Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.

A/n1:Well! I'm going on some sort of mini-holiday next week, but I'll be back in time for the next update. We're going to the sea, which is never really that far away when you're living in the Netherlands – after all, a big part of the country is lying below sea level, so yeah!

A/n2: England's giving more explanations! Still: don't buy everything he's saying. You just know something isn't quite right.
Also, I've received quite some questions about the names of the kids. If you really want to know them already, you should look up the final chapter of Bottoms Up – the names of the kids are mentioned there. You can say the dream-scene in Bottoms Up was some sort of… preview to this fic. Just so you know! ^^

A/n3: I wonder who many of you still know Doctor Tosca and Doctor Delgado? Okay, for those who don't know them yet/anymore: Doctor Tosca is Lovino and Feliciano's personal doctor and Doctor Delgado is Antonio's personal doctor. It's my headcanon that all the countries have at least one human doctor that knows about their situation and tries to help them where possible, because shit might happen in the country itself when the personification isn't feeling well.
Doctor Tosca is an intelligent, young Italian woman with a sarcastic sense of humor and huge… tracts of land. Doctor Delgado is an old, cranky and controversial Spaniard that dislikes kids, gay people and Lovino greatly and thinks Lovi's the source of all that makes Antonio feel ill. The more you know!~

~~ And Three Makes Five ~~

Chapter 10:

The soul is healed by being with children.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
(Russian author)

Needless to say, Antonio was looking pretty cranky when he, eventually, came back inside with the kids.

Especially when he found me, chilling in the living room with some nice, Italian wine and a tasty little snack just because I fucking could.

'Hey,' I greeted him, sipping from my Primitivo. 'You're back fast. Are they done playing already?'

Antonio grimaced and snorted, but didn't say anything right away. Underneath his arms, he held Moody Kid and Dumb Kid, who both looked dirty and muddy. Creepy Kid was walking next to him, tugging on his leg and blabbering excitedly about his brave quest to kill Don Donaldo (or so I assumed - I don't speak kiddish, after all).

'Did you have fun?' I sheepishly asked (a very disgruntled looking) Antonio.

He squeezed his eyes almost shut. I finally noticed the traces of tomato on his face.

'One of the boys pulled out my favorite tomato plant. The other boy wanted to rake the neighbor's cat to death. The girl then went to do a number two into the hole my poor tomato plant left. She screamed at me when I told her she should do that on the toilet and then rubbed a tomato in my face.'

'Oh,' I said. 'Well, you should be happy she didn't rub something else in your face.'

After that, I hastily looked away, my hands clasped over my mouth, desperately trying to muffle specific sounds that were coming out.

…

…

Oh god.

'Are you… laughing?' I heard Antonio ask after a short and loaded silence. I dared to look at him again, and ohhh Jesus, he looked so pissed and annoyed, I felt I needed to run away if I knew what was good for me, but I didn't.

'Pffffrrrrt… no I'm not laughing,' I instead tried to lie to him, but it was very difficult to be taken seriously when you're red from almost choking in your own laughter.

Antonio scowled. 'You are laughing. Here I am, all torn up, and you're laughing at my misery.'

'I-I'm not, dammit…' I choked out, '…I'm… I-I'm just very happy to see you!'

'Oh really now.'

'Yes… yes, really really!'

'Okay then!~'

Huh?

I glanced at his face. All of a sudden, Antonio was happily smiling again, looking like he didn't have a worry in the world. It was so unexpected and unsettling, it made me stop laughing right that instant.

'You okay?' I carefully asked as he put down the kids.

'Of course I am!' he said, nodding. 'Nothing makes me happier than watching you being very happy to see me!'

'Oh,' I said, immediately feeling a bit guilty.

'And yet, I don't think you're quite… happy enough.'

…

There was something wrong with that sentence. And there was something dark and evil shimmering through Antonio calm, green eyes.

Oh shit.

'W-what?' I stammered.

Antonio ignored me and crouched down, until he was at the same level as the kids around him. He smiled friendly at them.

