i carry you within me, to the very root.
Series Metadata
Listing Series
-
Tags
Summary
“Maybe Baetica is my territory,” Tarraconensis laughed.
“Don’t be foolish. Not even your own territory is yours. Everything belongs to Rome now.”
“Yes, but when I grow up… when I grow up, everything will be mine. I’ll be like Rome—no, greater! And no one will ever harm me. Nor you either.”
A shiver ran through Lusitania. His brother, smiling as always, now gazed at him with a light in his eyes that was no longer like their mother’s gentleness. It was the hunger of a Roman soldier blazing there. Fierce as the summer sun.
Had he gone mad?
In which Rome playing favorites becomes the germ of the Iberians growing apart.
Set during the Romanization of Hispania.
Series
- Part 1 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
Al-Gharb spoke softly, his thumb tracing the line of Al-Basit’s jaw. "I don't hate her, Antun. I don't want to see her palace burn. But I can’t live pretending forever. This collar is made of silk and it smells of jasmine, yet it’s still a collar. Every time she calls me Yahya, I feel a piece of my soil turning to sand. Don’t you feel suffocated too?"
Al-Basit looked up, his gaze meeting Al-Gharb’s. He found himself tracing the line of his mouth before he darted back to his eyes, the hammam suddenly feeling smaller than the world outside.
"I do..." Al-Basit whispered, his voice a low, ragged confession.
As centuries go by, the silk tunics Al-Andalus sews for Al-Gharb and Al-Basit have become a cage and the word "brother" has become a lie. Trapped in the short sleeves they’ve outgrown, the "jewels" of the Caliphate are cracking under the pressure of becoming men. While the North stirs with the legend of a rising Apostle, the boys are left to grapple with silent prayers and slick communions in the dark, and the terrifying realization that to finally breathe, they have to break the only bond they’ve ever known.
Set during the Muslim rule of Al-Andalus.
Series
- Part 2 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 4,301
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 11
- Hits:
- 111
-
Tags
Summary
In the chaos of the melee, a Nasrid knight saw a gap in Portugal’s guard. He leveled a heavy, ash-wood spear and spurred his horse into a dead run, aimed straight for his side.
Castile saw it from the corner of his eye. The distance was too great for a measured move, and the air was too thick with the roar of death for logic. He didn't hesitate. He wrenched his warhorse around, a desperate, raw shriek tearing from his throat.
"Lusitania!" he cried, the old, ancient name echoing over the clash of steel.
He threw his entire weight into the path of the charge. The impact was sickening. The spear didn't find the King of the West; instead, it drove deep into Castile’s thigh.Al-Basit was the boy left to rot in a garden of silence. To survive, he had to forge himself into Castile.
Now, at the Salado, Portugal has returned. In the aftermath of the slaughter, the bitterness of centuries collapses into a frantic, visceral need. Trapped in a command tent, they attempt to "force the demon out" through the grinding of wool against linen. Between the stinging crack of a heavy palm and the punishing friction of their clothes, they find a salvation that burns.Set during The Reconquista.
Series
- Part 3 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
The sight shattered Castile. Their heads were bowed together over a map spread across a saddle, halfway discussing the cold mechanics of the terrain and halfway anchored in a tender, easy familiarity made it seem like Portugal was whispering every secret Castile had ever held into England’s ear. The northerner’s hand rested near Portugal’s shoulder. It was a gesture of steady partnership, but to Castile's fevered eyes it looked like a claim. He couldn’t bear seeing the northern red cross of St. George planted on Iberian soil, draped so naturally beside the Portuguese blue.
"Charge," Castile rasped.
Castile marches toward Aljubarrota driven by a manic, holy desperation to fold his body with Portugal's into one crown, leaving no room for the emptiness that invites sin.
But Portugal has found a different air to breathe. Standing behind a wall of iron and pikes, anchored by the steady hand of England. As the August sun beats down on the heights, a desperate, manic love clashes with a cold, calculated defiance. And it is a bowstring that finally cuts to pieces the ancient veins of the peninsula.
Set during the Battle of Aljubarrota.
Series
- Part 4 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,345
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 13
- Hits:
- 134
-
vellum, salt and the blood of christ by paale_bluue_doot
Fandoms: Hetalia (Anime & Manga)
07 Feb 2026
Tags
Summary
"João, please... the partition... we'll do it... three hundred leagues, four hundred... take it all," he sobbed, his head thrashing against the vellum as he tried to find even a second of relief from Portugal's hand. "Take the whole Atlantic... just let me finish... God, I’m begging you..."
Portugal leaned down further, his weight pinning Spain's shaking frame to the oak, his hand still milking his dick with a merciless, expert rhythm that promised everything but gave nothing.
"Three hundred and seventy, Toninho," Portugal commanded, his voice dark and steady. "Say the number clearly, and I'll let you spill."
