This is a story I put on Ao3 and forgot to put here. It's a song fic of Neighbourhood by Space so here we go, enjoy!
I don't own Hetalia!
Our Beautiful Neighbourhood
"Sit down, poppets and I'll tell you a story about a group of neighbours and their delightful street. And of the evil local council who wanted to evict these neighbours from their wonderful homes and pull them down. And how these determined neighbours won against the evil council. So help yourselves to a cupcake, I'm sure you'll love the delicious frosting and the special ingredient, and listen as I tell you about my beautiful neighbourhood."
"Next item on the agenda," the officious head of the town council announced. "Hetalia Street!" Groans ran around the ostentatious council room.
"Just kick everybody out and pull it down," one councilman snorted. "The place is an eyesore and the inhabitants are the worst kind of scum."
"Seconded!" everybody else in the room called out.
"If they're not weird, they're criminals," someone at the back called out. "To say nothing about the disappearances around that area. The area's not normal, in fact it's down right creepy." There were murmurs of agreement and one councillor put his hand up.
"I propose a CPO of all properties of Hetalia Street," he announced. "And demolition of said properties." He picked up a file. "I have a list of companies who are interested in developing the area, should it become available. We could turn a run-down, crime-ridden area into a new estate, perfect for families or a business area, generating employment and rentable units, generating revenue."
"Will anyone second the proposal?" the head of the council asked, picking up his gavel.
"Seconded!" Everyone else called. The head of the council slammed the gavel down on the table.
"Motion carried!"
The sun shone down on Hetalia Street as a new day started and the inhabitants began to leave, or in some cases, stumble out of their houses. Yang Zao, at No 8, stood on his doorstep, looking like death warmed-up as he came down from his opium high from the night before. Zao could be mistaken for a girl with his long, black hair and his reddish-brown eyes had shadows under them from the opium he had taken the night before but no one out on Hetalia Street paid any mind as everyone was used to this.
"Privet, comrade," called his neighbour from No 7. Viktor Braginsky was a big Russian with brown hair and dark shadows under his crimson eyes, due to insomnia as he had trouble sleeping.
"Aiyah! Please do not shout, Viktor," Zao plead, holding his head.
"Ah," Viktor said. "Heavy night?" Zao sighed.
"Shi," he replied. "I am not well today."
"Opium will do that to you, comrade." Viktor replied. "You should give that up before it kills you, mon drug." Zao gave an painful nod and went back inside for something to lighten his mood.
There was a van outside No 29 and the men who had come in it were banging on the door and a large chested woman with reddish hair and blue-green eyes in a scanty silk nightdress, opened it.
"Miss Katya Braginskaya?" one of the men asked. The woman became quite flirtatious.
"Who wants to know?" she asked, sultrily. The man ignored her seductive tactics and consulted the clipboard he was holding.
"You're in arrears with your gas bill," he said, showing the paper on the board. "This is a court order, allowing us to seize goods against the bill." Katya gave a downtrodden pout.
"Oh, but I have nothing of value," she said, sadly and batted her eyes at him. The man just looked down at his clipboard again.
"Well, according to this," he replied. "You recently purchased a top-of-the-line television. Perhaps, you should have used the money to pay your gas bill, miss." Katya bit her lip. He was not going for her usual tactics so she would have to pull out the big guns.
"Oh!" she gasped when she slipped her nightdress straps off her shoulders and the night dress fell down to her waist. She let him have a good view before she coyly covered herself with her hands. "Oh my, how embarrassing! I'm half naked in front of two handsome men." The man gave a little laugh.
"Nice try, Love," he replied and indicated to the other man. "But that's my boyfriend!" And they walked past her into the house as she pulled her nightdress back up in frustration. As she watched her new TV being carried out, she decided that she would have to go out tonight to find a client so she could pay her bills again.
At No 17, they were dealing with bad news.
"I can't believe Romeo got two years," Luciano Vargas said. "It was his first offence. Well, as an adult."
"Well, he did beat up that old man in the convenience store," his blonde, German boyfriend, Lutz Beilschmidt replied.
"That man should have paid his protection money." Lucius, Luciano's grandfather, said as he came into the room. Luciano and Lucius shared the same dark red-brown hair colour and the same magenta eyes. "Romeo is a good boy who did what his grandfather told him. He's going to be a great credit to the family."
