[Fan Fiction] [Hetalia] My Last Romano
Fandom: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Relationships: Spain/South Italy; Prussia/South Italy
Rating: PG
Background: the time was in 1718, during the War of the Spanish Succession.
‘Hola, Gilbert, my dear friend, what brings you here?’ Antonio smiled, while he sat in a scarlet divan embroidered with golden flowers, a crimson uniform coat hanging loosely on his shoulders.
‘I heard that you were injured in a battle with England. As one of your best friends, I feel fully obliged to pay you a visit.’ Gilbert sank luxuriously into a sofa, stretching both of his arms along the top of the backrest.
‘Injured? Me?’ Antonio glanced at his left arm hidden under his uniform, which was heavily bandaged, and then resumed his smile, ‘do you mean this? It was a piece of cake. Never mind me. By the way, there’s a button missing in the front of your coat, have you noticed?’
‘What?’ Gilbert looked down to examine his ‘the more stitched the more battered’ coat, only to find out what Antonio told him was right. ‘How about this?’ he unbuttoned all the buttons in one breath, ‘it’s not that conspicuous now!’
‘Bravo! It’s as if there were no button at all! But how can your coat withstand wind with all the holes in it? Don’t you feel cold?’
‘Never. I am a soldier, no chill can defeat me, kesesesese!’ Gilbert drummed his own chest smugly.
At this moment, the heavy gilt door of the magnificent Baroque drawing-room opened, and Lovino entered with an exquisite tea set in his hands. ‘Don’t tell me you’re so busy that you’ve no time to put on clothes properly, you Teutonic asshole.’ Pouting petulantly, he laid down a teacup in front of Gilbert, and turned around to lay another teacup for Antonio who was sitting opposite. ‘Stupid Tonio, if it were not that you had been beaten by the Englishman, and Laura had been gone, I would never have made tea for you of all things, vafanculo!’
‘Gracias, Romano mio is always so good to your Hermano Mayor!’ Antonio smiled from ear to ear.
‘You are always good to each other!’ Gilbert said enviously.
A trace of discontentment appeared on Lovino’s young face. With or without purpose, he poured hot tea onto Gilbert’s clothes, leaving immediately an ugly brown stain. ‘Dammit!’
‘Oh no, Gilbert’s crap clothes are now totally damaged!’ Antonio gasped unimpressedly, his emerald eyes simply wide-opened.
‘I don’t think a tiny water stain can damage my whole clothes! Don’t you think so, Fratello?’ Gilbert grinned at Lovino, who lowered down his little dark brown head listlessly.
‘Don’t worry! It’s totally fine with me!’ Gilbert tried to comfort the young boy by words.
After a moment of silence, Lovino continued, ‘I happen to have some trash clothes that might suit you…’ He left the drawing-room, and then returned with a huge uniform coat which was obviously too large for himself.
‘Here you are. My work of failure might be unsightly, but it’s a million times better than your damn beggar’s clothes!’ Lovino threw the handmade coat to Gilbert.
‘Danke sehr, Fratello!’ Gilbert caught the coat with every bit of gratitude.
‘Romano, did you use our curtains to make this?’ Antonio was surprised.
‘No way!’ Lovino retorted.
‘You should have told your Hermano Mayor earlier, for I can give you money to buy as many clothes as you want! But I’m afraid curtain cloth is not fit for a uniform?’
‘Don’t you dare criticize my work, Tonio you idiot!’ Lovino stuck out his tongue.
‘I think it’s a piece of good work. I’ll put it on when I go back home, kesesesese!’ It couldn’t be too careful for Gilbert to fold up the uniform coat and put it into his sack.
At night, after Gilbert had gone home, Antonio suddenly dragged Lovino into his own bedroom, closing the door with a loud bang.
‘You hurt me, dumb Tonio!’ Lovino said angrily, nursing the red imprint on his delicate wrist caused by the grasp of the much stronger man.
‘What do you just say, my Romano?’ Antonio put on his wonted gentle smile, rolling his sleeves while advancing slowly towards Lovino, whom was leaning to a gilt florid wall.
‘Don’t you get any closer to me, damn you!’ the young boy kept on moving and moving backward until he found himself caught up into a corner, until the tall man’s long, dark shadow dominated the seemingly thirteen-year-old thin body.
