Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1: The Netherlands are doing pretty well at the Winter Olympics! We even had the most medals at a certain moment, which is pretty awesome for such a small country. We're pretty much ruling over all speedskating contests and MAN, the Dutch are getting so damn cocky that I expect we're probably going to get disappointed the following days. Because karma.
Anyway, enough about my country. What about your country? How are your athletes doing? I'm curious! ^^

A/n2: It may be still Friday for some of you, but when I posted this chapter, I actually already had left my birthday behind me. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. *swirls finger*

A/n3: Maybe you don't like my wussy swooning over certain songs that I happen to do every now and then, but please bear with me one more time, I need to tell you this. Because I think it's wonderful. Yep. XDDDDD
I really enjoy listening to songs by Heavylight or Twenty One Pilots lately. For some reason, I always want to hear "House of Gold" by Twenty One Pilots when I'm writing on this fic. I don't know. I think it's fitting, I guess?
Oh, and "Any Moment Now" by Heavylight almost made me cry when I heard it for the first time – that's how wonderful I thought it was.
You should definitely try to listen to these bands, they really are mind-blowing and they blow my socks away also. Hurrah!

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 37:

Children have rights that adults do not have, and these rights come before the rights of adults.
Janne Haaland Matláry
(Norwegian scientist, writer and politician)

'Of course you can talk to me about your mind. About what's on it, that is.'

I looked at Antonio, fearing that I was flipping the hell out and stammering way too much, even though he hadn't said anything really alarming (yet). But come on, Antonio was being troubled by something, I could see it – and that was almost just as uncomfortable as talking a walk in a pitch-black park while only wearing your ugliest PJ's.

Don't do that, by the way. Live your life larger than that. Or at least prettier.

…

Moving on.

Antonio all of a sudden breathed out slowly – he was ready to talk.

'Lovino, I… I feel like something bad is going to happen to us. To us personifications, I mean. I can't really explain it – it's like there's this heavy weight on my chest that's trying to tell me to get out of here as fast as I can, before it's too late – but then there's also this other feeling, that tells me nothing's wrong at all and that's all inside of my head, and Luisa…'

I sat up. 'What about Luisa?'

'A few minutes ago, when she asked me if I could promise her to live forever, I couldn't do it.'

His hands were hastily put back on his lap, where they instantly started clawing at his pants. A silly, but mostly helpless gesture that told me he probably had been thinking about life and death almost as much as I had, ever since the children had come into our lives.

'I couldn't promise her I won't die, Lovi. I just couldn't.' He finally gathered enough courage to meet my worried gaze. 'Did she ask you this as well?'

'She did.'

'What did you answer her? Please don't tell me you promised her you'd live forever.'

I shook my head. 'How could I even think about answering something like that? My grandfather died, Antonio – and he was supposed to be just as immortal as the rest of us personifications. Although I've lived for quite a long time now, I'm still scared it might just… end one day. So I told Luisa I didn't know. I did promise her to give her my final answer later, though.'

'Later?'

'Yes, later. After I've studied more about it.'

'Ah,' Antonio said – and I could tell by the dimming of the fierce light in his eyes that he was calming down. 'You're planning to investigate whether we're really that eternal as everybody claims to be.'

'Yep.'

'How?'

'I've got no fucking idea.' I groaned and scratched behind my ear. 'Maybe I just need to keep my eyes open from now on, if you know what I mean. See what's happening around us. And I'd also like to know more about this PPSS-thing we've been hearing about.'

Antonio nodded and was silent for a moment. So was I. We sat and looked around the bus, where everybody was still happily doing whatever the crap they were doing, blissfully unaware of whatever was hanging above our heads, like the threatening sword of Damocles.

Or are they?

'I think,' I abruptly said out of nowhere, 'I think that everybody's feeling the same suffocating feeling we're feeling. Everybody's just too easy-going with all that has happened lately. We're accepting too much unexpected turns of event.'

'Why doesn't anybody talk about it, then?' Antonio wondered.

'Because all seems fine, I guess. Nobody wants to disturb something that seems fine – why would you worry about all the things that could go wrong, but is not said to actually indeed go wrong?'

'Huh… that's pretty deep.'

'No, it's pathetic.' I snorted. 'You shouldn't deny upcoming problems like that.'

'Maybe they're not denying them. Maybe they've already accepted them. Maybe they're just trying to make the best of it, now that there's still time left,' Antonio suggested.

'Then why the fuck aren't we doing that? Why are we talking about this while the rest doesn't, dammit? Why don't we pretend everything's a-okay?'

