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Romano is in love with Spain. It, this, his love—it’s something he knows. It’s something intrinsic, a knowledge, like the way to spell, A-M-O-R-E, the smell of the soil in Salerno, the wind off his shores. Romano has loved Spain for a very long time. He hides it well.
Behind dismissals and blusters, behind every callous thought Romano hides it better than anyone. Once, and only once, he hides it so well he forgets it himself. For that glorious age he forgets what he longs for in the dark, and he leaves everything he ever had in Spain’s house behind, and he becomes a different self. Romano becomes strong, and he laughs: at Spain’s failures, at difficulties, at the world. Romano laughs and hides and is strong.
But, really, Romano is weak.
He is very weak, and very much in love.
These things are the same.
Romano didn’t truly leave everything behind on the road to independence. Not every little thing. Not nearly.
Now they are older, Romano and Spain, and Romano doesn’t think about it too much. Love is something in the back of his mind, a constant chime hovering on the edge of the air. He’s used to it now, very used to it. It’s a familiar song, and, now, he doesn’t hide from it as much as he used to. For that he blames the changing world and his changing people. It used to be much different.
Very different.
Hiding, though, is second nature for Romano.
Hiding is not second nature for Spain. Spain charges ahead, banners blazing, and Romano should have realized it’s the same way when Spain loves. He’s seen Spain before, in love. In what he, Spain, thought was love.
They never lasted.
Romano thought, he always stubbornly thought, that that meant something.
That it was important.
Every dalliance, every smile across a room was empty, before. Every kiss was time borrowed. And, when the illusions ended, there was Romano. And there was Spain. And they were. Romano would bring wine, Spain would bring music, and they would be together, perfect, as brothers.
As not quite brothers, Romano prefers to think of it.
Romano has nothing much for brothers anymore. He has nothing much for hope, either, although one third of his heart is supposed to be drenched in hope, green with it. Romano’s people lack hope, these days, he sees it. That is not because of this. That is not because of Spain. Romano’s lacking is Romano’s alone, different, separate, complete. It is the worst thing for a nation to have something separate, something of their own. Of his own. Romano has no one, no diplomatic economic politic shadow to blame, because his weakness is his own disgrace. Romano hates it.
More than a third of Romano’s heart is green, now. It is not with hope.
Without hope it will be easier, this something of his own, he prays. Romano’s love is a box, small, world-worn and weary. The edges are bent and battered, and the ribbon that ties it all together and keeps it safe is red, and aged, and inexpertly tied with a child’s lacking grace. It is held by a youth’s lacking courage. It is protected by a man’s lacking heart. Romano’s love is a gift, for one recipient, and Romano doesn’t know what’s inside. He will never know, now, without hope. He will set the gift aside in a corner of himself. And one day, in a decade, in a century, he will forget it ever existed.
This is Romano’s plan. This is something he knows as certain as life, as certain as the race of thrumming traffic past the Capitoline hill. Fuck anyone who says Romano isn’t strategic, or romantic. He’s both those things, in spades, in hearts, so fuck all of them.
What Romano isn’t, is hopeful.
It is very likely he will never forget.
Forgetting isn’t easy when Romano falls into the same patterns, and traps, and webs as he always does. He visits Spain regularly. They are.
Friends.
They are friends. And for years, maybe—maybe Romano hopes.
Romano speaks, Spain responds, and they both get drunk cheering on whichever team is playing England. Unless that team is someone else they both dislike, and then they joke about how pathetic both sides are, how disgraceful they are to the craft. Once, to the tune of Romano’s frothing insults, Spain says he can’t understand how Romano can summon so much hate over such small offenses. He says it on a regular, boring day, the same as any other, the eighth of October, two thousand and five, four thirty-five in the afternoon. It isn’t a special day.
Spain doesn’t even remember, now. Because Romano is weak, and in love, and hopeless, he remembers to the minute. He remembers to the look on Spain’s face, to the color of Spain’s voice, to the score on the screen. He remembers how Spain didn’t understand, how he never understood, why Romano could hate everything so easily.
In truth, Romano doesn’t hate everything.
In truth, Romano just doesn’t have everything, that everything that he wants so very badly.
And Romano goddamned well doesn’t have to like that.
Now does he?
Light music is swaying in the air, now, and couples wade through it with every rush and ebb. Romano sees them dancing out of the corner of his eye. Holding the broken bits of his hope, careful not to cut his hands, he still cannot believe how he didn’t see it earlier. He really, really cannot believe how he didn’t see it before, how it fit, how right it is.
Romano feels sick, again, not because of the wine, and not because of their smiles, but because of the lazy way they’re draped across each other. They’re swaying slowly, and skinship like that can only be faked by people who aren’t quite so stupid. When it comes to stupidity, Spain and Veneziano are the worst.
Or.
Or maybe Romano is the worst. Maybe he really is.
Romano used to hope.
Now he doesn’t.