#papa spaghetti | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gremlins-hotel · 1 year

Note

Any more Romerica thoughts or headcanons? 🙏❤️

i'm very sorry to disappoint you, dear traveler, but no headcanons this time around. however, i can bring you a short piece of writing! based in @temtamoo's engita pirate au where romerica is a b-ship. romano gets dragged out by alfred and seb to test one of alfred's ridiculous flying machines (based on ornithopters and otto lilienthal's famous gliders!).

Bright wind whisked across rolling hills of verdant grass. In the sky hung the sun, one curious and watchful eye amidst the bow of blue around it. The sweet smell of grass wafting into Romano’s nostrils drew a wistful sigh from his lips. Sebastiano bounced excitedly beside him, the younger boy near to bursting and unable to focus on a single point in the plains surrounding them.

They were far outside their family shipyard and the city in the Volan Hills; a feat far more manageable when you had your own gondola to reach to the plains at the borderlands of the watery kingdom. Few went here, which was just as well since it meant less of an audience for whatever experiment Romano had been dragged out for by his restless younger brother and fiancé. And fewer people to see any possible crash that the two brothers would have to drag him back from.

A few feet away toiled a taller body, enraptured by manmade wings of wooden frame and stretched cloth. Alfred reverently unfolded the willow bones and barely could Romano hear him speaking over the wily breeze, trying in vain to explain his flying machine to them both. “...and it’s controlled by weight shift! See here in a moment, when I leap from the ridge, I’m going to try and lift, then bank.”

“Just don’t break your wrist this time,” Romano called over the wind. Only a laugh answered. Romano rolled his eyes playfully, though he knew Alfred wouldn’t see, distracted as he was. Turning to Sebastiano, still rocking happily from heel to toe, Romano quickly added, “And you are never doing this. If I catch wind of you getting hold of one of his crazy gliders, you’ll be under house arrest indefinitely.”

“Oh, but brother,” Sebastiano pleaded with big eyes, “come on—”

“Absolutely not!” he reinforced with brows scrunched, yet still grinning. It was enough that Seb spent so much time watching his fiancé tinker and fidget with all the spare parts he could. Truly, Romano was thankful Alfred could teach his little brother so much, though how useful it was, he wasn’t sure, but at least the boy could learn to dream large in a small world. It could be hard when your life was spent amongst keels and sails yet never spent on the water. That was Feliciano’s gambit.

Alfred busied himself with the straps and controls of the glider, still addressing them, “So this time, I’ve added a stabilizing tail. I don’t know how I didn’t think to try sooner. I mean, how many times do we see birds use their tails to rudder and to flare for drag when landing? Mark down a loss for my intelligence on that one, ha!”

“It always takes a few good tries, right?” Seb called.

You’re the only man I know that walks with two feet yet has a head so far in the clouds that it chirps Romano mused. Full of hot air. He would never tell him that out loud, at least not yet. Actually, it would probably be worth it, he thought. Just for the look on Alfred’s face. Later, though. He smiled to himself and continued to observe patiently. A mess of steel wires that his love claimed were for control glinted in the dazzling sun, catching his eye.

Soon the three of them stood atop a wide ridge, a gently slanting slope beneath. It towered above several other hills and spilled into a deep green bowl of thick ground cover. Height to catch the zephyrous sky and length to glide, and hopefully something soft to catch Alfred if he had one of his rather infamous skid landings. White wings caught the sun, the parts of the cloth with any give bowing as if yearning for the wind. Romano briefly hoped that the ‘something soft’ would be unnecessary, wondering quickly if his worry was a mite too late.

The sail wings were of great breadth, though to bear the much larger man, they had to be. Broad and white in the day. They reminded Romano of a great stork or sea eagle with their frames that nearly resembled the lay of feathers at the leading edge. Sprouting from Alfred’s shoulders like the mantle of the Guardian spirit, they bounced with some of his movements. In his hands, he held their yoke and Alfred whipped his head to give both Sebastiano and Romano a confident smile, all teeth. He winked at the latter.

“Ready?”

Both brothers nodded, one hopeful and the other concerned. Flipping down goggles of his own make, Alfred shot them a thumbs up and backed up a few steps. He would run straight into a fierce headwind as it rolled up the slope, the goal to catch a lift and glide. Supposedly this version of the machine had a feature he refused to tell either of them that would help, or so he said. Romano couldn’t let himself overthink how dangerous this show could be. It had been hard enough to convince him to come and he couldn’t turn back now.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, the man gave a loud cheer as the pilot pushed himself into a sprint across the grass. Legs bunched and sprung. Romano closed his eyes and felt a nervous jitter in his chest. He heard a shout to release pressure. A windy snap. Then a loud holler. Romano’s heart raced madly but he didn’t think he could open his eyes to see whatever carnage might be down the ridge. Suddenly Seb was latched to his arm and shaking him frantically, “Look, look!”

Forced to crack open his eyes, Romano was assaulted by the brilliant sun. Past them, following Sebastiano’s firm point, he spied a massive bird hanging in the air.