Antonio let out a warm chuckle and shuffled closer to me. 'We tried, Lovi. You know we did.'

'Yeah.' I closed my eyes for a minute and sighed, casually leaning against his shoulder.

'We're just not that good at faking,' I heard Antonio mutter.

'So,' I mumbled, 'what should we do, hm? Talk about it with the others? Or just keep silent?'

Antonio sneaked an arm around my waist. 'For now, we should do the same thing you told Luisa: wait and see what might happen, what answers we might discover. Let's just keep these talks to ourselves for now, and share them with the others, once enough time has passed. That way, everybody will have had their opportunity to think things over.'

I swallowed. 'Ah. So you also think these three months are like… like…'

'Like…?'

'You know,' I suddenly said, spontaneously straightening my back again and giving him this very serious look, 'whenever I'm playing a game, there's always this really easy level, right before the level with the great big boss begins – right?'

Antonio grinned apologetically. 'Ah, I don't play games – not since that time I broke the TV by snapping during a game and throwing the controller against the monitor like a giant infant – but I think I know what you mean, yes… go on?'

'Well… well, that's it,' I said. 'That's what this is. We're having a breather level right now, right before the boss level. We should prepare ourselves for the battle that's coming up – by buying weapons, healing items and by saving the ever-loving shit out of the game.'

'This isn't a game, though.' Antonio grimly said. 'We can't save.'

'But we can buy weapons and healing items.'

'Lovi, what the hell can you do with weapons and healing items after these three months have passed?'

I huffed and fidgeted with my shirt. 'Prepare to fight or something.'

'So that's what's going to happen after these three months are gone. We're going to get attacked by Bowser.'

'…yes.'

'Oh that's cute.'

'Shut the hell up.'

Antonio laughed and grabbed my shoulder, pulling me close and pressing a kiss somewhere near my mouth but I wanted none of that, dammit, for he had made a fool out of me. And that's unforgivable!

'Fuck – don't you get all mushy and touchy-feely with me, you dweeb – you'll be sorry if we're really going to have to fight a giant dragon!' I hissed, angrily pushing his pursed-lips-face away from me. 'You'll regret mocking me! You'll—'

'Thank you, Lovi,' Antonio simply cut me off and now pressed his face against my shoulder.

I was totally flabbergasted, of course, and stared at him with my opened mouth, looking like a moron, until I cleared my throat and, finally, calmed down.

'What are you thanking me for, dammit,' I grumped, still allowing him to nuzzle my shoulder like that.

'You cheered me up.' Antonio raised his face. 'Like you always do when I'm feeling down.'

Nice, kind and soft compliments like these always had the biggest impact on me, so I blushed and muttered something like "yeah whatever" before I let Antonio's warmed-up hands guide my face to his, holding back a delighted sigh as he kissed and touched me.

'Ewwwww,' Luisa's voice suddenly reached our ears, and we stopped kissing to give our disgruntled daughter a teasing, maybe even provocative grin – before simply grabbing each other for another kiss.

\0o0/

And thus our already legendary quest to find the Holy Turkey began!

But it wasn't even slightly as epic and/or eventful as I had thought it would be, to be honest. Already after a few hours, I noticed that everybody was a lot more mellow (and with mellow I mean boring) than I had thought the other personifications would be.

I mean, normally, Hungary would freak us all out at least six-hundredth times during this trip. But she didn't even complain when, in the end, nobody wanted to participate with the freaky karaoke-shit she had intended to do with all of us. Sure, she smiled and swore we would all regret the day we ever set a single foot into the Magic Homo Bus, but after that, she just went back to reading her disturbing pornography and only paused from doing that for a minor nosebleed whenever Feliciano got too erotic with Mr. Muscle.

Austria wasn't much fun, either. The only thing I saw him do in the past few hours, was nagging at Germany he shouldn't forget to turn left/right/hit that old geezer on the road for bonus points (just kidding). Oh, and he sometimes said he wished he had his piano with him, for he had some trouble expressing his anger whenever Germany corrected him. So instead of playing Chopin on a real piano, he just aggressively air-piano-played Chopin. Or he was just spazzing the shit out. I'm not sure.

Germany and my stupid little brother were even less interesting to watch, because all Germany did was steer and sweat – gross – and all Feliciano did was crying his Pokémon cry ("Veeeeee") and telling Germany and Austria stories about adventures he had experienced that he actually never had experienced, because that's just Feliciano for you.

