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surelyyoujest.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
hetalia2009-08-02 06:33 pm
surelyyoujest.livejournal.com) wrote in hetalia2009-08-02 06:33 pm
[Fic] The Comparison of One State to Another
Title: The Comparison of One State to Another
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Lovino, Feliciano, and a few bad friends of theirs.
Warnings: Nothing too scary here. Just a little language, and Lovino being Lovino.
Summary: In which Lovino is a brat, Antonio is a stupid bastard, and produce makes everything (somewhat) better.
Concrit: Welcomed with open arms!
The first time Lovino Vargas meets his younger brother is the briefest. He had seen him once before, over the top of their grandfather’s retreating back. Lovino was still young then – no more than mere decades old, with the years beginning to lengthen his limbs and sharpen his features just so. Feliciano had been younger still, not yet out of his swaddling clothes when their Grandfather left for his final campaign. Lovino supposes now that he alone remembers watching the distance grow between them that day, and he knows for certain that he alone remembers the pained, unsteady gait with which their Grandfather bore Feliciano over the mountains and disappeared into fog of the North. He remembers sitting there in the tall grass, watching for a long, long time. Even after the sun had set and there was nothing left to watch but the low flicker of torchlight at guards’ outposts in the distance.
And when wide-eyed Feliciano returns, he is alone. His clothing is filthy and ragged and through the holes Lovino can see the telltale pockmarks left by plague. Lovino feels a surge of rage like nothing he’s ever felt, and he wants to punch that frightened face until he cannot feel his fists anymore, but his brother has just enough time to manage a meek “help” before the northern barbarian descends on them both. A rock in a sling catches Lovino by the back of the head. Then there is darkness.
Lovino passes through many sets of hands before he awakens in Valencia. The first thing that occurs to him is that he hurts. His entire body hurts to the very core, and that, he is certain, he owes to his captors. The second thing he notices is that his captors have also provided him with a soft bed, a luxury Lovino cannot recall having had in his many centuries to date. It’s a strange amenity to provide one’s prisoner, he thinks, but the chamber’s scarlet and gold decorations are fit for a king. If his captor can afford to keep his prisoners in such a style, then Lovino is loath to protest this treatment. And his head is still spinning too much to. He closes his eyes.
As the darkness claims him once more, he racks his memory, trying to place just where he has seen an eagle like the one emblazoned on the shield above the fireplace.
Pain in searing bolts brings him to his senses again. Instinct commands him to recoil, but his exhausted limbs refuse; he curses his body, and loudly. There is laughter. Then, more pain. Lovino realizes he is not alone. Blinking away the dark spots clouding his vision, he can see two tanned hands, a bowl of water, and a damp cloth. A voice he can only assume belongs to the hands instructs him to lie still lest he reopen his wounds.
He really has no choice but to lie still, so he curses his body again, and the voice and the hands, too. He closes his eyes.
The voice laughs again, washes Lovino’s wounds, and wonders aloud where such a young boy learned such harsh language. Lovino protests: his appearance belies his age. At nearly five centuries, he is hardly a child.
“Of course,” the voice says, soothingly.
When he is strong enough to sit up, Lovino begins to plan his escape.
He is visited frequently by his captor, and he learns that the man’s name is Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. More importantly, he learns that the man is like Feliciano and himself and their grandfather; at first he thought he might secure a knife, but men such as them are not easy to kill. Furthermore, he has no means of getting a knife. Lovino will have to revise his strategy, so for the time being, he rests, he plans, and he learns as much as he can.
He learns that his own lands have been divided between the Spaniard and a man who came south with the Normans. From what Lovino is able to gather, his name is Bonnefoy, and Lovino does not like the way his eyes linger on his body when Antonio has him over to visit. Lovino may not have inherited any of his grandfather’s choice qualities, but his lands are fertile and promising. Antonio must have understood this when he staked his claims to the land, and no doubt the Frenchman sees it as well.
Lovino curses at the man whenever he passes, and spits on Antonio’s fine marble floor.
