I'm Wide Awake, Lullaby, Right Here Waiting.
Typos removed.
Black Cherry
Part 2: Naples
(He doesn't.)
He wants to die. But the plane down to Rome doesn't crash, and Romano decides he needs time to think and drives down to Naples instead of taking the train. Veneziano makes him promise to call when he gets there, because he's worried, but it's a long drive along the sea. Romano makes the trip last almost twice as long as it should by stopping every hour or so and just wandering down from the highway, tasting the wind and taking short, curious tours of some of his small towns.
His property isn't actually in Naples, it's about an hour outside the city and up in the farmland and foothills of the Apennine Mountains. It's an ancient villa built by Romano himself, fixed by Grandpa Rome, rebuilt by Romano, remodelled by Spain, fixed up by Romano, and paid for by America to fix a-fucking-gain after the war. But the house isn't as important as the land, which is a couple acres dominated by grape vines, a walled vegetable garden attached to the house, a spring nestled down between the hills, a few misplaced fruit trees and a lot of carelessly abandoned farm equipment.
It's almost midnight by the time he reaches his first and truest 'home', and he passes out on stale sheets hoping against hope that his cherry tree is dead.
Sweet cherries are, um, sweet. They don't go as well with dark chocolate as black cherries, they aren't as sharp or juicy, and they're smaller too than the ones Romano's been seeing too much of. But these are his cherries, not Gilbert's, and since God didn't see fit to strike his fruit trees dead with lightning while he wintered up north, Romano just eats the stupid things with his breakfast and then gets to work.
He has people who tend his grape vines when he's not in residence, but everything else is his and his alone. South Italy actually likes and enjoys farming, it's something he and Ukraine talk about sometimes when they're bored at meetings, it's what he does when he needs to think.
So he spends two days just thinking in worn-out jeans and a stained sleeveless shirt, and he rips every non-edible plant out of that very large walled garden. It's hot and sweaty work so at times he casts off the shirt, daring the sun to just try and burn him after centuries of the same dance. He doesn't even mind the occasional nick or scratch of something biting his arms or chest, because the fertile black soil under all the weeds and vines is what he's after.
Veneziano only disturbs him once with a phone-call, just to check on him, but other than that everyone in Rome knows to leave South Italy alone when he's in Naples. It's not his temper, it's just good agriculture: if South Italy is farming, then let him farm. The tedium of bundling plant stalks and the grunt labour of mixing fertilizer all keep him from getting too worked up about stupid Prussians and stupid crushes that just complicate everything.
After a few more days he moves from the garden to the fruit grove, where he spends most of his time moving the ladder from one side of the tree to the other so he can prune branches and leaves. He's in the middle of reaching too far when he feels the ladder suddenly come free and begin to fall, his world slowing right down as the vertigo of an impending plummet catches him like a net. The sheers fall from his hand-
"Woah!" Shitit'sgonnahurt- "Romano!"
It's that fucking cherry tree. That's what he falls out of and for a split-second he's grateful he wasn't too high up, because one moment he's falling and the next he's flat on his back on the grass and everything hurts. His head is pounding from the impact and his chest is weak and sore, and the fact that his leg slipped through the metal rungs just-
"Romano?" Huh? "Shit- Romano! Are you okay?" Who the-? "Hey! Answer me!"
Romano opens his eyes under the dappled sunlight. There are hands touching his sweaty face and pushing back his dark hair, but then he feels them touching his sides and his arms, running over his skin in a way that shouldn't be suggestive, but it is. Gilbert even has a hand resting right on his thigh as he works the ladder free and shoves the beaten metal away with a loud clatter. His knee hurts, but that'll go away, and the hands that help him straighten the limb out stay where they are.
The words 'lay me down and fuck me right' come to mind and Romano immediately jerks upright like he can escape the whisper. Gilbert's hands fly to his shoulders as soon as he's sitting, and Romano can't ignore the worry in his friend's voice as he harps at him. Gilbert's skin is so white against the green leaves and gold sunlight that he looks sort of like a dream.
"Woah! Not so fast, you shouldn't get up yet. Does your head hurt?"
"I'm a little dizzy," and not just from the fall.
"Then lay down."
"You're over-reacting."
"I just watched you fall ten feet shut up." Those words bury themselves in Romano's ear and won't come out, they chew right through his skull and into his brain, and he's got a sinking suspicion they'll work their way down further by sometime tonight. It's not the falling ten feet part, it's the 'I watched you', and it's the fact that Gilbert still has one hand on Romano's shoulder and his long fingers are holding the side of his neck trying to lend it support. Romano isn't hanging his head because his neck is broken, he's doing it because his tan isn't dark enough to hide the stupid idiot blush.
"What're you doing here anyways?" It's better than pointing out the fact that Gilbert's still touching him, the hand on his shoulder is holding on carefully, and when the Prussian gives him a push to lay down again, Romano doesn't resist. He settles on his back and swings one arm up to shield his eyes from the sun, peering up through the shadow at the man in a red tee-shirt, khaki shorts, and ugly sandals sitting next to him on the grass.
Romano remembers right about now that he abandoned his shirt again after dealing with the lemon tree an hour ago.
"West and I came down to talk business with your brother." Gilbert explains, although it takes him a second to get going. "But they started getting all, you know, so instead of staying I came down this way." That sounds really fucking suspiciously like 'so Veneziano gave me very explicit directions on how to find this place without telling you'. The question now is whether Veneziano sent him or if Gilbert honestly-
Oh shut up.