In 1494, the world is a vellum corpse to be carved in Tordesillas, where a line is bought with the sting of a heavy palm and the stain of a perverted sacrament. By 1522, it holds a gaping wound, and the only way to endure the wreckage is through a brutal grinding of skin. In a world where they're trapped by treaties and geopolitics, their bodies become the only maps that Portugal and Spain can truly read.
Set during the Treaty of Tordesillas and the Magellan-Elcano Expedition.
Series
- Part 5 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
it hurts me more than it’s hurting you by paale_bluue_doot
Fandoms: Hetalia (Anime & Manga)
15 Feb 2026
Tags
Summary
"There you are," Spain hissed, his eyes rolling back in a trance of dark satisfaction as he flooded Portugal’s raw, aching interior with an intensity that felt like an eclipse. He didn't pull away. He stayed braced over Portugal, his hand still knotted in that messy hair, holding Portugal’s face against his shoulder as if he could keep the grief trapped between them forever.
"It’s just us," Spain whispered in peaceful sweetness. "I’ll always be here.”
Portugal let out a fractured sob. He lay there, framed by Spain's shadow, letting Spain consume his tears and his body, his mind drifting back to a sun-drenched past that Spain had effectively murdered and replaced with this gilded love.
In 1580, King Sebastian vanishes in the sand, leaving Portugal a treasure waiting to be claimed. Spain tightens his grip, driven by an obsessive conviction that they are two halves finally being made whole. For sixty years, their union is a suffocating trap of forced intimacy, where Spain’s doting affection is as violent as his armies. While his colonies burn and his identity erodes, Portugal endures the pressure of silver handcuffs until they finally break.
Set during the Iberian Union.
Series
- Part 6 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
"Don't touch me," Portugal hissed, his voice trembling with the strain of his own dignity.
"I'm just trying to clean your face," Spain pleaded, his hand hanging in the air where it had been struck. "You have earth in your eyes, João. Let me get it out so you can see. I'm trying to help you."
"I see perfectly," Portugal whispered. He looked emaciated by the strain of his own resistance. "And I do not want your hands on my skin. If you have grain, give it to Sebastião. Just stay away from me."
It's 1755 when Portugal lies broken in a makeshift infirmary, battered by a triple catastrophe that saw the land tear itself apart, get consumed by fire and drowned by the ocean. But for Portugal, the agony of his body and mind is nothing compared to the threat of Spain’s touch. To Portugal, Spain’s pity is a familiar invasion, a silver-tongued attempt to turn a tragedy into a debt of gratitude.
Set during the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake.
Series
- Part 7 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
“Do you understand?” Portugal's voice cracked, rising. “Two years of receiving letters… and no sign of him! I don’t know if he’s alive. I don’t know if he’s safe. Or—”
England’s lips quirked slightly, a faint attempt at levity. “I’m sure that stubborn one is quite all right,” he said lightly, trying to ease the tension.
But the joke didn’t land. Portugal froze for a heartbeat, then snapped. “I’m sure it’s better for you!! You’ve always hated him anyways!!” His fists clenched at the table, voice sharp, trembling with frustration.
England’s eyes widened, hurt and surprise flashing, but he held his tone firm. “Says you! Do you even remember why you became my ally in the first place? To break away from him!”As Napoleon’s armies march across the Iberian Peninsula, Portugal fights alongside England, resisting occupation and navigating the chaos of war. Yet his thoughts are never far from Spain—missing since the conflict began, leaving only silence, rumors, and the gnawing fear that he may never see him again. Portugal is torn between the desperate need to find him and the weight of centuries of fractured trust that have kept them apart for so long.
Set during the Peninsular War.
Series
- Part 1 of the iberian ulcer
- Part 8 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
Portugal’s hand clamped onto Spain’s jaw, his thumb dragging hard across a cheek. He could feel the vibration of Arthur’s cruelty and how Spain’s chest heaved against his own in a desperate search for air. He knew Spain looked to him for a barrier, expecting to be kept safe from the worst of England’s bite.
But the sight of Spain pinned there, limbs slack and eyes glazed with a total, forced surrender, sent a violent rush through Portugal that had nothing to do with protection. Seeing Spain reduced to a laboring tool for the two of them made the heat in Portugal's gut coil into something predatory.
“I won’t let him break you,” Portugal murmured, his voice a low against Spain’s temple. “But I need to see you like this. Serving him for me. Por favor.”The night before their final battle at Vitoria, Spain’s war-weary body trembles beneath Portugal as a penance for centuries of betrayal. Caught between Portugal’s commanding warmth and England’s biting cruelty, he is stripped of pride and used as the land they claim. His shattered sovereignty fades into a desperate reach for the other Iberian—his only lighthouse in a dark ocean.
Set at the end of the Peninsular War.
Series
- Part 2 of the iberian ulcer
- Part 9 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
"I’m just saying you’re exhausted, Toninho," Portugal muttered.
He reached out, his hand sliding under the side of Spain’s jaw to tilt his head slightly, forcing him to look up. Spain’s breath hitched, but he stayed rooted to the spot, his eyes locked on Portugal’s.
