AJ Pearl: Hey-o, people. This is a gift for one of my friends, Mattie Winter. I don't own Hetalia, so yeah. I'm not going to write the different countries' accents, because it just gets boring after a while. Don't hate me for how I write Sweden, though, he's just kinda…yeah. If you don't like bad language, don't read this. Enjoy.
It wasn't often that Sweden was late.
He always tried to be punctual, if not a few minutes early, to everything, and certainly making it to where he needed to be in a timely manner.
However, the week leading up to the annual World Meeting, a lovely patch of clouds had decided to hover directly over Sweden's house and thought, 'Hey, let's f**k with this house, no where else, just this one. Because.'
And so, the week of the World Meeting, there was a curious phenomenon in the Nordic region where it snowed heavily in only Sweden, with the storm stopping directly at the borders of Norway and Finland. This particular patch of clouds was feeling particularly bitch-ish and kept this up until five hours before the World Meeting, keeping any and all planes and many other forms of transportation from coming or going, as well as keeping the unfortunate country at home.
So, five hours before the World Meeting found Sweden finally boarding a plane to book it to the meeting.
And that is why he walked into the conference room, twenty minutes late, to find the world divided. Literally.
"Kick 'is ass, girl!"
"Don't be such a wuss, dude!"
"Ah, young people are so troublesome nowadays, aru."
The room was split into three different groups: two of them opposing the other and the other countries who remained neutral.
At the center of everyone's attention were two countries struggling with each other: Hungary, her trustee frying pan in hand, and Prussia, blocking the infuriated female country's blows.
"Fight like a man!" Denmark shouted in encouragement to Prussia.
"Show no mercy!" Vietnam cheered on her fellow female country.
Sweden watched in shocked silence as the fight took place. He knew World Meetings never fulfilled their real purposes, but this was ridiculous. Monaco had started a betting pool, taking bets for the victor from the surrounding countries.
He saw Norway and Iceland, both watching impassively, along with Finland, who looked as though he wanted to step in, but was too nervous, and walked over to them.
"Hey, Swe," Iceland said, not even glancing away from the fight going on.
"Oh, Su-san!" Finland said, looking a bit frantic, "It's awful! Miss Hungary and Mr. Prussia got into a fight and dragged the others into it!"
"It's obvious that she's going to win," Norway said with a bored expression.
"Don't you at least have some faith in the male species?" Iceland asked.
"Do you think you'd have a chance against that?" Norway gestured to Hungary as she launched a particularly fierce attack at the albino ex-country.
"Well…maybe I wouldn't…" Iceland mumbled, "But, Prussia's strong…"
"…300 Krone," Norway said flatly, his eyes still on the fight. (around $50/£30)
"Would that be 5565 Króna? You're on."
The brothers settled back to watching the battle, Iceland munching on some licorice calmly, occasionally passing a piece up to the puffin on his head.
"Wow, this certainly has turned into quite the ruckus," the bespectacled country Estonia approached the four, "Those two really know how to cause a scene, huh?"
"They're too loud," Norway said, "Just like that stupid Dane. I prefer the quiet."
"Woah, what a coincidence!" Estonia said with a smile; Sweden could practically see the sparkles he was radiating, "I am also quite partial to peace and quiet! We have so much in common! In fact, don't you think I would make a great Nordic country because we're so similar?"
Sweden tuned the others out and turned his attention back to the fight. It seemed that all the countries supporting Hungary included most of the other female countries, England, Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, Romano, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Those for Prussia were Denmark, France, Romania, Spain, America, Bulgaria, Korea, Japan, Cuba, and India. Switzerland, of course, remained neutral, along with Lichtenstein and the rest of the countries.
"Crush Hungary! Leave nothing but ash! Pummel her into dust!" Romania called out, not so much for Prussia, as for against Hungary.
"Go Hungary! Beat that SOB like there's no tomorrow!" Latvia, little, timid Latvia yelled.
"Pfft! That's, like, not that hard to do," Poland laughed, "He's, like, a total pansy. Right, Liet?"
Said country was too busy cheering for the fiery female country to respond.
Sweden watched as Hungary continued swinging her frying pan at Prussia, who was trying to dodge the deadly cooking utensil.
"Stop dodging and let me hit you!" Hungary growled.
"Even if you tell me to stop, it's not like I would! I don't have a death wish! You stop trying to hit me!"
She took another swing and the albino country had to bend backwards Matrix-style to avoid the metal weapon, the rim almost grazing his nose.
"That's right! Show him how it's done!" Belgium had climbed up onto a table to escape her brother, who was trying to calm her down.
"TAKE NO PRISONERS!" she cheered and danced away from her brother, who was now trying to grab her down off the table.
