Imagine Dragons' "Demons".
SEQUEL SEQUEL SEQUEL. THE SEQUEL IS ON MY PROFILE. THE SEQUEL IS CALLED "TRIPLE THREAT". GO READ TRIPLE THREAT.
Thanks for reading Black Cherry! GO READ SEQUEL.
Black Cherry
Part 8: This Was One Hell of a One-Shot
In Romano's honest opinion, if your partner ever asks you if you're done or something's over, then you're doing a shitty job. Wincing doesn't belong in bed, gritting your teeth isn't necessary, if you're crying then by God it had better be because it feels that fucking good. Any lover who uses the fall-back "it'll stop hurting in a minute" should be dragged out of bed and kicked in the face, because it shouldn't hurt at all you lazy fuck just do it right.
So Romano does it right, and they take their time because there's no rush to take the edge off. It takes more lube than Gilbert thinks is necessary, but he's taught not to question him in these matters because there is absolutely no pain. Romano can't be too hard on him though, because they only have that bottle and a set of condoms because Gilbert chose way back in that first week to pick them up in the pharmacy where he found a toothbrush and shampoo.
"You're so eager..."
"If you're g-gonna tease me, do it in Italian you- uuuh..."
Romano obliges him, but simple teases turn into more sincere things, whispered love and sweet joy. The part that aches to let Gilbert know what he's saying is beaten out by the way he'd burst into flames if he had to put the words in English. But he's sure that Gilbert knows anyways, because when he struggles for the fourth time to say how much he loves him Gilbert's lips shut him up and their hips and hands do the rest of the talking.
They fall asleep in a sweaty, tangled mess and wake up in the glare of sunlight over ratty cotton sheets. It's nice to be held from behind, but the kisses on his neck seem too soft until Gilbert makes a wise-crack about the springs in the old mattress.
"Bite me."
"Again?" Gilbert traces one finger over a particular bruise on Romano's shoulder, something he didn't notice last night, and the brunette just huffs and hides his smile in his pillow.
And they just stay like that for an hour, maybe two, he has no way of knowing. They alternate between dozing and talking, laughing about the cracked plaster on the wall and how no, there hasn't been glass in that window for a few years. Romano jokingly agrees to get a new mattress before Gilbert comes back again, since this one is at least twenty years old.
"But... you can't come back until after you leave." His smile kind of slips when he states what's completely obvious, and Gilbert just keeps staring at the ceiling where he's laying on his back next to Romano. They aren't touching, the heat outside is already creeping in through that window. "There was some big thing happening in Berlin this month, wasn't there?"
"International Auto Show." Right... South Italy is to the Agricultural Sector what Prussia is to the German Auto Industry. "West just doesn't have time for it thanks to the world economy and local issues, so I keep on top of those guys in manufacturing and design." So, mechanical engineer. "Yeah, yeah, your grandpa's song was right..." Gilbert turns his head to look at him, he's doing that thing again with his face and drops his voice down low. "Completely right."
"You're being sappy." And Romano puts his face back down in the pillow he's laying on, his arms up and wrapped around it.
"...Are you sunburnt, my Adonis?"
"I don't get sunburn," And Adonis was gored by a boar.
"Then is Narcissus blushing?" Drowned in his own reflection, and no. "I think you're lying, Hyacinth." Killed by a jealous god.
"First of all: if you call me one more Greek name I'm going to hurt you. And second there are less disturbing ways to tell me I'm going to die!" Bad jokes, stupid laugh, idiot grin, soft lips, warm body wrapping itself around him...
"Then tell me..." God he needs to not press his lips against Romano's ear like that, it's too much when he breathes those soft, husky words and lets them tingle down his spine... "How do I say that you're beautiful and breath-taking in Italian?" Hnnng...
"You say: I'm going to make breakfast, amore, any requests?" He says the words in Italian, as desired, and if Romano shoves his face any further into the pillow then breathing is going to be a problem soon.
"You're a lying little shit." He refuses to see what's wrong with that, especially when he's coaxed to spread his legs a little and Gilbert's warm body slips down behind him. His hands start moving slowly over his hips and sides, and Romano grabs another pillow and pulls it over his head to sandwich himself between the cotton. It doesn't do any good, Gilbert just pulls it away with a snort so he can purr against Romano's ear again with: "But I still love you."
It's only after Gilbert's done getting back at him for last night and turning Romano's whole face crimson with his stupid compliments and love that he realizes how his lover's aggression wilts in the heat. And that's not clever a euphemism. It's no secret that Gilbert becomes a great big baby in the heat, and by the time the evening comes to cool him down he's so tuckered out he just lets Romano do whatever will take his mind off the hours of suffering.
In the morning, he has no such difficulties.
The heat's still just rising when Gilbert leaves the bedroom with a cheerful whistle and a bedsheet wrapped ceremoniously around his hips. Romano's left sticky and spinning on the bed wondering why he was so stupid about not making this leap sooner, and when he hears the shower running he has an impossible time deciding what to do with himself.
The phone is his answer, an alien sound that trills through the house like an obnoxious bird. It's like moving mountains trying to stumble his way from the bedroom to that shut-up office where the corded device sits on the desk, but Romano makes his legs work and gets over there before the call can be dropped.
"Ciao?"
"Oh, yes, please don't hang up on me." It takes Romano a long, slow pause before he understands why Gilbert's accent is coming to him through the phone when his boyfriend is still in the bathroom. It's Kraut-breath. "I'm calling to find out if my brother is still staying with you in Naples." How the hell did he get this nu- Veneziano. Nevermind.
