Dedication: To a lovely friend I met on tumblr; I would have probably never even finished the first chapter if it hadn't been for her wonderful words of encouragement and entertaining RP scenarios. No names needed, she knows who she is! Thank you so much for everything. (:

Circean Reality
Chapter Four: Gramigna

"Palm tree what?" The male that was previously laughing at Romano's unfortunate collision with the locker raises an eyebrow as he questions the others' words, a slight smile taking over his confused expression.

"..." Romano's enthusiasm is crushed by the reality of the situation. This guy, this Spain, might not know him; this Spain could even hate this worlds 'Lovino'.

It is while Romano's thoughts are running a mile a minute that Spain begins to look worriedly at the others' unresponsiveness.

Spain walks up to Romano, waving a hand in the others' blank face. "H-Hey? Vargas? Are you okay?"

The hand moving all over his personal bubble brings Romano back to reality; he slaps the thing away from his face, a scowl replacing his previous features.

"Don't touch me, dumb fuck!" Instead of smiling like his Spain would do, this Spain frowns and steps back.

"Don't have to get all anal about it, Vargas; I was just showing concern…" This was definitely not his Spain, this guy looked down on him, and their slight height difference did nothing to help.

Romano sighs at hearing Lovino's surname. The two males refuse to talk, and after what felt like eternity Spain makes the first move.

"Look, I know you hate me for what happened before," Romano looks at the other, a hundred and one questions running through his head, "but I really wish you'd put it behind you; we all know the Spanish are better at soccer!" Spain smirks right as his last statement leaves his mouth.

Soccer.

Soccer.

The idiot is going to get it now.

-gramigna-

"Potatoes. You don't like them." Carriedo emphasizes again, for Lovino's sake.

"No," Lovino reiterates, "I don't like bastards that won't make me fucking smileys when I'm damn near the next Starvin' Marvin."

"Marvin? When did you change your name, Romano?"

"My name is Lovino!"

"But you just said your name was Marvin."

Lovino never wanted to stab someone so badly in his life.

. . . . .

"Wait, wait." Lovino raises his left hand to visualize his command. "Are you telling me that my name is Romano, I'm currently in Italy, and my only living relative is my twin brother that goes by the name of Veneciano?"

"Yep! That's exactly right, Roma!" Spain smiles, glad to see that his friend was taking the news extremely well.

A long 'hmmm' escapes Lovino's lips as a curious gaze takes over his facial features.

"So are you one of my various sex slaves or something?" The teen smirks, full out laughing as Carriedo's cheeks turn red and the nation hurriedly splutters nonsense and shifts his arms every which way as a response. "I mean... With a name like Romano I HAVE to have bitches all over the globe!"

-gramigna-

"Ow! Why the flip did you headbutt me?" The taller male screeches, as if he really doesn't know why in the world Romano would ever even think to inflict bodily harm to his abdomen.

"You know damn well why! Who the fuck do you think you are to call such a grand sport soccer? Fuck, if I wasn't such a man I would be crying at the blatant show of..." Romano rambles on, causing the other to back up just a bit, hands clutching at his wounded area protectively in case of the other wanting to start another attack.

Doing his best not to snap at the Italian, Spain decides to cut him off. "Vargas."

"...but even then the idiot would probably take his shirt off..."

"Vargas!"

"...which makes no sense! It's fucking Russia for..."

"VARGAS!"

So much for not snapping.

"Fuck! What? You don't have to scream! I'm fucking next to you!" Romano yelped, irritation creeping into his voice.

"But you- Whatever." A sigh escapes the taller teen, "Why are you skipping class?"

Romano contemplates ignoring the question and returning to his quest of blindly searching for his next class, but then realization hits him. He's on a quest to blindly search for his next class and holy fuck he must be halfway done with the damn thing by now. Grumpily, the Italian personification glares at Spain and mumbles out his response.

"What was that? I can't hear you, Vargas."

"I'm not skipping."

Spain rolls his eyes and crosses his arms, "Then what do you call roaming the halls during class time?"

"That's 'cause I'm lo-..." He stops before he can finish his sentence. "What the hell are you doing skipping class then? Don't chastise me!"

Another eye-roll courtesy of the tanner teen. "...I'm smoking weed and getting drunk."

"What?" Romano's right eyebrow moved up, "I thought you only did that on the twelfth of February."

"Huh? How do you know when my birthday is?" Now it is Spain's turn to raise an eyebrow. His question more disturbed than questioning.

Shit. How was he to know that he wasn't supposed to know?

"I'm lost."

"You're what?"

Romano sure has a gift when it comes to making things awkward.

-gramigna-

"I'm not your... your... lady of the evening, Roma!" Spain huffed, his ears turning red in embarrassment at having to have this conversation. "Now don't laugh! I'm just an old friend!"

"Pfft, old friend huh?" Lovino wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, "Are you a special old friend then?"

"Roma! Stop teasing boss! I'm serious!" Carriedo pouted, crossing his arms in a huff. "What happened to the Romano that was shouting at me in the entryway?"

"Huh? Oh that? I thought you were that Carriedo bitch. Luckily, you're nothing like that stick in the mud; although the uncanny similarities in the face are creepy. You sure you weren't separated from a sibling at birth or anything?"

"Sibling? Mm, I do have my sister Portugal, but she doesn't like me too much." Carriedo's look-alike replies, using one of his hands to rub his chin as he keeps thinking of his other 'relatives'.

"Nope, no other siblings... I do have a lot of cousins though!"

"Portugal? Someone named their kid Portugal? Who the fuck does that?" Lovino says, obviously ignoring the rest of Carriedo's words and confused at the name of the others' sibling. "I mean yeah, I've heard of parents calling their daughters America or Panama, which are pretty cool names in my book, but Portugal? That doesn't flow very nice on a lovely maiden!"

"Girls called America? But he's a boy!" Spain interrupted, smile on his face at imagining a female America.

"A boy named America? The hell kind of people do you associate with? Do you guys name each other after countries here?" Carriedo is about to butt-in again, but Lovino continues. "Next you'll tell me that your name is Spain or something equally lame!" Lovino chortles at his own words.

Instead of laughter joining his like Lovino thought it would, the other man in the room stays quiet until the chortling ends.

Once it does, he finally speaks up.

"I never thought my name was lame."

Way to be a jerk, Lovino.

-gramigna-

"I said I was lost, not having a fucking baby, stop looking at me like that!" Romano stomps his foot on the ground while turning his head anywhere as long as it was not on Spain's flabbergasted expression, cheeks red in embarrassment.

"You're lying! There's no way you can get lost here; we've been coming to this school for almost three years Lovino!" Spain explains, the shock and confusion showing less and less on his face as each word floats out of his lips.

"Call me Romano, and I have a damn good reason!"

Hello there Mr. Confusion, welcome back; Spain's face was missing you.

"Romano? Like... Like the cheese?"

Hi. Not dead.
Unforeseen happenings in my life just kind of happened, ahah.
Shortest chapter to date, but writers block does that to you.
It makes me extremely ashamed to have reached my goal of 25 with Snowflakes-Over-the-Water's review within the first 48 hours and then not updating for over a month.

(: Thank you for being so patient everyone, especially xNadia for her words of encouragement.

Does anyone here have a tumblr? I'm pretty interested in seeing different blogs.
Thank you again to everyone who wished me a happy quinceañera! I had a LOT of fun!
There are a couple reviews I have yet to respond to, my bad! I'll get to it!