"WOMAN, WILL YOU JUST CALM DOWN!" Prussia yelled, avoiding another hit.
"Yes, after I bash your face in!"
No one saw it coming. Prussia fumbled backwards over someone's bag that had been left lying around, and Hungary, who had been advancing forward, stumbled over him in turn. She lost grip on her pan handle as she and Prussia tumbled forward, and because she had been in the middle of swinging it, it went flying out of her grip, straight into Germany's face.
The room went silent.
The pan fell to the ground with a ringing, metallic ca-clank.
"Oh shi-"
"PRUSSIA, HUNGARY! FRONT AND CENTER!" Germany exploded.
"Sir, yes, sir!"
The stern country stood over them an angry aura rolling off of him in waves, as they kneeled before him, looking guiltily at his boots.
"You two should be ashamed of yourselves. It's one thing to have an argument, but it's something else entirely to bring it to the World Meeting while we try to solve the world's problems in an orderly and efficient way!"
'Nothing ever gets done anyway,' Sweden thought, but was wise enough to keep that to himself.
"Nothing ever gets done anyway," Prussia mumbled.
Everyone winced at the punch Germany landed on his brother's head.
"Quiet!" the tall blond nation started pacing back and forth in front of the two countries, "Now, since the two of you apparently can't work things out like any normal married couple, I'm assigning a marriage counselor to you. We might as well use this meeting to sort this out since you have already interrupted it."
Married couple? Oh yes, I should probably mention that these two were indeed married.
"But, Germany, who's going to be the counselor?" Spain asked.
"…Erm, well-"
"Ohonhon, of course, if it's advice in love, there is no one better than the country of love himself~," France said, emitting sparkles, while somehow making rose petals fall around himself.
"Hell no," Germany growled, "Austria, what about you? You've been married before."
"Yeah, twice, and look how those turned out," Prussia scoffed, "Continental war and then World War I, I think not." (reference to Austria's marriage with Spain and then Hungary, for those of you that don't know)
"Well, I wouldn't want to do it anyway," the musical nation huffed defensively.
"No one here's ever really been successfully and lastingly married," England said.
"What are you talking about?" Denmark laughed, "Swe and his 'wife' have been going steady for years now!"
Sweden suddenly found that the eyes of all the countries gathered were on him.
"Yeah, he could do it!"
"I wouldn't really say that I'm his wife-"
Finland didn't even get to finish speaking before someone pushed the tall country forward; he stumbled into the center of the floor and froze in the sudden spotlight.
"Thank you for stepping forward," Germany said, "We'll leave them to you."
Before he could protest that they had the wrong person- because, honestly, him giving advice on love? A brick wall had a better chance at it. At least it would be better at expressing itself- the three nations were pushed into a side conference room and the door was slammed shut behind them.
They stood in silence.
Sweden made the first motion to sit down and the others followed, the heavy silence hanging over them.
After a few moments of suffocating quiet, Hungary finally spoke.
"This is all your fault," she spat at Prussia.
"My fault? You're the one who suddenly attacked me, for no reason, I might add."
Sweden cleared his throat, not wanting to have a fight start up again so soon. They jumped in their seats and backed away, fidgeting nervously under his somewhat and unintentionally intimidating stare.
While they sweated, he thought frantically about what to say.
He didn't have a f**king clue.
He wasn't a counselor, he wasn't a psychologist, hell, he wasn't even good at communicating his own thoughts and emotions, how was he supposed to help others sort out theirs?
What did people even talk about in marriage counseling? Well, problems, obviously, but why would you trust a stranger to help fix your problems? How did marriage counseling even become a profession?
He was getting distracted. He needed to think of what to say and say it quick. Why did the brain always have to fail at the most inconvenient of times?! Come on, marriage counseling!
Oh, there was that one movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. That was about marriage problems right? What did the talk about with the counselor in the beginning? How they felt about the relationship?
Well, it was his best shot.
So, reaching his conclusion, he nodded and spoke.
"How d' y' feel about your relationsh'p at th's point?"
"You're being an unawesome, crazy woman right now and it's unawesome!" Prussia said.
"Oh yeah? Well at least I'm not a pompous dick who gets drunk off his ass at every opportunity,"
"I do not get drunk!"
"Halloween, two years ago."
"You said you'd never talk about that again! And I wasn't drunk!"
"You got so drunk that you stole my lingerie, my high heels, went running around the city singing Rocky Horror Picture Show, started making out with statues, got into a fight with a motorcycle gang, and climbed a light pole shouting 'Take me home to Transylvania'! I spent four hours searching for you with France and Spain and your brother before we found you getting chased by an angry mob!"
"Well-well-! That's irrelevant! It still doesn't explain why you're acting like you're PMSing on steroids! Right, Gilbird? Back me up!"
