Author's Notes: This fanfic is based on "Shop Vac", a song by Jonathan Coulton about the boredom and monotony of suburban life and obsession to fill the void. If you have not heard of it, I suggest that you listen to it, although it is not necessary to enjoy this story. There is an amusing and amazing kinetic typography lyrics video of it on YouTube.

Warnings: human AU, human names used, Austria's morbid thoughts

Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia nor do I own Shop Vac or even an actual shop vac

Human Names: Roderich - Austria; Elizabeta - Hungary; Gilbert - Prussia; Feliciano - Italy; Lovino - Romano; Ludwig - Germany


"Are we there yet?" Lovino asked for what seemed to be the hundredth time during their trip and it surely wasn't going to be the last time he would ask.

Sighing, Roderich looked at the rear-view mirror and saw his seven-year-old son lying upside down on the backseat, arms crossed and feet drumming against the backrest. That was no way to be sitting in a car. If he was to stop suddenly, Lovino would be thrown forward and he was sure that the boy would break his neck. A few miles back, he had tried to stick his head out the window and, before that, he had decided to entertain himself by bouncing a ball against the windshield. It seemed to him that his son was doing this on purpose just to annoy him. Roderich was certain that this trip would be the death of him.

"You'll break your neck and die if you don't sit properly," he said, not even trying to make it sound less morbid; he'd given up on that kilometres ago when Lovino had thrown the door open while the car was travelling at one hundred thirteen kilometres per hour on the highway.

"Are we there yet?" Lovino asked again, seeming to purposefully ignore what he had just said.

"Not yet, but soon," Roderich said, struggling to keep his voice even. "Now, would you sit properly and put on your seatbelt?"

Without even giving an indication that he heard his father at all, Lovino shifted and curled up on his side. He was such a difficult child; he could, at least, try to be like four-year-old Feliciano, sleeping peacefully in his booster seat. Well, it wasn't what he had been asked to do, but it was better than lying upside down. At least, he couldn't break his neck like this.

Roderich turned his full attention back on the road. There were houses now, neatly-spaced, with green lawns and near identical construction. Neat wooden fences that all looked alike separated the houses from each other, giving the appearance of order and uniformity. They were almost there. He only needed to endure this a little longer.

Expertly, he pulled into the driveway of a white house with blue-grey shingles on the roof and a swing on the porch. A banner with "welcome" written in silver glitter on it hung above the door, as lop-sided as it was when he tacked it on a few days ago. The entire house looked exactly as it had been when he had last seen it, except for the shuttlecock that rested on the edge of the porch's roof.

As he killed the engine, he noticed, not for the first time during their stressful trip, how his fingers were nearly white from gripping the steering wheel too tightly. They shook slightly as the blood rushed back into them, an odd sensation that seemed to feel like fire and ice filling his veins at the same time. The day had been much too unkind to him and it didn't seem like it would get any better if the shuttlecock was any indication.

"We're here," he said tiredly. "Finally."

His nerves were so frayed that he nearly jumped when he felt a warm hand gently squeeze his shoulder. He turned and saw Elizabeta smiling at him, her face bearing no indication of weariness at all. The way the afternoon sun cast a faint glow around her made her almost seem like an angel who had come to take all his troubles away.

"Don't be stressed," she told him. "We're here now. It's good to start things right,"

Roderich managed a small smile. "You are probably right," he said, trying to sound less tired than before.

"Dad, there's a strange man climbing the fence!" Lovino suddenly announced at the top of his lungs.

Surely enough, when Roderich turned his head to look at where his son was pointing, there was a pale, white-haired, red-eyed young man with his left leg hooked over the nearly five foot tall fence while struggling to swing his other leg up and over. He had seen the boy a few days ago when he had supervised the movers. He had been watching intently from the other side of the fence while the movers unloaded furniture and boxes from the van, occasionally shouting out a joke or an insult, but being mostly ignored.

"He looks stuck," Elizabeta said, opening the car door, probably to go help him.

Before she could step out of the car, Roderich was already outside. "I'll see what I can do," he said and walked up to the teenager on their fence.

"Oh, hey," the boy said with a heavy accent which sounded like it could have been from some region in Germany. "You're the guy who bought the house, right? I remember your face from Tuesday." He smiled widely. "I'm the awesome Gilbert, by the way. You probably heard about me when they sold you the house."

"I've not," Roderich replied.

Gilbert's smile disappeared for a moment, but was soon back. "They probably left me out on purpose to surprise you," he said.

"Do you need any help?" Roderich asked, his voice betraying his lack of interest in Gilbert's babbling. He really didn't even want to help, but he had to unless he wanted a teenager as a fence ornament; he would definitely make a nice Halloween decoration once he was skeletonized, but Roderich wasn't really a fan of the flies the pungent smells of decay attracted and the police would certainly have something to say about it.