"Uuh," why does he pause in answering that? The answer is obviously- "Yeah, he's still here." So Young Kraut probably wants to talk to him. "He's in the shower." Actually, he can't hear the water anymore...
"Ah, well I need to speak with him, it's very important and can't wait much longer."
"Are you still in Rome?"
"I just arrived here on Sunday, actually. I'm leaving again on Wednesday and was hoping to take him back with me this time." Wednesday... that doesn't mean anything to Romano. "...Tomorrow?"
Oh, that makes more sense.
But oh shit, that's tomorrow.
"Well, uh-"
"Shower's free." An arm wraps itself around Romano's waist and he gives the most undignified shriek into the phone, clapping a hand over the reciever before turning a furious look on the man who tries giving him a kiss.
"Idiot!" He snaps, but that doesn't stop the kiss, not until he almost smacks Gilbert with the damned phone. "It's your stupid brother, are you fucking retarded?"
"No, but you need to clean up, don't you?" He's smiling, the bastard is smiling and Romano can't put together a proper sentence to shoot him down right now, he just shoves the phone at him and storms out of the stuffy little room. And he's not blushing. He is not blushing. He is not embarrassed about being stark naked and spooked by Gilbert no he is not.
But he does turn the temperature way down during his shower, and Romano does stand under the water for longer than he absolutely has to, long enough at least to be sure that he is not fucking blushing and Gilbert isn't still on the phone when he gets out.
He's happy to have his pants back on by the time he gets into the kitchen and starts looking for something to fix up for a late breakfast, but the way Gilbert trudges out with his hands in his jean pockets tells Romano the bad news.
"I guess you're leaving tomorrow?"
Gilbert drops into one of the dining room chairs like a fucking two year old, his bare feet sliding over the tile floor and his elbow thunking down on that damned table.
"Problems on the production line," he sulks, plucking invisible lint off his shirt as Romano cracks a couple eggs into a skillet. "He's freaking out saying we're not gonna be ready for that show in time."
"Is he exagerating?"
"Probably," but Gilbert was still gonna go check, right? "Hey, if someone said your crop was about to fail, you'd-"
"I'm not mad, idiot." While the eggs sizzle a tomato falls to a sharp paring knife, those slices entering the pan with a sharp hiss and a crack of black pepper. "Unless this somehow changes something...?" He glances briefly over his shoulder when he asks that, and notices Gilbert standing up before shuffling across the room to join him.
Instead of wrapping his arms around him again in a hug, Gilbert goes for the coffee tin and starts fiddling with the machine and dark grounds to get it going.
Eggs are served and coffee poured, and a soft kind of kiss tells them both that nothing's different or about to change. Romano agrees to make stuffed chicken breasts like that time in Berlin and asks Gilbert what kinds of deserts he can make with lemons. He lets his lover take over the kitchen for several hours making pastry dough for lemon tarts while he braves the unholy heat into town to find the few extra ingredients (like chicken) that they need for tonight. The cherries are picked up off the floor from last night and Romano gets Gilbert to hold the ladder while he climbs that damned tree to get the very last of them off the high branches before the birds do.
The entire day is spent cooking, because it's better to waste their time together laughing at what they love instead of lusting over what they've already got. Chicken in pesto sauce made from the fresh herbs in the garden, cooked in olive oil from olives pressed on his land (with an extra bottle of his best tucked into Gilbert's bag for tomorrow). They pair it with a wine from his grapes that Gilbert likes most, and end the meal with those tarts that are so sweet and so sour and held in such a crisp and flakey little cup.
The cherries go in the fridge to chill over night for tomorrow's breakfast, and they sit quietly at the table after Romano brews up one of those speciality coffees he never drinks out here, but that he and Veneziano both get hooked on as soon as they enter their big cities. The coffee cleanses the pallet and clears the mind, so there are no lusting gazes over the lip of their tiny cups or raging boners hidden behind lemon-stained napkins.
It ends with a drink.
But not sex.
It's just the two of them, now lovers, crawling into the bed in Gilbert's room because they realize neither one of them remembered to strip and wash the sheets on Romano's bed after last night. They're tired as hell after all of the laughing and cooking and Gilbert complaining endlessly about turning on the oven when the house was already so hot. Tonight they're exhausted and satisfied, but they decide that screw it, they're not sleeping alone.
"Hey..." Hey what? He's trying to sleep. "Banking conference in Zurich. Next month. You coming?"
He is now...
End
[Rolls Credits]
Title: Black Cherry
Main Character(s): Romano/S. Italy, Prussia.
Genre: Friendship, Romance, Comedy.
Chapters: 7
Word count: 19,617 (Minus all ANs)
Page Count: 44 (Minus all ANs)
OST: I'm Wide Awake (Katy Perry), Lullaby (Nickleback), Mr. Hurricane (Beast), Right Here Waiting (Staind), Demons (Imagine Dragons), Aurora (Hans Zimmer).
I swear I thought Adonis, Narcissus and Hyacinth were Roman until I wisely double-checked and found out no, no no no, they're all Greek figures. It just seemed like a mistake Prussia would make, and likening your lover to a bunch of beautiful men who died HORRIBLE HORRIBLE DEATHS wasn't something I could pass up.
Thank you again for reading, and I hope you enjoyed my very first Prumano (one-shot)! Please leave a review below!