SOY: I have successfully gotten out of my writing depression. I can write again. On that side, would you readers want me to risk this site's counter attack for a smut of epical proportions Denmark/Italy and one France/England? Just asking.

Also, seeing how there is less and less readers, writers and reviewers for Italy, I'll write even more about him. *determined growl* I'll fill the world with my Italy!

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Rating: K+.

Warnings: a bit of silliness. Creepy!Italy for a short while.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia.

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A pasta that is not Pasta

One–shot

"The meeting is adjourned, then," England straightened his back, satisfied of himself, and tapped his knuckles on the table to attract the attention of the other Nations. "We'll meet next month, everybody!"

All nations sighed in relief and started stretching and moving around, finally able to leave the room.

France lifted one hand to his lips and threw a kiss towards England, who thankfully didn't notice it, too busy gathering up all his documents to get the hell out of there; with a dissatisfied pout, France turned to the side and tried to attract Spain's attention, but the Spaniard was too busy cooing over the older of the two Italian brothers to notice him.

Next to Austria, Germany sighed and rubbed his temples –once again, his plans for creating a Nature–friendly car were ignored.

On the other end of the table, America pouted and grabbed his plans to build an enormous vacuum cleaner that would get rid of all the trash in the world; it hadn't been well accepted by most of the nations, but he was sure that if he created it first, they wouldn't be able to oppose him anymore.

His stomach rumbled, interrupting his heroic thoughts.

Tapping his chin, deep in thought, America wondered what to eat; his favourite burger fast food was closed down for health inspection (not that it needed it), so that ruled it out, and the thought depressed him.

Looking around, he entertained the idea of going at one of China's restaurants again, but decided it wasn't worth it –he didn't feel like it.

Then, America noticed Italy hanging at Germany's neck, pleading him loudly to go out with him to eat. His relations with both Nations were quite fine as of lately, but he never did really hang out with them, so with a shrug, America bounced towards the two, deciding that if he couldn't have his burgers, he could as well join the two and eat with them.

Maybe have Germany pay for him, too.

"Alfred~ hello!"

"Hi there, Feli, Ludwig!" with a smile and a thumbs up, America got to them. "Can I join you two for lunch?"

"Ah…" Germany didn't look pleased with the fact, but Italy grabbed America's hands and nodded happily.

"Of course, ve~ we were going to eat pasta, right Ludwig?"

Germany's lips twitched downwards in displeasure –it was obvious he'd been about to propose something including wurst– but America's excited face had already turned into a pout.

"Eh? No way I'm eating pasta, Feli! It's not tasty at all, and it's gummy!" clearly put off by Italy's choice of food, America made a face of disgust. "I tried all my brands, but when I open the packet and put everything in the microwave, it's–"

The temperature in the room dropped instantly to one of sheer cold as the closest nations froze in shock, darting worried glances between the now very still Italy and America, who continued ranting about his ready–meals (four–cheese sauce macaroni and spaghetti with meatballs were mentioned at least once).

Germany cleared his throat, about to call America's attention and make him stop talking, but a hand pressing on his wrist made him change idea.

"Ve, Ludwig will forgive me if I postpone our lunch together, right?" Italy looked up at the taller German Nation, who nodded, his throat suddenly dry and not trusting himself enough to speak. "I think I need to fix things with Alfred first~"

"Ah, uh, yes, Feliciano, it's not a problem… I think I will grab bruder and go eat wurst…"

Italy didn't seem to be paying attention to him anymore, darkened eyes now fixed on America who was still babbling away, and Germany made a hasty retreat, quickly followed by the Nations around them.

Blinking as he noticed that his audience had vanished, America looked around in surprise, his smile wavering at the look in Italy's open eyes.

"Uh… Feli? Hehe, is there something wrong?"

"Ve~ Alfred will have to take back his words on pasta~"

The smile on the Italian nation's face was worrisome, and on the other end of the meeting table, England felt actually bad for America… for a grand total of three seconds; then he looked away and retreated, feeling sorry the other man.

