(no subject)
SUMMER - England/Spain
There are a thousand roots to snare his toes and a million passing leaves to redden his already nearly sunburnt cheeks, but Arthur plows on, dutifully trained on the skin between Antonio's tanned shoulders, the shadows that filter through the maze of crops to play upon a dark muss of hair, the sound of Antonio's laugh resounding like a melody in the little space between them.
He does not, after all, want to get lost in this damned place. This shoddy, backwards place.
"Thank you," Arthur murmurs, as if to remind him of his duty, "For taking me here."
"No problem!" So innocent, so naive, and was this nation honestly really older than him? "I did not know you enjoyed such things! I would have taken you sooner!"
Through pursed lips, a simple, noncommittal nothing noise, "Hm," and Antonio turns to him, smile lopsided underneath his always-shining eyes, as if to say, c'mon, please don't be like that.
It works.
"... you're ridiculous," he starts, but then Arthur trips on the foot of a plant - revenge, Spain's land's revenge, for speaking badly of its avatar - and bumps his forehead against Antonio's chin.
They both fall to the earthy floor, moaning and cursing, and Antonio smells so strongly of it, of earth, so strongly of summer trapped in soil and song. Nothing like all his rainy, steel gray days back home, his cold, infertile island dirt, the isolation of the gate of the endless depths of ocean blue.
His stomach fills with jealousy. For a brief moment, it comes again: that harrowing, primal want. To destroy what he can't have --
But Antonio is saying something, and finally, Arthur realizes that he's pinning the other man to the floor.
"Oh. Um -- " An explosion of noise, friction, and Arthur hurries to stand, but Antonio stays beneath him, lethargic on his patch of dirt.
"I'm terribly sorry --"
"It's alright, amigo." That damned smile, "It's alright."
A hand comes to view, Antonio's hand, a silent plea.
"As you wish," murmurs Arthur, awkward, and pulls the older man right back up.
( A scene like in a dream, a fragment of a fragment of a fragment of a nothing time, leaving its mark in his mind, like a burn, even now --
Arms busy with the elevation of bushels of tomatoes, fresh and ripe, the midday's heat heavy on their half-lidded eyelids -- Antonio faces him, part way through a yawn, and tells him,
I like you.
Arthur nearly crushes the fruit in his hand.
Excuse me?
I like you. I like you a lot.
From afar, mother birds start crying in fruitless rage and the forest around them becomes engulfed with the roar of fear for wolves, and Arthur, for the first time in a long while, is at a loss of words.
I - I. Why --
But isn't this what he wanted? What his Queen wanted?
If -- If you don't like me back, continues the Spaniard, and for reason unknown, looks up at the sky, I understand. I am used to being dumped, aha.
- the word comes out before Arthur has time to process it, No.
Hm?
Stiffly, formally, as if reading the last four words of a prosecutor's document, I like you too.
Antonio's eyes widen, ( green, like his, not like his, never like his ), and Arthur, for a cruel moment, thinks that this is all a joke, and that Antonio is again, teasing him, and Arthur almost reddens and sputters and raises a fist --
but then Antonio laughs, to the sun, to the sky, to him, to them, body shaking, fruits falling from his basket and back to the dirt from hence where they came -
and Arthur scowls through the red on his cheeks and pulls Antonio by the collar and kisses him.
He tastes just like how he expected him to: fresh and ripe, heavy with midday's heat.
He loves it.
He hates it.
He has to clench a fist into Antonio's hair to keep from biting down, down, down. )
So I heard, very briefly, in class that Queen Elizabeth once lead on the King of Spain so she would be able to build a navy behind his back. And then I made it gay. ...:|
BULLFIGHT - France & Spain
The stadium is small, claustrophobic, and filled to the brim with cheering crowds, adoring fans. Francis stands idly amongst the throngs of village people, their collective sounds, language, aroma - their everything a testament to the matador below them, a presence that Francis breathes in like the wine that stains his lips, wet and dark. They are the blood that makes up Antonio. Antonio is the dancer who performs just for them.
Outside, the world calls Spain backwards, insane, unstable. Weak. But here, here he is a hero. The main attraction.
From so high up, Antonio is merely a blink of red cape, a flash of a sword, the ghost of an image behind the constant of the running of the bull. A collective gasp arises at each near brush of horn against flesh, yet none cry for the dying, raging animal. It wears its second spine of spears with its shoulders held high and proud; and Francis imagines that Antonio will kiss the beast's brow right before the final blow, in thanks.
There will be a parting scene, so beautifully orchestrated - the pop of puncturing skin, the murmur of ripping muscles, the searing bestial scream rising in crescendo, the ending, resounding moan - that all will clap, at once. And Antonio, dear Antonio, he will smile, death all around him, death in a crown of raining flowers.
Magnifique.
But Francis does not stay to watch. He leaves, abruptly, and presses his back against the entrance gates, cigarette in corroding to embers between his teeth. Glances at the town clock and glares at what he fails to comprehend.
Sighing past the pain in his joints, he waits for the muffled roar of applause and flirts with the women who walk across his view.