For a few moments, Gilbert continued to struggle with his other leg while muttering something about self-amputation using gardening tools.

"No thanks," he said. Planting one hand firmly on the top of the fence, he grabbed his right leg with his other hand, pulled it over and tumbled into their side.

Roderich stood over the boy sprawled facedown on their lawn. "I would like to ask why you were trying to climb over the fence, in the first place."

"Is he hurt?" Elizabeta's voice was both concerned and amused as she approached them and, when Roderich turned towards her face, he could see that she was struggling not to laugh.

Gilbert slowly pushed himself up on his elbows and spit out the grass that had managed to get into his mouth. Once he had spit it all out, the smile returned as if he had never fallen off the fence in the first place.

"I'm okay, ma'am," he said, his smile widening as he looked up at Elizabeta. "I've had worse falls."

"If you say so…" Elizabeta said, the hint of amusement in her voice growing.

Gilbert's smile widened even more. "Gilbert," he introduced himself. "My name's Gilbert."

"Mommy!" Lovino called, making all their heads turn towards the car where Lovino was leaning out of the window and waving his arms around. "Feliciano had a nightmare again!"

With a sigh, Elizabeta headed back towards the car. "It was nice meeting you, Gilbert," she said over her shoulder as she left.

There was something about the way Gilbert's gaze continued to follow Elizabeta with that smile plastered on his face that made Roderich feel as if the teenager was flirting with his wife. He suppressed the thought before it could even take root. It was a ridiculous and highly implausible notion that he shouldn't even entertain.

"I'll ask you again," he said, pushing away the remains his nonsensical thoughts and holding his hand out to Gilbert. "Why were you trying to climb over the fence?"

Gilbert grabbed his hand and pulled himself up, almost making the two of them topple over as he did so. "Danke," he mumbled, still looking at Elizabeta.

"Are you going to answer me or not?" Roderich asked, taking an authoritative voice. He was exasperated with the teenager, who seemed to become distracted with the smallest of things. He wanted to ask Gilbert about the status of his mental health, but that would be rude and unnecessarily cruel of him; it would be the wrong way to start things off, Elizabeta would say.

"Oh, right!" Gilbert said, tearing his eyes away from Elizabeta. "The shuttlecock!" He pointed at the shuttlecock balancing on the porch roof with seemingly no intention of ever falling down. "It got stuck on your roof. I was coming over to get it."

From the moment he saw it, Roderich had known that the shuttlecock would cause him trouble and he had just been proven right; he wished that he had been wrong, as much as he loved being right. "If I get it for you, would you please go away?" he asked, desperate for some peace and quiet.

"Your wife is hot!" Gilbert said, completely ignoring his words, his eyes plastered on Elizabeta once more. "How far along is she?"

"Seven months," Roderich answered absentmindedly, almost like a recorded message. Then, Gilbert's first statement finally registered and all coherent thoughts just seemed to dissipate into thin air, leaving him sputtering unintelligibly in his native Austrian German. "Would you listen to me and stop talking about my pregnant wife like that?" he finally managed to say in English. "I also do not appreciate you ogling her."

"Seven months, hm?" Gilbert said thoughtfully, once more seeming to completely ignore Roderich despite the older man's agitated gibbering just a few moments ago. "Looking pretty good, isn't she?"

That last part made Roderich more uncomfortable than it should have; he had been hearing that a lot these days, but never from a teenager who seemed like he was trying to say more than, "No, you're not fat, Mrs. Edelstein". Gilbert, however, just continued to stare at Elizabeta as if there was nothing wrong about what he had been saying about another man's wife. After all, there was nothing wrong with looking, as far as he was concerned.

"Would you leave if I get you the shuttlecock?" Roderich repeated. Hopefully, Gilbert wouldn't ignore him this time.

"Yeah, sure," Gilbert said dismissively.

Roderich was just about to go find a stick to get the shuttlecock down and be rid of Gilbert for, hopefully, a very long time when Elizabeta started shouting for the teenager to come over to the car. "I'll let you stay for dinner if you help unload the car," she said.

Just when things seemed like it couldn't get any worse, they just did, at, least, in Roderich's opinion.

"Really?" Gilbert asked in an over-eager voice that was more fitting for somebody much younger. All he needed to do was jump up and down and he would have been indistinguishable from a really tall ten-year-old. And, he did just that, adding a strange sibilant laugh for good measure.

At the moment, Roderich just wanted to go find a stone wall and bang his head repeatedly against it until his brain went completely numb.

"Stop that!" he heard Elizabeta shout. "You're going to break it!"

