Disclaimer: Antonio and Lovino aren't mine. *sadface*

This was done for the kink meme. I had no intentions to put it here, but it turns out I liked the last sentence of the first paragraph enough to waver. Also, I'm getting pissed at myself for always starting stories and never finishing them (apparently I had started to write even a Spain threesome, who knew?)

But this, it's finished (and I'm a cheap bastard) so there you go.

He has the soul of an artist, and when he first sees all that red splattered over white, he can't help but think how beautiful a contrast it creates. The sight makes his fingers twitch with the urge to form shapes with the dripping color, to paint a perfect picture where reality is what he wants it to be.

It makes him sick.

Secondly, he is admittedly a coward, and the only thing keeping him from shutting the door and running away is, in all its irony, cowardice. He has frozen in place, feet nailed to the floor. The world is shaking and he has to close his eyes to lessen the feeling of nausea.

In the small room, fragile voices keep on echoing something that resembles an eons old children's song, piercing his ears with how broken it sounds.

"Estará bien," the lyrics implore, and somewhere in the middle, he crouches down and vomits on the floor.

"Romano?"

He's on the ground, catching his breath after re-tasting his breakfast, arms over his stomach as if to protect it. Slowly, he dares to lift his gaze from the pool of sick, only to be caught being stared at by green eyes. They look startled, and for a moment, ashamed, but soon they curve into what is nothing but worry.

"Are you-" the man tries to speak, forced to swallow in the middle, and by the painful sounds of it, he can guess it's not only saliva that went down the man's throat. "Are you alright?"

The words leave him empty. His head, his stomach, his feelings. All of it.

"Por favor," he can hear himself whisper, though it feels more like a cry now that the song had quieted. "For once in your life..."

He doesn't know where it comes from, but he finds the strength to stand up when the man tries it himself and fails. He's much too damaged to succeed, and the most ill-favored shade of red he has painted his surroundings with is too slithery to aid him in anything.

With a series of irregular inhales and exhales, he approaches the other man, and when he's close enough, he kneels down like he's ready to pray. God, does he want to pray right now, when his throat is dry and tears are making their way down his cheeks.

Right now, when he sees Spain bathing in his own blood.

"Don't cry, Romano." Spain says, leaning his head against the edge of the tub, looking drowsy like he's just woken from a long siesta. "Please don't cry."

"Fuck you," he barks back, biting down the sobs that claw the insides of his throat like rusty knives. "Don't you dare to smile." There is an edge of a threat in his words, but he looks at the hands that hold a roll of bandage in them, not yet in place but already worn useless, and really, what more damage could he even cause?

From the corner of his eye, he sees a hand being lifted and approach his face. Yearning for familiar comfort, he closes his eyes. But there is a pause of hesitation, and the hand is never placed on his cheek, the thumb never rubbing the corner of his eye in soothing motions. All Spain sees is red, and so he slowly withdraws his hand, eyes distant.

"The floor," Spain says instead, and Romano opens his eyes. "I'm sorry."

The floor. He can agree. Like following the bread crumbs from a story, he had found his way into the bathroom, only, he hadn't expected to wake up to such a nightmare.

"It's just a fucking floor," he growls and takes Spain's hand that is holding the stained bandage. The man has already managed to do an awful job in trying to patch himself up, and as useless as Romano himself might be, he would not let the one good thing in his life bleed to death.

"You're an idiot, did you know?" His voice cracks as he turns on the water and lets it run over the man once the temperature is tolerable enough, little rivers of red washing down Spain's body.

The man says nothing, just lifting his hand over his head so that it would be the first part of him rid of the color red, and once it is, he presses it against a reddened cheek and smiles.

"What happened?" He finally dares to ask when Spain sits with his back facing him, naked and body bearing wounds that would seduce any man to close their eyes forever. He tries to cover them so that he doesn't have to see them, but even if he does that, the images reappear in his mind, laughing at his attempts to forget.

Spain is in no hurry to answer his question, instead he stares at the wall in front of him and doesn't even flinch when the lack of a reply makes Romano press one of the wounds harder than conscience would allow him.

"How old am I?" Spain voices suddenly, and Romano is not sure if he's being asked that or if it was meant for the air to eat.

"Too old, probably," he answers and Spain attempts a laugh, but it only ends in a fit of coughs.

"I've done a lot of things." Spain tells him when he catches his breath. "This-"

"Are you trying to say you deserved this?" Romano cuts him off short, rage in his voice.

"I admit that you're a bastard but..." And he mellows down a little, his words quiet and almost unwilling to be born at all. He leans his forehead against Spain's naked back and lets a long exhale tickle the other's skin. "What have I done to deserve to see you like this?"

A tired silence is the only response he gets.

"Say that you love me."

He has managed to drag them both into the bed that has always been too big for just one person to sleep in. He's sitting on the bed while Spain is lying on his back, looking like he has no strength to move a muscle. Romano thinks that maybe he should roll the man to lay on his stomach instead, so that those eyes would be unable to stare at him.

"Who did this to you?" He counters, because really, Spain is an idiot for thinking he'd just let the matter go.

"Romano, I want to know if you love me." Spain insists, and it's like they are both having a conversation of their own, too stubborn to yield to the other's demands.

"And I want to know who the motherfucker who did this to you is so that I can feed them to the fishes."

And that is the closest to a confession Spain will ever get out of him, Romano realizes, because even when the man musters the energy to curl up to him and hug his waist, mumbling a "please love me," all that leaves Romano's mouth is "pass out already."

He doesn't find it cruel. A part of what he consists of is created by Spain, after all, and if Romano shows any love or loyalty to anything, it's creationism. So Spain has as much reason to get offended when he never says it out loud, as Romano does for the man not getting it even without him saying it.

Calm breathing reaches his ears, and Romano allows his fingers to tangle themselves into a mess of brown hair. Spain never said a word, but he's not troubled, even less so irritated. Romano even manages a smile as he watches the damaged man sleep, Spain's hold on his waist keeping him in place.

Romano knows people that do bad things and never get caught. He knows that it's because they are always a step ahead of everyone who wishes them harm, and that one step is information. So come morning, Romano will do everything in his power to attain any pieces of information he could get his hands onto, and then he would set his imagination free and paint that perfect picture using only the color red.

And maybe then, maybe, Spain will wake up to the words he pleaded to hear.