the Americas by Hernan Cortez when he conquered the Aztec Empire, and brought back to Europe for decoration purposes. They were believed to be poisonous, since they looked like nightshade, I believe. Only the leaves of the tomato plant are toxic though. If I remember correctly, Italy was one of the first European nations to actually adopt tomatoes as a food nation-wide. But tomatoes weren't red. They were probably yellow, since the Italians called them pomo di'oro (which is were pomodoro comes from, I bet), which means yellow apples (I think).
Did you know that, although tomatoes are a huge part of Spain, that the nation isn't even one of the world's top tomato producers? So selfish, right?
Well then, that's enough of that. Until next time.
Ciao.