APH: Build Up (2/?)
Title: Build Up, Part Two
Author: grosse_averse
Characters: South Italy, Spain, with cameos from the rest of the "students" // for now, one-sided Spamano, because dammit, Spain shouldn't be the only one working hard for this fucking relationship. Also a hint of Netherlands/Spain. Past? Present? Decide.
Rating: PG-13, for Lovino's mouth, of course!
Summary: AU. Lovino's spent so long building up walls, he no longer wants to tear them down for anyone. Except for maybe a certain Spaniard. Based on a prompt from 30quotes, and in the Le Lys & La Rose universe.
Prompt: "You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it."
Part One
During the football match the following week, Lovino found himself sitting next to Antonio on the sidelines - the Italian had managed to head butt a member of the opposing team and had been taken off the field, while the Spaniard had twisted his ankle and was now pressing a bag of ice gently against the swelling, humming to himself.
He was surprised when Lovino asked, gruffly, "Are...you okay?"
"Mm?" Antonio looked up, met Lovino's eyes, before the younger boy looked quickly away. "Oh! I'm fine, but thank you for asking."
"Wh-whatever." Lovino huffed. Antonio couldn't help smiling, earning himself a scowl.
"What are you smiling about?" Lovino demanded. "I was just being polite! I don't actually care!"
Antonio shrugged, a little bit teasingly, as he gauged the younger boy's reaction. "You seemed like you cared." he pointed out, biting his lip to stifle the giggle at Lovino's facial expression.
"W-well, I don't." Lovino shot back. "Got it?"
"Got it!" Antonio replied, then reached into his sports bag to pull out a little plastic bag full of tomato slices. With Lovino watching, he opened them up, balanced the bag of ice on his ankle, and began eating with enthusiasm.
After a while, he noticed Lovino watching him. "D'you want some?" he asked.
Lovino's eyebrows twitched minutely upwards. So did the edges of his mouth.
"Well, I mean, if you aren't going to eat it..." he grumbled. Happily, Antonio handed over a slice of tomato.
"I didn't know you liked tomatoes!" he exclaimed. "Gilbert always thinks I'm weird for eating them like this, but I think they're delicious!"
Lovino was sucking on the seedy pulp of the tomato, tip of his tongue flicking out to catch the juice. Antonio watched him with detached bemusement. A strange expression had overtaken the young boy's face, a sense of calm, a small almost-smile, like he was remembering something. It made him look younger and...
Antonio grinned. And much, much cuter.
But then Lovino looked over at him, and the scowl returned to his face. "What're you looking at?" he demanded.
"Sorry! I couldn't help it, you looked really cute just now!" Antonio told him. At first he thought a cloud had passed over the sun, until he realized the reason Lovino had gotten darker was because he had suddenly and violently turned five different shades of red.
"You - wh - don't say those things, you bastard!" Lovino exclaimed. "Who do you think you are??"
"I was paying you a compliment!" Antonio protested as Lovino stood, fuming. He wracked his brain for something to say that would make the Italian less angry.
"Y-your face is still red - you look like a tomato!" he blurted out.
Then he doubled over from a well-placed fist to the gut. Lovino was practically radiating heat from his flushed cheeks.
"Ch-chigii!" he ground out. "I don't even know you, you jerk!"
"Wait, I'm sorry!" Antonio called as the whistle blew and Lovino stalked onto the field, fists clenched.
The Italian ignored him.
--
Antonio was limping for the rest of the week. Gilbert laughed at his friend's condition, until Matthew convinced him to help the Spaniard carry his books to the next class they shared together. Lars, Antonio's tall Dutch friend, poked fun at him before helping him down the hall to the rest of his classes.
Antonio had a tentative relationship with Lars. They had had some on again, off again chemistry for a while, back at the beginning of secondary school, and had been schoolmates all the way back to grade school. The Dutch boy was witty and charming and enthusiastic but their personalities had clashed (once so badly Antonio thought they'd never speak again) and they had eventually let whatever they had fizzle out. They remained friends, though, and Antonio laughingly leaned on Lars's broad shoulder as he fixed the wrap around his ankle. When he looked up through his hair he caught sight of Lovino peeking around the corner of the hallway, an almost-pouting-frown on his face. When their eyes met Lovino was gone before Antonio could say anything.