Femke and Russia continued sitting and talking about all kinds of psychological problems and at a certain point, they even fell asleep in a disgustingly gushy way that even made me think that a romantic relation between the biggest nation in the world and one of the most insignificant nations in the world could actually work out.

Liechtenstein didn't do much either, she seemed to have the time of her life just by watching the Netherlands watching his money, and when she, too, fell asleep against his broad body at a certain moment – and he carefully covered her up with a blanket that was so very thin it almost fell apart, but hey, at least it hadn't cost him too much money – I really felt like I had swallowed a truckload of sugarcubes – everybody acted just so damn sweet and normal, it was getting out of hand!

Luckily, there was France – annoying and fuckfaced as ever – to squeeze his butt in-between me and Antonio so he could talk to Antonio about some stupid thing that happened to him the other day ('I was walking outside with my precious little fille, Desiree, and you never know what happened to us as we walked, Antoine – the sun started shining even more fabulously, out of nowhere!'), and I was once again reminded of the fact that us countries were very strange beings, indeed.

Meanwhile, the kids all entertained themselves on their own weird, yet in a way peaceful ways: Anya and Mimi kept on roleplaying, Bas, Alejo and Wolfgang kept on gaming, Desiree had stopped running around to watch Matteo perform art on the bus windows – still naked – and Luisa was currently flipping through her favorite fairytale book.

And as for me, well, I just sat there and made mental notes about everything.

…

I mean, that's what you just read, for fuck's sake, so of course I didn't do much else besides of that. Christ.

Anyway, so everything was well and fucking boring, and I was just thinking about taking a nap – right after France had left, I would be crazy to fall asleep while he was still right next to me – when Luisa climbed towards me over Antonio and France's laps, dragging her book with her and giving me a very persistent pout.

'Papa Lovi,' she said as she plopped down on my lap like she fucking owned it or something, 'tell me a story.'

'What, you mean right now?' I said – because I actually didn't really feel like telling stories.

'Yea, tell a stowwy, papa!' Matteo all of a sudden exclaimed as well, proving he might had a slow brain but made up for that with his terrific couple of ears, and instantly abandoned his window drawing to make his way over to me, grinning excitedly at me as he sat down next to his sister and me.

Matteo's loud voice had attracted the attention of Alejo as well, who didn't even say anything when he found out I was going to tell a story – he just formed a little 'oh' with his mouth, dropped his gameboy and hastily joined his siblings.

'Okay, okay,' I sighed as I gave in, but smiled as well and helped Alejo up on the seat, 'then I guess I have no choice but tell you a story, huh.'

'A story, uncle Lovi?' I looked in front of me and there Mimi was, looking at me like I was the Holy Grail.

'Yeah?' I hesitantly answered. 'Is… that okay with you?'

'Of COURSE!' Mimi screamed, throwing her arms in the air. 'Allie told me! Allie told me!'

'What did Allie tell you?'

'That you tell the best fairy tales in the WOOOOOORLD!' She spread her arms to stress her point. 'Even better than my vati!'

'Psssssh,' Alejo sneered, 'uncle Germ-Germ's stories are stupid. Papa Lovi's stories rule.'

'Really?' Now, I stared right into the huge, blue eyes of Desiree, who tried to climb into my lap as well – still very, very naked, which gave me the creeps. I mean, sure, I was getting used at having to bathe Luisa, but that's it. I couldn't handle naked girls that weren't related to me, dammit.

Fortunately, France decided to interfere and yoinked Desiree away from me.

'Desi, Desi!' he said, shaking his head and daughter as well. 'Now why are you trying to mount Romano? And why are you naked – again? I thought I had told you that there's only one place where you can get undressed without annoying other people around you, and that's your room.'

'But papa, papa papa papa papa,' Desiree blabbered, swishing her limbs around her like an artsy ice-skater, 'you're always naked!'

France frowned and clacked his tongue. 'Such insolence! Desi, your irresistible dad's only naked when the situation asks for it!'

'The situation never asks for it,' I said.

'Oh come on now, Romano. The situation sometimes—'

'No.' I shook my head. 'Never, France.'

'But—'

'Ever.'

'Boo.' France pouted, but then turned to Desiree again. 'You see why I try to protect you from these men, mon canard? They have no sense of sexiness, let alone humor. So put your dress back on and continue your weird running up and down the bus activities.'

Desiree moped, but allowed her father to put on her little white dress – my god, she looked like a freaking bride – before she came sit with me and the other kids.

'That's not running up and down the bus,' France cleverly remarked, sulking.