'Okay kids, did you see how much Papa Lovi was laughing?'

I felt one of my eyes was starting to twitch. Papa Lovi – what the fuck?

However, the kids seem to be perfectly aware of what Antonio was talking about and they all obediently nodded, except for Dumb Kid, who happily shook 'no' with his head and bumped it against the wall.

'That's right, kiddo, he wasn't laughing that much at all! In fact, I think Papa Lovi is almost crying. Awww,' Antonio said.

'Baaaawwwwwww,' the kids repeated him.

'I'm not!' I protested. 'I feel fine!'

'Better go and make Papa Lovi feel better, kids!~ Good thing I know juuuuust what to do, namely, well…'

Antonio gave me another look and I'll be damned if that look wasn't the smuggest, most frightening thing I had seen that day.

'…we should tickle him.'

…

No.

No.

Just… no. Or actually, NOOOOO.

'You…' I slowly got off the sofa and swallowed, waving a finger at Antonio. '…you wouldn't fucking dare.'

He smirked. 'Watch me.'

All four now turned to me, some of them grinning, some of them giggling – but all of them more than ready to motherfucking attack me.

'You madman, you brainwashed them,' I whispered, horrified. 'Brainwashed them into thinking tickling is good. What a sick person you are.'

'Tell us when you're ready,' Antonio friendly informed me, half-heartedly holding back Moody Kid.

'Fuck,' I gasped and looked around me, looking for the nearest escape. Then Antonio started to laugh.

'Just kidding – we really don't care whether you're ready or not. LET'S GET HIM!'

And then he released the mini krakens.

\0o0/

Now, if I was Antonio, I would probably have shared all the evil things that had happen to me after he and the demon children had tackled me to the ground with his stupid, disgusting friends.

Like… telling them just how much I was yelling and trying to get away and stumbling over my own feet in my hurry to get – the – fuck – out – of – here.

Or laughing about how motherfucking petrified I looked when the four individuals started to tickle me at the same time, knowing all the places that would make me scream out the most.

Or grinning about how helplessly I was begging for mercy while laughing and gasping for breath at the same time.

Or gushing over how cutely Creepy Kid, Dumb Kid and Moody Kid were snickering and (supposedly accidentally) scratching me with their evil little fingers.

I'm not too sure he'd also tell his friends about the glorious fact his plan kind of backfired at a certain point, since the kids also started to tickle him into damnation after they found out they had more or less killed me, but I would tell them, and I would also say Antonio had soiled himself, ewwww, gross, even though he actually hadn't, but fuck that, I'm telling the story, dammit.

…

A-anyway…

After a long and loud tickle-fight, all five of us ended up lying on the ground, panting, completely out of breath and surrounded by pillows and tired limbs and stuff that was once standing on a table, but now not anymore. All I could hear was heaving breathing, and that was a fucking relief, because it meant everybody was out of energy, so no more tickling. Hooray!

At least now I could think of a way to brutally kill Antonio without having to fear for my life.

'Well, that… that was…' said Spanish bastard tried to say, wheezing.

'I can't feel my fucking lungs,' I cut him off with a high, shrill voice. 'I can't feel them anymore! They're… they've imploded into tiny bits. You, Antonio, have made my lungs implode into tiny bits. You assfuck!'

Antonio groaned, trying to get up. 'Language, Lovi – seriously, pay attention to what you're saying when the kids are around!'

I growled and wanted to tell him he could suck my massive dick, but then I felt something soft press on top of me.

With the last bit of strength I had in me, I lifted my head a bit – and I suddenly stared right into the face of Dumb Kid, smiling broadly at me, resting his chin and the rest of his head on my chest.

'Papa Lovi?'

I blinked. 'Y-yes?'

The kid smiled, now with his eyes as well, as if I had given him the answer he had been looking for all day, before he yawned and rubbed his head against me.

'Ehehehe.'

…

…

…

I-I was never going to get up from this cold floor, was I.