'This is your battle, Alfred…'

"Alfred will have to come with me~" one of Italy's hands wrapped around America's wrist and tugged him towards the door of the room.

America tried to stop Italy –there were still his documents and his awesome projects for the vacuum cleaner on the table– but he was, much to his shock, unable to get out of the steely grip of the Italian nation, and with a last, panicky glance to his seat, he had to admit defeat and allow the other to haul him out.

Another worrisome thing was that as Italy dragged America out of the UN building and stomped towards his house, the Italian man didn't chat as he was used to, and the silence got to America's nerves, making him attempt to fill it with babblings that apparently didn't reach the other Nation's attention.

America realised where they were going only when they actually got in front of Italy's house, and felt something akin to dread close up on him when the front door closed behind his back and Italy tugged him towards the kitchen.

"Feli, really, I–"

"I'll cook pasta for Alfred, so he'll never say lies like those anymore," Italy replied, finally letting go of America's wrist.

"But–"

"Ve~" interrupting America's attempts to talk, Italy smiled at him and all of sudden, America felt like keeping silent. "Because Alfred should know that the disgusting and horrid products that are sold as 'pasta' in America are not pasta at all, ve~"

Slumping down on the closest chair and pressing one elbow on the table, America watched in defeat as Italy wandered around the kitchen, not even bothering to take out his jacket, gathering together ingredients on a pile.

"I'll make my best pasta for you!" the brown haired Nation assured once he had everything ready, eyes sparkling with happy determination.

"Fettuccine Alfredo?" America dared to ask, almost hopeful (of all the pasta he'd ever tried out, that was the least disgusting), but Italy turned to look at him, and his smile felt so chilling that America promptly shut up.

"Ve, silly Al, of course I'll prepare my infamous ragù~"

America didn't move from the seat as he stared at Italy sing to himself and dance around in the kitchen, but he couldn't look away from him, almost hypnotized by his determined yet smooth actions, as if he was born and raised in the kitchen.

Much against his will, America leaned forwards, amused and curious. "What's raggù then?"

"It's a meat sauce made with beef, vegetables and sausage," Italy replied, glancing at him with some more warmth as he cut a carrot in small slices.

"Hey, do you need help?" he asked then, feeling a bit useless. A hero should never let one of his underlings do all the work, after all. Besides, he was feeling a bit ignored. A hero should always be in the middle of attention!

"Ve~ Alfred is nice, but no, thank you~" Italy waved his knife around, and America yelped, afraid of seeing that same knife slip out of those usually buttery hands and right into some part of America's body.

It didn't happen, though, and Italy resumed his cutting, adding an onion and a leak to the carrot, then grabbing a piece of bacon and slicing it, too.

Being familiar with Italy's usual clumsy side, America was left quite surprised to see how apt he was while cooking, and he smiled in amusement, though still convinced that nothing Italy could cook would be better than the pasta he'd tasted.

After all, pasta was the same everywhere, right?

"I was hurt that you thought pasta disgusting, ve~" Italy spoke, placing the vegetables and the cut bacon into a pot, adding olive oil and butter. "But then I thought, Alfred only has pre–made pasta, and that is not real pasta. It's outrageous that they'd call it pasta, when it's not pasta…"

Deciding it would be better not to reply to that, America simply continued watching. The oil smelled really good for some reason.

"It means you never really tasted the real Italian pasta, and that's… horrible! Not having ever tasted the amazing, heavenly flavour of home–made pasta, ve~"

Italy grabbed the sausage he'd prepared and cut it as well, humming under his breath as he added it to the vegetables together with the minced beef, and turned around, promptly opening a cupboard and taking out a few bottles of wine.

Under America's curious eyes, Italy checked each wine, sniffing it and looking at its colour, before choosing one bottle and placing the others away.

"Cooking is an art, ve~" with a fond smile, Italy leaned towards America and gently patted his shoulder, before pouring a glass of wine into the pot.

