Chapter One: Contrast

Contrast is something South Italy knows all about. There's contrast in art; between colors, shades, and hues. There's contrast between himself and his fratello; their appearance, personality, and culture. And there is contrast surrounding him now as he sits on this dock. It's old and the wood is soft and probably going to give under his weight any moment, but it matches the calm here. The gulls crowd around boats and tourists for miles in either direction, but this place -torn to pieces in the last storm and simply left- was run down and deserted. It was a... Romano didn't want to say nice because the whole dock swayed with the tide and the tap of an old wooden boat -how was it still floating?- could be felt vibrating through the framework of Romano's perch, but it was a decent escape from the chaos of his home to say the least.

To say that anyone in their right mind could get used to that potato bastard berating Feliciano for a mistake, to Feliciano clinging to that same bastard and sobbing out apologies, to Antonio showing up at the door with Francis and Gilbert tagging along like mangy rabid puppies, and then going on about vegetables(or fruits), bunnies, and adorable children while Gilbert raids the fridge and Francis gropes at the parts of Romano's body only exposed to the shower and his bedsheets is absurd. To think one could become accustomed in insanity is... well, it's stupid.

Romano Vargas is a lot of things, but stupid is not one of them.

Said Italian reset his jaw from irritation to exhaustion. He dug the heels of his palms into his eye sockets and gave up on his posture. Lately Feliciano had been conveniently missing when it came time to do the paperwork and it'll be a cold day in Hell then Romano let his brother's idiocy drag him down, so he'd stayed up late for several nights and finally gotten most of it done -there were still a few applications to look through waiting for him back in their office. He slid his fingers down over his mouth and stifled the yawn in his throat.

His ungrateful fratello hadn't even cooked him anything for dinner while he was working, he hadn't bothered to leave a bottle of wine for him when he finally finished, nor had he bothered to say when he would be home from the potato bastard's house. No. Feliciano had just up and left. Again.

He let his breath out and supported himself with his elbows digging into his thighs. A frown crept itself over his lips and he attempted to keep that itching feeling of abandonment from migrating into his mind. It could stay in that cold ball in the pit of his stomach where it fucking belongs. He let out another frustrated breath he was consciously holding.

"Oi, Lovino, you okay?" His hair smacked him in the face at the force he whipped his head around beside him. The voice calling him was familiar, English spoken from a cracking throat through what he knew would be a warm, crooked smile. He rarely saw the American outside of meetings anymore, since they'd started the 21st century. What the Hell was he doing here? Actually, in Italy at all?

"Why are you here Bastar-," He blinked behind him at the empty dock, "Where the fuck did you go?"

"Nowhere." Alfred popped out of the water and clung to the wood beside Romano's leg for a moment, then seemed to readjust his legs and prop himself by his upper arms. Was that supposed to be a cool pose? Because it certainly wasn't impressing this Italian.

"What the fuck are you doing in Italy?" He raised an eyebrow when Alfred began to pick at the wood by his elbow, pinching it off and crumbling it before he answered.

"I thought it'd be a nice change, after that cold spell I had this Winter I figured some uh... warmer waters would do me good." He returned to clinging to the dock as his legs overbalanced and he began to slip off and under the boards.

"Then what are you doing in the water? How did you get here? Why aren't you bothering Veneziano?" At this point it was beginning to grate on his nerves that Alfred wasn't being straight with him about why he was there. He leaned over the side of the dock to glimpse more of the American, and raised an eyebrow when said blonde flailed and tucked his legs out of sight.

"Okay, okay. Stop prying and I'll tell you." Was it just a trick of his paranoia, or did the bastard look nervous?

"Tell me what, Idiota?"

"I'm hiding from Arthur." He stared at Romano, then relaxed and let himself float back into view a ways, the initial sight sent the brunette into a fit for the American's health. There was a motherfucking barb shanked into Alfred's back!

"Ma che diavolo? Why the fuck are you moving with that in your back!" He scrambled to his knees to get a better look, only to have one of Alfred's hands wrap around his wrist and the other catch his chin and force him to look down at the blonde's face. Now, there's no denying that this particular American took all the positive physical attributes of the culture; he had tanned skin, broad shoulders, bright blue eyes that could very well rival the shade of a clear sky, springy dirty blonde hair, and freckles dusted over his nose and shoulders. Romano felt his ears getting hot and he glared daggers at this man he couldn't help but find the slightest bit attractive. "What the Hell-"

"Shaddup for a second and let me finish." He raised his eyebrows for Romano to respond. Roma kept his tongue, but jerked his face out of the touch and narrowed his eyes. Alfred went on, "Artie got on one of his nostalgia trips and decided to try to figure out one of the 'Mysteries of the Sea' he never straightened out when he was a Cap'n." Alfred smiled at the faked accent for a second, but Romano only rolled his hazel eyes at the poor excuse for a joke. "Anyway, he turned me into a merman and now he wants to poke at me and make me cry for some reason." At this Alfred scratched at his neck and excused himself to dip back under the water's surface. Romano, on the other hand -whom was about to punch the bastard in the face for lying to him, and thinking he would be stupid enough to believe this bullshit- found himself crawling to the side of the dock, staring when Alfred came back up.

The skin on his neck was moving.

"You-you're not kidding..." At that, Alfred snorted and raised himself back out to prop on the dock again.