\0o0/

Eventually, me and Antonio got up from the floor – don't ask me how long it took me to decently get up though, 'cause it's seriously hard when there's a kid lying on top of you – and now, we were bringing the kids back to their (temporary?) bedroom again.

'So… I guess I'm… Papa Lovi, then,' I muttered, carefully walking upstairs with a half-asleep Dumb Kid dangling in my arms.

'You're Papa Lovi, yes,' I heard Antonio say, who was also climbing the stairs just behind me.

He carried both Creepy Kid and Moody Kid. They were awake, or at least more awake than their brother, but the fact that they didn't complain when Antonio announced they were going back to bed earlier, proved they indeed were very tired as well.

'Silly Lovi!~' Antonio laughed when I told him that. 'Kids who throw a tantrum after hearing they have to go to bed are much more exhausted, most of the time! They just don't want to admit that. That's why they'll start acting like little monsters: to prove they are still full of energy. But they really, really aren't.'

I snorted and rolled with my eyes. 'Ohh, thanks for this enlightening insight on kids and kicking their asses to bed, Papa Toni.'

…

…

…now what did I just sarcastically say?

Because I can be such a stupid moron, I naively hoped Antonio hadn't heard what I had just said – but of course he had, dammit, and that's why I noticed he just couldn't stop smiling like some sort of drugged douchebag as we entered the kids' bedroom.

'Would you please stop that!' I hissed at him, putting Dumb Kid in bed.

'Stop doing what?' Antonio grinned. He placed Moody Kid and Creepy Kid next to Dumb Kid. While Dumb Kid instantly seemed to be asleep – like snap – the other two didn't, but they weren't too wiggly either.

…

Let's hastily cover them up and hope that's a good thing, then.

\0o0/

'Papa Toni…' Antonio sighed dreamily when we left the room a little while later. 'I'm Papa Toni. That sounds very good. I could get used to a name like that!~'

'It's a stupid name,' I naturally had to nag.

'But you made it up, Lovi!' Antonio annoyingly pricked his finger into my cheek. 'You called me Papa Toni. How cute!~'

'It's not cute at all, dammit, it's… it's… get away with that finger!' I slapped his finger away from me, '…i-it was only logical to call you Papa Toni, if you and the kids are going to call me Papa Lovi. I mean, t-they're also your kids. Put one and one together, moron.'

'Yes, that's two, and then add three, and that makes five!' Antonio happily shared his infinite weirdo-knowledge.

'What the fuck are you even saying,' I grumbled.

'Ah, you know what I mean. And I know what you mean, Lovi. You're right, if they're calling you Papa Lovi, they should call me Papa Toni. It's that easy.'

'T-that's what I'm saying, dammit…'

Antonio smiled and grabbed my hand. He didn't do anything weird with it after that – he just took it and held it, even while we were descending the stairs.

I hesitated. My natural instincts were, as always, yelling at me to free my hand from Antonio's kind grasp, since I'm fucked up like that. But everything else was telling me to shut up and keep walking like this, because it had been a while since the last time we had walked hand in hand this peacefully.

Scratch that – it had been a while since the last time we walked hand in hand at all.

So I ended up casually yet shakily twisting my hand, so that I could hold his hand just as friendly as he was holding mine. Or… or something.

Like this, we walked to the living room, once again, and sat down on the couch. We didn't say anything, we didn't even turn on the television or felt each other up – 'cause that's what we usually do when we're here and wondering what to do – no, we just… sat. And stared. And held hands. And… breathed and shit.

And all was quiet.

…

Until we, almost at the same time, heaved the heaviest sighs in the history of sighs – I could swear I saw the leaves of the big fern in front of the couch swaying like there was an insane hurricane going on.

Antonio slumped down and rested his head on the back of the couch. 'You know what's bothering me the most right now, Lovino?'

'I don't know, it's either that killed tomato plant or that little "present" the girl left you in the garden.' I glanced at the room next to the living room. 'Or you're bitching about the kitchen.'

'Well, you didn't really clean it, did you. You just dumped everything into the sink.'