‘What did you say? Big Brother didn’t hear you.’ Without any warning, Antonio slapped Lovino heavily in the face, causing the boy to fall on the floor.
There was a burning pain in Lovino’s cheek, and a feat of dizziness came over his head. ‘I said, you hurt me, God damn you, Antonio!’ He had no remaining strength to raise himself up and fight back the torero, and could only demonstrate his revolt by roaring-not without tears on his face, which were the shameful result from the irresistible pain and fear. His little body was trembling as uncontrollably as a thirteen-year-old boy could do.
‘Ay, why are you crying? My cute Romano,’ Antonio crouched down, and pretended to wipe tears away from Lovino’s pink, delicate face, only to leave obscure fingerprints on the soft skin, ‘do you know why I slapped you, Romano?’
‘Because you are a jealous bastard.’
‘It seems I shall teach you a lesson today, Romano. How dare you steal my money to buy cloth for Gilbert’s new uniform?’
‘Didn’t you say it was made of curtain cloth?’
‘Must I let him know how much heart and soul you’ve put into this uniform? To make him smug beyond himself? I give you a shelter from storm, make you lead a comfortable life without worrying food or clothing, and this is what you give me in return? If it had not been me, you would have been torn up in pieces by those great powers! You would never have a chance to stand against me!’
‘I don’t think my life has been any better. I should have submitted to France, instead of you!’
‘When half of your territory was conceded, your body was reduced to half of the size too, and France was not half interested in you any more! Of course, I am not a pedophilia either, so I have to wait patiently until you grow up again…but lo,’ the Spaniard raised the weeping Lovino’s beautifully-curved chin, and squeezed it with deliberate force, ‘you’re getting more and more beautiful! I could have waited for a longer time before the fruit is totally ripe, but perhaps a bitter sweet taste is not as bad?’
‘Don’t touch me, you’re absolutely a pedophilia, cazzo!’ Lovino spit at his suzerain.
‘Joder, chingate, Romano!’ Antonio seized Lovino, turned him around, and peeled off the boy’s girdle to tie his slim hands up.
‘Release me, you bastard!’ Lovino cried out with terror at the top of his voice, but nobody could help him in the depth of the night and the depth of a prison-he had been Antonio’s prisoner for centuries.
‘Release you? to what degree? ah…let me see if you really are a wanton puto like they said in 1282.’
The mentioning of the event made Lovino shudder. It had been his nightmare and the reason why he was unable to be with his faithful knight any more-he was no longer pure, no longer his Holy Virgin.
‘You still care about him?’ It was always easy for the Spaniard to read the South Italian’s mind, ‘fine, I will fuck you up and mar you until you’ll never think about seeing him ever again, ever.’ He brought from a gabinete a crop to the wincing and whimpering Italian boy, and stripped off the white gauze shirt to reveal the youth’s badly bruised back.
On the second day, Gilbert put on the brand-new Prussian-blue uniform he had received from Lovino, and strutted all along the way to the magnificent Spanish Palacio.
On the walls of the second floor above the grand hall, there were dozens of huge paintings, almost all of them painted by famous artists, except one painting, which was placed between Caravaggio’s John the Baptist and a mahogany window, and this painting captured Gilbert’s attention:
In the picture was a youth with stunning beauty. He was barely thirteen of age, his short charcoal hair glossy and curly, his huge lime green eyes bright and innocent, and his rosy cheeks slightly puffed up-his expression was so adorable that even the meanest man in the world could not resist from giving him a caress. Beneath his exquisite reedlike neck was a chartreuse embroidered frock coat, which met the colour of the young boy’s eyes; and the dainty buttons were made of sapphires. It seemed as if only a prosperous, loving family could have brought up such an elegant, unstained angel.
As Gilbert was totally absorbed in this portrait, Antonio emerged without a sound from his behind.
‘Isn’t it marvellous? This painting is entitled My Last Romano.’
‘Last?’ Gilbert asked, surprised.
‘Exactly. There used to be Tim’s and Laura’s portraits hanging over there,’ Antonio pointed to the empty wall on the other side of the window, ‘but after they have moved out, Romano becomes my sol companion.’
‘No wonder, no wonder.’
‘I will never let anyone else have him, because I love him.’ The Spaniard smiled warmly, and drew down the curtains to seal Lovino’s portrait from the dazzling sunlight outside.