From Ghoulies and Ghosties - CH3
From Ghoulies and Ghosties
» Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
» Rating: T
» Classification(s): Action/Adventure, Supernatural, Humor
» Summary: The nations celebrate Halloween in their own… special ways. Featuring ‘Denmark and Prussia Go to the Liquor Store’ ©, LindaBlair!Iceland, Belarus as a floor shark, Turkey-nomming Greek cats, and much, much more.
» Author Note: I started this last Halloween and wrote almost all of it in a huge hurry, so I can’t guarantee quality or even readability.
[ Prologue] [ CH1] [ CH2] [ CH3] [ Epilogue]
And Things that Go Bump in the Night
"Merry Halloween," Alfred said shortly, and shoved the cosmically wasted Englishman trying to perform a striptease in his hallway into Francis's surprised arms. He slammed the guestroom room on the Frenchman's lecherous, "Oh la la, mon petit lapin, tellement risqué…!" and turned back to his remaining guests.
Well, guest. Ivan smiled peaceably down at him, the only nation left standing; the four of them had left Katerina in the library, petting and shaking the unconscious Natalia while sobbing something about catching cold and never waking up. Francis and Arthur were finally behind closed doors, although some yelling and thumping was still audible. Lord knew where the Dane and Gilbert were; he hoped he wouldn't be getting an angry call from his boss in the morning about defaced monuments or someshit.
No, there was just the smiling, stone-cold-sober nation of Russia, standing in his hall, being big and creepy as per usual.
Hmmm. Big and creepy.
"Have I got the perfect room for you," he said gleefully, clapping the taller nation on the back as he moved past him. "Absolutely perfect. You'll love it."
"My only request is myesta far away from this one," the Russian said politely as he fell in step. There was a loud crash from the room behind them, and a string of filthy curses.
Alfred winced. "Yeah, right."
The room he brought Ivan to was ideal for several reasons. It was at the end of the hall, as far away from his own room and the stairs as possible. All the furniture was ass-ugly and old as Artie. The dominant color was a milky mauvy pink. The mattress was rock-hard and probably made of horsehair or something equally historic and disgusting. Best of all, though, was that the bed was an enormous four-poster with a little ladder you needed to climb up into it, and so he could protest that he was thinking only of his unnecessarily enormous guest's comfort.
Alfred flung open the door with a dramatic flourish and strode in, shooting Ivan a guileless grin over his shoulder. "Whatdya think?"
The Russia ducked a bit to avoid the doorframe and stepped in after him. "It is…"
Alfred turned to face him, blinking innocently. "Yes?"
Ivan's expression was a study in sourness. "… the same room you gave me the last time I stayed here."
"Ah, really?" he asked. "I'd forgotten." He had, actually. Phooey, no grimaces of horrified surprise for America. "Well, then you should be able to settle in without me."
The Russian had moved to the bed and now tested the mattress with a hand. It appeared to have all the give of plywood. "Amerika…" he growled.
"Goodnight!" he said cheerfully, and made it all the way to door before Ivan grabbed him.
"The last time I slept in this- this urodlivaya vesh', I could not stand straight for weeks. Vladya and Misha laughed and called me babulitchka."
"Uh, bummer?" Alfred tried. "Sorry, Braginsky, but y'know, they just don't make beds like they used-"
As his sudden pause stretched, Ivan tilted his head quizzically. "Ameri-?"
"Shoosh," Alfred told him, putting up a finger.
He was staring out into the dark hallway, certain he'd heard something moving. Goddamn it, if Arthur had escaped Francis's clutches and was running around naked again-
A faint rustle, and something dragging slowly against the carpet.
Alfred swallowed, and forced out, "Old man?"
Nothing.
"Hey," he called, shaking off Ivan's hands and moving into the doorway. "Artie?" Squinting, he could just see a figure sprawled out on the runner, about halfway from the stairs to where he stood. He stepped forward just as the figure lifted its head, long straight hair matted over its face, and moaned, "Braaaaaat…?"
There was a muffled yelp behind him, and Alfred spun to see Ivan vault the fucking giant bed and start tearing uselessly at the window above it. "What the fuck? Braginsky?"
"Why won't it open?" the glorious nation of Russia screamed.
"Dude, chill! It's painted shut, okay?"
Alfred looked back, just in time to see Natalia give an open-mouthed, inhuman howl and lunge forward, moving much, much faster than a human body should be able to crawling on it stomach. "HOLY SHIT!"