I turned to him, my forehead wrinkled in pure, raw fury. 'Hey, you can't expect me to fucking—'

'But no, Lovino, rest at ease, that's not what's bothering me. The most.' He thought about it, scratching his head. 'I mean, all that you pointed out is bothering me, yes, but there's something else that's bothering me the most.'

'What the fuck is it?' I huffed, spitefully tugging my hand out of his. Ha, that would teach him to look down on my amazing cleaning skills, dammit.

'The kids.' Antonio now looked so puzzled, he didn't even seem to mind I didn't hold his hand anymore. 'They are supposed to be ours, but we don't even know their names. We know nothing about them, except that they happen to look a lot like us. And sometimes act a lot like us. But not all the time. Do you understand what I mean?'

'Kind of,' I nodded – and nonchalantly took hold of his hand again, because if he wasn't going to pay attention anyway, I might as well just hold on to it a little longer.

Antonio indeed didn't notice and groaned softly. 'And they don't talk. Have you noticed that as well? I haven't heard them say a whole sentence yet. Can they even talk?'

'Yes, they can. That dumb-looking kid, he—'

I paused midsentence, because thinking about that moment again made me feel strange, but not-necessary-bad things I had never felt before.

'He called you Papa Lovi.' Antonio finally shared a feeble, but honest smile with me and gripped my hand a bit tighter. 'That's right, he did say something.'

'Maybe,' I started, 'maybe we should go see Doctor Tosca tomorrow. She might know what's the problem. She can help.'

'We could also ask Doctor Delgado—'

'No, that old, cranky bastard hates me and he hates kids and he will probably murder me if he finds out we have suddenly have become dads with kids looking partly like me running around the House.'

He clacked his tongue in understanding, which was a really weird thing to do. But I knew he meant to clack his tongue in understanding, so that probably made me the weirdest one here.

'Okay, we'll go visit your doctor tomorrow, Lovi. We'll…'

And then the phone – one of the abstractly-shaped phones Antonio had collected, they were still here, yes – started to ring.

\0o0/

It was England.

I knew, because Antonio, who had answered the phone, instantly pushed the horn in my face after picking up, his whole expression blank and cold and kind of dead-ish.

'What do you want,' I snarled as soon as I put the horn to my ear.

A short silence. Then I heard a bitter laugh.

'Ah. So Spain instantly gave you the telephone when he heard it was me, didn't he.'

I looked at Antonio, who still looked awful.

'God, you should see how gray he's looking right now. He looks like motherfucking concrete now, dammit,' I told England. 'I can build a house with that much concrete.'

'You never make sense, you peculiar little tosser,' England said. 'Also, it's grey – not gray.'

I frowned. 'How did you even hear I said gray and not gre — you know what, whatever. And what the fuck, I don't make sense? At least I didn't randomly drop kids at your place to screw up your life, you bastard.'

'Oh no, please don't start yelling at me.' The Englishman moaned. 'Romano, I've been chewed out by so many countries already at this point, I almost feel sorry for all the chewing gum in the world. You have no idea how horrible I feel at this point.'

'You've called the other countries as well?'

'Well, yes. After the meeting had ended, I… felt like I hadn't given you all a proper apology, so, well… I'm sorry.'

England hated saying sorry, I knew from experience, so this relatively easy-spoken apology surprised me.

'Did you practice on saying sorry, England?'

'Sort of – it gets easier after saying it to dozens of nations that all wanted to drink my blood.'

'Okay. Thanks for offering your apologies. Too bad we don't want them.' I sounded so damn cool when I was acting like an arrogant asshole on the phone. 'Anything else to say before I smack down the phone and ritually burn it?'

'You know, saying those kinds of things actually rather frighten me, Romano, even if it's just an outing of your bizarre sense of humor. And yes. I do have more to say to you – and Spain, if he's still there.'

'No, he's outside, sharpening his biggest axe now.'

'Are you talking about me?' Antonio, still sitting on the couch, confusedly said.

'Sssh Antonio – just sharpen that axe.'

On the other side of the line, I heard England, swallowing. 'H-he's what?'

