Disclaimer: Google Hetalia. It belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya. Google Alice Isn't Dead. It belongs to Joseph Fink. My name does not come up when either of these are Googled.
SHOUTOUT TO Anime4life5 FOR GIVING THIS STORY ITS FIRST REVIEW: YOU ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED!
The sea was crystalline. It's seductive. But the land felt angry and lost. There was no harmony there. The tranquility of the lapping waves sputtered out and the land slumped into place. Bugs swarmed the air.
"God damn it!" Feliciano laughed lightly at Alfred's sudden swear. He switched the windshield wipers on to remove the messy death of a huge bug.
Feliciano hummed as he checked the map. Delivery today was to a factory. He didn't recognize the name of the company, but the factory was vast. It was right on the beach. A huge block rectangle of metal pipes and tanks and three lowering stacks, black smoke out over the water. One side of the building went into the high tide line, water just lapping up against the concrete foundation, the gentle white slope of the sand on either side. Feliciano furrowed his brow.
"Why would anyone build a factory like that?" he murmured to himself. "Isn't that an environmental hazard?"
Alfred shrugged. "No idea."
He didn't see any other way out to the loading deck, so he just drove right on the sand backed up to it. There was a young man there. Very young - seventeen, at the most. Probably less. The kid was wearing a gray factory jumpsuit with the company's logo on it in red. The logo was a dog cringing in pain, and Alfred flinched slightly at the image. "Praxis Industries."
"Hi," the kid on the loading dock said. "Hi, my name's Roma! You got my delivery?"
"Sure," Alfred said, "right in the back."
It wasn't much. Feliciano wasn't sure why they needed a truck of that size to deliver it, and Alfred didn't question it. Stray bits of wood, each individually labeled with a number and a letter. Neither could tell much from the shape of them.
"Cool, cool," the kid said. "This is perfect. Hey, you two help me with this, would you?"
Together all three of them took them off the truck, and put them piece by piece on a conveyor belt, which carried them through a chute into the factory. Black smoke out over the water, churning machines…
Feliciano didn't see a single human being on the scaffolding. No one having a cigarette out on the loading dock, not a face in any of the grease-smeared windows, no worker in sight. No parking lot, either. Just the beach.
"Come on in, I have to sign off on the delivery inside," said Roma. He disappeared through a propped-open fire exit. Alfred and Feliciano exchanged looks, and followed right after, but he was already gone.
Inside the factory, the air didn't feel like air to Feliciano, but more like some… Artificial replication. It felt hot and tight in his lungs. The hallway was the wrong shade of green, if that made any sense. The green that isn't right, that's off from what it should be? It was that green.
Bare bulbs, doors leading off from the hallway, all locked. Feliciano tried each of them. He walked down the long, long hall with Alfred. No sign of Roma. Alfred seemed unnerved as well.
The hallway ended at a glass door. They pushed through, and they were in some kind of manager's office. Cheap binders, red and blue, overstuffed with paper, and an IKEA desk with a computer still running Windows XP.
There was a man there in the same gray jumpsuit. On the wall was the logo of the company. It was someone drowning, gasping for air, and Alfred flinched away from it. It said "Praxis Industries."
"Hello?" Feliciano said to the man in the jumpsuit.
"Oh, sure, sorry," He said. "Just have to get the paperwork settled."
It was Roma, but older, Feliciano realized. A quick glance at Alfred showed that he had come to the same conclusion. They didn't know how much older, but at least in his early thirties. His hair had already started to grey a bit. He didn't have wrinkles, exactly, but he had the places in his face where the winkles would be.
Alfred didn't know what to do. He pinched and pinched, but every time it hurt. Feliciano put a hand on his back and nudged him forward gently, offering a soft smile. So, Alfred did the only thing he could do. He picked up the uncapped Bic pen on the desk and signed the forms where Roma was pointing.
"Ahh, sure, thanks," he said. "Listen, I hate to be a bother, but could you just give me a quick hand with unpacking in the next room? No problem if not, but it's a bit of a pain on my own."
Alfred didn't say anything, so Feliciano nodded. It was all he could do.
"Yeah," he said. "Sure."
"Great!" Roma said, and he bustled off through the double doors.