Lars looked amused. "What, have you got a stalker, Toni?" he demanded teasingly as Antonio straightened up with a quizzical frown. "I thought I was the only one for you!"
"Hush." Antonio told him good naturedly. "He's just a kid from my team."
"Oh yeah, he has a twin, doesn't he?" Lars asked, steadying Antonio's elbow as he hobbled awkwardly back onto a good centre of balance.
"Yup! Feliciano. Though they don't spend too much time together during school," Antonio responded, tongue sticking out as he concentrated on the least painful way to step. Lars snorted.
"Yeah, if I was Feliciano I wouldn't want to spend time with that brat either."
"He's not that bad." Antonio remarked immediately, without really knowing why he was bothering to defend the prickly Italian. "I think he's shy. But he's, like..." he trailed off, searching for the word. "...angry shy."
"Ah, of course, that explains everything." Lars quipped sarcastically. "C'mon, we're nearly there, you're making my arm fall asleep."
Antonio leaned heavily on the Dutch boy's arm to piss him off, and laughed when Lars glared at him.
"Aw, I like it when you're my nurse~" he sang, and then laughingly yelped as Lars smacked him lightly over the head.
"Keep talking and I'll put you in the hospital again." Lars grumbled.
"That was once," Antonio pointed out, "And that was 'cause my mum's paranoid."
The two continued chattering as they moved down the hall. Lovino, pressed up against the lockers around the corner, stayed there for a minute or two after they had gone, willing the flush of anger (and maybe something else that wasn't anger, hearing Antonio defend him like that...) to go down.
--
When Lovino and Feliciano were children, they had a mother.
Well.
Obviously they had a mother.
All Lovino could remember of her was her dark, thick hair and that she smelled like laundry detergent and that she hummed in a throaty alto, songs about Italia and the sea and the history of the land she'd grown up on. On summer days she twirled Lovino around in the sun of the kitchen, teaching him words - "Chair" she'd tell him, pointing, then: "Sedia". The best of both worlds, a bilingual in the making.
Feliciano only remembered that she made the best pasta around. All that their father wanted to remember was how he stopped using her brand of detergent after her death, because of how pathetically depressing laundry day had become.
It's not like Marcus had done a horrible job of raising his sons. But Lovino had a tendency for self-pity and when the world was against him he liked to dredge up memories of his mother.
One last memory he had of her, the memory he kept tucked away in the back of his mind, a secret from his father (who met inquiries about his wife with false cheerfulness) and brother (who remembered little and said nothing), of sitting at the kitchen table, feet dangling over the edge of the chair. His mother, at the counter, cutting and dicing and frying.
"Mama, hungry!"
Then: "Madre, sono affamato!"
The magic words. His mother had approached him, all smiles, and set down a little plate of tomato slices.
"Pomodoro," she told him. "Tomato."
When she had died, Lovino had cried at the funeral, in the middle of church. His father had taken him outside to calm him down, leaving Feliciano in the hands of a neighbor. He'd held Lovino in his arms while he paced the walkway of the church, humming in a low voice, a shabby imitation of his mother's singing.
After the funeral, their father had thrown himself into his work, unable to face the inevitable sorting through his wife's things, sending things back to her family in Italy, spending days staring at that double bed with the quilt they'd received on their wedding day. Marcus Vargas had gotten a job in another city, worked long hours, came home and stayed up late in his office, going over cases and papers and documents. He made time for his sons, of course, especially on weekends but Lovino had withdrawn while Feliciano had accepted his father's attention with glee - and why wouldn't Feliciano eventually become his favorite, Lovino always rationalized? Of course Feliciano, always Feliciano.
Feliciano (even his goddamned name a metaphorical nail on the head!), always boisterous, chatty, friendly, and open, had made many friends throughout school, never without someone to hang around with, do things after school with - better than hanging out with his brother, people whispered, who was surly and quick-tempered. Feliciano's attempts to include Lovino ended with his brother pushing him away. After a while, Feliciano stopped asking.
What was the point of bothering to get close to people at all, Lovino wondered, thinking of his mother and his father and his brother (but especially the tall Dutch boy and his hand on Antonio's elbow and the Spaniard's painful-bright grin), if all they were going to do was leave you, in the end?
