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Waves crashed into rocks and the scent of seaweed filled the air, among this scene was a ship filled with all sorts of people, people who came to the ocean for a disparage of reasons. Some seemed gold and glory while others seeked escape and control, but a certain man seeked one thing and one thing only, to see a real life mermaid! All the other pirates on the ships made fun of his sentiment, saying things like. “What kind of bilge-sucking goal is that?” and “Muy muy mal!” not even attempting to hide their laughter while they taunt him, little did they know just a couple shores away an peculiar merman was covertly watching them.
“Big brother, what are you doing?” this voice startled
Romano and almost made him lose his composure.
“Idiot brother I told you not to sneak up on me like that!!”
Romano finds himself whisper shouting even when there’s no one around them to hear for miles.
Italy’s face contorts into sadness until he eyes at what his brother was once looking at which causes his lips to curl into a wide and warm smile. “Were you looking at those fin-less merfolk again?”
“Of course not! Why would I peek at those bastards? I was just observing the moon” Romano tries to lie but his brother knows better as he has a habit of stuttering while fibbing.
“You always seem to be ‘observing the moon’” Italy sighs but drops the topic as he can tell he won’t get much out of his stubborn brother anyways.
Swishing their glittering tails that sparkle like gem stones under the moonlight they both turn to leave meanwhile the older one takes one last glance behind his shoulder at the mysterious yet awe inspiring vessel.
-
The following evening Romano set out for the same spot as he usually, making sure to not leave behind any trails.
As usual the same ship was there, but now it seemed to be way more lively than usual, Romano thought to himself that it must be a bizarre tradition of theirs that he had yet to perceive so he made the decision to swim closer, he got a little too cocky and swam maybe too close to be safe, taking a closer look he noticed that these people didn’t seem to be happy but instead in distress and then he heard a loud noise and looked up to see a raging fire that was rapidly spreading, these people weren’t being loud because of a celebration but because they were in trouble!
“Ah shit, what the fuck am I supposed to do?” Romano didn’t care for any of them, he’ll he didn’t even know them but they were like his little fish in a fish bowl always waiting to be observed by him and for that reason and that reason alone he could not let them perish. Breaking free from his thoughts he gazed up to see a bunch of men jumping into what looked like safety boats, thankfully they all seemed to be prepared and able to save themselves, Romano slightly smiles to himself at this predicament, however he looks over to his side and sees a man standing on the tallest part of the ship and instead of jumping down into a safety boat he’s stupidly waving and shouting in a language Romano is yet to understand, he looks around and quickly realized that perhaps the man is not a fool and instead he can’t go into any of the safety boats because they’re all full and some are starting to leave without him, do these people have no loyalty? how can they leave one of their men amongst this disarray. It seems the man is going to pass out, probably due to the now suffocating atmosphere caused by the smoke from the flames, the man blacks out and Romano uses this as an opportunity to rush over and catch him as he falls into the expansive ocean.
“Aye yai yai” Sitting up, the man looks around at his surroundings and doesn’t see his ship from yesterday but instead land.
“Ay dios mios, it seems I’ve washed up onto the shore” He gets up and walks around like everything’s fine, in fact he doesn’t even feel pain anywhere almost like he was made brand new again but he smells more faintly of seaweed now, once looking toward the ocean he sees his crew mates and rushes over to them as they attempt to hoist him up onto the new ship to take him back home. Out of the corner of his eye he sees a person quietly watching them, no it looks more like that person is watching him specifically, he thinks that must be his savior and silently makes a prayer to allow God to allow them to meet again so that he can properly thank that salvador.
Romano watches as the man and his crew leave and goes to swim back home. He was content with just watching the crew from afar but impulsivity took over him and he swam too close to the shore. He goes quietly into his place and is careful to not make any noise, but he bumps into a large figure, one considerably larger than his own and is at first terrified wondering who this intruder could be then he looks up and is even more terrified to see it’s his Grandpa Rome with an unreadable expression upon his sulken yet charming face.
“Romano..” His voice starts off strong and domineering and trails off. “How could you not tell me you were going to the shore?” He stands with his hands on his hips, an attempt to look intimidating.
“I didn’t go to the shore, in fact I’ve never been to the shore in my entire life” Romano lies through his teeth, trying to mask his awful stutter.