Feliciano had some idea of what would happen. He gently took Alfred by the arm and pushed through the doors. No sign of Roma, of course. It was the factory floor, a great arc of a roof with skylights over towering machines, automatic processes that Feliciano couldn't understand, and no workers at all. Metal hands building metal things, and no human beings in sight.
"Alfred," Feliciano said gently as they walked. "Alfred, mio amico, are you alright?"
Alfred coughed awkwardly and nodded his head, but made no move to remove his arm from the link it was in with Feliciano's. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm alright. Let's… Let's go find Roma."
They wandered down the concrete aisles, the sound of the machines pounding in their teeth and eyelids. Machine after machine. Imagine the scale of them. Picture it.
And then, Roma again. He was older, in his late fifties or early sixties, and the promise of his wrinkles made good. Some scars that certainly weren't there before laced a few spots on his arms. Alfred felt dizzy and sick, the thrum of the machines became a hum in his gut, and he tasted hot metal.
"Great," Roma said. "You made it!"
He was piecing the wooden sections together, fitting them into some sort of structure. Feliciano still couldn't tell what it was.
"Roma?" Alfred asked. "What is going on here?"
"Roma," he said. "Hah! No one's called me 'Roma' in a long, long time. Caesar. I prefer Caesar. Leave the younger man's name to the younger man."
The howl of the machines echoed back from the empty scaffolding and walkways, and onto Caesar, older and stooped. He gestured at what he needed and Feliciano and Alfred helped him fit some of the wood bits into other wood bits, following his instructions and not their own understanding.
Neither Alfred nor Feliciano said anything more.
Once they had finished doing whatever they were doing, it didn't look like much. A cube, but missing some bits, maybe. He pressed a button and the whole thing rolled on the conveyor belt through the tunnel of machines and out the factory. Caesar gave Feliciano a thin, sad smile.
"Only one more stop now," he said. "Come on, then, kid."
He stooped his way out of the building, and Feliciano and Alfred followed him. Of course they did.
Outside the door, a narrow concrete ledge over the water. Blue water, white sand. The light slapping of the ocean against the factory, wearing it away one gentle touch at a time.
Caesar was there. Already so old. His hair was pure white, and his eyes were clouded. Scars ran up and down what skin was visible, and even his face was marked. He was easily seventy, probably eighty. Maybe more.
"Well, this is it, then," he said. "Help me with these last few pieces."
And they helped him with those last few pieces, and as they locked into place, Feliciano understood, and Alfred shortly afterwards. And when Caesar gestured, they didn't ask questions. They helped him carry the coffin they had built to the edge of the factory, and dropped it into the water. When the tired old man who used to be an energetic child reached for Alfred's hand, Alfred didn't hesitate. He eased Caesar into the coffin as it floated. He nodded.
He didn't seem scared. Alfred's hands shook, but his were steady. Feliciano stood by with a solemn expression.
"Just push me out, then," he said.
The coffin bobbed in the water. He laid his head back, and he put his eyes up to the sky.
On the inside of the coffin lid was the company's logo in red. The logo was two people lowering a coffin into the sea. "Praxis Industries," it said. Alfred didn't flinch.
And God help them, Alfred and Feliciano pushed. The coffin took off into the tide, and with each wave it was a little farther out. Caesar's hands were so small, so frail, and they reached up and pulled the lid closed. They stood there watching as it went out further, and further, and then was gone.
The factory kept on churning, machines make machines. There was no one in sight. It smelled like the sea, and it smelled like smoke and steel and it smelled like algae and murk.
Once he was gone, and Feliciano felt himself start to breathe again, Alfred stepped off the edge, waist-deep into the water, and Feliciano followed. Their bodies trembled, and their hands found each other, and in doing so, found comfort. They walked through the water around the factory, and onto the sand, white as bone, white as heat, and got into the truck, wet as they were, dripping onto the torn plastic seats, dripping on the books stacked on the floor, curling the pages, hands still clasped together tightly. Alfred put his other hand on the key, turned the engine back on, and drove away. Away from the sand, away from the factory, out back onto the road.
Away from the factory.
And they cried. It seemed like all they did ever since meeting each other was cry, tremble, and fear, but at least they had each other for comfort.
They were driving away, away from the factory, and their feet were wet and their hands were sweaty. They would try to forget what they saw there, but they wouldn't be able to. They would never forget what happened at the factory by the sea.
The farther south they went on the coast, the worse the drivers got. They were old, and they were mad. Why were they so mad?
