Author's Notes: This is just a random fanfic I came up with for Halloween. The idea just popped up when I was watching "You, Me and Prussia" on Youtube. I suggest you watch it, too.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia, HetaOni, and Me, You and Steve
Breathing hard, Hungary set down another chair against the door. She stepped back and surveyed the barricade of furniture she had stacked against the entrance of room. Surely, there was no way that the monster could get in now.
"I think we're safe," she said, turning towards where she had left Austria.
He continued to sit wordlessly in front of the unlit fireplace, seeming not to hear her at all. If he did hear her or anything at all, he showed no sign of it, remaining still and quiet. It seemed that the monster could have burst into the room and he would still be sitting there, silently watching the non-existent flames dance upon the blackened remains of wood.
Slightly unnerved by how he seemed to see something she didn't, Hungary went over to where he sat, but he did not seem to acknowledge her presence and continued to stare off into the fireplace. It was wrong how it seemed that everything had just disappeared all of a sudden and was replaced by something else entirely that she could neither see nor hear. She needed to see him respond; it didn't matter if it was in anger or surprise as long as he did. One way or another, he was going to acknowledge that she was there. He just had to.
Wordlessly, she smashed a chair against the wall, sending broken wood flying through the air, but Austria did not even seem to notice what she had done at all. Even as she collected the pieces and set them alight in the fireplace, he continued to stare as if nothing at all had changed in the room. As the flames sprang up to devour whatever it was that he might have been looking at, he still continued to look on, as if what he had been seeing was still there and not consumed by fire. In defeat, Hungary sat down beside him and watched him.
He was paler than he usually was, almost like bleached bone, contrasting starkly with the dark shadows the fire cast about his face. He had lost a lot of blood and was still losing more if the red stain seeping through the white cloth of the apron she had tied around his midsection as a makeshift bandage was anything to go by. It would be a surprise to anyone else that he was still able to sit up at all, but Hungary knew more than anybody that, despite his claims of weakness, Austria was stubborn enough to pretend he did not feel pain when he wanted to. Still, she knew that there was something far more worrying than the simple fact that he did not wish to acknowledge his injuries.
It was the house; it was making them all insane. She knew what exactly what the house was capable of. With her own eyes, she had witnessed the results it had on those who had been trapped within. She had seen how Italy, who had once been naïve and cheerful, with a smile always ready for everyone, had been completely changed, from a boy without a worry in the world to a soldier whose smile seemed to hide so much pain; she could only imagine what it must have been like to watch everyone die again and again to be left all alone and repeat the cycle once more. Even America, who used to not take anything seriously, had seemed to change, his declarations of becoming a hero sounding different from how it had before. The house had changed all of them so much. She was lucky, having only gone through one time loop, the one they were currently in, although she had heard enough of their stories to know the true horror of the house and the monster that inhabited it. Like her, Austria had only been through one time loop, but, already, it seemed to have affected his mind.
She didn't like seeing him so broken. Austria was supposed to be proud, even in the face of hopelessness and defeat. The way he looked so soullessly into the flames with unfocused eyes wasn't right.
"Are you alright?" she finally asked, placing a hand on his shoulder with just enough force to make him jump.
When he turned to face her, her heart nearly sank to see how he looked at her without recognition. He continued to scrutinize her face for a few moments before she saw a look of realization enter his eyes. With a nod as if to confirm that he did know her, he reached out to touch her cheek, his fingers lightly trailing over her skin. Almost too soon, his fingers left her face and went to her shoulder, causing a slight stinging where he touched her.
"You're hurt," he said, holding up his hand to show her the blood on his fingers.
Hungary smiled, happy that he was finally talking. "Don't worry. It's only a shallow cut."
"You're hurt," Austria repeated. He ran his thumb over his fingers, smearing the blood around. "You're hurt because of me."
Hungary didn't like how he sounded so defeated. She wondered where the boy she had beaten up when she was younger, the warmonger who continued to fight even though he lost almost just as much as he won, had gone. He didn't need to worry about her. She was strong enough for the both of them. With her frying pan in her hands, she would defend him, just like she had when they had been married and the Austro-Hungarian Empire still stood.
"I'm okay," she told him. "Don't worry about it."
"I cannot bear to see you hurt," Austria said. "For so long, you have protected me. Sometimes, I wish that I could protect you."
"Austria…" Hungary breathed, touching his face. "You don't have to worry about me."
"But there are times that…" Austria said, looking at his hands. "I feel so useless. I don't understand why you put up with me. I'm just a burden to you."
Hungary grabbed his jabot and tugged him forward, a small smile on her lips. "Never think such things."
She leaned forward to kiss him, the insanity of the house but a distant worry for the moment. As she moved to close the space between them, every sound in the room suddenly seemed to be magnified. The ticking of the clock on the wall, the crackling of the fire, and the soft footsteps from the floor above them suddenly seemed so much louder than they should be. She could clearly hear two sets of breaths, her own soft and even and the other deep and much too loud.
She drew back suddenly, realizing that Austria had been holding his breath. She released his jabot and turned sharply to come face to face with a pair of bright, coal-black eyes that seemed to suck in her soul.
"W-what…?" she managed to say, inching away from the monster. "How did you get in?"
She glanced towards her still perfectly intact barricade. It was impossible unless it had been in the room all along, which she was sure it hadn't, or it had somehow passed through the walls. She looked upwards, remembering that Italy had said that it sometimes dropped from the ceiling, but she could see no way to enter through there.
"It's impossible," she said. She was sure she had kept the monster out this time.
She pulled out her frying pan and got ready to attack. She would kill the monster. She would die before she let it touch Austria. It would have to kill her before it could even dream of getting to him.
"Now, is that really necessary, Hungary?" Austria suddenly said. "Steve is my friend."
"B-but…" Hungary protested, still holding up her frying pan threateningly.
Steve was always there. It had attacked them when they first got into the house. It had been there everywhere they went. It had been in the library, in the kitchen, in the study, in the bedrooms, in the piano room, in the basement, in the attic, and even in the laundry room; the only rooms it had probably never been in was the room in the closet and the bathroom. Aside from those, Steve was everywhere.
She hated it with every fibre of her being. It was the reason that Austria was hurt. If it hadn't started that tug-of-war with her over him in the piano room, Austria would not have been hurt. There was no way that she was not going to attack it.
"Put it down," Austria said as if he was talking to a child.
Hungary reluctantly lowered her frying pan and looked back at Austria. "But…" she continued to protest.
"Steve is my friend," he said once more. "I happen to like Steve."
The house had driven him insane. Austria had truly gone mad.
Hungary could no longer take it and stomped towards the door, ignoring Steve as she passed by. There was really no way that he was taking the side of a stark-naked giant the colour of a rotten scone. If he really liked Steve that much, then she wouldn't get in their way.
"Now, where are you going?" she heard Austria say as she smashed through the barricade she had so carefully made.
Hungary kicked the door open. "Away!"
"YoU…ARe…JeAL...oUs…"
"Shut up, Steve!"
More Author's Notes: This was a random idea, but I cannot believe that nobody else had thought of doing it; I just could not resist. I apologize for my poor romance writing skills.