“So Roma you’re now lying to me?” Holy rome always had a happy expression on his face, his bright eyes always seemed to be full of glamour and his cheeks always full, yet whenever he talked to Romano it seemed as if this demeanor was only a mere facade and he would soon loose all those glorious traits.
“M..Mi Nonno ” He never understood why his Grandfather was always so hard on him meanwhile he always let his younger brother get away with everything, he hated it so much yet was always so cowardly in front of him and had no choice but to submit.
Regardless of that argument he still continued to visit the shore, being extra careful this time to not draw any attention to himself or have anyone notice he as gone.
He doesn’t see the ship he usually does, he guesses they’re being more cautious from what happened last time, he makes to leave when suddenly someone grabs his arm and he freezes.
“Hola chico, do I know you?” A man with a thick accent laden with friendliness talks.
Romano quickly attempts to seize his hand back which only makes the strange man grip onto him tighter, now thinking of him as a suspicious person.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” This tussle makes Romano turn to glare at the person who had the audacity to grab him so suddenly like that, he isn’t even concerned about his status as a merperson being exposed by now, filled with so much rage at this stranger, but once he turns back and is faced with the stranger face to face he becomes speechless. This was the man he saved the other day! He couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Are you the man from my dreams?” What the hell was this crazy asking? Romano thinks to himself
He blinks confused at the man, absolutely dumbfounded on what dreams were and how he could appear in them.
“You must be.” The man’s expression softens as his lips curl into a slightly awkward yet cute smile as he brushes the hair out of his face.
Romano sees the opportunity to pull his arm back which makes the strange man visibly dissatisfied.
“Can you not talk?” The truth was he could talk, he was just afraid to talk to this fin-less monster who he could hardly understand, can’t this person get take a hint?
“Hold on right here, i’ll be right back” the man rushes off somewhere clearly looking for something, by the time he gets back with a quill pen and a journal in his hand the other man was already gone.
The encounter was so disheartening that Romano didn’t go the shore again. Still the same naive boy he once was but with just a little more sense, his tail was strong and long nos, longer than the average human child alone, now a more rich hue of red, similar to the various shades of rubies in his now ever growing collection of human items, from listening to humans above he learns more english and even more spanish, he learns of all the ways of humans and his desire to be apart of that world grows stronger with every waking moment, although the fear he had felt that day was still coursing through his blood, it wasn’t until after he turned 18 he had the courage to go up again.
It was exactly 14 days since his 18th birthday, he had since learned the technique of shape shifting human legs and decided today was the day to finally try them out on land. Hoisting himself onto a rock he watched as his glittering tail grew shorter then split into two, he gazed at his below watching as they slowly transformed into human legs, he smiled in satisfaction and made to stand up then made an attempt to take a step, he quickly realized that he forgot to actually learn how to walk. Taking another step, this time off the rock.
“Argh” he groaned as he braced himself for impact yet instead found himself feeling softness instead of the hard ground that should’ve been below.
“Aye dios mios” Hearing a voice, Romano whipped his head around to see that he was sitting in the lap of a man, not only a man but the same man he had encountered all those years ago! Even more unfortunate for him was when he had whipped his head around he did it so fast that they ended up hitting their heads on each other.
“What’s your problem you jerk bastard, you can’t understand personal space??” The merman rubs his head where he was hurt, trying to mask his embarrassment with anger.
“What’s my problem? What’s yours? If I hadn't caught you, you would’ve been badly injured”
“I was fine on my own!” The younger one huffs.
Suddenly the Spainaird starts looking less angry and looks at the other with an unreadable expression on his face, Romano starts to get worried he recognized him, it’s been 3 years surely he looks different now? The merman makes to leave until the taller man plucks something out of his hair.
“You had seaweed in your hair” He says while grinning.
He wants to thank him but is still quite embarrassed especially since he looks down and realizes that the man has something that he does not, clothes, No wonder he’s been bashful the whole time and Romano is quick to cover up, learning from books that nakedness is not appreciated in human culture.
“You look familiar but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around, you’re not from here are you?” The Spainaird acts like there isn’t an obvious elephant in the room.
“I’m not familiar at all!!” the Italian says quickly. “In fact this is my first day here and my first time looking at your jerky face”
“I was hoping you would act as cute as you look but I guess not, anyways vamos!” He stands up and pulls the italian up with one arm which shocks Romano to his core he has no choice but to submit, he then proceeds to grab his wrist and lead him to a nearby building.