"Why are you in my lane?" Alfred muttered. "Why are you in my lane?!" He yelled out the window. Feliciano laughed at his rage and the old man who was in his lane flipped him off, but ultimately got out of his lane.
Feliciano flipped the radio onto a random station with his right hand and hummed along.
There was a black van parked by the side of the road. Man outside of it, sitting in a lawn chair, he had coolers next to him, sign saying "50¢ clams, $2 crabs."
"Hmm… tempting," Alfred commented, eyes following the van. "But we're not gonna stop."
Then the popcorn store came up. An entire store of popcorn. "Even more tempting," Feliciano echoed. "We're not gonna stop for that either though."
The suburbs never bended there. Firework outlets, outlets that sell only uniforms of various kinds, churches like they build when they have no history, strip mall triangles, same architecture as the Taco Bell - easily convertible into a Ross Dress for Less if the church didn't work out.
Feliciano supposed he shouldn't judge. No one should. Everyone did things they shouldn't, though.
"I've been thinking about the pizza nights I used to have with my boyfriend," Alfred said suddenly. The hand holding Alfred's suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable, but Alfred wouldn't let go. "Dough from scratch, sauce from scratch, cheese from the store. Not going that far."
Feliciano laughed a bit at that.
"Making the bread was great. Dough for the crust, flour and water in my hands, first separate and then merging into a whole thing. The yeast and gluten almost making it seem alive, and how it moves when you poke it. It breathed into my hands, I swear." Feliciano smiled. "Arthur's hands and my hands covered in flour, and we'd open a bottle of wine, and we'd eat the pizza we made, and… we'd just watch whatever's on TV and fall asleep in a bread and wine coma, assuming he didn't get drunk."
"Yeah?" Feliciano looked out the window to his right. "Where's… Arthur? How come you don't still live with him?"
Alfred laughed, but it wasn't particularly bitter. Nostalgic, maybe, filled with a little sorrow, but no regret. "He's dead. Probably. Just vanished one day and never came back."
Feliciano's eyes widened. "Mio Dio, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to-"
"No, no!" Alfred laughed some more, and it was light hearted. "No, don't worry about it. I wanted to talk about it, which is why I brought it up in the first place."
Feliciano coughed lightly in embarrassment. "Ah, yes. I- I see."
Alfred smiled out at the road. "He worked as an accountant, but almost always wore this one blue collared shirt with white trim around the collar, and almost always had this weird-ass white penrose brooch on him."
Feliciano's eyes widened and he turned to look at Alfred, sitting there in his navy blue collared shirt with white trim around the collar, with a white penrose brooch. "You mean-"
"Yeah." Alfred smiled. "He worked for this company too. I had no idea, until he was dead, and I started to notice people dressed just like this on the news. I looked through his things, found a ton of crap with 'Bay & Creek Shipping' scrawled all over it. So here I am."
"Wow." Feliciano didn't know what else to say. The music on the radio station stopped, and ads began playing. He frowned and switched the station.
Alfred grinned as familiar words danced out of the speakers. Feliciano laughed. Even if he wasn't American, he knew this song well.
"What is love? Baby don't hurt me! Baby don't hurt me! No more!"
The keyboard riff began to play, and Feliciano and Alfred laughed together as they sang along.
"Oh, I don't know why you're not there, I give you my love, but you don't care!"
"So what is right and what is wrong? Gimme a sign!"
"What is love? Baby, don't hurt me! Don't hurt me! No more!"
"What is love? Baby, don't hurt me! Don't hurt me! No more!"
As they continued to sing, the sun began to slowly inch its way down towards the horizon. In the five minutes and thirty seconds that it took them to sing the whole song, the sky had gotten significantly darker.
Alfred smiled softly into the night.
"I think love is cooking together," he began. "I think it's making something with each other, that's what I think."
Feliciano smiled as well. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. Flour on our hands, sauce on our hands, our hands on our hands, something forgettable on the TV, leg upon leg. That was the life." Alfred laughed. "I wonder if we'll ever do that."
Feliciano's smile widened. "I hope so, Alfred."
"You know," Alfred began again. "Ever since we met each other I don't think we've known anything for certain."
Feliciano grinned. "Well, I mean, there's a Denny's in two miles."
"Yeah," Alfred laughed. "There's that, Feliciano. There's always that."