The little yellow bird chirped and fluttered over to Sweden, where it landed on his head, twittering indignantly.
"You're not taking sides? Gee, and after all the time we've been together. Traitor.."
"I'm not PMSing!" Hungary seethed.
"Then why the hell are you acting like it?! What has you so pissed off?"
"If you don't know, then you're despicable!"
"If I don't know, then what don't you tell me so I can fix it?"
"Because you should already know!"
SLAM.
The two countries jumped as Sweden brought his hands forcefully down on the table between them, standing up to his towering height. He stood over them, his fierce glare making them immediately shut up.
Silence followed.
He hadn't thought about what to say, he had just been trying to stop their arguing and had acted without thinking. Now, he was left standing over the two while they sweated under his gaze.
'It seems like, for now, they need to calm down,' he thought, and then, it hit him.
Coffee was good for calming people down.
Coffee was good for just about anything.
Coffee was just good in general.
These people needed coffee.
"B' right b'ck," he said and walked out of the room, leaving Hungary and Prussia to themselves.
A few minutes later, he came back with three cups of goodness (because if there was coffee, of course he was going to have some too) and gave them both a cup which they drank quietly.
After he deemed them sufficiently calmer, he decided to start again.
"On a sc'le of one-t'-ten, h'w happy are y' in your marriage?" He was pretty sure that was one of the questions the counselor asked in the movie.
"What kind of question is that? Prussia asked.
Sweden stared at him, internally worrying that the question he had just asked wasn't very good.
Prussia broke into a sweat under his gaze and laughed nervously.
"Er, not to say it isn't a good question, it's great…Great- I mean eight! Yeah!."
'Whew, I thought he was going to find out that I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know why he looks so nervous, but at least he answered,' Sweden thought, turning to Hungary to hear her answer.
"…Nine, alright?! But sometimes, you make it a three, like right now," she directed the last comment to her husband.
"Again, what the hell did I do?!"
Sweden put down his cup with a gentle click! making Prussia and Hungary jump once again and quiet down.
This question wasn't getting them anywhere, so he decided to move onto the next question he remembered from the movie, even though he wasn't sure about it.
"How oft'n d' y' have sex?"
Amazingly, it did get a positive reaction out of them.
"Only on special occasions," Prussia said proudly, "Christmas, Christmas Eve, New Year's, New Year's Eve, Lent, Easter, Halloween-"
"Oh, yes, of course, Valentine's day, birthdays, the start of football season, 'our-team-just-won', 'there's-a-game-on', 'our-team-just-made-it-to-playoffs', the end of football season-" (not American football, just to be clear)
"-First day of every month, last day of every month, 'I-found-a-new-position-let's-try-it' days-"
"'That-bastard-Russia-caught-a-cold' days, 'I-just-got-new-lingerie' days, 'my-period-is-about-to-start' days, 'I-finished-my-period' days, 'I-just-shaved' days-"
"Yeah, love those days. Let's see: 'breaking-in-new-furniture' days, 'condoms-are-about-to expire' days- oh yeah! And anniversaries!"
Hungary stared pointedly at him.
"Anni…versaries. Oh, sh*t, that's what your mad about?"
"Of course I am!" Hungary burst out, actually standing up from her seat to face her husband, "I would have been happy if you had only said a 'Happy Anniversary' or something, it didn't have to be fancy. But no, you stayed out with France and Spain the entire day!"
"Well-"
"And before you say that it's not that big of a deal and I'm being a dramatic bitch, just know that it is a big deal for me! I love you, and I'm happy to be with you, and I wanted to celebrate that we're actually together and not with other people, but you're such a stupid, ignorant ass sometimes!"
Sweden made to stand up to calm things down before they got out of hand again, but Prussia beat him to it.
The silvery-haired country leapt to his feet, catching Hungary in his arms and smashing their lips together. She was surprised, but then went to punch him. He caught her fist and pulled away.
"I didn't forget," he admitted, somewhat sheepishly, "I actually got us tickets to go see your football team at the Puskás Ferenc Stadium (stadium in Budapest). I wanted it to be a surprise, so I didn't say anything. So, um, I guess, I should say Happy Anniversary now?"
"…You really got tickets to it?" Hungary asked in a subdued voice.
"Yup…Am I forgiven?"
Hungary laughed and pulled his face down to kiss his cheek.
"Yeah…stupid head."
Prussia glanced over at Sweden, who had remained silent during their exchange.
"Hey, thanks, Swe, you're an awesome marriage counselor," Prussia clapped a hand on the taller man's shoulder before turning back to Hungary, "Does this mean what I think it means?"
"Make up sex?"
"Let's go.
And just like that, the two countries all but sprinted out of the room, leaving Sweden in silent, confused embarrassment.
"What the hell."