I do not own Hetalia nor do I own any references made. Speaking of which, this chapter goes to miakatsuki who guessed correctly for the second reference. You were so close! You even mentioned the part containing the first reference in the rest of your review! But thanks for catching one. I hope you enjoy this chappie. ;)

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A shot rang out and echoed in the concrete room. After a moment of assessment and adjusting his gun, the dirty blond pilot reset himself and fired off an entire clip. The bullets emptied into the dark center ring of the target. With a satisfied hum, he pulled out another magazine and loaded it. With a careful aim, he turned to the next target and let loose four shots. Each shot blasted through an orange diamond the size of a quarter.

"Whoa!" A heavy man with a beard and tattoos looked at the pilot's target and gaped like a fish. "You're like, seventeen, how did you do that?" he questioned the pilot.

The pilot smirked at him, "Nineteen, actually. I fly in the Air force and have been shooting since I was big enough to hold a bow- or, a, I mean... gun. I can do either."

"Don't brag Alfred," Ludwig said. He was standing off to the American's right, waiting to shoot after him. The bearded man glanced at him before shaking his head and moving off somewhere whilst muttering about crazy-ass shots. Ludwig took a deep breath to gather his nerves and then asked, "Alfred, after we finish shooting here, um, would you like to go back to my place for a beer?" Ludwig was glad Alfred did not turn around to see the blush on his face.

"But that's a whole ocean away dude! And I told you, I don't drink." Alfred took out a lever action riffle and loaded it. "But, if you want to still hang out, we can go back to my place and kick ass on Call of Duty."

Ludwig's eyes widened as he realized that Alfred did not get what he was insinuating. Was that bad? Or did it just mean he didn't catch the innuen-

Ludwig awoke suddenly as he was tipped out of his bed and onto the floor. Not even a moment later, his mattress fell on top of him and smashed him into the ground. Ludwig struggled to untangle himself from the mass of sheets, random pillows, and holy-shit-why-is-this-mattress-so-heavy?

After he managed to crawl out from the pile of doom he caught sight of Sterling on the other side of his now empty bed frame. Once she saw he was alive, her mouth clicked open and she gave him the most satisfied smile he had ever seen on an animal. He glared at her. That stupid wolf was looking all smug about tossing him out of bed.

"Sterling, you had better have a good rea-" He was cut off when Sterling launched herself at him and tackled him to the ground. Before he could react, she was back up and dancing around the door. He rolled his eyes and opened it for her, completely ignoring the way she darted down the steps in favor of actually preparing for the day.

Germany splashed water on his face in an attempt to wash away the dream he had. Well, it was a memory but it was still disturbing. He and America were friends, they shared interests and found hanging out together both relaxing and fun. The only problem was that Alfred was a complete airhead who never noticed any of Ludwig's advances to make 'friends' into something more. It probably would be easier if they were major trade partners, neighbors, or hell, even on the same continent! He had to space out his visits and invites so as not to seem suspicious.

Ludwig shook his head to clear the depressing thoughts. Besides, everyone knew America was oblivious to the atmosphere so subtle hints were probably overlooked because they were too subtle. Ludwig sighed and finished getting ready for the day, knowing his dream would put him in a monotonous mood all day.

When Ludwig made his way downstairs he heard the door open and two voices announce their presence. He froze, eyes wide, as Francis and Antonio strutted in and made themselves at home. Why? I do not need to deal with this today, Ludwig thought.

"My awesome friends!" Gilbert shouted and started chatting with the other two members of the infamous Bad Touch Trio.

Ludwig decided to quietly slip into his office to start on his paperwork and hopefully ignore whatever it was that the trio had planned. He sat down in his chair and started on filling out government forms and reading documents and basically work.

"She's so CUUUTE!" Ludwig jumped at the sudden squeal and turned to stare at his closed door.

"Oui, 'er white fur is so lucious!"

"Ja, Sterling is my awesome wolf. What else could you expect?"