Antonio smiled and patted him on the back. I wished he hadn't done that, now I needed to disinfect his hands later in order to get rid of all the fuckface-cooties, but what can you do.

'Lovi's really good at telling fairy tales, Francis!' Antonio informed his goatee-wielding friend. 'Just sit back and enjoy! And don't try to interrupt Lovino whenever his story seems to get a bit too… ambitious, because that usually only makes things worse.'

'Wait – what?'

But before Antonio could once again tell France about my wonderful storytelling skills, the other kids had also noticed something was about to happen – and in a matter of fucking minutes, all the kids sat next, on or around me, watching me with all those colorful eyes (majority was green, by the way – green eyes are supposed to be the rarest kind of eye color, well I call bullshit), waiting for me to open my mouth and take them on a magic trip to Story Land.

…

Wooooooow. Everybody was looking at me like I was a Messiah or something. The Messiah of Fairy Tales.

I couldn't help but grin. I mean, damn, I haven't felt my ego acting up this much since topping that Spanish god for the first time!

'Okay!' I therefore started, 'I'll tell you all a nice fairy tale. You remember the tale about the little mermaid that your German uncle told you a little while ago?'

'Nope,' Wolfgang said.

'No,' Desiree said.

'No,' Anya said.

'No,' Bas said.

'Naaaaah,' Matteo said.

I glared at Matteo. 'What do you mean, "naaaaah"? You were there when he told you the friggin' story, you little scatterbrain!'

'Ow yea.' Matteo giggled and high-fived himself for no appropriate reason.

'I remember!' Luisa cried out.

'Me too!' Alejo yelled as well.

'Me three!' Mimi chuckled. 'You heard that? Hey hey, uncle Lovi, you heard that? I said three and not too. Hee hee!~'

'Well anyway,' I carried on after giving Mimi a (hopefully) understanding "yes yes I get your lame joke ha-ha"-look, 'I'm going to tell you the real story of the little mermaid.'

'Ohhhhhhh,' a few kids very rightfully gasped.

'Brace yourself,' I heard Antonio mutter to France.

The poor, inexperienced Frenchman gave him this nervous look and wanted to say something, or wait, maybe he even wanted to flee, BUT IT WAS TOO LATE for I began.

\0o0/

'Once upon a time, deep, deep into the ocean, there lived a king. His upper body was of a human man, but his lower body looked like one of a fish. A fish, I tell you – how fucked up is that? Such bizarre creatures in this world!

Anyway, this king was no ordinary king – he was called King Merman, because nobody seemed to bother remembering his real name, probably because he had a really dumb name like Octavius or Triton or even Mitchell. Or something. Whatever. The other reason why he was called King Merman? Well… that's what he was: a merman. Very unsurprisingly, he ruled over mermen and merwomen and merboys (because why the fuck not) and, of course, mermaids.'

'Mermaids,' Mimi whispered, already sitting on the edge of her seat.

'Now, King Merman was a very handsome man. And he knew that. His wife, the beautiful Queen Merwoman (she probably was called Fortuna or Adeline or even Lindsey), knew that as well, and so, they slept together constantly. Sleeping with someone that's fucking nice to look at is no punishment, after all.'

'What kind of fairy tale is this?' France stammered – but was effectively ignored.

'The King and Queen ended up having lots of little babies, that all six turned out to be girls. Not just girls – no, extremely pretty, cute and therefore vain princesses that liked to brag about their beauty almost as much as their parents did. They truly were very conceited little bitches. Nobody in the Kingdom liked them. Hell, their mother even died shortly after the youngest princess was born – that's how bitchy they were.'

'A-ahahahaha, Lovi's on fire,' Antonio remarked with a strained grin, as France stared at me in disbelieve.

'I never thought mermaids were mean,' Anya said, while her hypnotic purple – dear god, why did she had to inherit all of Russia's looks – eyes slowly sucked my aura dry.

'Well, they were,' I explained, 'but that's normal. Their parents weren't that wonderful persons either, so yeah.'

'When do we get to hear about the princess!' Mimi complained.

I gave her this really angry look, which helped, thankfully, and she quit nagging.

So I carried on.

'There was a really stupid rule in the Kingdom of King Merman: whenever a merboy or mermaid turned 15 years old, he/she was allowed to go to the surface of the sea and have an adventure or something. Because the King and (meanwhile deceased) Queen had planned their children like people playing the Sims would plan their virtual family's children, there was only one year difference between all the daughters. Really convenient.