Alfred’s legs hung loosely beneath bending wings and Romano felt something grip his chest when his fiancé, alongside his contraption, sank down at warm, mistral whim. Like two ships on a wild collision course, he couldn’t look away, wanting to yell caution, but his voice froze. Why Seb was so calm he couldn’t understand.

Then long legs tucked and the curl of the pilot’s body seemed to smooth out his flight. The glider even lifted a couple of feet. Watching rapt as Alfred leaned his lower body to one side, the wings following and drifting him in that direction, then the other. He drew a serpentine in the sky, back and forth with far too much confidence for wings of cotton and wood. Romano did shout when Alfred grew daring and pitched his body up and forward, kicking the glider into a flare like a diving hawk. It flipped head over tail and the pair somersaulted midair. The shipwright swore he could hear the contagious laughter of a madman echo on the breeze as he turned right-side up and continued to descend.

“Stop that! You really will break something!” he called uselessly. Seb laughed at his outburst. Romano turned on him. “How are you so calm?”

“Is this the first time you’ve been out here?” his little brother asked with a tilt of his head, only briefly looking at him.

“Yes!” Romano’s tone was exasperated.

Seb giggled with mischief, “Then this is the first time you’ve seen him do that?”

“Yes,” he repeated.

“Then I probably shouldn’t tell you that was how Alfred broke his wrist that one time. He tried to flip and on the up-and-over, he went into a nosedive. Bracing was the issue,” explained the teen with too much of a casual air.

Romano decided he would ground them both if that happened again. Hell, even when Alfred landed. He’d tried to when the pair had come back from the Volan Hills months before, Sebastiano carrying a ruined glider and Alfred holding one arm rather pathetically beside him. Of course, it hadn’t worked for long. They wouldn’t be here if it had.

“Watch!” Came a faint cry. The brothers turned their attention to their daredevil friend. When Alfred seemed sure that he had their gaze, they saw his elbows move vaguely. White wings flapped, truly flapped, and the pilot was given a meager buoy. Sebastiano’s eyes popped from his skull and he yelled with fervently, hands flying to his hair. With weak strokes the airframe flexed again, flapping slowly like a gliding seabird. Though rather useless overall, they could still see as the powered flight gave their friend just that much more ballast against the sky. Heavier than air, yet still they soared.

Until the airframe wobbled dangerously on one downstroke. The right wing folded awkwardly in a wrong arc, crumpling slightly. With horror Romano saw as the change in airfoil caused Alfred to list perilously, the glider tipping over the pilot’s head and going into a slanted dive. He would crash and Romano knew it. Romano felt suddenly seized.

For once thinking with his feet, he launched himself off the lip of the ridge and slid down the dirt, mourning the loss of his nice, clean breeches. He hated that the bottom of the slope seemed so close yet so far. Terror caught his throat as he floundered to stand as the end of the hill approached. He rose into a stumbling sprint, watching in distress as the glider careened into green earth. The sickening snap of wooden wings and the rip of twill made Romano’s stomach turn, only praying that there wasn’t the snap of anything else. Thankfully, hopefully, he heard no scream of pain as he approached the heap of Alfred and glider.

Laid out on his back in the thick grass with pieces of the contraption still harnessed to him was Alfred. He must have rolled when the glider smashed down. No part of him looked twisted or out of place the closer he drew and Romano stopped with a tremble, putting his hands on his knees and letting out a relieved pant. Alfred dazedly turned his head to Romano and it made frustration rise in the shorter man to see that a massive, stupid grin was plastered across his features.

“It worked!” Was all the tinkerer exclaimed. No greeting, no ‘I’m fine’. Still Alfred’s dopey smile persisted.

Romano sputtered, bewildered, “I- you crashed! What do you mean it worked!”

“I may have crashed, but Ro, the flapping worked! Did you see the lift I got? I think if I could reinforce the wings we could try—”

“We? Alfred, no.” Romano cut him off with a frustrated bark. “Only you are crazy enough to do this, you big, stupid, vacuous idiot. By the Guardian, you are never doing this again!” Sebastiano rolled up behind them both, panting harshly.

“Aw, c’mon Ro! Look, I swear I’ll be safer next time. I didn’t even get hurt!” Alfred protested, not getting up from the grass but instead speaking with his hands beneath Romano’s nose.

“You still crashed! And who knows what scrapes and bruises are under your clothes? Love, no,” fretted the shorter man. He hung his head in disbelief, shaking it loosely at Alfred. “You will one day give me a heart attack and then who will keep you from turning into a meat mash at the bottom of the sea cliffs someday?”

“Mmm, I think you’re stronger than that. You’d live,” came the coy response. “Okay, but what if, one day, I make us a glider that could carry more than one person? We could fly together!”

“You mean crash together?”

“Ye of little faith!” Alfred laughed, reaching up both arms toward Romano as if to grab him into a hug. Romano lifted away before he could fall for the trap.

Offering one hand to his fiancé, Romano vigorously shook his head once more, “Let’s just get you home before you get any more insane ideas! We’re missing a perfectly good day for lunch.”

Both Seb and Alfred followed, flight forgotten at the mention of food.

#callsign gremlin checking in #papa echo november #romerica // spaghetti western #hetalia #aph america #aph romano #aph seborga #hws america #hws romano #hws seborga #romerica

30 notes · View notes