This is an AU that I've been hanging on to for a while. Figure I might as well post it considering I haven't done anything with it for a long time. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia. Hetalia belongs to Himaruya Hidakaz.


Arthur was a Pirate King. He flew his own colours proudly and ruled the land he lived in. He was a ruthless commander who expected nothing but obedience from his subjects. He had no qualms about dishing out lashings or locking them in the dungeons. He had the gait of a royal, but the sway of a sea dog; the smarts of a noble, and the cunning of a thief. Arthur was a Pirate King.

A transport vessel puttered into the port of a fast food restaurant. Its rigging was tangled and its tires sagged, but this sight promised gold to the Pirate King peering at it through a sea-salt crusted spyglass.

He continued to watch as the crew of the S.S. Minivan ducked out. The kids that were on board spanned a horizon of ages from three to later teens and each one looked at the restaurant with hunger in their eyes -drawn toward the bright atmosphere and mouth-watering smell as to a siren singing them to their doom. It was clear they hadn't made port for several hours.

The bleary-eyed captain and first mate lumbered out next to corral their whiny cabin-boys and cabin-girls to the bored cashier inside the establishment. Within the swarm of children, the parentages did not notice the particular young teen enter behind them and join nonchalantly to stand amongst their own motley crew. He was quiet and milled about within the crowd of kids in perfect camouflage doing no harm and therefore not drawing any specific attention to himself despite his emerald eyes, unusually thick brows, and royal heritage.

As the kids rotated through the line, placing their order then sitting down in the largest booth, aforementioned teen did not order anything for himself. Instead, he moved to stand beside the register and waited patiently.

The cashier could have noticed how this gold-blond sailor didn't give his food order or even look much like the other children he entered with. The uniformly brunette kids with brown eyes matched an energized version of their parents' weary orbs which made it certainly look as if the loitering blond was not a part of this set, but, who was the cashier to judge?

The teen held in a dry laugh at the irony that he didn't even really match his real siblings either, being the only one in the crew without a variation of their blue eyes. That was one of the many reasons his oldest brother called him the black sheep. The Pirate King did, however, have blond hair like they did. At least that was unwavering.

When the minimum wage, mostly teenaged employees of the fast food port's night shift finally bagged up all the food, the odd-browed teen accepted it with itching hands. Having completed their job and not particularly caring who got the food, the worker handed him the hefty amount of steaming paper bags.

The teen insisted on carrying everything in one trip without a tray, despite the obvious ease a tray would have afforded him. Once all the warm food was balanced in his arms, he turned around and began to walk.

He shot a glance back at the family the innocent bystanders grouped him with to make sure the captain and first mate were still busied with their opulent amount of offspring. They were plenty busy, and the soda-dispensing machine conveniently sat between their line of vision to the door. Confirming this, the Pirate King, as quick as it was possible to still maintain stealth, pushed out the side door and briskly walked into the darkness.


He didn't know how late it was, but he'd been out longer than he'd hoped. As he walked alongside the roads, he felt his stomach growl out in testimony that it had been begrudgingly keeping track of the time even when the brain didn't. He hoped that his crew had just gone to sleep instead of waiting around for him. He'd had to venture farther than normal because he'd been exhausting the more local taverns. The Pirate King made it a point not to redeem the five-finger discount at the same place twice.

The green-eyed teen felt a slight pang of Guilt for his robbery as he always did, but the feeling was soon gagged and punted promptly off a cliff to be replaced by its ever-superior and more-agreeable stepbrother, Apathy. He finally approached the car that sat skirting the shadows of a park's parking lot.

The Pirate King's ship was tested with time as barnacles clung to her underside and gull droppings peppered the deck. Okay, in reality, it was an absolute rust bucket and sounded like it was trying to imitate a large chainsaw when running, but, hey, it had a roof and four doors and did run when there was petrol in it, despite how scant little of it they could pour into it at a time. He was a King, but this vehicle was not obtained by means of the royal treasury. (Really, his blood and title were the only things he could use to prove his nobility.) This car was certainly pirated.

