Summary: Romano and Veneziano are just two bodies for one soul and together they are Italy. No one seems to realize that. Not even those who should. GerIta. Romano POV 'Colors of the World' series. Can be read alone. Color Soulmate prompt. Complete.

Warnings: The feels. Not even lying I hate myself for what I did.

Disclaimer: Don't own.

A/N: So yeah... I may be procrastinating on writing a paper for class... Yeah... Enjoy!

Red, The Color of an Enduring Flame

How many times did that potato bastard have to hurt us? To hurt me? My stupid little brother had the soul mate and I did not. This is nothing new though. Our grandfather did this to us too. He chose Veneziano over me. Austria chose him over me. Spain chose him over me. Everyone chose him over me. How did it end up like this? Why do they not care for me? We are of the same soul. What he feels I feel and what he sees I see. It was supposed to work both ways. He tended to be the light of our bond and I the dark. It had led him to be the happier and agreeable personality while I was the more pessimistic and disagreeable one but that only made us fit together more perfectly so that when we were together we were grey, like the world around us. That didn't always stop me from taking my anger about our situation out on him but if anyone were allowed to self loathe at times it would be us. All spiritual matters concerning us had to be dealt with together for we were one soul in two bodies. Our relationship had always been this way and yet somehow everyone but me seemed to forget. I wish I could, maybe the hurt would be less, but then when he does something big I know it immediately and am reminded.

When Veneziano saw that bastard for the first time I knew it straightaway. The Holy Roman Empire, not that the jerk was any of those, was ours not that I knew their name at the time. All I knew was that it had to be someone my other half had seen for I was alone at the time tending to my tomatoes countries away when suddenly everything changed. I was so surprised at the sudden burst of color that I nearly hurt my tomatoes but I was so happy. We had found someone who was ours and everyone would know we were of the same person. Finally, people would recognize you couldn't have one brother without the other for we were all needed to complete each other. The tears of joy fell from my face.

When I received the letter from my brother I was so happy that jerk Spain thought something was wrong with me. What did he know? Nothing, that's what. No one knew anything and it vexed me to no end. If they didn't want me to be mad they shouldn't aggravate me so much. I was able to convince him though that nothing was wrong and I had to see my brother right away. Spain, the naïve idiot that he is thought I just missed him and let me go for a visit. He didn't suspect anything deeper. I almost wish he hadn't have let me gone.

When I arrived at Austria's place I found my complement. When we were together we were balanced and my spirits lifted. As Veneziano led me to the room Holy Rome was in I was excited to meet him. We would have someone. Someone who would love us, love me. So when we entered the room and that bastard only had eyes for half of us I was crushed. Holy Rome quickly flickered his eyes in my direction before dismissing me for my brother. We felt the distress but Veneziano, like always, ignored the darker emotions that would penetrate the soul. He could feel them but they were never as real to him. That wasn't what his half was for.

Not even our soul's mate, the one who should know us best, to accept us for both the light and the dark, seemed to realize that we were one. That he needed both of us to succeed. To truly be in love and make us all reach the greatest heights that only those in love could achieve he would need both of us. That we would need him. They would never be as happy as they could be with just the two of them. Through the whole visit I tried to convince them but they just brushed me aside as they were already too caught up in the newness of the situation to pay me or my words any attention for long. They didn't see that there could be more. I turned away with tears of sorrow streaming down my face.

I decided then that I wouldn't let them know what they were missing until they came to me and asked me for my opinion on the matter. Though, in the end, they never came as they were happy enough not to look for more. As the years went on the hurt they had caused me helped me to justify my prolonged silence. Because, if they did not want me when things were good then they could learn from their own mistakes when it led them to ruin. I guarded my half of our soul for the inevitable. Eventually, I decided that if Holy Rome couldn't accept that Italy was not just some sweet little person then he didn't deserve all of Italy.

When the Holy Roman Empire fell and our world went dark I consoled my brother. The darkness in him grew a little more but I extinguished it as best I could. I felt the burning agony of our loss but I did not let it scorch us as it would have if I hadn't been trying to block the bastard out. I may not have liked him and in the end didn't want have anything to do with him but he was ours and I did love him. I had no choice.

I watched as others doted on Veneziano and take no notice of my own grief. If I had told them they would have called me selfish, a liar, that I had no idea what their Italy was going through. As if their Italy was a different Italy than myself. No one saw past my surliness. Everyone had assumed it was just my natural state and that it was just one of my normal defining characteristics. Only my brother saw past the act but he did not understand anything beyond it. Our separation and my guarding had damaged our bond almost beyond repair. I needed to fix it.

Nine years later our unification began with the Congress of Vienna. It was a tumultuous sixty years but by the end we were truly one once more. When we became unified we finally became one person once again. Our body finally reflected our soul but it did not last long. We soon separated back into our different forms as to keep up appearances for others. Our bosses thought it would keep foreign relations smoother or some other bullshit. The only good thing I thought about separating was that now Veneziano would realize the depths of our bond. That he would tell the others and things would change for us. However, he still didn't understand us well enough and though we were closer he didn't change anything. I had even asked him about it but he just didn't get what I was saying to him. I let it be. It didn't matter anymore. We were united and what the others thought didn't matter anymore. The one person who it should have mattered to was dead and that's all there was to it.

