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Despite the beautiful, bright and shining sun in the cloudless sky, it was still too early to be awake and walking around outside on a Saturday morning. At least, it was too early to be awake and walking around outside in Spain's humble but obviously irrelevant opinion. Of course, out of politeness, Spain resisted complaining about the early hour, and focused on Romano dragging him through the market instead. After all, it had been Romano who'd hauled him forcefully out of their bed that morning, shoved a grocery list into his hand, and was now leading them through one of the open air markets to buy food for tonight's dinner.
"Oi, Spain! Quit dallying and come help me."
"¡Sí, sí!" Spain chimed, an air of sleepiness filling his voice as he turned around quickly, nearly dropping the shopping basket from his hands.
Romano's hand was on his hips, an expression of annoyance—deep, but still very cute annoyance, Spain noted dutifully—on his face. "Finally," Romano huffed, his eyes lessening slightly while his hand slid away his hips. "What's the next item on the list?"
Spain stared dumbly at Romano for a moment before he remembered that, oh yeah, they were shopping. "Oh!" He reached into his jacket pocket and fished around for the piece of paper that Romano had specifically told him was "The List" which he was not allowed to lose. "I think it's in this pocket," Spain said reassuringly, giving Romano a smile as he dug around in his jacket pocket some more.
"Well, hurry it up. It's almost eight o'clock and we're going to end up running into the old ladies soon, and then we'll have to haggle for real," Romano complained, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Spain fumble with his pockets.
Of course, "The List" was not in either of Spain's jacket pockets so he checked all his jeans pockets, and to his avail no piece of paper surfaced. "I can't find it," Spain said. "Can you remember—"
"Yes, I remember what's on it!" Romano snapped, glaring at Spain now. "I just wanted to have a list of it, too." He grabbed Spain's wrist and started dragging him down the other end of the street. "Stupid Spain," he growled under his breath.
Spain's body jerked the other way, and he almost dropped the basket again. "Slow down, Romano!" He was laughing anyway, though.
Romano led them down the street, occasionally turning heads since he was practically holding Spain's hand and looking rather vicious while doing so. "We need onions, celery and—" He stopped in front of a vendor, a wide grin spreading across his lips. "Tomatoes!"
Craning his neck, Spain saw huge piles of beautiful red before him, and he moved beside Romano, peering down at the selection. Suddenly, his sleepiness seemed to be a thing of the past. "How many do we need—" he started to ask, cutting himself off when he saw Romano carefully examining the fruits.
"We need twenty!" Romano said to the vendor, refusing to take his eyes off the tomatoes.
"Sí. Twenty might be—"
"We're making sauce tonight, so we'll need lots and lots of tomatoes," Romano was going on and on now, grabbing himself a plastic bag for the tomatoes. "And then I'll have to pick up some flour for the pasta—"
"Romano!"
Romano stopped and looked at Spain, lip curling in agitation. "What?"
"You'll crush them if you keep stuffing them in there like that," Spain said, smiling at him and then nodding to the overstuffed plastic bag.
"Merda!" Romano exclaimed as the bag of tomatoes crashing to the ground with a hard sounding splat. There was a moment of silence, and Romano inhaled sharply before breaking into a slur of Italian curses aimed primarily at Spain as he bent over to pick up the bag of squashed tomatoes. Their juices dripped sadly all over the table and onto the ground, and that only enraged Romano more. (At least Romano was still mildly cute when he was enraged, Spain thought.)
"Calm down," Spain said, hoping that Romano would at least stop swearing at the poor vendor and causing a scene. He placed a hand on Romano's tense shoulder before the other nation swatted his hand away. "We should—"
"You'll need to pay for those, you know," the vendor said quietly, dully almost.
Spain forced himself to laugh, though. It wasn't a problem at all since they could still use the tomatoes probably, depending on how fast they got back to Romano's house. "We will, we will," Spain reassured the vendor, glancing at Romano, who'd walked away several feet to calm himself down; the anger management counsel woman had told him to step away, take a deep breath and count to ten when his temper decided to best him.
The vendor nodded, peering over to where Romano had wandered off to, still cursing quietly in Italian. "Is he always like that?"
"Todos los días. All the time," Spain replied, smiling at the vendor. "We'll take twenty more fresh ones too if you don't mind."
"Che buono." The vendor started to ring up for the smashed and fresh tomatoes. "I'll take off half for the smashed ones since I'm feeling generous today."
Spain laughed as he reached into his wallet to pay for all the tomatoes. He was probably going to go broke because of it but he didn't really mind since it'd please Romano later. (Maybe it'd please him enough that they'd use their siesta for "other things" instead of sleeping.) "It's well appreciated, I'll tell you that."
"I'm glad for that," the vendor answered, taking the money from Spain and then handing him two bags of fresh tomatoes. "Take care!"
"¡Muchas gracias!" Spain said happily before turning around to find Romano as he placed the bags of tomatoes lovingly inside his basket. The street grew crowded and he tried to pick out Romano's brown haired head out from the rest of them. "Hmm, where did he go—Ah!"
Romano was sitting down on one of the benches about twenty feet away, arms crossed over his chest. He looked utterly put out judging by the pout on his face, but was quiet otherwise.
Wandering over to him, basket in one hand and the bag of smashed tomatoes in the other, Spain's smile didn't relent as he stood in front of him. "What's next on the list?"
"Onions," Romano said, glancing up at Spain. "For the sauce."
"Ah, alright," Spain said, sitting down next to him, balancing the basket on his lap. "I bought some fresh ones—"
"I watched you," Romano interrupted, scooting over a few inches to make room for Spain.
"Ah, I know." Spain smiled at him, cautiously slipping an arm around the Italian's shoulders. "Shall we go then?"
Shooting Spain a glare, Romano pushed away his arm and stood up, straightening his clothes. "Yeah," he said, starting to walk down the street again, hands shoved in his pockets.
"Wait for me!" Spain called, rushing to pick up the basket and bag of tomatoes before jogging to catch up with him.