He'd barely made it onto the bed when one clawed hand shot up over the side, talon-like nails scraping down the embroidered coverlet as it fell back. Ivan, the goddamn humongous freak, was taking up way too fucking much of the middle of the bed and if he thought for a moment he could force Alfred off and run while his crazy sister was distracted- "Braaaaaaaaaaat…"
"Is she saying brains?" Alfred shrieked. It was a very manly shriek.
"Unfortunately, no," Ivan answered tightly, fighting to stay in the center as Alfred crowded him. "That would sound more like mozgiiiiiiiiiii."
The deranged Belarusian actually managed to wrench a shoulder over the foot of the bed before falling back to the floor, and Alfred scrambled into Ivan lap. A clawed hand shot up to fist in the coverlet, and six legs cringed back from the edge.
Six?
"Why are there three pairs of legs in this bed?" Alfred asked. "Did Chernobyl mutate you or something?"
"IT'S CANADA, GODDAMNIT!" Matthew howled inches from his ear. "Braginsky, why the FUCK is your sister trying to eat us?"
"Ah, ghost boy!" said the Russian in ingenuine surprise. "Well. When Natasha is tipsy, she tends to get a bit… angry. I can only blame her upbringing," he sighed, backing up further into the stiff, musty-smelling pile of pillows at the head of the bed.
"Didn't you raise her?" Alfred asked incredulously.
The Russian gave a careless shrug. "Nu,da."
"Braaaaat, idi suda," came the low growl from the beyond the bed. The scrabbling noise her nails made on the wooden frame was probably the creepiest thing the American had ever heard.
"Ohgodohgodohgod," he whimpered, clutching at the Russian. "I'm going to be eaten by a zombie floor shark and it's your fucking fault!"
And Ivan was smiling. He was fucking smiling and it was only a little smile, barely noticeable but as there was nothing at all funny about being eaten alive. Alfred glared at him. "What the flying fuck are you smirking about?"
"Oh, nothing," he answered, smile widening as the wild snarls from floor caused both North Americans to cringe closer. He tightened his arms around them and chuckled.
From his position curled in the Russian nation's lap, Matthew's legs over his, Alfred scowled up at him darkly. "It's not freakin' funny, you stupid commie! We'll be stuck like this all night!"
At that, the Russian looked even more pleased. "Do you think so?"
Matthew rolled his eyes at his brother's sputtered response, then yelped and wiggled closer as Natalia grabbed at the back of his shirt. "Fuck my life."
[brat - брать - brother; myesta - место - place/space; urodlivaya vesh' - уродливая вещь - deformed/monstrous thing; Vladya and Misha - Vladimir Putin and Dmitri Medvedev; babulitchka- hilariously cutesy way to say grandmother; idi suda - иди суда - come here]
On the outside, Berwald's expression was that of a man mildly annoyed by poor weather.
On the inside, the Swede's stolid Protestant ethics had been offended to the point of gibbering incomprehension, the oversaturation point for obscenity reached more than half an hour before this point. The Finn-replacement pillow was losing stuffing at an alarming rate, and the Finn himself was nowhere to be found. Where was he? Where were the others? How could they have left him alone with this, this monstrosity? All he'd wanted was to drink beer and watch reruns of På spåret! Yaaaaagh, what was she doing with her tongue?
All these thoughts, and more, circulated in increasingly panicked loops through the mind of the immobile and stonefaced spectator that was the Swedish nation.
The priests had gathered by the girl's bedside for the final exorcism and were preparing to begin when the kitchen door reopened. The sound didn't register above the chanting on screen, and so when Iceland shambled into Berwald's peripheral vision the Finn-replacement pillow was rent asunder.
The smaller nation didn't so much as glance at him. His hands and feet were, if anything, even more coated in that strange black substance from before, and he left a sticky trail as he tottered his way around the coffee table before he half sat, half collapsed onto the floor where he'd started the evening, and watched the priests begin to pray with that curiously flat, blank stare of his.
Berwald took a few silent, steadying breaths as his heartbeat returned from the stratosphere. When it became clear that the other nation was not going to speak, he ventured a quiet, "'sl'nd."
No reaction.
"'sl'nd."
Not even a twitch.
Sweden leaned forward, and reached out to touch Iceland on the shoulder. ""'sl-"
"Já, Svíþjóð?" the nation suddenly responded, without turning around. Sweden's hand hovered uncertainly over his thin back.
"Wh'r're th'thers?"
The nation did not respond for so long that Sweden repeated, "Th'thers?"
Finally, Iceland responded. "They've… gone to sleep."
"Th'went t'bed?" Berwald repeated, confused.
