Gift for reconquista - Part 4
Title: The Romolo Vargas Theater
Author: Asriel27
Recipient: reconquista
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Spain/Romano, Germany/Italy, France/Jehanne, slight Germania/Rome, slight Russia/America, mentioned in passing and vague Fryingpangle, etc.
Word Count: 8,260
Rating: R
Warnings: Excessive cursing, Boys love (of course), character death mentioned in passing
Summary: Antonio is the head male dancer for Francis' ballet company, and Romano is the surly stage painter that watches him dance in secret.
Author notes: The works mentioned are as follows: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth are movies using William Shakespeare’s revised scripts. Coppélia (L. Delibes), Cinderella (S. Prokofiev), Giselle (Adoplhe Adam), Sleeping Beauty (P. Tchaikovsky), Swan Lake (P. Tchaikovsky), and The Nutcracker (P. Tchaikovsky) are live ballet performances. The Marriage of Figaro (WA Mozart) and La Boheme (G. Puccini) are live opera performances. Wicked (Stephen Schwartz) is a Broadway show.
Additional notes: I am NOT a fan of ballet. Sorry if it doesn’t focus on ballet as much. OTL I’m more of an opera fan. Also, sorry if I use very stupid terms about stage management and stage design. Google can only go so far.
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9 Due to excess booze
Romano loves parties and weddings. His crap of a brother is always asked to play (and the little shit loves doing just that) while he chats up pretty ladies in gowns and perfumes and make up. There’s also that factor of having a glass of champagne or brandy always in his grasp.
He looks at the tables in distaste. He wants to go over and rip the bows off the pretentious table cloths. Everything is perfect except for those and he complains to Francis and his grandfather about it. He is not the coordinator of the wedding after all. There is nothing he can do but glare daggers (scissors!) at the atrocities for the rest of the evening.
He kisses the bride and the bridesmaids while tipping glasses with the men. He laughs with Gilbert because everyone freezes and stares at a laughing, red-faced Ludwig. He doesn’t bat an eyelash when Gilbert invites him up the dance floor. His vision is spinning a little but hey, it looks fun! Gilbert dances like a moron and doesn’t even attempt dance properly half the time. It doesn’t take a while before they all form a crazy circle moving to and fro like those tea cups in an amusement park ride.
Romano wishes the bride a happy married life and lots of kids and kisses her once more. He stumbles into somebody, apologizes, before he crashes down to the floor. He remembers turning to face the ceiling. He wonders when the lights turned off till he sees deep green eyes and springy dark brown hair. The ringing is his ears are louder than what Antonio is saying so he reaches up and kisses the man on the mouth too.
“You’re so pretty,” he tries to say and pinches the man’s cheeks for the heck of it till he promptly falls asleep.
10 It was important
Romano wants to kill that bitch. He wants to strangle her with his bare hands and rip off her white blond hair. That bitch.
Antonio babbles like the idiot he is while lying face down on the floor backstage. Gilbert is cutting his costume. The blood permeates through the swathes of starched cloth and stains the golden stitches Romano spent weeks to make. The blood flows freely once they peel the costume off Antonio’s back. Romano takes a perverse glee at pouring alcohol on the dancer’s wound. Antonio stops chattering and grunts in pain. Fuck him, babbling on about how fine he is and how it doesn’t hurt and all that crap.
The nail that grazed Antonio’s back is very thin and pointed. Romano keeps it in his pocket for evidence.
The gash is angry looking and very long, so long it takes two people to put pressure on the wound to prevent Antonio from bleeding to death. Romano hears Francis announce the understudy’s name from the speakers. It’s Ivan Braginsky.
It takes all of his power not to punch the man. Romano swears the bitch planned this. Fucking crazy bitch, Antonio could’ve died!
“Is he alright?!” Alfred bursts into question. He kneels down next to Romano and pushes on the wound, “I’m so sorry Romano. This is my fault! I’m the one who’s in charge of checking the place and-”
“Shut up.”
“I’m sorry Romano-”
“I said shut up!”
Alfred actually shuts up and deliberately stares at his hands. They hear the medics rush into the hallway carrying a stretcher. They hoist Antonio up and run off. Gilbert shifts from foot to foot before running after the team.
Romano glares at Alfred.
“My name is Rovino,” he murmurs to the man. Alfred shakes. Romano doesn’t know if it’s out of fear or hatred at this point. He stares straight into the man’s blue eyes.
“It’s not your fault, Alfred.”
Romano turns around and comes face to face with Ivan Braginsky.
“Because it’s your fucking fault, right?” Romano smirks.
The Russian dancer just smiles at him. He breaks and lunges for the man’s neck.
11 To talk about feelings
Antonio plays around with Romano’s body. He slides his fingers up and down Romano’s arm. His fingers mimic walking feet and he giggles when Romano tries to swat his hand away.
“You’re definitely awake now so get off,” Romano growls at him.
“No way! This is very comfortable. And I told you I like cuddles. Do you hate cuddles? Because if you do, that’s a big problem for me. You know I love cuddles-”
“Yeah. Yeah. Shut up,” and Romano moves his arm, the one around Antonio’s shoulders, to cover his eyes and feign sleep.
“Roma?”
“Go to sleep, Toni.”
“Why do you call yourself Rovino?”
“None of your business.”
“Isn’t it a bad name, like “the destroyer” something? Is there a story behind it? Did your grandpa call you that way? Your father? Your mother? Come on, there must be something about it. My mother always calls me Toño. Well. Everyone in my family does. My big brothers and big sisters sometimes call me Toñito. I didn’t like that one as much because it usually means I’m small and I’m not really small now anyway.”
Romano lifted his arm to glare at Antonio.
“You won’t ever shut up do you?” he grunts. Antonio just cocks his head to the side.
“But I wanna know!” he whines and wriggles on top of Romano to get his point across. Or maybe not. He wriggles a lot no matter where he is anyway.
Romano shoves him on the other side of the bed and gathers the sheets. Romano turns his back to Antonio and ignores him.
“Romano! I bottomed today, so don’t I get a reward or something? Come on. Tell me. Story. Story…”
“There was this teacher back in primary school,” Romano mumbles in his pillow. Antonio wraps his arm around him, wriggling to get under the sheets again and presses as much skin as he can against Romano’s.
“She was a bitch,” Romano continues, “No offense to teachers but she was a real bitch. One day, she called me Rovino. Then everyone in class called me that. Then everyone in my school did it. And now it just stuck. End of story.”
“But, Romano, why would she call you Rovino? Did you break the classroom vase? The window? You did, didn’t you? I remember when-”
“I couldn’t help myself! It’s not my fault!” Romano turns and yells at him. Antonio stares back. Romano huffs and turns away again.
“I’m sorry,” Antonio murmurs in his hair.
“It’s not your fault.”
“Are you angry?”
“No.”
Antonio makes it his goal to know exactly what happened. But now, he contents himself with burrowing his nose between Romano’s shoulder and neck, feeling the thundering heart beneath the skin and bones.
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“You could’ve just told me! Then I wouldn’t have to go pester everybody else!” Antonio shouts.
“But you have no right sniffing around like that!’ Romano shrieks back.
“You won’t tell me!” Antonio roars. Romano is still like a statue. Antonio softens his tone.
“You should just tell me.”
“What’s the use? You already know,” Romano snaps at him. He crosses his arms and glares at Antonio.
“I… I don’t. Everyone said it’s important but they won’t tell me. Why won’t they tell me, Romano? What’s so important about breaking a few vases? I broke my share of windows and chairs. It’s nothing big. I… I just want to know. But I guess you just don’t trust me enough?”
TBC