Naturally, since the princesses were such proud, selfish fish-beings, they made a contest about going up to the surface. The mermaid that saw the most awesome shit, was going to be called Supreme Bitch Princess by her loser sisters for the rest of her life – and that was a title all little princesses strive for.

When the eldest sister turned fifteen, she didn't even wait for the guests to come and congratulate her – no, the bimbo just told her grandma that they could dump all of the presents in her room and go fuck themselves, because she was going to that surface and damn her if she wasn't going to see the most awesome things ever.

When she returned, the others asked her what she had seen. She just grinned while stuffing her pretty face with coral-cake.

"The sun hadn't risen yet when I reached the surface of the sea, but that was okay. I saw a great city that was glowing from all the city lights. The moon was big and shiny and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen – apart from myself, that is."

The princesses listened in awe and were impressed – but not the youngest princess, for she happened to be the princess that was easily bored and very uneasily impressed by what the hell ever.

"God, that's all? You saw a stupid city? Wow, way to go, Nadia, no really. I have never see a city before – oh wait, I have, like our city down here. Give me break. I can't believe you spend your day so boringly."

"Shut your face, sis,' Nadia snapped at her in response. 'You're, like, so uncool.'

The next year, the second oldest sister went to the surface. Once again, the guests were neglected and the poor grandmother of the princesses was forced to perform some degrading dances, because how else was she supposed to entertain the rest, nothing was more fun to watch than a flailing old merlady, after all.

When the princess returned later that day, she, just like her elder sister, started bragging about what she had done.

"I saw some toddlers playing in the water, and since I'm ever so cool and friendly, I decided to swim with them. It was a lot of fun, only one kid drowned. Not too shabby, eh?"

The youngest princess laughed at her. "No way, you spend your time above the surface swimming? With kids? My god, Ethel, you really have no life whatsoever. Why didn't you swim with some cute, naked men instead? Because that's what I would've done if were you. Stupid frigid hag."

And then people had to grab a screaming Ethel to keep her from assaulting the youngest princess, because she would probably have slaughtered her wise-ass sister otherwise.

The following year, the third sister—'

'So wait – all the sisters wanted to get to the surface? Not just the main character?'

The rude and interrupting question came from France, who was actually beginning to enjoy the story and seemed more confused than ever.

'That's right,' I said, while moving Luisa and Alejo – both sat on my lap, very uncomfortable – a bit. 'Didn't you know that?'

He snorted haughtily. 'My dear Romano, was Hans Christian Andersen French?'

'No, he was Danish.'

'Exactly.'

I rolled my eyes. 'So you only know the Disney version? The American version? You know, the country you love so much?'

France's eyes widened and his jaw dropped, his hands gripping his face. In a way, he now kind of looked like that man on that painting, "The Scream", only with less trippy background colors.

I grinned. 'Yeah, that's what I thought.'

I could have rubbed this awful truth into the fuckface's face even more, but I decided that this was enough mental torturing for the guy, at least for now, and so I went on with the story.

'As I was saying, in the next year that followed, the third sister went to the surface. This time, some guests didn't even bother coming anymore, so there were less people that came to complain about it to the princesses' grandmother. She only had to endure a mere six hours of angry snapping instead of the usual eight, so that was a huge progress.

When the sister returned, all of her sisters instantly came sitting around her, like a huge aggressive mob, and forced her to tell about what was the most wonderful thing she had seen above the surface this day.

"If you trolls must know – the most wonderful thing that I have seen, was a flock of swans. They were almost right above me when I popped my head out of the water. It's getting pretty cold out there, you know, so they're probably flying south to spend their winter there. It was such a beautiful view! It…"

But then she could no longer make herself hearable, because the youngest sister was laughing so hard that she almost peed herself.

"You watched swans fly over!" she cackled. "Of all the shitty things you could possible do or see, you, my dear Irene, definitely did the most shittiest thing. Watching some stupid birds fly over. Shit. So, what, you just spend the rest of the day gawking at the air like some daft moron? That's fucking hilarious!"

"Of course I saw and did more!" Irene snarled, getting all red and flustered. "But the swans just happened to be the most wonderful things I had seen that day, you little accident!"

The youngest princess gasped. "Oh you did not just call me an accident, you dworf-nose – call me an accident one more time and I'll yank those pretty urine-colored strings you call hair out of your head!"

To everybody's relief, King Merman was just in time to separate the two raging sisters with his reasoning words and burly abs, and everybody could continue living their life in peace – at least, until the birthday of the fourth sister came lurking around the corner…'