"Of course not." Romano hovered to the side, moving his gaze from watching the gills settle back into his flesh to staring down Alfred's back where those barbs were attached to his person. They rose from the water and the skin shifted down to reveal a cylindrical white needle that glinted in the sun with what Romano could only guess was something that would not agree with his immune system if he got stuck with one.

"Athur's an ass, growing these gills almost killed me." Alfred glared into the distance then turned a cocky smile to Romano's face, stuck between horror and awe. He tugged at the unfamiliar muscles that should have been his legs and rose his fluke out of the water. Romano watched the motion, struck by two things. One, the pattern across the nearly transparent skin -it was skin there, right?- was an ornate compilation of golden orange bands running perpendicular to the cartilage that frayed the membrane, with black spots -maybe they were freckles?- over the surface, and it was gorgeous. Two, wasn't that tail supposed to 'shimmer through the waves'? Romano turned to Alfred's face with a glower.

"Oi. Why aren't your scales all shiny and shit?" Alfred puffed out his cheeks and lifted his tail out closer to the Italian, allowing him to lean down and note that Alfred was in fact, not covered in scales.

"I'm too ferocious for scales, thank you very much Lovi." He plopped back over in the water with an awkwardness that amused Lovino. Then the spines were raised off their place against his lower back and the smile was wiped off Lovi's face.

"Whatever Bastard. What the fuck kind of fish are you supposed to be anyway?" He eyed the spines with a new eye, this time noticing that they were riddled with stripes too, but lacking in those dark freckles. Instead, they had a dark golden undertone and white rings, with burgundy rings inside those. The ridge along the back of his tail was darker, sorta reddish, and covering a complex network of white stripes lined up like a zebras. Alfred snorted, a crooked smirk over his lips and a smug glint in blue eyes that seemed to have darkened since the last time Lovino looked at them.

"What?" He snapped at the man... er, merman.

"See something you like, Lovi?" Lovino turned a nice shade of red, slapped Alfred a good one across the side of his head, and glared into eyes that were typically shrouded behind glasses. It shouldn't surprise him that they weren't there, but Alfred looked different. The glasses -despite what novels might make you think- made him look a little childish. Impish, at least. Without them, you can see the way his irises change when he lowers his brows, that they get darker instead of just thinking of that same old blue when the glare from the window changes the hue too much through the curved glass. Alfred snickered and flitted his tail around a little. He might not have even done it consciously, but it's was like he was wagging it.

"Shut up Bastard!" He had seen fish wiggle when they were excited. Alfred was definitely prone to wiggling as a human, Lovino was sure he would wiggle as a fish.

Alfred let go off the dock and sunk in up to his chin, grinning like a dope. "Anyway, I think I'm a Lionfish. How kickass is that?" He held his fingers out of the water, poised like claws and growled at his Italian company. Said comany rolled his eyes.

"Idiota."

"Come swimming with me, Lovi!" Alfred jolted out of the water and propped himself on his palms to he'd be face-to-face with the brunette. It worked, and Romano flushed again, held back from another smack only because Alfred's weight had shifted the rotten wood keeping him dry, it creaked and groaned and anymore jostling and it was likely to give.

"Why the fuck would I do that, idiot? You'd swim off and leave me, or drag me down and kill me, or shank me in the heart with one of those stupid spines of yours like that guy from Australia!" Alfred let his head drop and Lovino went on and on about all the ways he could resurface doing the deadman's float, or not resurface at all. He sunk back down into the waters with a sigh and thumped his forehead on the planks.

"I'll be careful, fin-laden or not I'm still a hero and I won't let you die." He frowned at the Italian, but to no avail, Lovino was rather used to puppy eyes by now, even from him. He sighed.

"Or what if I get stuck in the seaweed? Or inhale? Or-"

"Lovino~?"

"What do you want?" He snapped his head around to watch Alfred flicker his tail under the surface.

"I'll let you touch my tail. It feels cooooool." The look on the face of his query as he deliberately swished his tail in and out of view was enough to earn him the right to grin. Lovi was caught, hook, line, and sinker.

"Fine, but not today." He gestured to the sun low in the sky by now, "It's getting late." He stood to his feet and watch as Alfred followed him to the beach with a crease on his forehead. He paused before the edge and raised an eyebrow. Alfred caught the gesture and forced a crinkled smile on his lips.

"Nothin', I'm just a little worried about getting speared tonight. Arthur should wait a few days to check here." He picked at the wood of the dock again, refusing to look at anything but Lovino's shoes.

"What? Why?"

"Don't you think he'll hesitate to bother with the Spanish armada, even for his runaway experiment?" That was true. Romano could remember the battles he'd watched between them, knowing there was an English colony watching the same swings and thrusting of swords that he was on the other side. Antonio and Arthur still had some, bad blood in the water from those days.

He stared down at the blonde for a while, not saying anything just observing the play out of his thoughts on his face. Alfred was very easy to read half the time, impossible the other half. Now, you could see the fear of death(and England), replaced by bravery and plotting a plan of action, then back to the fear, and into something else that glazed those cobalt eyes, then back to fear. Romano scuffed his foot to snap Alfred out of it.

It was his turn to stare at his shoes.

"I'll, uh... I'll put a blockade or something on this section, only for 50 miles though. Stay away from the boats and wait for me on the shore. I'll be back tomorrow after work."

Alfred sent him a glittering smile and he stormed back towards his house, feeling damn sure that butterflies were insects spawned from Hellfire, bent on melting his organs, torching them, and spreading his ashes on those godawful potato wedges.

Ugh.