"I thank you for wanting to cook for me, Feli, but you see, pasta–" once again, America was interrupted, this time by a glass of wine (not the same Italy had used for the recipe, though) being thrust into his hands.

"I told you what you eat is not pasta! It's offensive to call it pasta! Pasta is delicious, and there's so many types~ there's pennette and orecchiette and rigatoni and pipe, and…"

America tried to drown Italy's voice away while drinking a bit of the wine, but the bitter taste made him cringe –he wasn't quite the wine–person, he preferred coke.

"Ve…" Italy had turned to the pot again, and after checking inside, he poured something America hadn't noticed before into it as well, then something red and sticky, before lowering the flame and sitting in front of America with an expectant smile.

America briefly wondered when Italy'd had the time to take off his jacket. He hadn't even noticed.

"… well, when are we going to eat?" America prided himself to be patient with things (he was able to wait for a full five minutes before starting to pester the next available person), but he was hungry and his stomach needed food –even that yucky pasta would be ok.

"The ragù will be ready in a couple of hours, ve~"

America blinked. He wasn't sure he heard it right. "Hahaha, Feli, you're joking, right? Two hours? B–but I'm hungry now!"

"If I had known before that you were going to say suck execrable things, I would have prepared things beforehand… I am not even sure how you survived until now eating such things, really!" Italy poured himself a glass of wine and produced a deck of cards from somewhere, smiling contentedly at America.

"I eat yummy things," the blond nation countered, lifting his shoulders in a defensive pose. "Burgers and fries and coke and–"

Italy's smile faltered slightly.

"Ve… I should have known… you were Arthur's colony for too long…"

America tilted his head to the side. Where did England fit into this? England's food was bad, of course. Except that he remembered liking it when he was little –not all the time, of course, but sometimes it was acceptable.

Apparently saying that loudly didn't impress Italy all that much, because the Italian Nation turned a not–so–healthy green colour and was staring at him with something akin pity.

"All you eat is pasta!" he countered, pouting. "Isn't that bad?"

Italy's dramatically pitiful expression didn't change.

"I don't eat pasta every day, ve~ I eat rice and fish and meat and vegetables!"

"There's salad in my burgers! And I'm quite sure the sauces are healthy!"

Italy cringed again, feeling a wave of disgust clutch at his insides. The thought of those burgers made him vaguely sick.

He spared a glance towards the pot, his nostrils picking on the yummy scent of meat cooking, and he breathed deeply, relaxing a bit.

"You will wait for my pasta, Al, I assure you, it won't disappoint you!" then he started shuffling his cards, smiling all the while. "We can talk and play in the meanwhile, ve~ and with the time zone differences between your house and mine, I'm actually cooking for dinner!"

America was grief stricken –he'd just been denied his lunch?

"B–but…"

"I renounced to my siesta to prepare ragù for you, ve~"

America wanted to tell the other that cooking for him was his choice, not America's, but Italy was staring at him with big, pleading eyes, and America suddenly realised why Germany could never really say no to that face.

"… I'm the hero, right? I can wait to eat… I think".

…–…–…–…

As America quickly learned, Italy's silly, happy–go–lucky face was the perfect façade for playing poker.

Not that they had started playing poker right from the start, of course –they had tried a couple of American games, then Italy had wasted over 15 minutes trying to explain America the rules of one Italian card game, giving up after the fifth time he had to start over; then they had lost over twenty minutes wondering why certain card games were named as they were, and it had degenerated quickly into a game of 'create your own stupid card game name', which had somehow involved insulting England (on America's part) and poking fun at Romano's dubious relationship with Spain (on Italy's side).

After that, they had moved to food again, but America had quickly changed subject when Italy's face had turned dark and thundery at mention of ketchup used as a sauce on spaghetti (a recipe America had received from Japan, actually).

So, the next obvious step had been playing poker.