"Well if you're here," But why is he here? Romano has a reason but he still doesn't know why... "You gonna help?"
"With what?"
Romano's allowed to sit up this time, and Gilbert falls back on his rump to stay out of the way. It's hot as hell and his thoughts are still slow and hazy, but it's too far to get up and walk to fetch his water-bottle from the base of the cherry tree. At least he won't have to carry the ladder back all by himself, but it's a small victory. Running on hand back through his hair in the heat, he gestures across the small orchard to the road neither of them can see through the sun and shrubs. Then he explains:
"The stone wall on the west edge fell over."
"You're shitting me."
"There's always the night train back to Rome." Take the train, take the train, please take the train. As Gilbert sits there and stews Romano can feel his coherence coming back, and along with it comes the cold, sharp sting of panic if the Prussian decides to stay. The burning blush won't go away until he can find his shirt and put the idiot on a train back to not-his-house, but he can already feel himself giving up on the latter.
Instead, after Gilbert's convinced his knee is fine and he can walk around, the other nation carries the ladder back home and the questions resume. Safe inside a cotton tee again, Romano does what little he can to keep the silence away.
"So you took the train down, but how did you actually get all the way out here to the house?"
"Rental car, but the road tore it to hell. Do you seriously own the land on both sides of the dell?" Uh, yeah? "And you cultivate it? All of it?"
"Not commercially, but yeah." They reach the sun-soaked villa and Romano pries open the rickety side door, the dead-bolt broken and useless. No one ever comes checking doors anyways, so it's not a problem when Romano forgets his windows are still propped open. The ladder gets stashed in the back by the garden wall, and as Gilbert joins him inside the platinum blonde immediately swings across the kitchen and peers out at the thriving vegetables.
"Shit! How many people live here?"
"Just me?" Stupid question.
"That's enough food to feed half an army." Yeah, well, he doesn't keep any animals so they're going to be eating a lot of produce. Even as he says the words Romano shuffles over to the old stove-top, flicking on the gas and deftly setting the match to the burner so it'll light. His hands are filthy from working, but he's not prepping anything.
"And you grow it all yourself..."
"Yes, damn it, and it's not that special so quit gawking!" Pulling over the large pot of soup he's been surviving off of for a week, part of coming to Naples involves getting away from all the grease and meat of Rome and the other capital cities. A peasant's diet is good for you, so if Gilbert's going to complain then he can... just... wait for Romano to go into town to find something better...
"Smells good." G-Good, but did Gilbert have to stand so close to him to check the pot? When he asks what exactly is in the minestrone the only ingredient Romano can name out of the medley is tomatoes. Something about watching Gilbert pluck a sweet cherry out of the bowl on the kitchen table and pop it into his mouth scatters the rest of his thoughts.
Needless to say, despite a minor concussion and days of mind-numbing work, with Gilbert in the next room Romano doesn't get any sleep that night. And the next day:
"Why are you on my roof?"
"There's a hole in it! I saw the water damage on the-"
"It's a stone house. Get off the roof."
"These tiles are all broken-"
"GILBERT GET OFF THE ROOF."
His scolding works but Gilbert is intent on scurrying around like a mouse. By the time Romano's finished digging an old unused bag of cement mix from one of his outbuildings to repair the wall, Gilbert's found his old carpentry tools and fashioned part of a new frame for the broken back door.
"What if someone tries breaking in? Jeeze."
"My nearest neighbour is ten minutes away."
"Walking?"
"Driving."
"Oh." Gilbert makes the excuse that a tiger might creep down from the mountains, and Romano's more amused by the ridiculous statement than willing to correct him about the lack of big cats in Italy. That he manages to re-hang a crooked door in the hallway and oils every squeaky hinge in the estate also helps sooth Romano's nerves.
"Gelato." And then they're frayed again at dinner, and not just because Gilbert insists on sitting close enough to touch instead of safely across the table from him. "Oh come on! You've got your own fruit grove and it's way too hot to bake anything." Crushed ice would be easier, he's got an icebox right over- "Gelato! Gelatogelatogelato-!"
"Okay, fine!" Gelato it is then, and Romano has a hell of a time keeping his cool after two days of no sleep and a long, winding drive down from the estate and into town. He loses Gilbert for about half an hour in the laughter and energy of the settlement and does most of the grocery shopping for them, but by the time he's piled the coffee and wrapped meat and a shit-load of cream into the back of his old truck, the grinning dope materializes through the sun and noise with-
"You son of a..." Where the hell did he find German chocolate in a place like this? It occurs to him but Romano never actually asks, when he sees a bag from the pharmacy with shampoo and what looks like toothpaste in it, how long Gilbert intends to stay with him.
He'd much rather rib him about the fact that the idiot bought a quart of black cherries when he's been going on about Romano's orchard for days.
In the end they wind up with three flavours of gelato and turn Romano's kitchen into a citrus-flavoured disaster. His lemon and pomegranate trees are given a chance to show off their charms, but Romano sneaks an extra spoonful of the rich cherry-chocolate cream into his bowl when Gilbert isn't looking. Between the wine and remaining chocolate, laughing over stupid jokes and idiot brothers, Romano finally gets a good night sleep passed out in his living room chair.
He wakes up early with a stiff neck and a blanket over his lap, but there's also the sticky sweet of pomegranate juice on his lips and Gilbert is nowhere to be found.
I was gonna keep going, but then I realized it was just as long as the first chapter...
Headcanons galore~ Comment?