Prologue
From the outside, it was an ordinary house. Two stories high, no less than sixty years old, and faced with slowly crumbling brick. It stood on a block with many similar houses nearby the local college campus of DeLouis University. Of course, it wasn't the house itself that people found interesting; it was the five guys living in it.
The first people to rent rooms in the house were Mathias Køhler, a 21-year-old journalism major, and Lukas Bondevik, a 20-year-old environmental studies major. The last house they stayed in got knocked down, so they were looking for another place to stay for the upcoming school year when they came upon this house. Because of its less than desirable condition, none of the rooms in the house had been rented out yet.
"Mat, this place is piece of shit," Lukas whispered to his childhood friend while they were looking around the house.
"I know, but it's a piece of shit we can afford," Mathias replied with a grin. Lukas couldn't argue with that logic.
Naturally, as college students, they were short on cash. This turned out to be a huge deal breaker with them when they looked at different places. Another deal breaker was if there was only one room available. They'd been friends for so long that they were practically attached at the hip. They'd been this way since Lukas was in 6th grade and Mathias was in 7th. Mathias was the first friend Lukas had made since moving from Norway, even though he had sort of forced his presence on the younger boy at first. Lukas never said it out loud, but he appreciated Mathias' company, especially since his English wasn't very good at the time. Mathias' parents had come from Denmark, so he vaguely knew Danish which was similar enough to Norwegian that he could sort of understand Lukas when he spoke his native language.
Mathias and Lukas didn't have the house to themselves for long, though. The next guy to rent a room was Berwald Oxenstierna, a 21-year-old computer science major. Berwald and Mathias had dormed together their freshman year and quite frankly, they couldn't stand each other. Their relationship got better with time and at this point they could almost call each other friends. Almost.
The next day, Berwald asked Mathias and Lukas if they were okay with letting his ex-boyfriend who he was still kinda friends with rent a room.
"I don't know if that's a good idea," Lukas warned, "Maybe instead of asking us whether or not we care, you should be asking yourself if you're truly comfortable with living with your ex."
"It should be fine, we're friends now," Berwald replied. He had a distinct accent, despite the fact that he'd moved to America from Sweden seven years prior. That, coupled with the fact that his voice was deep and he had a tendency to mumble, made him slightly difficult to understand when he spoke.
"If you say so. You're free to make your own mistakes; I don't care one way or the other, but don't say I didn't warn you."
The ex-boyfriend in question was Tino Väinämöinen, a 19-year-old music history major. He and Berwald dated in high school, when Tino was a freshman and Berwald was a junior, a year after Tino had moved from Finland. They dated for a little over a year and a half before breaking up messily two months before Berwald left for college. The break up affected both of them and almost four years later they still held slight grudges towards the other. They've tried to maintain a friendship since then, but their relationship was strained.
As Tino was moving in, Lukas got a phone call from his aunt insisting that he find his cousin a place to stay as they were conveniently going to the same school. He had no choice but to agree because he was afraid that if he didn't, she would tear him a new asshole. His cousin was coming in from Iceland specifically for school and his hysterical aunt didn't want him to dorm because she didn't trust anyone going to the school except for Lukas. Lukas thought that she didn't trust her son to take care of himself, but he never told her that out of politeness.
About a week later, Emil Bondevik, an 18-year-old psychology major, moved in and subsequently filled the last room. The guys pretty much had to the house to themselves, except for the attic where their eccentric German landlord, Gilbert Beilschmidt, lived.
He was old enough to be any of the guys' grandfather, but tried to act like he was in his 20's (which didn't always work and kinda came off as creepy). He was aware of his age though, having said on several occasions "I was alive back when the awesome country of Prussia existed", leading to a lot of confused looks and a certain Danish-American boy attempting to ask "where the hell is Prussia?" before getting stopped by his best friend's hand over his mouth.
Gilbert trusted the guys for the most part, his only ground rules being 'don't break anything' and 'don't burn the house down'. Once all the papers were signed, he stayed out of their way. Berwald had then taken it upon himself to add some more house rules, being that everyone was responsible for himself, that everyone was entitled to their privacy in their own rooms (he stared at Mathias intently when saying this, knowing from experience that he didn't do privacy well), and that for the love of Odin to keep the goddamn bathroom somewhat clean.
Considering that most of the houses on the block rented out rooms to commuters, the kids started naming their houses. Notable examples were: the Palace of Awesome (which housed narcissists), Where Dreams Go to Die (which housed pessimists), 420 (which housed potheads), and the Fem Shrine (which housed girls who may or may not be lesbians). Almost immediately, the five guys thought of the perfect name for their house, a name that would capture the uniqueness of its inhabitants and define their cultures.
The Nordic House.
Let the insanity begin.
A/N: Welcome to the Nordic House! Things are only gonna get crazier from here on out. I'm splitting the chapters into months, starting with August which I will probably put up tomorrow if I'm not incredibly lazy. After that, you're gonna have to wait for the next chapter, which may take a while depending on how busy (or lazy) I am.
As you can tell, this is going to be an ensemble fic with lots of characters and, you guessed it, lots of pairings. The main four pairings are: DenSu, NorxFem!Can, ArmFin, and Fem!HongxIce. Other pairings that pop up are: Fem!USxUK, AusHun, CanUkr, LietBel, RusxFem!Prus, GiriTurk, and NethxFem!Spa. There might be more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.
I warn you now that my interpretation of the characters may seem a bit strange for those used to canon, but I figure I have some leeway considering that this is a human!AU. I had to modify the guys' characters a little bit so they would act like college students as opposed to countries. Speaking of which, DeLouis University doesn't exist, last time I checked. If it does, please tell me so I can make up another ridiculous name for a university (because no American university that I know of would be quite as diverse as a Hetalia university XD).
That's all for right now. I hope you like what I have so far, even though it isn't much right now. Hopefully you'll stick around to watch the shenanigans these five get into go down. I'm a little nervous putting this up, since it's my first serious(ish) fanfic, but I looked over it quite a few times and I think it'll go over well. See you next time for August!
-Christy