'Never mind – look, England, just tell me what you need to tell me and we're good, okay?' I sighed. I had enough of this conversation. I wanted it to end already.

'Right.' England was quiet for a little while, but then he took a deep breath. 'Alright, I also needed to tell you that you have to go to one of your personal doctors tomorrow. I'm surprised you haven't gone to one already today, but who am I. Anyway, your doctor will need to perform some basic DNA-like tests and all that nonsense and poppycock on the children, because we want to figure out just what kind of species they are. Both your and Spain's doctor are already informed about the situation, so everything should go smoothly.'

'Okay. We were planning to visit my doctor tomorrow, so don't you worry your badly-combed, bushy eyebrows about that,' I said. 'Was that it?'

'No – just one more thing.'

I grumbled and leaned against the couch. 'Yes?'

'You're probably wondering why you and Spain have three kids, right?' England asked.

'Yes, but I guess that's because you hate us. Hate us very much.'

'No no, don't be silly, I don't hate you ijits – I just really, really dislike you.'

'That's a relief.'

'Anyway… the reason you and Spain have three kids is because, well… as you know, my experiment kind of went wrong. Instead of creating one perfect child, I ended up making lots of imperfect children. So there are some flaws, here and there.'

'How could that even happen!'

'There may or may not have been alcohol involved.'

…

May or may not. Ohh, that's… clear.

'…so basically, you're saying you were drunk?' I asked.

I heard England huff in annoyance. 'I'm just saying that… according to the notes I made while being…spiritual drugged – don't ask me how I did that, I have no idea. France's kid, for example, is pretty much an exact copy of a young Marie-Antoinette, since I mixed her genes with France's… but she was an Austrian of origin, so it's…it just makes no sense. Furthermore, Hungary and Austria's kid is the biggest and most annoying terror of all kids, because I accidentally made Hungary's genes outnumber Austria's. Also, Sweden and Finland's kid is a whiny little kid that won't let them sleep, ever, because… well, I forgot. And Belarus' kid probably has the most dark, disturbing behavior-problems of all the children.'

'Because?'

'Apparently, I foolishly thought Rasputin was born Belarusian.'

'Holy shit, England.'

'I do feel quite sorry about that, though.'

'Well hooray.' I snorted. 'And as for me and Antonio… we just happen to have three kids?'

'Yes. But as some sort of compensation, they aren't as zappy and hysterical as the other kids. Maybe you already found out that much?'

I thought about the tickle-attack and wondered just how "zappy and hysterical" the other kids had to be, if England went easy on the three demons children.

I was also wondering about something else.

'England, why do you know these fun facts and shit about all those kids? I mean, they aren't yours, right?'

'I already TOLD you – I made notes, you wanker. LOTS of them.' England got some of his confidence back, I could hear it in the tone of his voice. 'Even though I don't remember writing them at all, those curly e's and L's can only be mine. So yes. I therefore happen to know a lot about all kids, even if I haven't mixed my genes with yours.'

I shivered. 'That's disgusting.'

'I know.'

'Your genes better stay away from mine!'

'Well.' England coughed. 'I hope I have informed you enough, for now, and we'll probably continue on this subject during the next meeting, next week, when I've studied these notes some more.'

'Yay.'

'Bloody little fucker,' I heard England mutter – and then he hang up on me.

I stared at the phone, stunned. Wow, that eyebrow-wielding bastard! He just swore at me and hang up! I didn't even get my turn to call him names. What a cheating asshole!

'Go fuck yourself!' I therefore yelled at the dead line, just for my own satisfaction, and put the horn back on the rest of its Picasso-esk body. After that, I looked around.

Something…

S-something glittered…

'MotherFUCK!' I instantly screamed when I saw Antonio standing right in front of me, with the biggest fucking axe he owned.

'There, Lovi!' he smiled, peppy as always, and lowered his killer weapon of death as I grasped my chest and tried to calm down. 'I sharpened my axe, like you said!~ Now, what do you want me to do with it?'

…

Well, you can say what you want about him, but living with Antonio certainly never was boring.