He kicked lightly on the side of the door, rust and sea salt flaking off, and a daffodil-blond with shoulder-length hair popped up from the reclined driver's seat. His powder-blue eyes were panicked as he looked out the side window to the looming figure but calmed as he saw a familiar face. His eyes widened and his thin lips pulled into a smile as he saw what the emerald-eyed boy was carrying. Leaning over the sleeping form in the passenger's seat, he pulled up the latch and unlocked the passenger's door.

The Pirate King walked around and boarded on the starboard side. Sticking his arms into the depths of the vehicle, he waved the bags around, letting the scent jolt the rest of the sleeping boys awake from their bunks.

Two almost-identical also-blond heads sprouted up from behind the passenger's seat like dolphins, a more sunshine-blond on the right and a pale-blond on the left. The one occupying the passenger seat, the youngest cabin boy, was slower to wake up, but he brushed the pure-blond hair out of his sea-blue eyes to have his jaw drop at the miracle that was the enormity of the food bagged before him. Wordlessly, he moved over to give room to the new arrival: the one bearing the loot. He would surrender his seat any day if anyone came brandishing that much food at him. The Pirate King slid into the seat and shut the door to keep in the heat.

Arthur passed a bag to each of his blond and blue-eyed shipmates without discretion as to what was actually inside. He was afraid if he held the bags too long, his dear kin might tear him apart like the wild dogs they seemed to be subconsciously imitating –drool and all. He had spent more time in port than he anticipated.

"Omahgosth! This isth still warm! Fank you, Arthy!" One of the twins behind him exclaimed.

"Alfred, don't talk with your mouth full. That's disgusti…"

He was interrupted by coughing erupting from Alfred's twin.

"Matthew! Chew your food for goodness sake! You're almost as bad as Alfred!"

Matthew, the paler twin, coughed viciously for a few more seconds as he eventually pulled a hair out of his mouth that was, ghastly as it was, still attached to his head.

"Are you alright?" The oldest blond that sat in the driver's seat turned around, his concern showed on his creased brows as the coughing started to sound serious for a moment there.

"I'm, I'm fine. I just…tried to swallow my curl on accident." Referring to the now wet and gross hair that bobbed off Matthew's forehead which was the soft-spoken boy's hallmark characteristic.

Laughter ripped through the small car.

Alfred probably would have started choking as well if there was food in his mouth.

"Seriously, dude? That's hilarious! Hahahaha!"

"I didn't mean to. I was just eating really, really fast, and it got…caught." He blushed as he began to eat slower, learning his lesson.

Arthur, the one who painstakingly procured all the food, face-palmed, but did add a few chuckles of his own to the chorus of laughter that the siblings made together.

"Is there any more?" The youngest brother, about three, looked to the Pirate King with sea-blue eyes, full of innocence.

Arthur couldn't say 'no' when Peter did the Face. Peter had a certain soft spot in all his older brothers' hearts that he exploited mercilessly with his pudgy cheeks and naïve smile –in combination, it was called the Face.

Sighing, the scruffy sailor offered up the remainder of his fries. The boy grasped them up eagerly, beaming with all thanks he forgot to utter in his smile. Arthur made a mental note to scold him about manners later.

Francis, the elder of his frères, gave Arthur a teasing smirk as he saw how easily Peter manipulated the fearsome Pirate King. Arthur's thick brows drove down into an all too familiar angle as he cocked his head and rolled his eyes with a silent yet sassy retort. He'd witnessed plenty of times when Francis had fallen victim to Peter's Face, but he had never-the-less given his older brother ammo to use against him when he tried to keep up his reputation of being the strong, discipliner of the bunch.

Within moments, all five boys had consumed their pilfered meals. Although, Arthur never told his younger brothers that he got most of their food through piracy and raids. He intended to raise them to be upstanding citizens, but they were just in a little bit of a pinch right now. Once they got out of this slump, he swore to himself the Pirate King would retire his title. It was just… his crew was hungry now, and, even though both he and Francis were technically old enough to work part-time, they didn't have the necessary papers to do so. He was doing what he could.

