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"Thank you for your hospitality."
Spain raises his head, locking eyes with a straight standing Austria, clad in a pristinely pressed cream and dark blue suit, embroidered in silver and lace, the waistcoat partially covered by a light thigh-length coat buttoned up over his chest. Silk necktie, a top hat and a delicate, ornamental cane completing his ensemble of a perfect society gentleman.
"You look like a dandy." Antonio grunts out, leaning back on his armchair with an ouuff . He's beyond caring both about his worn out coarse suit, so unfit for a ceremony of this calibre, and any sort of protocol. "I had no idea you’ve been invited."
"Christa wanted me here. She's a bit nervous."
"She is smart to be." Antonio shakes his head with a sardonic grimace. "Luck has played a bad trick on her, if she's going to be the Queen of me."
Austria purses his lips, the sharpness of his eyes dulled down behind the lens on his glasses.
"May I sit?" He asks, pointing with his cane at the armchair next to Antonio's, who just shrugs, regretting it immediately as the movement sends a sharp sting of pain to his shoulder.
"I don't see why not."
They keep quiet for a long while. Watching the politicians, bourgeois and foreign emissaries mingle in the overly lit hall of the Royal Palace in Madrid, pretending like the world is their oyster, like they are all not walking on thin ice, laughing in that fake and perfectly calculated way of theirs that Antonio hates so much. Tomorrow at this time they will be in the the Basilica, attending the wedding of Spain's relatively young king, Alfonso XII and Maria Cristina of Austria.
A habsburg again on his throne, even if it's just a consort queen. It gives Antonio throwbacks. How many Habsburg weddings had he assisted to through history? Back in the day when royal weddings mattered because Kings and Queens did.
‘Don't be like that’, a voice of reason whispers in his ear. ‘Don't think like them’.
‘You know they are not wrong, however.’ Another voice replies to it. ‘How is a corrupt, bloodsucking parliament better than a strong monarch? Better than the first Queen Isabella or Philip II had been?’
Antonio shakes his head, trying to banish these voices. His third Civil War just this century might be over, but the Carlist cancer isn't gone yet, having taken roots in his flesh and brain. Antonio tries to think about something else, for a change, and discreetly looks at Austria from the corner of his eye.
No kings and queens; the habsburg wedding to top all habsburg weddings had not been a royal one, but his own. However, so much time passed since then that the memories of those times look hazy, like a thin foggy cloth had been draped over them. Too much has changed as well...
"Where's your better half?" He finally speaks up, turning his head towards Roderich, who seems to come out of his own contemplative reverie. Startled, probably, by the hint of bite in Spain's voice.
But he just cordially negates with his head. "Hungary asks you to excuse her. She had to stay behind to deal with some issues in her own domain."
Antonio hums, looking forward again. "I hope you are happier with her than Maria Christina is going to be with Alfonso." But not as happy as you were with me . Is what he doesn't voice and what he is angry at himself for thinking.
"That bad?" Austria's posture remains stiff, but tilts his head inquisitively.
"He's nice." Antonio admits. “Too nice for the times we are living in. But still grieving his late first wife and sleeping with an opera singer, anong others."
He drags his words like he doesn't care. Maybe because he really doesn't. It's difficult to summon the strength these days for gossip and small talk. The last shreds of a crumbling empire on his shoulders, the civil unrest and the still healing wounds weighing down on him. There are letters arriving from Cuba almost every month. Carlos is angry and well aware that Antonio's instability and corrupt government are dragging him behind. The badly patched up concessions are not going to last long. He is on the countdown for another useless war over his colonies.
Antonio can feel Austria's attentive eyes on him. And there is some tiny speck down in his chest that is still not completely dead, that wants him to sit straighter, to run his fingers through his mess of a hair, to hide the tear in the sole of his jacket... to try to look better for Roderich. But there is no way he could fix in a second the bags under his eyes or the hollows in his cheeks.
"We are worried about you, you know?" Roderich says softly, a crack in his composure as he lays a firm, gloved hand on Antonio's shoulder. His fingers twitch when he realises how bony it is.
"Who is we?" Antonio asks looking down at his lap. His voice sounds hoarse but there's no reproach in it. "Everybody betting on the wrong side of whether or not I will survive the turn of the century?"
Austria frowns "No. Your friends."
"I don't have any friends left."
"Your family."
"They all hate my guts."
"Me."
Now, that makes Spain raise his head to look Roderich in the eye.
"And I know you are going through very difficult times, but I also know you are strong, probably the strongest nation I know-"
"Now you are just parroting Bismarck at me."
Austria shakes his head "Not Bismarck, my own experience. I remember you way more optimistic and proud-"
And I remember you between my legs, but that's not our life anymore, hm?
"-but I still think I know you better than you know yourself. If anything, I would bet on you to outlive most of us."
Antonio laughs. It's quiet and private, but for the first time in years it actually reaches this eyes, maybe because what Roderich just said sounds so ridiculous it’s actually funny. But his heart still swells a little bit, moved by the sweetness of his former spouse’s convictions.
Roderich's face remains impassive, but his eyes betray a warm fondness. It hurts a little bit, because he's a face of the past; of a much brighter and less troubling past; a face that Antonio once had loved and that remained just as beautiful through the centuries, even through the porcelain mask that Roderich had woven over his emotions.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Yes, of course."
"Smile for me?"
Austria's eyes widen in surprise for a fraction of a second, but then his lips spread into a soft curve; endearing and genuine and a little bit amused.
Antonio grins back at him. Suddenly feeling just a little less tired. He can hear the steward announcing that dinner is ready and if the guests and hosts would please proceed to the dining hall...
Austria stands up, straightening the wrinkles on his coat and then offers Spain a hand.
Antonio hesitates for a heartbeat but then takes it, using Astria's strength to pull himself upwards until he can learn steadily on his cane. Thick and robust, not ornamental like the one that Roderich is carrying under his arm, but reliable and completely necessary to carry his weight.
He will use it for another year, and then store it away until he needs it again. And again, and again, and again. But at the end, it will always return to the back of his closet, even over the turn of the century.