--
to be continued
--
Note: Haha I just watched a soap opera, can you tell?? OTL
Author: grosse_averse
Characters: South Italy, Spain, with cameos from the rest of the "students" // for now, one-sided Spamano, because dammit, Spain shouldn't be the only one working hard for this fucking relationship. Also a hint of Netherlands/Spain. Past? Present? Decide.
Rating: PG-13, for Lovino's mouth, of course!
Summary: AU. Lovino's spent so long building up walls, he no longer wants to tear them down for anyone. Except for maybe a certain Spaniard. Based on a prompt from 30quotes, and in the Le Lys & La Rose universe.
Prompt: "You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it."
Part One
During the football match the following week, Lovino found himself sitting next to Antonio on the sidelines - the Italian had managed to head butt a member of the opposing team and had been taken off the field, while the Spaniard had twisted his ankle and was now pressing a bag of ice gently against the swelling, humming to himself.
He was surprised when Lovino asked, gruffly, "Are...you okay?"
"Mm?" Antonio looked up, met Lovino's eyes, before the younger boy looked quickly away. "Oh! I'm fine, but thank you for asking."
"Wh-whatever." Lovino huffed. Antonio couldn't help smiling, earning himself a scowl.
"What are you smiling about?" Lovino demanded. "I was just being polite! I don't actually care!"
Antonio shrugged, a little bit teasingly, as he gauged the younger boy's reaction. "You seemed like you cared." he pointed out, biting his lip to stifle the giggle at Lovino's facial expression.
"W-well, I don't." Lovino shot back. "Got it?"
"Got it!" Antonio replied, then reached into his sports bag to pull out a little plastic bag full of tomato slices. With Lovino watching, he opened them up, balanced the bag of ice on his ankle, and began eating with enthusiasm.
After a while, he noticed Lovino watching him. "D'you want some?" he asked.
Lovino's eyebrows twitched minutely upwards. So did the edges of his mouth.
"Well, I mean, if you aren't going to eat it..." he grumbled. Happily, Antonio handed over a slice of tomato.
"I didn't know you liked tomatoes!" he exclaimed. "Gilbert always thinks I'm weird for eating them like this, but I think they're delicious!"
Lovino was sucking on the seedy pulp of the tomato, tip of his tongue flicking out to catch the juice. Antonio watched him with detached bemusement. A strange expression had overtaken the young boy's face, a sense of calm, a small almost-smile, like he was remembering something. It made him look younger and...
Antonio grinned. And much, much cuter.
But then Lovino looked over at him, and the scowl returned to his face. "What're you looking at?" he demanded.
"Sorry! I couldn't help it, you looked really cute just now!" Antonio told him. At first he thought a cloud had passed over the sun, until he realized the reason Lovino had gotten darker was because he had suddenly and violently turned five different shades of red.
"You - wh - don't say those things, you bastard!" Lovino exclaimed. "Who do you think you are??"
"I was paying you a compliment!" Antonio protested as Lovino stood, fuming. He wracked his brain for something to say that would make the Italian less angry.
"Y-your face is still red - you look like a tomato!" he blurted out.
Then he doubled over from a well-placed fist to the gut. Lovino was practically radiating heat from his flushed cheeks.
"Ch-chigii!" he ground out. "I don't even know you, you jerk!"
"Wait, I'm sorry!" Antonio called as the whistle blew and Lovino stalked onto the field, fists clenched.
The Italian ignored him.
--
Antonio was limping for the rest of the week. Gilbert laughed at his friend's condition, until Matthew convinced him to help the Spaniard carry his books to the next class they shared together. Lars, Antonio's tall Dutch friend, poked fun at him before helping him down the hall to the rest of his classes.
Antonio had a tentative relationship with Lars. They had had some on again, off again chemistry for a while, back at the beginning of secondary school, and had been schoolmates all the way back to grade school. The Dutch boy was witty and charming and enthusiastic but their personalities had clashed (once so badly Antonio thought they'd never speak again) and they had eventually let whatever they had fizzle out. They remained friends, though, and Antonio laughingly leaned on Lars's broad shoulder as he fixed the wrap around his ankle. When he looked up through his hair he caught sight of Lovino peeking around the corner of the hallway, an almost-pouting-frown on his face. When their eyes met Lovino was gone before Antonio could say anything.
