Work Text:
Letter to a memory
Antonio,
Only now can I write this letter, since I know it will not reach you, and in no other way can I free these words from my chest without sounding like a madman. I thank my merchant father for teaching me the use of the quill. After I’m done, these papers will lie under the false bottom of my right drawer, like the ghostly voice of something that cannot be known to have lived. I hate you, Antonio, for your action. I love you for who you were. Things will stay that way until I die.
You were always obvious about your feelings, and I don’t think there ever was an intention to hide them. Even since we were both kids, you treated me as if I was special, or at least that’s how it felt. The expression on your face was rarely dour, but whenever you saw me, your muscles would relax and your eyes would light up like sun-drops, the bright color of the olives that we used to eat after work. There was so much life in you that you had to let it out with laughter at the smallest thing, like the time you made it a game to see who could spit the olive-bones the farthest. What a master you were at making me feel like an idiot whenever I couldn’t help but laugh at your stupid comments, said with those stupid lips, that stupid smile. What we had was special, it always was, though I never acknowledged it.
I miss the feel of your hands, calloused and rough, yet so warm upon my body. Whenever you could, you rested one on my shoulder, or trapped my neck around your arm, and I knew what you were doing, what you wanted. Bastard. I craved that contact with you at all times, but mostly when alone, on my bed, or bathing in the river, when I felt empty, you-less, carente de ti. Yet back then, I knew that I would see you on the next day, when I went out to the fields after helping my father, walking to meet you as if my true intention wasn’t to run. There I would find you all covered in sweat and grime after hours of work, but I never cared for that, although you did stink. Those two hours before dusk were ours, and of course, I hated when anyone came to rip our moment away from us, tearing apart our intimacy of simple talks and silence. I even taught you how to read so that you could enjoy the volume of Lope’s comedies, and God, how we laughed. I still have that piece of cloth that you stained with charcoal attempting to write a poem, you uncultured bumpkin:
Al zielo y a la virjen yo bendigo,
pues es Lobino mi más grande amigo.
(Poorly written: I bless heaven and the Virgin [Mary], for Lovino is my greatest friend)
I would’ve never said what I felt for you. There was no prospect of a life like that at all. But I couldn’t abandon you nor help but desire your proximity. When you gave me that idiotic grin, it seemed like you knew what I felt, but none of us dared to act on it. I came so close, though. That sunday in which I was sunstruck, my brains boiling inside my skull, nauseated and about to vomit. You carried me through the fields, bellowing like an animal, for I wasn’t as light as you thought. Even when the sun disappeared and it started to rain, you continued, though I protested. You were covered in mud up to your knees, and we were both completely soaked, but I felt so grateful that you were carrying me, taking care of me, loving me actively and with such effort. When you left me by the door and knocked on it, I was already feeling a bit better. I remember the droplets running down your cheeks and neck, your half-open lips, face red and hair like a pasty disaster, your poor worried eyes. Antonio, you wouldn’t believe how close I was to pulling you from your shirt and kissing you, drowning you within my lips, until every breath of yours ran through my body, until my lips could suck your soul through your mouth. My fists were tight with anticipation, knowing that I would do it, ready to do it. You looked at me with that dumb face, all terrified. In my mind, I kissed you. But the body was weak. The door opened behind me, and nothing occurred.
It was obvious you were waiting for me, since you never had a girlfriend, ignoring the attention of the girls. But the years passed, and the impetus of nature took you. At times, I’ve come close to forgiving your action, but a part of me never will. You were mine, Antonio, mine, mine, mine. I know I am at fault for feeling this way, and that I am monstrously selfish and egotistical. There’s no way on earth or hell that I can help it. You were selfish as well, doing what you did, not only to yourself, but to us. I regret not knowing who the other man was, because if I did, I would kill him and flay him, were he not already burning for eternity. Perhaps the rage that drowns my lungs would be quenched like that, if only slightly. You had to submit to the temptation, you brainless whoreson. The inquisition calls it pecado nefando, the crime against nature, deserving of death. Why were you such a coward? Why could you not ask me? Were you so terrified of my rejection?
You keep hurting me, you cursed idiot. I ruined perfectly good paper with tears and spilled ink. Will you never cease to haunt me? I hope you don’t, because I’m perfectly fine with marrying a memory. I will not do what you did. I am yours. Were you here, I’d be tempted to stab you. Puorco 'e mmerda, m'hê scassato 'o cuore.
Tonight, I will pray for you, as I always do, so that your soul doesn’t go to hell. I have accepted that you will not return. No one comes back after being a galley slave for four years, unendingly chained to the seat under the raging sun and the storms, and covered in their own filth like an animal. They sent you there to torture you, to kill you, only because you were not of age to burn. God will not listen, for he knows what we are and what we feel, but at this point I don’t know what to do with all of this suffering. You ill-conceived bastard, you brutish, honorless bastard. This is what you did to me. How I wish I could
Lovino never finished the letter. It was never signed, never sent, but it was found. The man who did so came back one morning, and it is true what they say, that he looked like a corpse that had left his life behind, spine and neck crooked from many days and nights under the weight of slavery at the galley rows. Those in the village looked away from him, for the stain on his soul was eternal, though they couldn’t help but notice that he hovered around Lovino’s house like a spectre. When he received the news, Lovino ran home.
This fic has been converted for free using AOYeet!