Antonio sits with him after Bonnefoy leaves and tends to Lovino’s wounds again. Lovino says nothing, doesn’t even make eye contact with him, just lies there in silence with his shirt hiked up to his shoulders. Antonio sighs, washes his belly, and fetches clean dressings.
“I know you do not like him,” he says in halting Italian. “He is a difficult man, but he is a friend. I owe him much.”
Lovino’s eyes are fixed on the ceiling. Antonio finishes wrapping the wounds and neatly sets the old dressings aside.
“Do not worry by him. I will not let him take you,” he continues. “Alright?”
It’s not alright. But Lovino corrects his Italian, and Antonio chuckles and thanks him anyway.
What a stupid bastard, Lovino thinks.
Feliciano, Lovino learns, has gone to a gentleman up north in a country called Austria. His caretaker, another acquaintance of Antonio’s, has put him to work doing chores. Lovino snorts at the image of his brother’s hands, accustomed only to holding a paintbrush, wringing dirty water from a rag. Antonio gives him a curious look, and asks what could possibly be so funny.
Lovino does not tell him, instead he asks if the Austrian is like they are. The more he knows about his situation, the better.
Yes, Antonio says, Roderich is one of their kind, and Lovino finds this news heartening. He does not yet know how, but he may yet use this information to his advantage.
He does, or at the very least, he tries to. Lovino makes his move when he believes the Spaniard to be out of the house, visiting Roderich on state business. He will be gone for weeks, Lovino assumes, and the household unattended. Antonio never liked to keep servants in his employ, preferring instead to see to all his affairs personally. Lovino doesn’t quite understand why a man of such import and wealth would choose not to live accordingly; Antonio tousled his hair when he asked and said he rather liked things simple. The home had been provided for him by the crown, and having the space to entertain state guests is a diplomatic concern. Were he any ordinary man, Antonio had said, he probably would have been quite content to live an ordinary man’s life.
And yet he wonders why Lovino thinks him a fool. It’s because of strange inclinations like that, and doubly so for leaving a prisoner like him unattended.
His injuries no longer trouble him, but he is not as strong or as agile as he once was, and so scaling the tall wall of Antonio’s property takes a great deal more effort and time than he anticipated. Lovino secures a boot knife from the armory before he leaves, just in case. But he clears the wall unhindered and rolls when he hits the ground so that the shock does not worsen his condition.
But he collides with something, and swearing, he stands up quickly. He prays it is a tree.
He is not so fortunate – it is a man, and with his luck he supposes the man will think he is a thief making his escape. And so Lovino falls back on an old thief’s methods. He draws his knife, holds his arm close to his body, and throws himself at the man. In a crowded street, such an assault would have been difficult to evade; even more difficult to trace once one ducked into the crowd. He expects the knife to bury itself in the man’s gut. He does not expect to find the knife wrestled from his grasp and thrown to the ground.
He does not expect to be thrown to the ground himself, or to be bound up with his own belt.
He does, however, expect it when he is deposited at Antonio’s feet.
Antonio looks down at Lovino, perplexed, and up again.
“Gilbert,” is all he can manage.
“I believe this is yours, Carriedo,” the man says.
Lovino lies on his side, unmoving. He keeps his eyes on the ground and bites his tongue. It is humiliating, so humiliating that he wants to cry, but that would be even worse. So he does his best to focus on the pain and Gilbert’s heel digging into his side and nothing else around him.
It is easier said than done; he learns more than he may have wished to know. Intractable, the Austrian calls him, and undisciplined. Spoiled. He attributes it to Antonio’s overindulgence.
“If his brother seems any bit more pleasant, than you have only yourself to blame,” he says, setting a third place at the tea-table for his new guest. “All the more reason not to exchange the two. Now come, Gilbert. And take off your hat in civilized company, won’t you?”
Gilbert removes his hat but does not yet sit.
“Can’t I rough him up a bit first? The little shit came at me with a knife.”
Gilbert idly rolls his captive with his boot. Lovino’s wounds may no longer be fresh, but the aggravation still hurts and he whimpers.
“Leave him,” Antonio says. His voice is even and commanding. It hardly sounds like the Antonio that Lovino knows. “I will deal with him later. At home.”