"He's in the same prison as Flavio," Luciano said. "So, at least, he'll have someone to show him the ropes and look after him. Who would have thought you could go to prison for appropriating parts of someone else's design, right, Kuro?"
"I think," Kuro Honda, a former member of the Yakuza now one of Lucius's right hand men, replied. He was good friends with Luciano and he had black hair, red eyes and he always seemed to be scowling. "That it might have been more for stabbing the original designer when he confronted Flavio about it."
"You don't do that to a Vargas," Lucius replied. "Flavio's boyfriend has been heart-broken since he went down. There isn't a day when we don't have Andres here, crying out his woes."
"Maybe I should go deal with the cry-baby designer," Luciano mused, taking out his favourite knife and playing with it.
"Leave it alone!" Lucius ordered. "I don't want any more of my boys doing time, otherwise this house is going to be empty."
At No 14, a man with blonde hair, which was pulled back into a messy ponytail, was on his first joint of the day and the smell of weed hung around the house. It was coming from the cigarette the flannel shirt and jeans-clad blonde was smoking and his dark violet eyes turned toward the door as a man in a bathrobe came in, fresh from the shower, rubbing his auburn brown hair and glaring at the blonde man with his red-brown eyes, sniffing in the air.
"Hey Matt, can't you stay off that crap for five seconds?" he demanded, getting out a hair-dryer and plugging it in.
"Do you have to leave your baseball bat underfoot, Al?" 'Matt' fired back, kicking the bat with nails driven into it that lay on the floor, coated with something that looked suspiciously like dried blood. 'Al' gave Matt the middle finger and began drying his hair. Matt took a drag on his joint and blew out the smoke.
"Do that shit outside!" Al ordered over the sound of the hair-dryer. "I don't want to get high." Matt blew out another cloud of weed smelling smoke. Al dumped the hair-dryer, still going, and grabbed the baseball bat from the floor and Matt jumped up and grabbed a hockey stick wrapped in barbed wire from a corner and they faced off against each other.
"Hello, poppets!" a strawberry blonde haired man with swirling blue eyes and freckles across his nose burst through the door, followed by a much slower blonde with blue eyes and a scruffy beard who was smoking, just as the two were going to take a swing at each other. He took one look at the two combatants. "Oh, I see you've started early, Loves."
Oliver Kirkland lived at No 86 with his French boyfriend, François and they had taken the two boys under their wings like long lost sons. Well Oliver had, François was apathetic about the whole thing, and if anyone noticed that there were a lot of people going missing around Hetalia Street, everyone in Hetalia Street ignored it. What didn't hurt them …..well, didn't hurt them.
"What do you want, old man?" Al growled. "We don't want any of your f**king cupcakes, you know." Oliver whipped out a jar with coins in it.
"Swear jar!" he said in a stern tone. Al groaned but took some coins off the fire mantle place and put them in the jar.
"And you know my cupcakes and cookies are for my coffee mornings and bake sales," Oliver continued. "I came to see if you've checked your post yet."
"No," Matt replied. "Why?" François pulled a letter out of his pocket.
"Because we got this, this morning," he replied. "I don't think you'll like it." Al put down his bat and took the letter. Matt dropped his hockey stick and came to read it too.
To the occupier,
This is to inform you that the local council have given the go ahead for a new development to be built on the land currently occupied by Hetalia Street. To that end, a Compulsory Purchase Order has been put in action on all the properties on Hetalia Street which has been accepted by the courts.
You have been granted two weeks to make new arrangements and remove your belongings after which said properties will be demolished, empty or not. Please endeavour to make this transition as smooth as possible.
Signed,
Malum Local Council.
"Bullshit!" Al exclaimed, wanting to pick up his bat and hit something, only to had the swear jar stuck back under his nose and forced to put more money in it. "They can't just buy our houses from under us like that. We have to have the right to object to the courts."
"Hate to break it to you, poppets," the pinkette replied. "But the council hates us and so do the courts. I'm afraid not many people appreciate the joys of our rather unique community."
"We can't let them get away with this," Matt had picked up his hockey stick and looked ready to take the council buildings by storm.
"Of course not, Loves," Oliver agreed. "So get dressed, Al dear, and we'll gather our lovely neighbours and come up with a plan of action." Al threw down his baseball bat and went to get changed.
