AN: Oh dear. So, I'm so so so so so sorry. Seriously. This past, like, month has been a little... whoo. Just absolutely ridiculous, so I haven't really been writing at all. Well, that's a lie, I've been working on my own novel, but that's only during the time I get to hide in the corner somewhere with my notebook.

And really, all that's gotten me through all this is my beautiful, lovely, fantastic girlfriend, a.k.a. my Seychelles. So, let's all give her a round of applause. What would I even do with her to keep me from driving off into forever and never coming back? :D So on a slightly different note, the rating of this story has been changed to "T". Now don't worry, that means pretty much nothing other than I have a horrible, horrible potty mouth. It's bad, guys, it's bad. But to fair, it was my girlfriend who told me to call Toni a "cockhammer" in this chapter. Don't ask me, I don't know what it means either.

So before I keep stalling, here's the next chapter, now with 25% more AWESOME. ;)

*the club scene was just an excuse to put Toni in tight leather pants. forgive me for being a terrible person and an even worse author.*

Antonio is standing in the middle of a hot, sweaty crowd of people, surrounded by flashing strobe lights and crappy blaring pop music. He's wearing impossibly tight leather pants and a bright red shirt that was designed with very few buttons at the top.

All this translates to Antonio feeling incredibly uncomfortable and wondering why he let Gilbert talk him into this.

Speaking of Gilbert, a pale hand swims through the strobe light air as if in slow motion and grabs Antonio firmly on the rear end. The Spaniard grits his teeth and tries not to flinch.

"Shake your ass, Toni, no one's going to find you interesting if you just stand around in a place like this!"

Antonio shakes his head. "I'm really not looking to meet anybody anyway, Gil." Honestly, Antonio just wants to be at home, or with… no, that's not an option. He just wants to be at home. There are definitely times when he's up for going out and dancing with Gilbert, but now is not one of those times. Not after what happened yesterday. "Actually, Gil," Antonio says, stepping away from his Prussian friend, "I think I'm going to head home. I'm not feeling too good." Antonio gives the other man a half hearted wave before turning to make his way through the crowd.

The Spaniard gets to his car and starts to drive. He should just head home, like he told Gilbert he intended to. But some sort of deeper desire inside him forces him to drive somewhere else.

He drives to Francis's house.

He stands on the porch for a while, wondering if he should knock. But Francis's car is in the driveway, and Antonio knows if he knows, the Frenchman will likely get to the door before Sesel has a chance to even move.

Antonio is suddenly struck with memories of scaling the walls of Francis's decadent home to sneak into his room when the two of them were younger. He wonders if he can do the same today, and knock and Sesel's window, bypassing the Frenchman entirely. It seems like a somewhat stupid idea. It'd be a hard feat to accomplish, especially in his current attire and in the almost pitch darkness of the night.

Antonio being, well, Antonio, decides to try it anyway.

He climbs up the side of the house, using jutting out bricks, vines, and other appendages of the building as foot and hand holds. Upon reaching Sesel's room, he finds that her window has been left ajar. Still, he doesn't want to just let himself in. He knocks politely on the glass.

Nothing.

He knocks again.

Still, no response.

Tentatively, he swings his legs around and sits on the window ledge, facing into the room and leaning forward a bit.

Two things happen at once.

First, he vaguely hears a soft female voice whisper-shouting something that sounds like, "Not today, cockhammer!"

However, he can't be entirely sure what he heard, as he is far too distracted by the hot, searing pain that comes along with being punched—rather hard, mind you—right in the crotch.

Luckily enough for Antonio, he falls forward into the room and on to his knees instead of plummeting backwards and down to his death.

As the pain slowly subsides and his vision begins to clear, he looks up from the floor to see that his attacker is none other than Sesel herself, looking down at him with a surprised and slightly embarrassed expression. "S-sorry," she says, blushing a bit as she looks down at the pained Spaniard, who's still somewhat incapable of forming words. "I thought you were a burglar." She extends a hand to him and helps him up. Antonio stands, and he notices Sesel's expression change from apologetic to angry when he smiles sweetly down at her. This time, she definitely says, "You cockhammer!" when she kicks him, once more, right in the balls.