Lovino does not know what he does expect the Spaniard to do to him, but he certainly does not expect the Spaniard to bear him home without reprimand. They do not speak for days. With Gilbert’s help, Lovino’s injuries have reopened, and Antonio tends to them once more.
But it is Lovino who speaks first.
“Is it true?” He asks.
“Is what true?”
“The exchange.” Lovino selects his words carefully. “Did you ask for control of the northern states?”
“I did,” Antonio says, his voice solemn. For some reason, Lovino thinks his hands seem to be tense today, and his attention to the wounds more deliberate.
“And four-eyes would not take the southern states.”
“He would not.”
“That’s not fair,” Lovino says.
“There is very little in this world that is fair, Lovi,” Antonio says, and draws the blankets up over Lovino. He bids the boy good night, and takes his candle with him, leaving Lovino in darkness.
In the morning, Lovino finds the house empty, so he busies himself pressing olives. He is not as young as he looks, and not nearly as young as the others of his kind would like to think he is. He has worked his fields alongside his people. Although his body is all long limbs and awkward angles – for that state of strange growth is upon him – it is strong. It is imbued with the knowledge of his people. This is easy, familiar work for him.
When the sun is very nearly at its zenith, Antonio returns with a basket of oranges on his back. He places the choicest ones in a bowl to keep, and cleans the rest so that they might be sold. Lovino keeps pressing olives and says nothing until Antonio taps a peeled orange against his shoulder.
“You must be hungry,” he says. “Here.”
Lovino takes it and thanks him quietly. The words feel strange on his tongue, even in his native language. Antonio sits, humming, and peels another orange for himself. Lovino finishes with the olives before he begins eating.
“It’s not half bad,” he admits.
“I know,” Antonio says.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Lovino, Feliciano, and a few bad friends of theirs.
Warnings: Nothing too scary here. Just a little language, and Lovino being Lovino.
Summary: In which Lovino is a brat, Antonio is a stupid bastard, and produce makes everything (somewhat) better.
Concrit: Welcomed with open arms!
The first time Lovino Vargas meets his younger brother is the briefest. He had seen him once before, over the top of their grandfather’s retreating back. Lovino was still young then – no more than mere decades old, with the years beginning to lengthen his limbs and sharpen his features just so. Feliciano had been younger still, not yet out of his swaddling clothes when their Grandfather left for his final campaign. Lovino supposes now that he alone remembers watching the distance grow between them that day, and he knows for certain that he alone remembers the pained, unsteady gait with which their Grandfather bore Feliciano over the mountains and disappeared into fog of the North. He remembers sitting there in the tall grass, watching for a long, long time. Even after the sun had set and there was nothing left to watch but the low flicker of torchlight at guards’ outposts in the distance.
And when wide-eyed Feliciano returns, he is alone. His clothing is filthy and ragged and through the holes Lovino can see the telltale pockmarks left by plague. Lovino feels a surge of rage like nothing he’s ever felt, and he wants to punch that frightened face until he cannot feel his fists anymore, but his brother has just enough time to manage a meek “help” before the northern barbarian descends on them both. A rock in a sling catches Lovino by the back of the head. Then there is darkness.
Lovino passes through many sets of hands before he awakens in Valencia. The first thing that occurs to him is that he hurts. His entire body hurts to the very core, and that, he is certain, he owes to his captors. The second thing he notices is that his captors have also provided him with a soft bed, a luxury Lovino cannot recall having had in his many centuries to date. It’s a strange amenity to provide one’s prisoner, he thinks, but the chamber’s scarlet and gold decorations are fit for a king. If his captor can afford to keep his prisoners in such a style, then Lovino is loath to protest this treatment. And his head is still spinning too much to. He closes his eyes.
As the darkness claims him once more, he racks his memory, trying to place just where he has seen an eagle like the one emblazoned on the shield above the fireplace.
Pain in searing bolts brings him to his senses again. Instinct commands him to recoil, but his exhausted limbs refuse; he curses his body, and loudly. There is laughter. Then, more pain. Lovino realizes he is not alone. Blinking away the dark spots clouding his vision, he can see two tanned hands, a bowl of water, and a damp cloth. A voice he can only assume belongs to the hands instructs him to lie still lest he reopen his wounds.