Iceland gave no indication he heard him, and after a moment Berwald rose slowly from the couch. "M'gonna check on th'm," he announced to the room at large.
His eyes were drawn back to the dark, wet footprints Iceland had left on the carpet, and he followed them back across the room and down the hallway to the black maw of the unlit kitchen. He swallowed against his own frantic pulse and caught himself hesitating, hand poised just over the lightswitch. The great Kingdom of Sweden, undone by a silly, stupid American horror movie-
In the sudden glare of the overhead lights, the thick red liquid pooled around Tino's body looked almost syrupy.
"Svíþjóð…"
Berwald slowly turned his head to meet Iceland's blank stare. Nothing but static showed on the screen behind him.
"You missed the ending," Iceland informed him, getting to his feet.
[Já - yes; Svíþjóð - Sweden]
"I TELL YOU, WE MUTHT HIDE IN THE THANDBOX! THE THANDBOX, DAMNIT! HE'LL NEVER FIND UTH HERE!"
"… you're crazy," Mathias decided, staring down at Gilbert as he flailed around in the children's sandpit. Gilbert glared back at him, eyes wide and a little wild with whatever the Belgian had slipped him at the bus stop- which was some five sprinted kilometers away from the abandoned playground where they now found themselves. Mathias's drunk was wearing off, and he was starting to find the Running-Circles-Around-D-C situation irritating rather than exhilarating.
"Get in the thandbox!" Gilbert hissed. "He'll thee you!"
Mathias was saved from answering by a sudden shrill buzz from his pocket. He allowed the other nation to tug him down to his knees as his fished out his phone and flipped it open to see who was calling at-Jesus, at three thirty on All Saint's Day.
Weird. It was Sverige.
"Weird. It's Sverige," he told Gilbert as he obediently hunkered down behind the sand wall the Prussian was carefully shoring up with landscaping stones and mulch. He hit the answer button. "Hej, what's-wait, wait a minute, Sver, I can't understa-what do you mean they're dead? Who's dead?"
It was difficult to parse what Sweden said even when he wasn't babbling in terror, and Mathias was only catching one out of every five words the Swede yelled in his ear. "The kitchen? What do American movies have to do with the kitchen? Who died?"
The other nation's voice cut off suddenly, and after a pause Mathias prompted, "Sverige? Are you there?"
There was a sound that might have been a gurgle, and then- silence.
"Hello? Hello? HEL-LOOOOO- oh hej, Iceland. What's with Sverige?
"Svíþjóð is sleeping. You should come home now, Dänemark."
"Oh?" he said, laughing a little as he rolled to his feet. "Helt sikkert, I'll come home now."
"But Dänemark! We haven't vanquished the Green Lantern!" Gilbert whined, plastic fangs ruining his pout. Mathias patted him on the head.
"Somehow, kære Preussen, you'll have to continue the struggle without me," he said dryly, and trotted away into the early morning chill.
[helt sikkert - sure thing; kære Preussen - dear Prussia]
"Hey, Ivan."
The Russian's eyes opened too quickly and were far too focused for him to have been asleep. "Da,Kanada?"
"Is she still there?"
Taking care not to jostle the American snoring openmouthed on his shoulder, Ivan reached for his purple velvet tophat. Slowly extending his arm out over the side of the bed, he waited a beat, then dropped it to the floor below.
The resulting maddened snarl and loud ripping noises had him retracting the arm rather quickly.
"That's a yes, then," Matthew sighed, from his position on Ivan's other side. He kicked Alfred reflexively as the snoring reached an unbearable level, and was rewarded with a pained, "Hambrngrrrmph…!"
Hong Kong was just sitting down to hotpot when his phone buzzed. "Don't answer that," Wang Yao snapped.
He rolled his eyes and waited until the older nation was distracted before checking his phone under the table. Disappointingly, it was just another drunk text from Iggy-zūnshàng.
hbppy hallowen hk!1! tel ur mom I said fcuk u lol
While he was reading it, somewhere within the voluminous Kiku-rénxiōng's autumn obi came the chiming tones of his own phone. The nation gave Wang Yao an apologetic look, opened his own phone, winced, and closed it again.
"Iguru-san wishes us all a felicitous All Hallows Eve," he said diplomatically. "And… something about ghouls and ghosts?"
"Westerners," Wang Yao sniffed.
"It's not summer anymore, after all," Kiku agreed.
"I miss candy corn," Hong Kong muttered.
[zūnshàng - 尊上 - Chinese honorific, 'father'; rénxiōng - 仁兄 - 'elder brother; in Japan at least and possibly Asia in general, it is summer rather than autumn that's associated with the dead]