Lars looked amused. "What, have you got a stalker, Toni?" he demanded teasingly as Antonio straightened up with a quizzical frown. "I thought I was the only one for you!"
"Hush." Antonio told him good naturedly. "He's just a kid from my team."
"Oh yeah, he has a twin, doesn't he?" Lars asked, steadying Antonio's elbow as he hobbled awkwardly back onto a good centre of balance.
"Yup! Feliciano. Though they don't spend too much time together during school," Antonio responded, tongue sticking out as he concentrated on the least painful way to step. Lars snorted.
"Yeah, if I was Feliciano I wouldn't want to spend time with that brat either."
"He's not that bad." Antonio remarked immediately, without really knowing why he was bothering to defend the prickly Italian. "I think he's shy. But he's, like..." he trailed off, searching for the word. "...angry shy."
"Ah, of course, that explains everything." Lars quipped sarcastically. "C'mon, we're nearly there, you're making my arm fall asleep."
Antonio leaned heavily on the Dutch boy's arm to piss him off, and laughed when Lars glared at him.
"Aw, I like it when you're my nurse~" he sang, and then laughingly yelped as Lars smacked him lightly over the head.
"Keep talking and I'll put you in the hospital again." Lars grumbled.
"That was once," Antonio pointed out, "And that was 'cause my mum's paranoid."
The two continued chattering as they moved down the hall. Lovino, pressed up against the lockers around the corner, stayed there for a minute or two after they had gone, willing the flush of anger (and maybe something else that wasn't anger, hearing Antonio defend him like that...) to go down.
--
When Lovino and Feliciano were children, they had a mother.
Well.
Obviously they had a mother.
All Lovino could remember of her was her dark, thick hair and that she smelled like laundry detergent and that she hummed in a throaty alto, songs about Italia and the sea and the history of the land she'd grown up on. On summer days she twirled Lovino around in the sun of the kitchen, teaching him words - "Chair" she'd tell him, pointing, then: "Sedia". The best of both worlds, a bilingual in the making.
Feliciano only remembered that she made the best pasta around. All that their father wanted to remember was how he stopped using her brand of detergent after her death, because of how pathetically depressing laundry day had become.
It's not like Marcus had done a horrible job of raising his sons. But Lovino had a tendency for self-pity and when the world was against him he liked to dredge up memories of his mother.
One last memory he had of her, the memory he kept tucked away in the back of his mind, a secret from his father (who met inquiries about his wife with false cheerfulness) and brother (who remembered little and said nothing), of sitting at the kitchen table, feet dangling over the edge of the chair. His mother, at the counter, cutting and dicing and frying.
"Mama, hungry!"
Then: "Madre, sono affamato!"
The magic words. His mother had approached him, all smiles, and set down a little plate of tomato slices.
"Pomodoro," she told him. "Tomato."
When she had died, Lovino had cried at the funeral, in the middle of church. His father had taken him outside to calm him down, leaving Feliciano in the hands of a neighbor. He'd held Lovino in his arms while he paced the walkway of the church, humming in a low voice, a shabby imitation of his mother's singing.
After the funeral, their father had thrown himself into his work, unable to face the inevitable sorting through his wife's things, sending things back to her family in Italy, spending days staring at that double bed with the quilt they'd received on their wedding day. Marcus Vargas had gotten a job in another city, worked long hours, came home and stayed up late in his office, going over cases and papers and documents. He made time for his sons, of course, especially on weekends but Lovino had withdrawn while Feliciano had accepted his father's attention with glee - and why wouldn't Feliciano eventually become his favorite, Lovino always rationalized? Of course Feliciano, always Feliciano.
Feliciano (even his goddamned name a metaphorical nail on the head!), always boisterous, chatty, friendly, and open, had made many friends throughout school, never without someone to hang around with, do things after school with - better than hanging out with his brother, people whispered, who was surly and quick-tempered. Feliciano's attempts to include Lovino ended with his brother pushing him away. After a while, Feliciano stopped asking.
What was the point of bothering to get close to people at all, Lovino wondered, thinking of his mother and his father and his brother (but especially the tall Dutch boy and his hand on Antonio's elbow and the Spaniard's painful-bright grin), if all they were going to do was leave you, in the end?
--
to be continued
--
Note: Haha I just watched a soap opera, can you tell?? OTL