This is not how I wanted to spend my Sunday morning. Clyde Kenton Marshall thought while staring down at the familiar county officer.
"I'm here to pick up my sister." Clyde stated to the officer behind the counter.
"Hey, Clyde. So it was your turn, huh?" Officer Stevens asked as he filled out Charlie's release forms.
"Yes, sir." Clyde replied, hands in hoodie pocket. "What exactly did she do this time?"
"Take a look." Stevens handed a file to Clyde and pushed up from his desk. "I'll go get her."
Clyde was silently reading the forms of Charlotte Marshall's detainment. After a few lines, all emotion was wiped and the kid's face was blank. The oldest Marshall Child snapped the folder closed before trying very hard not to slam it back on the counter.
As Clyde was writing out a check to pay for Charlie's fines, said girl was brought into the room. Her hands were cuffed behind her back and half of her head was shaved. She was wearing a baggy grey jumpsuit, probably something that the station kept for purposes such as this.
"Aye~!" She drawled upon seeing her sibling. "Thanks for bustin' me out, Clyde. I was hopin' that it would be you and not Cody." Charlie flipped her ginger hair out of her face and grinned toothily.
"Hello, Charlotte." Clyde greeted, hands clenched into fists in the hoodie pocket.
Charlie visibly froze.
"Uh…" Clyde never said her full name unless…
Charlie gulped and scratched the back of her neck, Clyde watching with a blank face.
"You're mad, aren't yah?" Charlie questioned as Stevens unlocked her cuffs.
"Oh, infuriated." Clyde then turned to Stevens. "Sorry for all the trouble she caused. Hopefully it won't happen again." Clyde pulled out a coupon for a free two-day stay at a bed and breakfast. "We'll be going now." Clyde almost growled out. Clyde then walked out the door but Charlie remained frozen.
"Is there any way that I could stay here?" She asked, looking at the officer with pleading eyes.
"Sorry kid," Stevens picked up the coupon before slipping it into his pocket. "And good luck."
~0~
The car was silent.
No music was playing. Neither of the people in the car were talking. Charlie was terrified to say something. In fact, she actually sat in the back instead of the passenger.
"I'm dead aren't I?" Charlie asked, taking a crowbar to the silence.
"No." Clyde responding, keeping eyes locked on the road.
"No?" Charlie questioned, a little freaked out. She wasn't getting a lecture?
"No, you are not dead. And I am not going to lecture you, no lectures." Clyde added after seeing Charlie's face in the mirror and knowing what she must be thinking.
Mind reader! Charlie thought with narrowed eyes.
"I'm not a mind reader." Clyde said calmly, fighting to keep the smirk off. It was always fun when Charlie was this predictable based on her expressions.
"Witchcraft!" Charlie shouted, startling Clyde.
The car swerved a little bit at the sudden noise but quickly straightened out.
"Don't do that." The oldest Marshall yelled even louder than the youngest.
"Sorry…"
After a few moments of silence, someone spoke up.
"I just… want… to know why you did it." Clyde stated, trying to find the correct words that would get the point across.
"I was drunk." Charlie admitted.
She knew what was about to happen. And the little fart even said no lectures.
"You ran, half-naked, around a Walmart parking lot, at two in the morning, screaming, "We don't need no education". That statement, in itself, is a contradiction, yah know?" Clyde didn't even looked back at Charlie, who was trying to make herself as small as possible.
"It's from a song." She replied weakly.
"I know," Clyde commented. "It's one of my favorites."
"Sorry..."
Clyde had pulled into a space that was at the back of a diner but neither of them got out of the car.
Lovely view of the bins. Clyde thought staring at the nearly overflowing garbage containers.
"I don't want apologies." Clyde said emotionlessly, taking the keys out of the ignition.
"Well, what do you want?" Charlie yelled. "Please just tell me." She hated the look Clyde was giving her, like she wasn't worth showing emotion.
Clyde didn't respond.
"Clyde!" Charlie tried again. "Clyde please talk to me. I wanna know what you want from me!"
"For you to grow up!" Clyde retorted even louder, mask snapping like a rubber band. The oldest Marshall's face looked absolutely livid. This conversation has been building up for a while. "You are 21 years-old for crying out loud, yet you are still acting like a child! Cody has the diner, I have the bed and breakfast, you have this whole wide world set in front of you and yet, you choose to party? Charlotte Chelsea Marshall, we have been trying so hard to help you out and you do this? You have so much potential, why are you wasting it?"
Clyde couldn't understand why Charlie was doing this, wasting her life away, not growing up and moving on with her life. Right now an honest answer was all that was truly wanted and needed for the oldest Marshall.