"As long as I get to hit someone," he muttered. "It's been a while since I really used my bat."
"It was last night, Al," Matt called after him.
Two weeks later …
The bulldozers made their way to the end of Hetalia Street only to find the occupants stood in their way. Ivan looked like he could stand up to a tank, Matt was welding his hockey stick while Al waved his baseball bat, wearing his leather jacket, his sunglasses and grinning, showing off his missing tooth. Zao was dressed in black Chinese style clothes and looked as high as a kite while Katya was dressed in the most revealing outfit she possessed and the Vargas family …... well, you don't mess with the Vargas family and they had Lutz, Andres and Kuro backing them up. François leant against a wall, smoking.
The head of the council came forward in a very officious manner with a self-satisfied look on his face. He was finally going to wipe this blot on the landscape off the map and he did not care where the inhabitants went as long as it was a long way away, hopefully out of his town.
"This is a legal document," he announced to the angry gathering. "Recognised by the courts and you were given ample notice to make other arrangements so you were warned."
"We were told after the courts passed the CPOs," Al retorted. The council head might have laughed at the angry brunette if he was not waving around that vicious looking baseball bat. "And two weeks is not 'ample notice', Ass-hole!" Everyone muttered hostile agreement.
"Swear jar, Al!" said a bright voice and the demolition people turned to see the strawberry blonde man approached the angry, bat-welding man with a jar of coins. Al growled but took some coins out of a pocket and dropped them into the jar. "This confrontation isn't necessary, I'm sure we can talk about things and come to an amicable conclusion." Oliver approached the council head.
"I'll bring out some tea and cupcakes while your men wait for you to discuss this with Lucius," Oliver indicated to the eldest Vargas. "Zao. Katya. Perhaps you would like to sit in on the discussion." Katya and Zao joined Lucius and looked at the councilman, expectantly.
"Very well," the man replied. "Although it won't change the outcome." As Lucius, Zao and Katya took the councilman to the Vargas home, they exchanged looks and winks while Oliver went into his house to put the kettle on.
"Offering tea to our enemies," Viktor commented. "No such service exists in Russia. They would be met with tanks."
"This ain't Russia, Viktor," Al snorted. "We're a little short on tanks. You could try and stop a bulldozer with your body, I'd pay money to see that."
Luciano stood with his hands behind his back so they could not see that he was playing with his knife but Lutz knew his boyfriend was toying with the sharp blade, wanting very badly to use it. Andres could see it too and the brown-haired, scarred Spaniard wanted the feel of his ornamental axe in his hands. Kuro was also itching to use his hidden katana and they all stood and stared at the workmen waiting to demolished their homes and the workmen stared back, the air charged with tension.
"Tea, everyone!" Oliver cried, wheeling out a tea trolley with cups, saucers, teapots, milk, sugar and cupcakes with frosting. "Help yourselves, poppets!" Both the demolition team and the Hetalia residents came for, and began helping themselves to tea and cakes while the Hetalia Street residents stood and shared a secret smile.
"Now I'm sure we can come to some arrangement," Lucius said, putting a glass of whisky in front of the head councillor who picked it up and began to sip it as they sat in Lucius's living room, Katya sitting seductively beside the councillor while Zao sat on his other side, watching him. "Perhaps some financial compromise we can come to?" The councillor looked up at Lucius from his seat and while he was distracted, Zao slipped something into his whiskey.
"Regretfully," he said, not looking regretful at all. "The area has already been earmarked for development that will bring a lot of jobs and money to the area. I doubt you can compete with that but I could hold off for a little while so you and your neighbours can move out and, if you can persuade your neighbours to do so without disruption, there would be compensation for your trouble." Lucius sipped his own whisky.
"I'm listening," he replied. He had no intention of betraying his friends and neighbours, he just needed time for the drug Zao had slipped into his enemy's drink to take effect.
With more kindness that the inhabitants of Hetalia Street felt that they should be showing, they opened their homes to the demolition team to use their bathrooms as they were suddenly struck down with diarrhoea and nausea. Accusations were thrown around of the tea and cakes being poisoned but the maligned occupants pointed out that they had also drunk the tea and eaten the cakes and they were fine so the outbreak of sickness remained a mystery, at least to the sufferers.