America had always considered himself a champion at that game, based on the fact that he always got lucky hands and never had to bet too much to gain the highest amount of money, but Italy's face, stuck on that stupid, cute grin, never did give away what cards he had.

Thus, slowly but surely, America was losing copious amounts of money (thankfully, he'd stolen the wallet from Canada, and that was his money he was currently betting), and his stomach was trying to attract his attention again.

The nice smell of meat was actually distracting –America blamed his loss on that, because surely Italy couldn't be a better poker player than he was– but so was the friendly chatting. Italy was, despite his unhealthy obsession with pasta, rather funny to be around (funnier than England, at least… picking on the Englishman proved to be funny only for the first thousand times or so, unless he allowed the other to rest for a while before starting again).

America wasn't sure why Germany protested so much having him around; he had a lot of witty, funny remarks to share, and jokes, and they both wondered where the book called 'atmosphere' was, since everybody seemed to have read it and they hadn't.

And Italy liked whales, so it meant America could introduce him to his friend and maybe even to Tony!

Maybe Tony would like Italy more than he liked England.

But not more than he liked America, because America was the hero and it was clear Tony would always prefer him.

As he was in the middle of his disconnected train of thoughts, America's tummy decided to make itself known once again, grumbling quite loudly to remind its owner of its existence.

America rubbed it with a grimace, but when he looked up again, Italy was standing close to the pot, and was tasting the meat with a wooden spoon.

"It's ready, Al~ I'll put on the water for the pasta!"

Promptly standing up, America started dancing on the spot. He was hungry enough that he could eat that entire pot of ragggù (was it with two or three 'r's?) all by himself, no matter its taste!

Italy skipped to the basin and filled a huge pot with water, placing it on the stove next to the ragù pot, and waited for the water to boil.

"Is it spaghetti then?" America asked curiously, watching Italy choose between an endless amount of different packets of pasta he kept on a cupboard.

"No, ragù tastes the better with either gnocchi or tagliatelle~"

That said, he prepared an amount of something that looked like flat spaghetti in a plate and after dropping the salt in the water, he placed the pasta into the pot as well.

Not wanting to be left with nothing else to do, America rummaged around the kitchen in search of plates and forks and glasses, managing to prepare the table in record time, folding all the cards and effectively finishing the last round of poker (that he would have surely lost. Again. And Italy didn't even have a pair!).

"Ve~ thank you Alfred!" hugging him for a grand total of three seconds –he was too busy checking the time for pasta– Italy let him go and returned to the pots. "You will surely like my pasta! Pasta~"

It was almost amusing how a person that had just played poker with him, discussing things such as politics, book plots and movies could also be so into talking about anime characters (both America and Italy were apparently fans of Bleach), epic fails and what's the best polite insult to use in presence of Austria to make him even more flustered.

America was somehow very pleased about that.

"The pasta is ready, ve~ Alfred, sit down and prepare yourself to the most delicious taste in the whole world!"

Rolling his eyes, America did as he was told. He was going to be brave and heroic and eat the stupid food without complaining –even if he'd been forced to forfeit lunch and he'd been kidnapped and brought to Italy's house, and he'd to eat pasta, which was always yucky, he was a hero, and Italy had still been an awesome company for him.

He would swallow his pride and be the hero that he was supposed to be.

It wouldn't be that bad. He'd tasted England's scones once, and not even the pasta he heated in the microwave had been that bad.

With a proud smile, Italy rolled up a huge mass of tagliatelle and placed it down in America's plate, then did the same for his own plate and sat down, staring expectantly at his guest, brown eyes wide and bright.

America swallowed and looked up at him.

Italy was still staring, and he looked quite cute.

Looking down at his plate, America had to admit that the smell wasn't as bad as he thought it'd be.

Slowly, with hesitation, he grabbed some of the pasta and brought them to his lips, ready to–

"Fermo!"

America was startled out of his concentration and dropped the fork back down, sending ragù all over the table and himself.

"W–what? What? What did I do? Where's the enemy?"