"Because what's the point?" Charlie screamed with a tear slipping down her cheek, not caring that Clyde saw it. Why can't you see that? "You guys are so amazing, and wonderful, and successful; what does it matter that I'm not like you and Cody? I never will be, so why bother? It doesn't matter anyway." I'm just a screw-up, no matter what I do it pales in comparison to you two.
All her life it was "Clyde's done this, Cody's done that, oh did you here that they both own a business, Charlie what have you done? … Charlotte, you received your black belt in kung fu? Hasn't Cody been practicing wing chun for seven years? … Have you heard that Clyde knows five languages? Five! Wait, Charlotte, what language did you study again?"
"You… freaking idiot!" Clyde's voice cracked. Did she really think this little of herself? "Do you really believe that?"
Charlotte meekly nodded.
"'Right den." Clyde opened the door and slammed it shut before opening Charlotte's door.
Charlie's eyes narrowed a bit. That sounded Irish. And Clyde only goes Irish when-
"What are you-?"
Clyde physically lifted the youngest Marshall out of the car and pushed her against the brick wall. Charlotte was freaking out, she knew that Clyde was strong from using the gym in the B & B every day, but dang!
"Listen 'ere, ye li'l shit." Clyde Marshall growled, pointing a finger and completely slipping into an Irish accent.
Charlie could see the fires of hell in her older sibling's eyes.
It was one thing to use her full name but the situation just rose to a whole other level when Clyde cursed. Clyde never curses, ever. It was a basic fact of nature.
The moon goes around the earth. The sun rises in the east. People stress about things that have most likely been forgotten or overlooked. Clyde Marshall does not curse.
Those were the simple truths of the universe.
"Don't ye dare, fer even a minute, tink dat yer beneath us." If Charlie wasn't so beyond petrified, she might have smiled at her older sibling's dialect. It has been a while since Clyde had gone Irish. "We all got er problems. Mehself included. Look at meh. I will never be the same af'er what happen'." Charlie looked down at the oldest sibling, a strange pity welling up even though she hadn't cause what happened to Clyde.
"But that duhn't matter." Clyde recognized the Irish and quickly coughed to cover it up and revert back to normal. "Because I don't care what people think, and you shouldn't either."
Charlie didn't say anything as Clyde released the hand from her shirt collar.
"Especially what mum and da think," Clyde said flippantly while sitting down on the side walk.
I finally figured it out, Charlie. Clyde thought, the blank expression back on. Took me a while, but I got it… Cody might've known earlier though but was waiting for me to confront yah. What a pansy.
"How do you know its mum and dad?" Charlotte asked.
"Who else could it be?"
'You're not like meh and Cody?' Clyde thought, thinking back to what Charlotte had said.Who are you to say that? You're not like me, Charlie. You and Cody aren't like me. Out of the three of us, I'd wager that I'm the most messed up.
It was silent between the Marshall siblings before Charlotte finally sat down next to Clyde.
"I'm sorry." Charlotte repeated, picking up a tiny rock a throwing it.
Clyde resignedly signed.
"How many times are you gonna say that?"
"As soon as you forgive me, I'll stop." Charlie looked down at the clothes the police station had given her.
I'm seriously keeping these. She thought while pulling on the sleeves. They're just like sweats.
"I forgave yah about ten minutes ago." Clyde couldn't help but grin cheekily.
"You butt!" Charlotte punched her older sibling in the shoulder with all the strength she could muster while sitting down.
Clyde laughed when Charlotte cradled her hand afterwards.
You don't wanna be fightin' me pipsqueak. Clyde thought, shoulder not even hurting.
"My fighting lessons are still on the table." Clyde reminded.
"No thanks, I don't want to die." Charlotte massaged her knuckles but the idea stuck in her head.
"How's the online college?" Clyde questioned, trying to keep the conversation rolling. Charlie was taking a few courses online but in a few days, she'd head back to her university.
"Microbiology is an ass."
"Hey…"
"Sorry, a butt. I should've have gone into business like you two."
"You won't be saying that in a few years when you've made the cure for cancer."
"That's not gonna be me."
"I'm serious. I wanna be mentioned in some speeches, yah hear?"
"What if I don't?"
"Then I'll run up and across the stage, screaming 'We don't need no education' while half-naked."
It took exactly five seconds after that comment and an eyebrow bounce from Clyde for them to both start laughing.
"You wouldn't!"
"Yes, I would!"
"No!"
"Right as you say, 'I would like to thank my family', I would be already stripped and on the stage."
"Stop it!" Charlotte was holding onto her stomach, tears in her eyes.
"Maybe I'd wear some roller-skates too." Clyde supplied and Charlie laughed even harder. "Have a boom box on my shoulder."
Charlie fell off the sidewalk and took gasping breaths. Clyde hit the pavement repeatedly.
"I'd even get Cody to do it too. He'd run across the stage while waving around some sparklers." Clyde added.
After a few moments their laughter died down.