"Oh! No fair! Mattie got a toy in his bag!"

Matthew, twin B, held a small, plastic Captain America toy in his hands. Alfred, twin A, must have been regretting his decision to grab for the bigger bag which probably held more food instead of the smaller, more-colorful bag which probably held a toy.

"Mattie! Let me see it!" Alfred begged, trying his best to use his version of the Face. Only his wasn't super effective like Peter's. He just came off as annoying.

"No! It's mine!" Matthew kept the toy out of Alfred's reach.

"But I only want to see it for a second!"

"No! It was in my bag! It's my toy!"

Arthur dug around under the wrappers of his own bag and found a plastic toy there as well. He threw it at Alfred, making sure to knock him on the head with it. If there was one thing he couldn't stand, it was whining.

"Ow! Hey! What was –Ooh!" Alfred quickly forgot he was mad at Arthur for hitting him on the head for a moment, but only a moment, as he was disappointed once more.

"See! Now you have your own toy." Matt huffed, hoping he'd finally be left alone.

"But I don't want this one! This is the girl one!"

"What's wrong with Black Widow?"

"Well, girl toys are for girls!"

"Then you have the right toy then, eh?" Matthew snickered, barely above a whisper.

"Hey! That wasn't nice! Trade me, bro!"

"No way!"

"But I thought you said there wasn't anything wrong with Black Widow, and Captain America's my favorite! Come on, man!"

"…No."

"Gimme!"

"NO!"

Arthur didn't even have to look back to know that the twins were now fighting with each other. Peter, however, had been watching and looked up to Arthur.

"I want a toy too!" He demanded. It wasn't a surprise where he learned that tonefrom.

Arthur gave him a look, and Peter shut up immediately.

"Boys, please stop acting like three-year-olds. It's just a silly toy." Francis tried to reason, but he was ignored promptly.

The green-eyed brother took a deep breath to try to contain his sanity. Did Francis really think asking those two landlubbers to do anything worked ever?

The twins wrestling around in the backseat accidentally kicked Arthur in the head which knocked his forehead into Peter's with a crack.

There was a moment of silence before the storm they knew was coming. The boys stopped wrestling, and, instead, instinctively pulled each other closer in an attempt to batten down the hatches.

Peter began to cry as he held his head that was now throbbing. Arthur, rubbing his own forehead as well, all too calmly picked his youngest brother up and placed him in his oldest brother's lap.

Obstacle removed, Arthur's head abruptly jerked to the backseats, and the twins gulped in unison. It was well justified too because not a second later, Arthur lunged into the backseat at his brothers like the kraken upon an unsuspecting ship. The kraken's victims actually had a better lot than Alfred and Matthew. The unfortunate would be dead after the sea beast attacked. The twins, not so much. They would have to continue living in fear of this kraken for, as far as they were concerned, all eternity.

The twins wore identical looks of horror as they split apart to retreat to the opposite corners of the car. Hey, they may have been twins but this was every man for himself here.

Alfred held the Captain America in his hands that he had managed to pry from Mattie as shown by the bite marks on the pale twin's hands. Arthur loomed over his much smaller brother who was frozen is terror yet still unwilling to give up the toy. The green-eyed Pirate King grabbed the insubordinate cabin boy's wrist and ripped the toy from his hand.

If they couldn't share the toy, no one was gonna have it. There would be no brawling –not on his ship! With that, he climbed back to the front seat, opened the door, got out, wound up, and launched the stupid hunk of plastic into the dark, voided distance. Good luck finding it now. Arthur rubbed his hands together, rather satisfied with himself and returned to their 'home.'

After slamming the door shut, he reclined his seat giving a silent order for his crew to go to sleep.


It never took much time for Arthur to fall asleep. He always somehow seemed to exhaust himself after every day –more mentally than physically. However, he did consider himself a moderate to light sleeper.

He was awoken by the sound of the car door being shut. His mind, putting the pieces together, soared painfully out of a REM cycle into consciousness. He sat up to take a quick headcount.