He really has no choice but to lie still, so he curses his body again, and the voice and the hands, too. He closes his eyes.
The voice laughs again, washes Lovino’s wounds, and wonders aloud where such a young boy learned such harsh language. Lovino protests: his appearance belies his age. At nearly five centuries, he is hardly a child.
“Of course,” the voice says, soothingly.
When he is strong enough to sit up, Lovino begins to plan his escape.
He is visited frequently by his captor, and he learns that the man’s name is Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. More importantly, he learns that the man is like Feliciano and himself and their grandfather; at first he thought he might secure a knife, but men such as them are not easy to kill. Furthermore, he has no means of getting a knife. Lovino will have to revise his strategy, so for the time being, he rests, he plans, and he learns as much as he can.
He learns that his own lands have been divided between the Spaniard and a man who came south with the Normans. From what Lovino is able to gather, his name is Bonnefoy, and Lovino does not like the way his eyes linger on his body when Antonio has him over to visit. Lovino may not have inherited any of his grandfather’s choice qualities, but his lands are fertile and promising. Antonio must have understood this when he staked his claims to the land, and no doubt the Frenchman sees it as well.
Lovino curses at the man whenever he passes, and spits on Antonio’s fine marble floor.
Antonio sits with him after Bonnefoy leaves and tends to Lovino’s wounds again. Lovino says nothing, doesn’t even make eye contact with him, just lies there in silence with his shirt hiked up to his shoulders. Antonio sighs, washes his belly, and fetches clean dressings.
“I know you do not like him,” he says in halting Italian. “He is a difficult man, but he is a friend. I owe him much.”
Lovino’s eyes are fixed on the ceiling. Antonio finishes wrapping the wounds and neatly sets the old dressings aside.
“Do not worry by him. I will not let him take you,” he continues. “Alright?”
It’s not alright. But Lovino corrects his Italian, and Antonio chuckles and thanks him anyway.
What a stupid bastard, Lovino thinks.
Feliciano, Lovino learns, has gone to a gentleman up north in a country called Austria. His caretaker, another acquaintance of Antonio’s, has put him to work doing chores. Lovino snorts at the image of his brother’s hands, accustomed only to holding a paintbrush, wringing dirty water from a rag. Antonio gives him a curious look, and asks what could possibly be so funny.
Lovino does not tell him, instead he asks if the Austrian is like they are. The more he knows about his situation, the better.
Yes, Antonio says, Roderich is one of their kind, and Lovino finds this news heartening. He does not yet know how, but he may yet use this information to his advantage.
He does, or at the very least, he tries to. Lovino makes his move when he believes the Spaniard to be out of the house, visiting Roderich on state business. He will be gone for weeks, Lovino assumes, and the household unattended. Antonio never liked to keep servants in his employ, preferring instead to see to all his affairs personally. Lovino doesn’t quite understand why a man of such import and wealth would choose not to live accordingly; Antonio tousled his hair when he asked and said he rather liked things simple. The home had been provided for him by the crown, and having the space to entertain state guests is a diplomatic concern. Were he any ordinary man, Antonio had said, he probably would have been quite content to live an ordinary man’s life.
And yet he wonders why Lovino thinks him a fool. It’s because of strange inclinations like that, and doubly so for leaving a prisoner like him unattended.
His injuries no longer trouble him, but he is not as strong or as agile as he once was, and so scaling the tall wall of Antonio’s property takes a great deal more effort and time than he anticipated. Lovino secures a boot knife from the armory before he leaves, just in case. But he clears the wall unhindered and rolls when he hits the ground so that the shock does not worsen his condition.
But he collides with something, and swearing, he stands up quickly. He prays it is a tree.
He is not so fortunate – it is a man, and with his luck he supposes the man will think he is a thief making his escape. And so Lovino falls back on an old thief’s methods. He draws his knife, holds his arm close to his body, and throws himself at the man. In a crowded street, such an assault would have been difficult to evade; even more difficult to trace once one ducked into the crowd. He expects the knife to bury itself in the man’s gut. He does not expect to find the knife wrestled from his grasp and thrown to the ground.