Only the Hetalia Street inhabitants saw François sneaking around the HGVs and adding Oliver's Special Ingredient to everyone's lunch box.
When the Head Councillor did not come back, the head of the demolition team went to the Vargas house to see what was going on and Lucius opened the door.
"I was wondering what the Councillor wants us to do?" the demolisher asked. Lucius nodded.
"I'll ask," he replied and went back inside the house. From in the house he heard the councillor shouted. "Go home! This will take all night but be back at eight tomorrow." He sounded drunk and the man shrugged. If that was what the councillor wanted …..
He went and ordered his men to leave for the day and they went gratefully, eager to get home as some were still suffering from the mystery illness that had struck most of them down.
Night fell, dawn rose and there was no sign of the Head Councillor, Some of the demolition team did not return and it was discovered that they had been admitted to hospital. One or two of them had disappeared and none of their fellows would know about the ingredients that would be in Oliver's next batch of cupcakes.
Then, shortly after eight o'clock the Head Councillor made a reappearance, looking like he had had a good night but was having the morning from Hell. Bloodshot eyes with shadows beneath and walked like every step was painful, he looked like he had Satan's own hangover. The head of the demolition team met him as he staggered toward the HGVs, wondering what had gone on last night.
"Are we starting today, Sir?" he asked. The councillor winced as if the sound of talking hurt his head.
"Change of plan," he said, holding his head. "Demolition's on hold for now. Move the HGVs out." He rubbed his head.
"After I leave," he added. He did not want to be around when those noisy machines started up.
The inhabitants of Hetalia Street watched as the men got into their machines and drove them away. Lucius stood with a smug smile on his face while everyone looked pleased with themselves. Well, almost.
"I'm bummed that I did not get to use my bat," Allen groused. Oliver patted him on the shoulder.
"It had to be like this, Poppet," he said. "Any violence and the police would have been brought in and our chance of saving our homes would have gone up in smoke. Besides, not everyone got away." He offered a plate. "Cupcake?" Allen turned a little green, after all, he was a vegetarian.
"Do you think it worked, Lucius-san," Kuro asked.
"Si," the elder Italian replied. "You should have seen his face when I showed him. I swear he wet himself."
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" the rest of the Council was shocked and a little outraged that the Head of the Council was vetoing the Hetalia Project. They were so close to getting rid of those freaks and erasing that eyesore of the face of the Earth but now they were being forced to back out. Life was so unfair!
"Why are we stopping the project?" one councilman asked. "This is our chance to eradicate that crime spot for good." The Head Councilman looked uncomfortable.
"I've found some legal discrepancies," he lied, thinking of the footage that blasted Vargas had of him from that night. Once the spiked drink had taken affect, it had not been hard to persuade him to take other stuff and then Katya had done her own thing and the whole film footage turned into a porno with a lot of naked flesh, grunting and sweating and his face visible through the whole recording. If anyone saw that, his political career was over. to say nothing of his marriage and everyone would see it if he did not cancel the project and reverse the CPOs on the properties. "The Hetalia Project just isn't viable, we'll just have to move on and speaking of moving on, I'm announcing my resignation, effective immediately!" And with that, he gathered his things and left the room, full of stunned councillors wondering what just happened. He was moving to another town where he would start again.
Hetalia Street would be someone else's problem.
The Hetalia Street residents threw a street party to celebrate their victory over the council. That Vargas Family provided the booze that they got from somewhere questionable, Viktor brought Borscht which no one showed any interest in, Oliver provided more food which everyone eyed with extreme caution and Zao and Katya provided the entertainment (i.e. sex and drugs with a little contribution from Matt) and began to have a really good time, even Allen who finally got to use his bat when someone came to complain about the noise, providing Oliver with fresh ingredients.
No one interfered with celebrating the saving of Hetalia Street from the evil Council.
"And that's why Hetalia Street exists to this day, poppets. The Council never got their hands on our neighbourhood again and they never will. Now, did you like that story? Oh dear, you're all dead! I guess I used too much Arsenic in the frosting. The poor dears stomachs must have been too weak for it. Oh well, I needed fresh ingredients, anyway!"
Never mess with the 2p!s...and never eat Oliver's cupcakes!
Hasta la Pasta!