Now standing in the middle of a big room Romano had come to the realization that he had followed a stranger into a random location where he didn’t know the way out, suddenly the spaniard comes out holding something in his hand.
“Please I’ll tell you whatever you want just plea-“ The merman braces himself.
“What are you talking about?” The spaniard giggles to himself and hands the items he was holding to the secret merman.
Romano takes the items and raises an eyebrow “What’s this?” Upon further inspection he finds that they’re actually a pants and a shirt, they look similar to the ones the other was wearing.
“Lo siento, I don’t have much but it’s better than wearing nothing, you’ll get cold” The pirate says bashfully trying his best to look up instead of down.
Romano says nothing then turns around and starts putting the pants, or atleast he tries to but he’s never put on pants before and that fact is clear to the older man.
“Do you..not know how to wear clothing?” The spanish man starts to become a little suspicious of this person, just now realizing he let a strange naked man he found by the shore into his humble abode.
“Well obviously I do, I just can’t when you’re staring at me like that” The Italian torts back.
“Ah of course, I’ll be in the other room then” He leaves to a seperate room and Romano is stuck there standing trying to figure out where his leg is supposed to go and which hole is the arm hole, this is all very confusing for a merman. He reluctantly walks to the room he saw the other man go in.
“It’s not like I don’t know how to do it or anything I’m just very tired and would like some help” Romano explains.
“Por supuesto” The pirate moves towards him to grab the clothes from his hands, they’re so close like this and make eye contact which Romano quickly breaks, the Spainard uses this opportunity to take a really good look at this strange man, his skin was so smooth almost like the surface of a quality pearl, his lips were plump and the color was comparable to the shade of pink coral, his hair dark brown like some sea rocks he also had an adorable curl at the end, he really was so very cute. Realizing he had been staring at him for too long that the shorter man had closed his eyes shut tightly and was growing redder by the moment.
“Ahaha, you look like a little tomato” This phrase slipped out of his mouth as he was dressing the other up.
“Shut your face you stupid bastard” The shorter turned around swiftly and finished the dressing up himself.
“I’m sorry amigo it just slipped out”
Romano’s response to this was a huff as he was feeling infuriated that the man would say such a stupid thing.
The other man pretends to not notice that. “You know, I never did get your name”.
Romano looks the other man up and down, ‘was this really a trustworthy person?’ he thought to himself, well I guess he did clothe and shelter me. He responds telling the man his name.
“Romano Romano, que bonita, most people call me Antonio but you can call me Spain” So at last he finally knew this mysterious man’s name.
After this exchange of names the two of them began talking, Spain asked Romano a lot of questions, mainly about where he’s from and what brought him here which Romano was smart enough to not reveal too much information, the two of them really seemed to be hitting it off, (atleast from Spain’s perspective), neither of them were used to being able to talk one on one so freely with another person, with Romano mainly only talking to his dumb brained brother and his disengaged grandfather, and Spain really only having his crewmates to talk too.
Basically everything was going well, Spain sensed a friendship blossoming and soon forgot all of his previous suspicions of this strange man he found near the ocean.
“Since you’re not from here, do you need a place to stay?” Spain attempted to ask Romano if he’d like to stay with him.
“No, I’ll figure it out on my own”
“Oh c’mon Romano, the world is so wide and big, just stay with me eh? atleast for one night”
Romano’s response to this was to roll his eyes and slip into the bed, the Spaniard soon learned that the Italian had a habit of responding in non verbal ways rather than giving spoke responses, which he didn’t really mind, he actually liked doing most of the talking.
Spain soon joined Romano in bed and started to sing a lullaby, much to Romano’s displeasmemtz. As happy as he was to have found a new friend he drifted off to sleep easier than he had in years, dreaming happy dreams in which the two of them explored the world together and opened their hearts to eachother. Spain had never checked to see if Romano was actually asleep or not, he in fact was not asleep and was listening to Spain’s sleep talking, which mostly consisted of Spanish, and then the talking stopped, he then listened to his soft breathing that soon replaced the previous speech, he looked over and saw that the older man seemed so much more peaceful asleep than while he was awake, feeling content with this Romano allowed himself to let out a soft smile.
The next morning when Spain awoke, he looked over to greet his new found friend, only to glance over and see that his strange friend had long since been gone.