Ole - Spain x S.Italy - APH

The way it started had been, to say the least, idiotic. Antonio had spent all morning trying to figure out where he had left his entry tickets for that afternoon’s spectacle. Lovino found him diving waist-deep in a giant basket he used to hide dirty clothing until the moment he decided washing was his only option, keeping in mind that the italian wouldn’t let him go out naked.
Lovino sighed at the sight of the spaniard covered in filthy socks and boxers, his face bearing a puzzled expression while he continued digging the pile of clothes.
“¡No puedo haberlas perdido! ¡Tienen que estar aquí, en alguna parte!”
Lovino sighed again.
“Well, maybe you did lose them, scemo.”
“That’s not possible!”
Antonio jumped out of the basket with a pair of jeans in his hands, jerking the pockets inside out and pouting at the sound of a few coins and fluffs falling from them. “They just have to be here, somewhere. I remember putting them somewhere special so that I wouldn’t forget them, but I just can’t find them!”
Lovino followed him out of the room, already losing his patience. He had ended up coming because he thought he had no other choice: it was quite hard to ignore the spaniard’s voice from the other side of the line sounding like he was practically beaming with joy while he told him he had first row tickets for those damn Corridas he liked so much, and he also knew him perfectly capable of calling him once every two minutes for screaming his lungs out until he agreed to go with him if he dared refuse the invitation the first time. He cursed himself for not thinking of changing his cell phone number and just forgetting about the damn ever-smiling Spaniard. That would have been the best choice ever.
But he hadn’t been that smart, and now he was stuck with a desperate Antonio who looked about to turn the entire house upside down just to find the goddamn tickets. Lovino’s eyebrow twitched. He knew who’d have to clean later.
“Stop it, you idiot!” Antonio froze in the middle of his attempt to empty every drawer in the kitchen. “It’s just a pair of stupid tickets for an even more stupid so-called show! A guy taunting a bull in the middle of an arena? Who on earth would even pay to see something like that! It’s the most retarded thing ever!”
If Antonio had frozen already, he now seemed maid of stone. He slowly gazed up to meet the eyes of whom had just insulted his dear national pride, and just for a second, his smile faltered.
“So you think it’s stupid, then.”
“Well yes! Only an idiot would think that damn boring taunting could ever be exciting!”
The older man’s lips curved in an awkward sneer Lovino had never seen before, that made him look just slightly Francis-ish. He somehow knew there was something terribly wrong about that smile, but couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Okay then.” Was all Antonio said as he walked out of the kitchen.
And so it started.
Lovino was left standing among saucepans and various pieces of cutlering, wondering if Antonio’s childhood with France had, in fact, influenced his personality in a way he was surely grateful for not knowing. And wanting to keep it that way, he started considering running away in that very minute.
But the moment he left the kitchen, his fear faded. Antonio was now looking under the living room’s couch, still mumbling a torrent of spanish nonsense. He finally seemed to give up and threw himself onto the sofa, enumerating a list of possible places where the tickets could be hiding from his sight.
“Say, Lovino, if you where an entry ticket for this afternoon’s Corrida, where would you hide?”
If Lovino had really expected an outburst of anything that could be considered of harm to his person, with that stupid question he knew himself out of danger. He crossed his arms and walked to the sofa, sighing as he always did before replying Antonio’s hokum.
“Well, if I were a ticket and wanted to hide myself from you, I’d surely…”
But he was cut off. Antonio had stood up and was now standing uncomfortably close to him, his head tilted to his side and his mouth curved in the same smile he had minutes ago. He lifted a hand and, slowly, he brushed a few locks out of the younger man’s face. The confused italian felt heat almost irradiating from his cheeks as the spaniard smiled again, this time with a soft chuckle. Lovino just stood there, unable to think, waiting for what was going to happen…
“You had something in your hair”
And Antonio walked away like he had done minutes ago.
Shocked is not an expression one should use to describe Lovino’s expression at that moment. Astonished might be a better one. Or maybe Outraged.
When his brain assimilated what had just happened, he barely restrained himself from following the Spaniard and strangle him slow and painfully. Tighten his grip in his neck so that he could see his flustered expression, his cheeks red, and his green eyes filled with a fake hate used to cover what he really felt, that need, that necessity, that…
Wait, what was that?
Lovino paused a second when he realized what he had been thinking. Cursing his train of thought, he stormed out of the living room in the direction Antonio had taken, only for strangling him, of course. Maybe hitting him, at most. Not like he wanted anything else from him. Not like he had been waiting for this. Not like his pulse had increased frenetically when he had smiled like that, that smile that made him look oh so serious, so seductive, so…
Okay, that’s enough.
He thought of hitting his head in the corridor wall repeatedly until he lost consciousness, but was interrupted by the source of his troubles suddenly bumping into him from the nearest room. Meaning, he all of a sudden found himself between Antonio and a wall. Sandwiched between both of them.
“Oh, sorry” said the Spaniard with a low, feline-like voice. And so now I hit him, thought Lovino, but before he could pull himself up to do it, Antonio leaned closer. His cheeks got tomato-red yet again, as he felt the other’s warm breath over his neck. He heard him inhale softly, barely inches away from his skin.
“You smell good today, by the way.”
And he turned away. Again.
And again did Lovino not react. But it took him slightly less time to come back to his senses. That was it. That damn Spaniard wasn’t going to get his own way.
He opened the door Antonio had entered with unnecessary vigor and found him leaning in the opposite wall, arms crossed and a grin wide spread over his mouth.
Before Lovino could say anything, Antonio had already crossed the room and was standing, like those two times before, barely inches away from him. Lovino could only close his eyes as he felt him lean closer than the previous times, and found himself gladly mouthing the word “Finally”. He opened his mouth slightly and leant a little closer.
But nothing happened.
“¡Olé!”
His eyes burst open. There was Antonio, laughing his ass off two feet away front of him. Had there been any weapon in the room, he would’ve ended with a hole right between his eyes, and a few more bullets in some really painful parts. Lovino felt rage coming like waves onto his body, and in an outburst of wrath, tackled Antonio so hard they both fell into the ground.
Antonio’s laugh didn’t stop, and he didn’t seem really surprised at the sudden attack either. Lovino thought of strangling him for real and leaving his corpse over the beloved tomatoes he cultivated in his backyard. When he was getting a bit too fond of the idea, Antonio managed to say something over the maniac laugh that was still shaking his body.
“So I guess… hahaha…. That… that taunting thing… isn’t that boring, is it?”
Only then Lovino realized what had been going on. It had been a game. Only a game to prove him wrong.
“Oh, come on, Lovino!” Antonio took his face in his hands and managed to overcome his laugh, smiling like he had done when it had all started, speaking in a sensual whisper. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”
“I… I… I don’t… I mean…” Why on earth was he babbling? He refused to look at those green eyes now that he knew it had only been a joke. He felt so damn humiliated. He hated that damn man lying under him, he hated the way he was smiling at him, that damn sincere smile that didn’t allow him to think. He hated everything about him, but most of all, he hated those damn Corridas that had made all those damn situations possible!
“…I guess it’s not that bad after all.”
Why his tongue refused to listen to his brain was something he’d never understand.


The next morning, Francis found a new text message waiting for him in his mobile.
“I owe you one, bro!
- Antonio.”
He remembered the drunken nights he had spent teaching the clumsy Spaniard how to seduce someone properly. Leaving the cell phone aside, he smiled at the thought of his brother finally getting in the pants of his beloved italian, and thought, with an even wider smile, he would surely come up with a good way for him to repay the favor.