"Ve, Alfred, you should roll your tagliatelle on the fork like this~"

Italy leaned forwards, demonstrating with his own fork and placing a huge amount of rolled up pasta in front of America's mouth; the blond nation cleared his throat, cheeks tinged with red at the prospect of having to be fed by Italy, but simply shrugged and obediently leaned forwards.

He tried to keep his breath and swallow quickly, hoping the taste would not be–

"Mmmmph! Hmm–ghnnngh mmmh!" munching down on the mouthful of tagliatelle, puffing his cheeks out in an attempt to swallow as quickly as possible, America stared at Italy's pleased smile with a brightened up expression.

"It's good, is it?" it was more of a statement than a question, and America would have poked fun at Italy's smug tone if he wasn't too busy drooling over that pasta.

"Feliciano!" straightening his back, America grinned (with teeth dirty with ragù) and opened his mouth. "That's delicious!"

He really couldn't understand why his stuff and this tasted so differently –but it was absolutely delicious!

"Good! So so good!" curling his hands into fists, America stared in amazement at the spaghetti in front of him.

"Ve~ I told you, there's no way your ready–in–five–minutes stuff would ever compare with home–made pasta and sauce, Al~"

"But a lot of my food is good, I assure you. Next time, I will be the one cooking for you, Feli!" not wanting to admit defeat on his own food, America leaned forwards, smiling. "I'll make you taste the best American foods ever!"

"… not burgers, right?"

A pout "ok, no burgers then".

Italy smiled brightly, reassured, and ate a forkful of pasta, munching happily and motioning for America to eat the rest of his portion.

America looked down, then back up, and opened his lips again, grinning widely.

Now being fed by Italy didn't sound as embarrassing as before, somehow.

Italy flushed a bit, glancing down at his plate and then at America, then smiled as well and scooted closer with his chair.

"Say aaah~"

America chuckled. "Aaah~"

Another forkful of delicious ragù and tagliatelle was placed in front of his lips, and America inwardly cheered as he munched on it. The food was great, and he'd spent a few hours having fun with Italy, too, so the day hadn't been wasted as he'd feared when Italy had dragged him away from the UN building.

Not to mention he had another appointment with cute Italy, and that time he would make sure to prepare all the yummier American foods that would entice Italy's gourmet stomach.

After all, he was a hero, and he wanted to defend his foods, and…

"Ve, you have some sauce on your face~"

America hastily rubbed at his cheek, flushing crimson at the definitely not heroic show of messiness while eating, but Italy giggled and leaned forwards, and before America realised what was going on, he felt Italy's tongue flicker against the side of his lips.

Blissfully unaware of how the American nation had turned into solid stone at his carefree approach, Italy pulled back and licked his lips.

Without much care, Italy rolled up more pasta. "Ve~ eat up quickly or it's going to get cold~"

Swallowing hard, America looked down at his plate of pasta, then peered up at Italy, smiling happily at him and holding up another forkful of tagliatelle, and bit down on his lower lip, his heart thumping quickly in his chest.

"Ah… sure!"

He leaned forwards, skin still tingling where Italy had touched it, and ate some more pasta, much to Italy's sheer delight.

All the while, as he requested seconds even though he was full so that Italy could still feed him, and planned a way to get his cheeks dirty again, America wondered if he had any foods that he could feed to Italy in a similar way for their next date.

He definitely had to find one.

…–…–…–…–…–…–…

SOY: I hate to finish fills. It's always so, so hard. Anyway, how was it? I'm sorry I could not deliver smex, maybe next time. AmeIta from me always lacks smut, unfortunately.

Ragù – a kind of pasta sauce made with meat, sausage and vegetables, with adding a bit of hot broth (or water) and some tomato sauce. It's delicious with gnocchi… *drool*

pennette, orecchiette, rigatoni, pipe, tagliatelle – they are all different kinds of pasta.

Gnocchi is, instead, a kind of small potato dumpling.

Fermo (Italian) – stop.