The back door to the diner opened and Clyde's identical twin stepped out.
"What are you two doing on the sidewalk?" Cody asked, readjusting his duffel bag on his shoulder.
Clyde and Charlie looked at each other before busting out laughing again.
"What the heck?" Cody asked while stepping over his oldest sibling's cackling form. "I'll be in the car. Hurry up and stop dying, you hyenas."
~0~
Charlie was working on a quiz in Microbiology on Clyde's computer in the kitchen, Cody was drumming his fingers to a song he was listening to in his room and yelling out certain parts, and Clyde was checking out a guest in the hallway.
"Thank you for visiting, Ms. Hoffman. Did you enjoy your stay?" Clyde asked, while carrying both of the lady's suitcases in one hand and holding a clipboard in the other.
"Yes, I did. Oh, the food you made was simply delicious, your brother might have some competition." She replied while fixing the sunhat on her head.
"I just know how to make certain dishes, ma'am." Clyde handed the clipboard to the woman while opening the front door. "If you could just sign out while I take your bags out to your car."
"Of course."
While Clyde was handling the last customer, Charlie had finished up her quiz and was surfing for a movie to watch online.
"Seen; seen; ooh, Cody'd like this one, he's a fan of romance movies even if he won't admit it; I can't stomach horror; is that a cartoon, no that's anime, Clyde likes that; seen; seen; that's a- I thought this website doesn't get pop-ups!"
A brightly colored pop-up with various guys posing in front of an Earth showed up, taking up more than three quarters of the computer screen.
Charlie tried clicking out of it but it wouldn't let her. She tried to go back to the original page behind it, also a no go.
"'Free Hetalia Units'?" Charlie read from the pop-up. "Isn't Hetalia a show that Clyde watches or somethin'? And the heck's a unit? Okay, Mr. pop-up, you have my attention."
She clicked the 'okay' button, since it was the only thing working.
A paragraph and order form showed up on the screen.
"'Greetings Clyde Marshall'," Charlie started reading the paragraph aloud. "That's sounds weird, who says greetings? Ha, they think I'm Clyde. Anyway…"
"'You have been recommended by various entities and carefully chosen to receive free HETALIA UNITS!' -and a good capital day to you too- 'Please know that once you fill out this order form, you will start receiving your HETALIA UNIT(S)' -again with the capitalization- 'between a time frame of two-seven business days. Your order can only be cancelled in the case of extreme emergencies.' –Good to know- 'Also know that your HETALIA UNITS' –they have a capital fetish, it's a fact- 'will belong solely to you and no one else. These HETALIA UNITS will thus respond to you before anyone else. With each HETALIA UNIT, you will be provided a manual on that certain unit. This manual will provide you with basic information on your unit and other information we at Flying Mint Bunny Inc. consider very valuable. If you have any questions about your units, wish to purchase something for our store, or would like to exchange a unit, do not hesitate to give us a call. A copy of this agreement will be emailed to you, as well as your order form once it is completed. Please note that this is completely for real and not a joke. Thank you for your patronage!' –Oh, ho, ho; that's a fancy word- 'Sincerely, Flying Mint Bunny Incorporated'… Well then."
Well, Clyde does like free stuff. Charlie thought while her finger hovered over the accept button under the paragraph. And Hetalia is an anime that Clyde likes. I saw some stuff that said Hetalia on Clyde's YouTube history. Plus, I didn't get the green giant a birthday present last time… It's settled.
Charlie clicked the accept button.
"Happy Birthday, Clyde." She said before filling out the order form.
"Name? Clyde Marshall. Age? 23. Gender? Male, Female, or Nun yah business? Nun yah business, perverts. Type of unit preferred? Original, 2p, Historical, Chibi, or Random? Let's go random. Form of unit preferred? Original, Nyo, Neko, Mochi, or Random? I understand two of those words… We're doing random again. Place of residence? Type, type, typity type. E-mail? Notgoingtosayitaloud . Blah, blah, blah… and done!" Charlie finished up the order form and clicked submit.
'Thank you!' That was the writing under the image of a cute green rabbit with wings.
"Alright, time for a movie." Charlie was now able to click out of the pop-up. "Ooh! New mystery movie? Oh, heck yes!"
"Right then," Clyde said, twirling Mrs. Hoffman's keys. "That was my last customer of tourist season. Now I can finally enjoy a little break."
~0~
A/N Yes, I have decided to jump on the train that is the Hetalia Unit craze, if it's even considered a craze. I already have in mind a few Hetalia characters I would like to include, but the rest is up to you readers. If you want a certain character in this story, message me or tell me in the reviews.
However, I am still new to the fandom so please be patient with me. I would love to discuss adding in a character with any of you and it would really help this story.
Updates will hopefully be once a week on either Friday night or Saturday afternoon.
Thanks for reading, see yah.