"And when you’re exhausted, you make mistakes," Portugal said, slow and clear, as if explaining a simple map to a child. His thumb traced the bone of Spain's cheek as he glanced toward the letter on the desk. "Like promising treasuries to a lover instead of paying your generals. You’re trying to save everyone, Antonio, and you’re going to end up with nothing but a well-written letter and an empty house."
While his own borders bleed from a civil war he cannot afford, Spain clings onto a letter from a man half a world away. As Portugal visits him, he's reminded of his struggle to keep his child queen in the throne and how it is now a line item in a British dispatch.
Set during the First Carlist War.
Series
- Part 10 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
Spain didn't look up. Instead, his trembling hand slid a folded copy of newspaper across the mahogany toward Portugal. He pinned it down with a finger, pointing to a bold, jagged headline: ‘Why Spaniards Are Cruel’.
"Read it," Spain whispered, his voice thick with a sudden, raw shame. "They say I was doomed from the start. That Carthaginians and Phoenicians dirtied my blood. That I’m a distillation of the worst parts of history. And about Rome..." his voice cracked as he traced a line of text that spoke of the Roman occupation. "They say I’m evil because of how he trained me. They are telling the world that I’m not deserving of pity because my very ancestry is a map of murder."
The sun finally sets on the Empire, leaving Spain gasping in the wake of a war that felt like an execution. While papers paint him as a relic of a dark age he is left to rot in a silent palace, wondering if his blood is as dirty as the world claims.
But as the borders of the Old World shrink, he isn't the only one who feels left behind.
Set after the British Ultimatum of 1890 and the Spanish-American War.
Series
- Part 11 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
"I... I am not that hungry, João," Spain whispered, his voice a dry rasp. He tore the bread in two uneven parts and got on his knees to hold out the larger half toward the water. "Keep this one at least. You have your own mouths to feed."
"Eat it, Antonio." Portugal’s voice was low, yet firm.
"I am fine," Spain forced a smile. Then he collapsed forward, his palms hitting the dirt.
"You can’t lie to me. You are starving," Portugal interrupted, his gaze unyielding. "Eat. All of it. I won’t leave until you do."Hollowed by hunger and exhaustion, and hiding from the guards, Spain drifts near the border, unsure of what his own soul is seeking. Thankfully, Portugal crosses to him.
Set at the beginning of Spain's Hunger Years.
Series
- Part 12 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
When they finally broke apart, Spain’s forehead stayed pressed against Portugal’s. His breath was still hitching, his eyes wet and focused entirely on his other half’s face, memorizing every line as if he were looking at the moon for the last time.
As Franco and Salazar stare at the horizon from the Monsanto hills, Spain and Portugal desperately turn to each other in the back of a Mercedes-Benz. Buried under the weight of firing squads, stagnation, and centuries of blood, they use violent friction to drown out the suffocating silence of their own regimes. They need to prove they are still men of bone and skin rather than hollowed-out monuments of the State.
Set during the Salazar and Franco dictatorships.
Series
- Part 13 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
-
Tags
Summary
"I just want peace," Spain finally admitted, his voice so thin it was almost swallowed by the ambient noise of the lounge.
"I understand. But don’t you want change?" Portugal asked.
From the speakers, the presenter’s voice rang out: Song sixteen. Portugal. E Depois do Adeus.
The '70s arrive to Europe like a breath of fresh air, glitz and glitter. To most of Europe, that is.
For the Iberians, this new decade merely means prolonguing the darkness of their dictatorships. But while Spain learns to hide his suffering under a sun-drenched mask, Portugal is seeking a way out. He never thought he would find the light in a song from a singing competition, and that a flower—a gift from centuries ago—could turn into a symbol of resistance.Set during the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 and the Carnation Revolution.
Series
- Part 14 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
- Part 1 of clavelitos de mi corazón
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 5,985
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 7
- Hits:
- 57
-
si algún día clavelitos no lograra poderte traer by paale_bluue_doot
Fandoms: Hetalia (Anime & Manga)
25 Apr 2026
Tags
Summary
Spain felt the blood drain from his face. He looked at the maps. They weren’t defensive positions; they were transit routes. Red arrows pierced the border, aiming directly at Lisbon’s throat.
"We cannot allow a vacuum to exist," San Martín continued. "If this revolution threatens to get us infected, we must be ready to intervene within seventy-two hours. We are coordinating the ground support now."
The relief Spain had felt seconds ago vanished, replaced by a cold, sickening horror. He wasn't being sent to the border to watch; he was being asked to facilitate an execution.
"You want me to help them kill him," Spain whispered, his voice trembling.
After decades of hunger and poverty, the dictatorship finally comes up with a plan to spike up the economy: selling European tourists a Spanish dream that not even the nation himself believes in. But as the Carnation Revolution ignites across the border, Spain is forced to leave coastal Benidorm to once again become the jailer of the one he loves most.
Set during the Spanish Miracle and the plan to invade Portugal.
Series
- Part 15 of i carry you within me, to the very root.
- Part 2 of clavelitos de mi corazón