So, I really should choose a fandom and/or a story and yknow, stick to it. But that's not how my mind works. I get an idea and it bugs me til I write it, which is why I'm back in Hetalia writing something way different than anything I have before.
This is an AU Spain/South Italy. They are both prisoners and gang leaders within the prison. Human names are used and other characters are mentioned. I'm going to try to flesh out the characters a little more than the anime does, because this fic is a lot darker than the anime is, and I want my characters to be more than stereotypes. So they might be a little OOC, but bear with me. I'll try to keep it reasonable and justified (conquistador!Spain, anyone?). And yes, it will be romance, eventually, but it might take a while to get there. Funny story-I got the idea from an episode of My Name is Earl, but the idea is all that came from the show. This will be a lot more in depth, and much more drama than comedy.
I'll try to keep the AN short and end it soon, but I do want to note that I'm still continuing my policy of returning the favor with reviews. You leave me a good, honest review (more than one sentence, preferably), and I will read one of your stories and give you a good, honest review. I don't want to bribe you, and please don't leave an insincere review just to get one, but I do want to encourage myself to participate and to give feedback to people who take the time to give feedback to me. Share the wealth, kind of.
That's all I really have to say for now. I don't know how this will end, but I've got random snippets written, so I hope there is some interest, because it probably is going to bug me until I keep writing more. I already have another chapter written, but it's not chapter 2 material. More like chapter 5 or something. So let me know if you're interested in seeing more, and help me to keep writing and focusing on a fic. And please enjoy!
In prison, nothing was more important than power.
Any man who wanted to survive in prison had to be either clever or powerful, and even the ones who managed both sometimes didn't make it. Their flaw was often the same. They cared about something more than they did power and survival. Morality, pride, identity-it was all well and good to a point, but prison was a life or death situation, and unless you valued these things more than your life, then they were a liability.
Race was not an issue in of itself. The clever prisoners didn't care about race, but the powerful ones who were not so clever often did. The ones who lacked power or intelligence almost always did. The born followers always needed something to cling to and establish around, and race was the only thing that some of them had. That was why even in Europe, where the issues of black and white were not as prevalent, racial tensions arose and ethnicities segregated themselves into gangs.
Even these were not really about race. It all went back to power. Power and survival-the creed of the prisoner. There was safety in numbers, and if you bound your numbers through a factor that was impossible to negotiate, you could create a much more solid group. Ideologies are transient, but heritage never shifts.
The clever ones who were also powerful exploited this. They used race to unite their people, gaining followers instead of minions, who did not love them and did fear them, but also held them in awe and offered them some measure of respect. For in prison, there were two ways to power-strength and charisma-and if a leader did not have both, he would not be a leader for long.
So the situation was at one of the highest security prisons in Europe. Located on an island somewhere in the Mediterranean and run by a Russian who was feared even by criminals, the rules of survival of the fittest held even more strongly here, and everyone knew that. The gang leaders, the gang members-even the fearsome warden knew of the tensions, even exploited them for no reason other than his own sick pleasure which he masked as efficiency and security. He allowed the gangs and their leaders to define the power structure within the prison, even dominate it. For in the end, it was still a prison, and though the leaders may be the kings within the domain, he would always be able to play their god.
Almost all of the gangs were based on ethnicity, and the groupings of Italians and Spaniards were the largest and most powerful. Far from the stereotype of the absent minded chatty Italian or the tan and athletic Spaniard, these were hardened criminals-murderers, rapists, thieves. The dregs of society were dumped into this pit and left to tear each other to pieces as long as they did it out of the public eye.
The leaders were a different story. While the average prisoner was more of a typical thug, the leaders of the two gangs were much more sophisticated. Attractive young men who couldn't be out of their thirties, they looked like they could have easily passed for upper class citizens in a different setting. They radiated an aura of mystique and power, and people gravitated towards them for protection and influence.
Naturally, they hated each other.
The leader of the Italians was Lovino Vargas, one of the heirs to the Italian Mafia. He and his brother Feliciano were infamous for their successes as up and coming crime lords. The twins had been trained from birth in the Mafia lifestyle, and all of Europe feared for when they would inherit the Mafia empire. That was what prompted multiple assassination attempts on one or both of them. Most were blocked before they began by senior members of the family and their wide network, but one assassin-a Spaniard-got close enough to Lovino and Feliciano to be a threat. Lovino killed him, with brutal efficiency, and had immediately been arrested by an undercover policemen. Whoever had engineered the attempt had stationed him as a backup plan, so that even if the brothers weren't killed, at least one of them could be arrested to split their power. Although both brothers came out alive, Lovino had been put in prison with a life sentence, where he organized all the Italians into his own personal mafia within the prison walls. Hie was known for his quick temper and his intense hatred for Spaniards, and while these may have been weaknesses in other would be leaders, Lovino Vargas had been trained to hone hatred and anger into lethal calculation.
Antonio Carriedo was the leader of the Spaniards. Nobody knew exactly why he was in for life, and nobody dared to ask. He appeared quite friendly and open,and his underlings genuinely liked him, but there was always an undertone of fear. People whispered of his dark side, which was said to be rare, but brutal. He did not like to lead his gang into outright conflicts with the Italians, preferring to mess with Lovino mentally, lobbing words which he knew would incite the Italian to anger and sometimes violence. When the gangs did fight, he typically stood away from the action, smiling in a almost disturbingly detached manner. When anyone had the gall to attack him, he dispatched them with brutal accuracy, and soon, no one was brave or stupid enough to challenge him but Lovino. When they fought, it appeared evenly matched. No one else could even stand against Antonio, but Lovino made a valiant effort. However, onlookers always got the feeling that the Spaniard was toying with the younger man, and the spars always ended with Lovino knocked on his back, with Antonio whispering ostensibly innocuous comments designed to make the man's blood boil. Then, having riled him up and beat him down, Antonio would simply get up, call his gang off, and walk away until another fight broke out the next day.
Although Ivan Braginsky, the warden, saw no problem with these constant fights, and even welcomed them as a source of entertainment, the administration of the prison did. After much subtle coercion, for most people were as afraid of Ivan as they were of the prisoners himself, they convinced him to address the problem. Ivan had smiled a disarmingly childlike smile, before announcing that his solution would be to throw the gang leaders into the same maximum security cell for a month, in a voice that left no room for argument. Doubting the wisdom of their decision, the administrators had fled the room and resolved to let Ivan do as he please, as they all valued their own lives over that of any of the prisoners'.