A/N: I don't own Hetalia

Matthew opened his eyes blearily and blinked a few times. It has been a week since Lars and Lovino's fight. Matthew had no clue whatsoever how he managed to do it, but Lovino seemed to start to like (or at least not hate) him. Lovino would even snap at the other crewmen who forgot Matthew was there or couldn't see him (Gilbert did that, too, but thinking about the albino doing that for him made Matthew blush).

He turned his head over towards his bunkmates. They were still sleeping, unsurprisingly, but it did mean that Matthew would have to wake them up. The first time he did it was a terrifying experience. It seemed that for the first few seconds after someone wakes them up (if they woke up on their own it wasn't the case), Feli and Lovino would switch personalities, but never for more than a few seconds. Lovino acted cheerful and sweet (which was disconcerting enough) and Feli would glare at everyone and even swear. After two seconds or so they would resume their usual personalities but Matthew still got thrown off by it. He decided not to tell anyone (because they probably wouldn't believe him anyway).

After a few seconds of just lying in bed, Matthew decided that he might as well get it over with. He walked over to the brothers' shared bed and bent over to shake them awake. That was when he saw it. The blood. A lot of it.

Matthew shook them awake frantically. "Wake up! Wake up!" What if they were unconscious? That was a lot of blood to lose. How did they even get injured? Whatever it was it must have been horrible!

Lovino was the first to wake up and he looked up at Matthew with bright eyes. "Hmm? What's wrong, Mattie?"

Feli woke up with a groan. "Fuck off… You two are too damn loud," and he pulled a pillow over his head.

"Are you guys okay?" Matthew asked. "You guys are bleeding! Really badly!"

Lovino looked down and swore rather colorfully. He looked up at Matthew. "Get bandages. And do not tell a single fucking soul."

Matthew zipped out of the room and frantically passed a few other crewmen who acted like they saw a ghost as he passed by them. He grabbed several rolls of bandages from where they were stored and started heading back to their bunk. In his haste he ran into something. Or someone. A certain, albino someone.

"Mattie! What's wrong? You look like someone's dying or something."

"Gilbert!" Matthew squeaked and he felt his cheeks warm. As much as he loved to stay and talk with him, he had to get these bandages to Lovino and Feliciano! What if they were bleeding to death as they spoke? "Uh… Nothing's wrong, eh."

Gilbert furrowed his pale eyebrows. "Then why do you have so many bandages, Mattie?"

"Ah… well you see… uh, Lovino got a gash on his shin… he's alright though, but… Feli is freaking out and I got these bandages to help him calm down."

"It must be some gash," Gilbert said as he eyed the rolls of bandages in Matthew's arms.

"Oh, it's not really… but, uh, Feli probably won't calm down until I bring this many so I... figured I might as well get them all in one trip!" Why was he such a horrible liar? "Now, uh… if you don't mind, I need to get to the two of them… Or else Feli might start screaming about his fratello being hurt…"

Gilbert stepped aside and Matthew rushed past him.

He hurried into the room and shut the door behind him. "I have… the bandages…" he panted out as he held up the bandages.

Lovino grabbed them and Matthew finally caught his breath. "Do you need help with those?"

"No!" Lovino said (rather too quickly). "Leave now so we can use these."

"How about I just turn around in case you need more?" Matthew offered.

Lovino narrowed his eyes. "Fine, but if you look I will kill you."

Matthew turned around and faced the corner. It was rather strange, really, how Lovino and Feliciano behaved (and how Lovino reacted to certain things). They would never change when he was in the room (even though they were all males, right?), Lovino refused to let anyone touch him or his brother (even though Feli would still hug people), and if anyone made a comment about how small or weak the two brothers were, Lovino would go up to them and show just how weak he was. And now, with their injury, Lovino demanded absolute secrecy. It was a really odd way to behave… unless…

The pieces clicked together in Matthew's mind and he interrupted one of Feli's comments about pasta, "I hope you don't mind me wondering, but by any chance are you two girls?"

This was met by silence until Matthew heard several thuds coming in his direction and Lovino grabbed him by the shirt collar. Lovino hissed, "If you even think about telling someone I can and will kill you and that person and make it look like an accident."

"I w-wasn't planning on t-telling anyone and I w-won't," Matthew managed to stammer out. Lovino (if that was even his (her?) name) could be absolutely terrifying.

Lovino nodded once.

"Veee, how did you know, Mattie?" Feli asked.

"I just kind of thought about it and took a guess," Matthew said. "But how do you hide it so well?"

"Hide what so well?" Lovino raised an eyebrow.

"Just…" Matthew grasped for the right words, "Your gender in general… Like you are perfectly fine with physical labor and your shapes don't give you away and you act the part very well…"

Lovino snorted. "We did do chores in our old lives. It's not like working is completely new to us."

"Veee, and we wear bandages around our chests and loose clothes," Feli added.

"Then explain how you can act as brothers when you are really sisters," Matthew said.

"It's not that different really. I watch out for my sorellina and we help each other out," Lovino said. "It would be the same if we were brothers."

"No," Matthew said, "I mean, you two don't stumble over things such as calling each other 'he' instead of 'she' and Feli always calls you 'fratello' instead of 'sorella'. It's not like you can just start doing something like that when you are so used to the opposite."

"Veee, we have lots of practice!"

"Where did you get this practice, though?"