Antonio falls to the floor again, the kick hurting even more than the punch had. The two things running through his mind, if he is to honest, are "Ay dios mios, my poor Spanish cojones," and "What is a cockhammer, and why did she call me one?" Perfectly acceptable things for a man who is in immense pain to think about, he figures.

He slowly manages to catch his breath and stand up shakily. Leaning forward a bit and setting his hands on his knees to steady himself, he looks at her and bows his head in both pain and surrender.

"Please…don't…do…that…again," he manages to utter breathily, quite an accomplishment after having the wind (and other things) knocked out of him, not once, but twice. "Just… tell me…why…you're angry."

Why is she angry?

Oh boy, where should she start?

"You want to know why I'm mad at you, Antonio? I'm mad at you because you dropped a huge bombshell on me and then just left, left me to deal with my father and his angry, overprotective bullcrap! And then, in an effort to fix things, or be the good guy, or something equally self-righteous and stupid, you tell my father that you're going to 'back off', completely disregarding how I might feel about that!" Usually, small, timid Sesel would never be so bold with anyone, especially not a muscular man who looms almost a foot over her head and who looks like he could crush her skull into bits between his large, farm worker's hands. However, this man is Antonio, and not only is he sweet as sugar but he's already confessed to having feelings for her. She feels safe yelling at him like this, so… yell she will. "

And it doesn't stop there," she continues, "oh no! Now you've got the nerve to come back here—looking, you know, really cute and stuff, and red looks really good on you, but that's irrelevant and I'm rambling—to what, tell me that you've changed your mind again? To tell me that you really do want to be with me and you won't let Francis get in our way, or something stupid and dumb and cheesy like that? You're an unbelievable jerk, Antonio!"

"You think I look cute?"

It's really all she can do not to kick him in the crotch again.

"You idiot, you entirely missed the point! I'm pissed at you, you abandoned me after telling me you have feelings for me, and you didn't even stick around to see if I felt the same, and you—"

"Sesel," Antonio interrupts, looking up from the floor and straight into her eyes, "I know what I did, okay? I know, and I'm so, so sorry, and I know that doesn't make up for anything, but… I do care about you, which is why I did what I did at first, and why I'm back here now. Sesel, I… need to know."

Sesel swallows around the lump in her throat, trying hard to keep a straight face and continue to glare vindictively at Antonio. She wants to stay angry at him, she doesn't want to just forgive him this easily, but… he says all the right things, goddamn him. Steeling her expression and crossing her arms at the Spaniard, she asks, "You need to know what, Antonio?"

The man in front of her sighs softly, and Sesel knows what he's going to ask before he even says it. "Do you feel the same about me?"

And there it is. The moment of truth, at least for her, Antonio had his own yesterday. As much as Sesel wants to stay mad at Antonio for being a jerk and an idiot and… and any other name she can possibly think to call him, she can't deny her feelings for him. Not to herself, anyway, and she's pretty sure she doesn't want to hide them from Antonio anymore, either. For too long she's stared at him, from the staircase or across the table or out her bedroom window. She's listened to him talk, to her or to her father or to someone entirely different. She's watched him play guitar and she's watched him be silly and serious and everything in between. She's admired him in one way or another for so, so long… and it's time for something to give. She nods her head slowly at the Spaniard and then reaches out and pulls Antonio into a cautious hug. "Yes… Yes, Toni, I do feel the same way." Sesel can't spin her words and sentences into gold quite like he did, but she's said enough to get her point across.

It's enough for Toni, anyway. Sesel looks up to see the Spaniard smiling down at her as though he just won the lottery. He returns her hug, but the embrace does not last for long, and his beaming grin drops into a troubled frown. "What about Francis? He's not going to be happy."

God, not only did I make you all wait forever, but then I ended at the worst place possible. I ran out of steam. I apologize. I love you.