He looked up to see Gilbert trying to fit a large, rectangular box covered in brown paper through the door sideways. Elizabeta was now beside him, holding one side of the box so he couldn't bang it against the doorframe again.

"Flip it around like a normal person would!" Elizabeta said through gritted teeth in a voice Roderich knew to tread carefully around or suffer the consequences.

Gilbert, however, didn't seem to be quick enough to catch its meaning. "But it's labelled, 'This side up'," he argued. "It will break if I flip it around."

"You're breaking it now!" Elizabeta growled at him. "And, I wrote that label. Flip it around now or I'll tear those pretty eyes of yours out of their sockets and feed them to you."

"Yes, ma'am," Gilbert quickly said as he hurried inside with the package.

There was something about the way Gilbert smiled as Elizabeta threatened him that made it seem like he actually enjoyed the notion of forced auto-cannibalism or just pain in general. Of course, it was another ridiculous thought, but the last "ridiculous thought" Roderich had turned out to be more real than he ever wanted it to be. If he was right, something that he was beginning to hate more and more by the second, then, more than before, he would want to bash his head against the nearest hard surface just to end it all right there.

The side of the house seemed like it would be a good place to crack his skull against, but, much to his dismay, his plans were interrupted by a tiny hand tugging on his pants leg.

"Mein Bruder went over to get a shuttlecock a while ago and he hasn't come back yet," said a child's voice with a pronounced German accent.

Roderich looked down to see a small blond child, probably around Feliciano's age, staring up at him with the most serious look in his almost comically determined blue eyes. Just when he thought that his troubles couldn't get any worse, a new one, also known as Gilbert's little brother, had to show up, probably just to prolong his misery; fate was definitely having fun torturing him that day. Given the situation, Roderich almost wanted to burst out laughing and sobbing at the same time, but that wasn't very much like him at all.

"I'll go get it for you," he said, hoping that the little boy's arrival was somehow a blessing in disguise instead of an addition to his torture. "Just wait there and don't touch anything while I get a stick."

His wish seemed as if it might be granted when the boy simply nodded and stood patiently as he retrieved the shuttlecock.

"Danke schön," the boy said politely.

Most definitely, he was a good boy, the complete opposite of his brother with his seriousness and politeness. It was almost difficult for Roderich to think that the two were even remotely related. He wouldn't have minded if his own sons were more like Gilbert's little brother.

"Ludwig!" Gilbert shouted as he dashed out the front door, seized his brother up and started spinning around. "Tell Opa we're having dinner over at the neighbours' tonight. Help him find his fancy shirt and bring him over in an hour."

"Wait just a second, young man," Roderich said authoritatively, making Gilbert stop his mad little dance. "My wife invited you for dinner, not your entire family."

Gilbert put Ludwig down. "She told me I could bring my family over," he said.

As much as Roderich loved Elizabeta, she often did things without telling him and he always ended up unprepared when she did. "Fine," he said. "Just finish what Elizabeta told you to do."

"Ja!" Gilbert said as he grabbed another set of boxes from the car and ran into the house.

Roderich groaned and sat down on the porch swing.

"He's weird and childish," Elizabeta said, sitting down next to him.

"Who?" Roderich asked, although he was pretty certain who they were talking about at this point.

"Gilbert. He's an idiot," Elizabeta said with a smile. "But he's a good boy underneath it all."

Roderich could only wish that was true.

"Don't worry too much," Elizabeta said, putting her hand over his. "We're starting things right."


More Author's Notes: I know somebody is probably complaining about Prussia's age already. Let me clarify. The name Austria was created as a prefecture of Bavaria in the year 976 AD, but, as a bordered area with a Christianized culture, they could have existed as early as early as 788 AD when Charlemagne conquered it. The Magyars established a federation of tribes in the Hungarian plains in 895 AD and Hungary was recognized by the rest of Europe as a patrimonial kingdom in 1000 AD. Prussia, by contrast, was founded in 1525 AD, a good 630 or 525 years after Hungary, depending on how you count it. Even if you consider Prussia to have been the Teutonic Knights earlier, that order was founded in 1190, still 295 or 190 years younger than Hungary as opposed to the 81 or 24 years between Hungary and Austria. If you think about it a little. it would have been more likely that it had been Hungary and Austria who had been childhood friends, or enemies, more likely, since the two nations did, historically, grow up fighting each other in their earlier days, rather than Hungary and Prussia who would have had very little to do with each other outside of Andrew II of Hungary granting fiefdom to the Teutonic Knights and, later, expelling them from Transylvania and one of the three patron saints of the Teutonic Knights being St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

As for Hungary's name being spelled Elizabeta in this, I often change how her name is spelled between fanfics from the most popular Elizaveta to the more linguistically and culturally correct Erzsébet to Himaruya's original Elizabeta, as in this.