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048. Guilty
He shouldn't be doing this.
(they're in Spain's car, too new to be vintage but too old to be stylish, and the wind is warm in their faces, the smell of grass and something familiar, like bread and love and summer sea salt surrounding them)
Oh, no; not the sex thing; well, he shouldn't, but that isn't it; not by a long shot.
(they've stopped every so often, for food and gas and a quick walk; once, even, to sit on the sunbaked earth and siesta, somewhat, everything so calm around them, they could just breathe again...)
No, he shouldn't be with Spain. It's too selfish of him; if he could step back and cut out that part of him that makes him a brat who doesn't give a s**t about being greedy, he'd see immediately, and put a stop to it.
(and now they've stopped again; it's plain, in every sense of the word, Romano sees no reason for them to stop and says so, frowning, but Spain, oh, old predictable Antonio, he just laughs and turns)
Spain; the man of summer eyes and winterbright heart, who sang lullabies by candlelight when Romano had a nightmare and crawled into his bed (not by choice, of course, he was sure that something was about to crawl through that damn loose window), who is always givegivegive and never take; Romano might not be as smart as some when it comes to love, but he sees those looks France and Prussia and Andorra- even Belgium and Mexico, sometimes- give him and he knows that Spain isn't so blind either.
(-turns and there it is, that face awash with adoration towards Romano, who knows somewhere deep inside that he doesn't deserve it, it bathes him in regret and longing and frustration, all at once; but then he opens his big stupid mouth)
Still Spain sticks around, offers him kisses and food and protection and everything else, braves his temper tantrums like an experienced weather man in a hurricane, does it all with that resolve-melting smile.
(-"quierdo, we're almost out of gas..." and a look around proves that it is ******** hot and at least a couple mile's walk to civilization)
But damned if Romano can't find some legitimate reasons to hate Spain, too.
050. Hopeful
Vietnam lowers the brim of her straw hat to keep anyone from getting too close.
Pockmarks, all from Agent Orange (500,000 children born with defects), line her skin. They're fading, but so slowly. Her people do not want to forget. She's marked with other scars, too; some from her childhood, inflicted by Yao and Muunokhoi and others, later from Francis and Alfred and still, others. Always a pawn in war is she, never do they see into her haunted stone - dark eyes (because they would burn if they did).
Vietnam tugs her silk sleeves forward to keep anyone from seeing her weakness.
There was a time when she was red-eyed with madness; she tried to pry herself in half with her fingernails, never left the stitches alone to heal. Eventually she stopped, took a look at herself in the mirror and hated what she saw; she took a bath with the water as hot as it could go, washed her hair and her face and her mind clean of everything.
Today, Vietnam is a young woman with a troubled past and a small, genuine smile.
She works hard for her boss, to grow, looks at Yao and models herself after him. She's still hungry at night, though, can't help the sun that beats down on her hat or that she wants to start believing in God again. She plaits her hair every morning and smiles at the little traces of happiness in her life; or tries to.
Some days, though, she remembers things that nations forget, to protect themselves; she curls up and presses her face into her knees and tries desperately to forget.
notes
- Agent Orange was a type of biological warfare that America tried during the Vietnam War; it led to poisoning and mutations and the like.
- Muunokhoi is a human name for Mongolia.
- At one time there was a North and South Vietnam; the North was Communist and supported by China and the Soviet Union, the South by America.
- Much of Vietnam's population is atheist.
 men getting pregnant · Mon Feb 01, 2010 @ 07:38am · 0 Comments |
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