When Veneziano met Germany I knew immediately. Why did that idiot always get to meet our soulmate first? How did we even get another one? When I got the letter I don't know why I was expecting any differently. It was a potato bastard. A potato bastard that could already see color. That gave me pause. We already had a potato bastard. Now we had another potato bastard that could already see in color? According to the others you could only see color if you met your soul mate, as had happened before, or your soul was completely in love. Veneziano was prone to love at first sight but he was not and he hadn't even seen this bastard yet let alone fallen in love with him. Maybe it was a coincidence and this Germany person had caught sight of one of them accidently before? But when could he have happened in the last hundred years since Holy Rome died-

Damn it. It was the same damned potato bastard! When the Holy Roman Empire fell and Germany was starting to be formed rather than being a new entity altogether he must have just transformed. In a way Holy Rome did die, thus the grey, but he was not gone as his soul lived on in the German states. When he awoke his soul must have still had the same attachments as before since we, unlike him, did not get disbanded. Prussia, that perverted potato bastard, had been holding out on the world. It would explain why that King of his was so persistent on German unification.

Our potato bastard's world had kept on going like normal while ours went dark. Prussia had known this and still hadn't told us. He hadn't even told my brother. Sure we weren't on the best of terms with him but I thought everyone loved Veneziano enough not to let him suffer in such a way. His brother had mourned publically for many years and many nations, allies and enemies alike, expressed their sympathies. The bastard could have fixed things if he had wanted to.

I decided to continue on as I had before. Now I could see in color but that changed nothing. My brother never acknowledged our soul as it should have been recognized and now he had our soulmate again. I tried once more to get their attention but I knew it would be the same as before when I was once again brushed aside. When Veneziano and Germany would eventually fall to ruin he would stay on the sidelines protecting himself from the fallout the best way he could. Bastards and idiots never learn. He supposed he was no different.

Many years later, long after the Second World War, Prussia happened across a drunk Romano one night. Surprisingly, it was a rare sight as the surly half nation didn't typically attend social gathering let alone ones where they got drunk. To be fair this wasn't one of those times either. Prussia had gone to Italy looking for the more adorable half so that he could bring him to his own home where West had made preparations to propose to his ditzy soulmate. He thought it would be best to kidnap his victim and so snuck into the house Italy shared with his irritable brother. He was going through the kitchen when he was caught.

"Hey! W-what are you doing here you perverted potato jerk?" Romano's speech was slurred and his eyes glazed as he sat at his kitchen table looking miserable. Open and unopened bottle of wine surrounded him.

"The Awesome Me needs to tell little Italy some news about mein own little bro!" Prussia proclaimed in his usual loud voice.

"I'm Italy too you jerk and where was this news when we needed it, bastard?" Romano made some rude hand gestures before grabbing another bottle of wine. There were already three empty bottle laying around him as he was opening a fourth. It was a miracle he was still this coherent.

"What? You already know?" Prussia was confused as to what exactly referring to but thought Romano had already somehow knew about the proposal.

"Che, how couldn't I? We are one nation, one soul, what happens for one applies to both. Did you think you could keep it from us forever? I figured it out the second it happened again!"

"Again? The Awesome Me is referring to the upcoming proposal West has planned for Veneziano." At those words Romano fell out of the seat he was in with a bang and loudly cursed at his own fortune. "So it has nothing to do with you as a nation."

"Ha! After all that grief and he expects an unconditional yes! Idiota! Although it may have been different if you had just told us that brother of yours that you lost was still the same man transformed, damn it!" Romano started laughing hysterically but before long the guffaws turned into large heart wrenching sobs.

Prussia paled. He had never told that to anyone. He hadn't even told Germany of his true origins. The others may have seen the similarities but no one had ever even hazarded a guess that they were the same person.

"H-hey man, you're drunk. You don't know what you're saying." Prussia said carefully as to try and salvage what information he could from the situation and convince the drunk man he was delusional.

"Bastard, I knew the moment the colors came back and my brother said that the bastard already had them. That the macho potato had been born with them! Ha! It doesn't work like that the arrogant jerk thinking he's better than everyone else." Prussia stopped breathing when Romano continued, "So why didn't you tell us? He won't be mine but I still mourned a hundred years and will probably do for a lifetime more!

"Maybe he could have been truly ours if I saw him first but no. Damn it everyone only ever loves the nice half. It's not fair, it's not true love. I hate him but I still feel the love because he is ours. I could see how it could have been. Why me, damn it? Why us?" Romano continued to sob nonsensical things.

"You're not making any sense," Prussia finally said once Romano seemed to lose his steam.

"I'm making perfect sense but no one ever listens! They never do and then when they do they never believe me. Do you?" Romano's head was starting to nod as he was losing consciousness.

"You're crazy man."

"'S what I thought you'd say… Bastard." Romano promptly passed out.

Prussia didn't know what to think of what just happened. Some of the things that Romano said made total sense and then the others were too insane to even conceive. After looking around for the Italian half nation he had set out to find and failing Prussia decided it would be best to just forget tonight. He went back home and promptly went binging on his favorite beer. When he woke up the next morning he couldn't for the life of him remember the night before.

A/N: So I hope it made sense and that you liked it. Please let me know if anything needs clarifying... Yeah... I have another fic for this series that's just a SuFin fluff piece that I'll post later.

Reviewers get pasta!

Originally Published: 22 August 2014