Hold up, did Gilbert just say Sterling was his wolf? Ludwig frowned. He had been the one who found her, sure she was licensed in both their names but Sterling chose to hang around him more, so that made her 'Ludwig's wolf' not 'Gilbert's wolf.'

"For her to be able to break into people's houses."

"That's how I found her, she jumped the fence."

Ludwig pushed off his desk and strode into the family room and crossed his arms at his brother. "Sterling is my wolf, I found her, named her, and she sleeps with me." As soon as the words left his mouth he regretted them. Francis unfortunately did not feel like ignoring his slip up. "Ohnhonhonhon, 'zis is interesting, Ludwig is into Bestiality?"

Ludwig growled out, "Nein, I meant she sleeps in my room."

"No worries, I do not judge your preferences," Francis said edging closer to Ludwig. Sterling jerked her paws onto the armrest of the couch she was laying on. Her ears were sharply forward and her eyes trailed to the right of Ludwig, body tense and alert.

"Everyone feels la amour eventually." Francis sad in a seductive tone as his hand reached around and grabbed Ludwig's butt. Ludwig's eyes widened and he flinched away, raising his arm to punch the intrusive French man. Before his fist made contact a pale silver streak shot past him and tackled a surprised Francis. Sterling pushed her claws into his shoulders and let out a ferocious growl, hackles raised.

Francis stared at the wolf in horror as everyone else looked in surprise. That is, until Ludwig reached out, griped the she-wolf's collar, and wrenched her off the terrified Francis. Francis shot backwards and hid behind Antonio. Gilbert started laughing as he and Antonio teased their friend. Ludwig shook his head and looked down at Sterling. She tilted her head in an innocent way that seemed to say, What? He gave her a stern look and in response she let her jaw drop, tongue rolling out. Her gaze seemed to say, I regret nothing.

Ludwig decided to reward her with a quick scratch behind her ears. "Hey, West," Ludwig glanced up at his brother, "we're heading out now. Be back sometime around awesome."

Ludwig pinched the bridge of his nose, "Just go."

.(* *)

~ I

../ \

(I had to.)

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Sterling was very proud of himself. He had behaved spectacularly while Spain doted on him, not once did he nip at the overly energetic Spaniard who was adamant about rubbing the belly of the adorable snowy puppy. His words, not Sterling's. And so what if he attacked France? The man was attacking one of his pack!

Yeah, so maybe the animal instincts were a little stronger than Sterling liked to admit but, at least he looked epic acting on them.

Once the Bad Touch Trio left to terrorize the nations of the world (Yes, that's what they were planning to do, he listened, alright?) Germany wondered into the kitchen and started making himself a sandwich. Sterling followed both out of curiosity and lack of anything better to do. She sat under the table waiting alert for any crumbs that might fall. To her delight, Germany gave her a section of the crust to munch on.

Germany stood up and cleared away the crumbs from his meal before returning to his work. sterling followed him and laid down to take a nap to the soft rustle of paper, the scratch of a pen, and the clicking of keys on a keyboard.

A heavy sigh broke Sterling from his slumber. She lifted her head questionably to Germany. He pushed his chair out and sad, "Finally." He gave a halfhearted smile to Sterling before walking out of the room, Sterling hot on his heels. He wound through the house until he came upon a door that he opened. Inside the room was what was obviously a workout area. There were punching bags and free weights and lifting machines.

Germany headed over to a punching bag and proceeded to beat the crap out of it. Sterling sat and watched with fascination as Germany slammed his fists into the sand filled sac with frustration. Sterling came to the conclusion that something had upset Germany.

Germany gave a shout as he sent one last swing at the punching bag that sent it flying around and swaying back and forth. Yep, he was upset.

Germany sat down on one of the bench presses to catch his breath. Sterling trotted over to him and rested her head and fore paws on his left leg. Germany let one hand fall to scratch her behind the ears as he said, "Hey girl. Can you keep a secret?" Sterling gave a small yip as an affirmative.