Lovino glared at Matthew. "Before we ran away we would sneak out and act as boys so we could actually do what we wanted to. We would dress like we do now and tuck all of our hair under caps."

"What did you run away from?" Matthew couldn't help but ask all of these questions. It just seemed like getting one answer would give him yet another question he needed answered.

"Our bastard of a father," Lovino said. She didn't look happy to mention him.

"What did he do?"

"He ignored our existence for all of our lives until he tried to marry us off." Lovino crossed her arms.

"Who did he try to marry you off to?"

Lovino just stood there and glared at the wall behind Matthew.

"The princes, vee," Feli said. "But we don't like them much. They never could tell us apart and they were mean to sorella."

"They were jerks to you, too, idiota," Lovino spat.

"Vee, they were?" Feli cocked her head to the side.

"Wait, hold on a second," Matthew said and the sisters looked at him. "If you two were engaged to the princes, then that means you're nobility, right? Isn't anyone searching for you?"

"Of course there is," Lovino said. "Why do think I agreed to have Feli and I join the crew?"

Matthew nodded. It made sense, after all. Lovino didn't seem the type to jump at the chance to be a pirate. "But if you're a nobleman's daughters, why did you do the chores you say you did?"

"Veee, there was this really nice, really old lady who sold her crops in the market when we dressed as boys we would help her and carry all of the heavy things and did all of the things she couldn't," Feli chirped. "And if we did a good job she would give us some of her tomatoes!"

Matthew smiled at Feli. "That sounds nice." He looked at the two of them. "Can I ask you two what your real names are?"

"Feliciana and Lovina, ve~" Feli said.

"But if people are looking for you, shouldn't you have more different names to make yourselves less suspicious?" Matthew asked.

Lovino (Lovina?) glared at Matthew. "What do you think is more suspicious: the two of us having similar names to a nobleman's missing daughters, or the two of us stumbling over our names when we're tired or stressed and supposed to be twins who shouldn't mess up each other's names? We mess up less when are names are more similar to our real ones. No more questions." It wasn't a request.

Matthew nodded. "Fine, let's get to work, then. And if I promise to help you and not to tell anyone, will you agree to not kill me or injure me horribly?"

Lovina thought about it for a second and then nodded. "Deal."

"Oh, and before you go out you might want to put some bandages on your shin," Matthew added sheepishly.

Lovina raised an eyebrow. "Why on my shin?"

"Because Gilbert stopped me on my way back when I was carrying all of the bandages, and he wouldn't let me go past until I told him what they were for," Matthew said.

Lovina gave him a look. "And you told him I hurt my shin?"

"It was the best lie I could come up with on such short notice!" Matthew argued.

Lovina sighed. "Did you say which leg in particular?"

Matthew shook his head, "But why…" he started to ask, but he stopped when he saw Lovina walk over to her bed, roll up her pants leg and slam her shin into the corner of the frame.

She held out her hand. "Feli, bandages."

Feli passed her sister the bandages with her eyes wide. "Veee, sorella, why did you hurt yourself?"

Lovina looked up at Feli and Matthew when she finished wrapping the bandages around her now bloody shin. She smirked. "Wouldn't it be rather suspicious if Matthew said I was injured and I ended up being perfectly fine?"

Matthew didn't have anything to say to that.

^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^

Gilbert thought Mattie was acting strange. Sure, he tended to get nervous, but that back there was worse than usual. Gilbert didn't want Mattie to feel nervous or afraid. Only because he was awesomely looking out for him! Because that's what awesome people do for not-quite-as-awesome-but-still-pretty-awesome people.

Fingers snapped right in front of his face. "Gil, you're zoning out again."

Gilbert looked up and out from his awesome thoughts. "My bad, Antonio."

Antonio rolled his eyes. "You know you're supposed to call me 'captain'."

"But I'm also an awesome captain so I shouldn't have to," Gilbert said.

"You used to be an 'awesome captain'," Antonio corrected.

"Hmph. Damn, un-awesome Braginsky…" Gilbert muttered.

Antonio laughed (how un-awesome of him). "As much as I'd like to curse him out with you, what was bothering you a minute ago?"

"Mattie was acting really worried and nervous about something this morning," Gilbert said.

"Fusosososo~ You would know, wouldn't you, Gil?" Antonio smirked.

"What are you implying?" Gilbert asked. And no, he was not blushing. The awesome Gilbert did not blush. Ever.

"I'm not implying anything~" Antonio practically sang. He smirked at Gilbert again. "Did you ever find out what was worrying your dear Matthew?"

Gilbert glared at Antonio. But then he got an idea of something to say to bother his friend. "Ja, he was carrying all of these rolls of bandages."

Antonio raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Who was injured?"

Now was Gilbert's turn to smirk. "Lovino."

Antonio immediately started to walk in the direction of where Lovino was supposed to be working.

Gilbert put a hand on Antonio's shoulder and pulled him around to face him. "Kesesesese~ why so worried, captain? He's just another crewman, right?"

Antonio stopped and his cheeks started to pink. "R-right. M-most definitely. What would make you think otherwise?" He laughed nervously.

Gilbert smirked again. "No reason~"

A/N: Another chapter! Poor Matthew... he didn't do anything wrong and yet he's still getting death threats from Lovina... And the next chapter will be amusing, very amusing indeed. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! (Don't ask why I did an evil laugh... They're just fun to do)

Thank you to everyone who favorited, followed, or reviewed! :D