He does not expect to be thrown to the ground himself, or to be bound up with his own belt.
He does, however, expect it when he is deposited at Antonio’s feet.
Antonio looks down at Lovino, perplexed, and up again.
“Gilbert,” is all he can manage.
“I believe this is yours, Carriedo,” the man says.
Lovino lies on his side, unmoving. He keeps his eyes on the ground and bites his tongue. It is humiliating, so humiliating that he wants to cry, but that would be even worse. So he does his best to focus on the pain and Gilbert’s heel digging into his side and nothing else around him.
It is easier said than done; he learns more than he may have wished to know. Intractable, the Austrian calls him, and undisciplined. Spoiled. He attributes it to Antonio’s overindulgence.
“If his brother seems any bit more pleasant, than you have only yourself to blame,” he says, setting a third place at the tea-table for his new guest. “All the more reason not to exchange the two. Now come, Gilbert. And take off your hat in civilized company, won’t you?”
Gilbert removes his hat but does not yet sit.
“Can’t I rough him up a bit first? The little shit came at me with a knife.”
Gilbert idly rolls his captive with his boot. Lovino’s wounds may no longer be fresh, but the aggravation still hurts and he whimpers.
“Leave him,” Antonio says. His voice is even and commanding. It hardly sounds like the Antonio that Lovino knows. “I will deal with him later. At home.”
Lovino does not know what he does expect the Spaniard to do to him, but he certainly does not expect the Spaniard to bear him home without reprimand. They do not speak for days. With Gilbert’s help, Lovino’s injuries have reopened, and Antonio tends to them once more.
But it is Lovino who speaks first.
“Is it true?” He asks.
“Is what true?”
“The exchange.” Lovino selects his words carefully. “Did you ask for control of the northern states?”
“I did,” Antonio says, his voice solemn. For some reason, Lovino thinks his hands seem to be tense today, and his attention to the wounds more deliberate.
“And four-eyes would not take the southern states.”
“He would not.”
“That’s not fair,” Lovino says.
“There is very little in this world that is fair, Lovi,” Antonio says, and draws the blankets up over Lovino. He bids the boy good night, and takes his candle with him, leaving Lovino in darkness.
In the morning, Lovino finds the house empty, so he busies himself pressing olives. He is not as young as he looks, and not nearly as young as the others of his kind would like to think he is. He has worked his fields alongside his people. Although his body is all long limbs and awkward angles – for that state of strange growth is upon him – it is strong. It is imbued with the knowledge of his people. This is easy, familiar work for him.
When the sun is very nearly at its zenith, Antonio returns with a basket of oranges on his back. He places the choicest ones in a bowl to keep, and cleans the rest so that they might be sold. Lovino keeps pressing olives and says nothing until Antonio taps a peeled orange against his shoulder.
“You must be hungry,” he says. “Here.”
Lovino takes it and thanks him quietly. The words feel strange on his tongue, even in his native language. Antonio sits, humming, and peels another orange for himself. Lovino finishes with the olives before he begins eating.
“It’s not half bad,” he admits.
“I know,” Antonio says.
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Ah, and the ending~ so nice ^^
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awesomeawesomeawesome. i loved this <3 good good stuff. to me, this is exactly how this subject (all this "ho ho let's control the italies!" stuff) should be written :D
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anyway, i'd say either very cutesy-ish or very very angsty. both of which i like if they're done well, but i think this is better :3
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Is it scary that
I remember your fics from way back in the D. Grayman fandom (OT4 ♥ !) and you were my favorite writer!? ;D;
I was so happy to see you posting here ~ and your writing is still ever amazing. I really love the brooding yet sometimes soft (the moments with Antonio) mood in the piece. It's definitely a different portrayal of the Italies' relationships with the stronger nations, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. I love it when subtle history is weaved in.
Great job ;u;
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Ahahah, yeah, sort of ended up taking
manya few liberties with canon-- er. I mean, I love Spain and Romano as much as anyone, but I just can't see everything coming up tomatoes from the get-go. You know? History's messy business.