"I had a dream last night," Germany started, "it was more of a memory but..." He took a breath to steady himself before launching into his tale. "You see I am close with America but not close enough to constantly be on human-name basis. I guess, I guess I want us to be but that's not the problem. The problem is that even if I did manage to convince him that we should use each other's human name he wouldn't understand. I don't want to be friends. I just-I"

Germany groaned and let himself fall so he was laying down on the bench press with his hands covering his face. "Every time we meet up outside of our nation responsibilities we have fun. He's just so alive and happy and funny that I can't help but smile along with him and any worries I have just melt away. And every time he convinces me to watch a scary movie and he freaks out when a ghost appears, I feel like the urge to hold and comfort him like he did when we watched that World War II movie and I broke down. I... I almost wanted to persuade him to watch more of those kinds of movies just so I could feel his arms around me again. Because I felt safe and he was so warm and hell, I'll admit it, he smelled nice. Gott! He is just so gorgeous with his real smile and when he lets go... But he doesn't know. He doesn't notice any of my attempts to make friends into something more. I would straight out tell him but I am afraid that..."

Germany cut himself off with a small laugh. "I never said it out loud before. But now that I have, there is no denying that I am attracted to America. And there is nothing I can do about it."

Sterling was frozen, her blood was running cold and shock had stiffened his body. How could he- Was he saying- Oh God. No! Snap out of it, you are Sterling, a wolf, right now. You can figure this out latter.

Sterling pushed off from Germa- no. Ludwig. She pushed off from Ludwig as he sat up and stared at her. She decided to try and give him advice by saying, "You can do anything if you're not afraid." But it came out with soft little howls and growls.

Ludwig gave a sad smile and said, "Thank you Sterling."

The day continued as normal but with Sterling trying to figure out if Ludwig had really said what he did. That, and if Alfred felt the same way. It was harder to sort out than expected and by the time Sterling came to a conclusion Prussia had returned and bragged about the awesome name tag he had bought for Sterling. It was a nice little heart with the name 'Sterling Beilschmidt' and the phone number and address of the two brothers. He turned it over to show the German flag on the back before turning to Sterling. Oh no, no, you are not putting that on me. I tolerate the collar but that name is not flying!

Sterling tried to run away but Ludwig caught and held her in place while Prussia hooked the tag onto her collar. When they let go of her she flattened her ears and glared at them. She knew that some people gave their pets their last name but the Germanic bros? This was humiliating. Not only did they give her their last name but they put their flag on her. That was one thing nations did not do: put the wrong flag on a nation.

Of course the two brothers saw nothing wrong and just proceeded to watch a movie. Eventually Sterling grudgingly got over it and jumped up on the couch with them. Sterling vowed that when the spell wore off he would so get the brothers back.

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Thanks for reading! Sorry it was late but I party over the 4th so Happy Patriotic Independence Day!Late. but oh well. As always i love to read reviews and favorites/follows are much appreciated.

ok so the BTT was hard to write... I am sorry for any OOCness but I am just not familiar with them. So I had to cut their scene short.

On a separate note, I killed you all with me not telling you if Al reciprocated Luddy's feels or not, didn't I? Tell me what you think about it and the confession, sorry if it was shit but i have never been in love so I don't know.

~~~BTW, I don't live in Germany so I can't be sure, but the dream where Luddy asked Al to come to his place for a beer was him asking if he wanted to have sex. Like in America where "a cup of coffee" is either just that or "i'm too shy to ask you on a date"date. (I hate t when you don't know which it is!) Or like How I Met Your Mother and Battleship...That was a great episode. ANYWHO

That's it I think but remember to be looking for that reference. I am thinking next chapter i will start revealing past references in this foot note but i might save that for the last chapter. Which by the way, will be chapter No. 10.

Side note: if you all could be a doll and do me a favor~please leave a review on my fanfic Big Balls and Hilarious Falls. I want to write it but I need more info... pwease?