To his left, Peter was curled up in Francis's side while the elder held the younger securely in his arms even in sleep. He turned around in a hopeful attempt at completing his counting at the total of four. Alfred was asleep, however, he was coiled in a tight ball as he shivered from the absence of his twin's warmth. Matthew must have been the culprit of the noise seeing as he was sitting up, wide awake.

His large, lavender-blue eyes darted to meet green as he froze –caught red-handed. However, his hand was not red, but, instead, wrapped around what was unmistakably the plastic Captain America toy Arthur had tried to give flight to hours previous.

"I'm sorry, but I had to go get it," he whispered, trying to catch his breath from wandering outside in the freezing dawn air for who knows how long.

"Why?" Arthur prided himself in being articulate, but, this early in the morning didn't count.

"Well, I felt bad that I was mean to Alfred so I got him his toy back."

"Matthew, you don't have to do anything Alfred tells you to do! He was just being a whiny-"

"No, I mean, I knew that Captain America was his favorite, and I was just egging him on to be nasty. It ended up making you upset too. You brought all that warm food for us, and we don't have much as it is. The least I could do was share with Alfred."

Arthur blinked several times. He knew Matthew was wise beyond his years (and having Alfred as his twin made him seem genius-tier because of how vast the contrast was), but this was a whole new level.

"You couldn't sleep because you felt so guilty so you went outside in the absolutely frigid air to wander around in the dirt so you could get your brat brother a stupid McDonald's toy?"

"…um, yes?"

"You're something else, little brother," he sighed, knowing now that his attempt at disciplining the twins was suffering a similar fate as his previously mentioned feelings of Guilt. There was no way he could take the toy back from them now.

"Thanks, Arthur. And, uh, sorry about kicking you in the head, eh?"

"No problem, little lad," he said, tugging jokingly on his little brother's lone curl. "By the way, this reminds me. We probably need to cut your hair. It's getting long again."

"Really? Francis says my hair looks good long."

"Well, he just said that because that's the way the frog does his own hair."

"Oh, heehee. I guess you're right. I still don't know if I want to cut it though. Maybe people will be able to tell me apart from Al now, eh?"

"Yeah, because there's no way that," he pointed to the curl that bobbed clear down to his nose, "is already a dead give-away."

Matthew grabbed his curl shyly.

"You still call me by his name sometimes."

"That's just because whenever one of you is misbehaving, I always assume it's Alfred. That's a compliment to you," Arthur quickly retorted, a rather fine recovery if he did say so himself.

He did have a funny knack for not being able to tell the twins cabin boys apart even though, as they grew older, they were starting to look more and more distinct. Alfred's hair was starting to strawberry while Matthew's seemed to leak a little more toward sunlight, and Alfie's eyes were a crayon blue and Mattie's were a indigo to magenta.

"Heehee. Yup. That sounds about right."

They heard the abovementioned twin-half rustle as they must have forgotten to keep their voices hushed for a moment. The cowlicked twin sleep-scooted over to nuzzle like a puppy into Matthew's side of the bunk –the source of warmth.

"Well, get some more sleep, lad. It might be daylight, but that doesn't mean any human should be up and about at this freakishly early hour."

Matthew gave him a silent nod before pushing the sunshine blond's huddled mass over so he could have room to lie down. Almost on instinct, his other half uncurled from the fetal position he bunched himself in with a smile because his brother-shaped furnace finally returned to him. After Alfred placed a firm grip around his radiator's arm so as to prevent it from escaping again, Matthew was permitted to sleep.

All was well in Francis's, Arthur's, Alfred's, Matthew's, and Peter's cramped and salty world again.


So yeah. I hope you understood that. This is a modern-day setting, but Arthur views the world as if he's a "pirate king." He doesn't really think that he's a pirate king or anything. The next chapter will be the same thing but from Francis's view.

I have one more chapter ready to go, but, after that, I doubt I'll update any more.

Review and fav as you so desire. I'll PM replies to every review and thank everyone who faved at the beginning of every chapter.

Anyway, thanks for reading.
Looking forward to it.