Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.
Warnings: Slash, AU, sub-par writing, wonky plots, appallingly slow updates, and Hitler jokes.
Addendum to the Warnings: The story now contains enough swears to warrant a warning for swearing.
I don't know what I'm doing.
Unbeta'd.
[Chapter 2]
"Open the door." demanded the man with the gun.
Alfred was sure this was the point when his life was supposed to start flashing before his eyes. All he got was a brief and hazy recollection of a cat he'd had in his youth. He was obviously doing this wrong. Or maybe you had to practice before you could get your life to reliably flash before your eyes. Although, if you had to put yourself in life threatening situations to practice, he couldn't see why anyone would-
The gun tapped against the glass, a reminder that this was neither the time nor place.
Alfred unlocked the doors and the stranger clambered in. In the surge of light, Alfred caught a glimpse of angry green eyes before the door slammed and everything went dark again.
"Drive."
"You need to buckle your seatbelt."
Alfred couldn't see the man's face, but he was pretty sure the expression would be incredulous. You didn't remind someone to buckle up when they were two-thirds of the way towards successfully hijacking you and your car.
He was going to get shot now, wasn't he?
Surprisingly, the man didn't shoot him. He buckled up.
"There. Now will you drive?"
Not willing to tempt fate, Alfred drove.
And drove.
And drove some more.
"Where are you going?" the stranger eventually asked.
Alfred gave a nervous laugh.
"Actually, I was waiting for you to tell me what to do. I just figured you hadn't because you were going to do that thing they do in the movies. You know, where you tell me to drive and then we sit in silence until you tell me to pull over. And then we get out, and you shoot me, and leave me on the side of the road, and drive off in my car. But now I'm thinking that maybe you just aren't so good at this. Not that I think you're incompetent! I'm sure you're a very capable person. You're probably just having an off day. I'm having an off day right now and- Oh god, I'm rambling. I should shut up now."
He did need to shut up. He also needed to stop gripping the steering wheel so hard. If it snapped in half, he'd be unable to steer, and then where would he be?
"Is there a hotel nearby?"
"No. Yes. Sort of. I don't know where exactly. We could ask for directions."
His passenger frowned.
"Why don't you just use that hunk of plastic sitting on your dashboard?"
"Can't do that."
"What?"
"I have a GPS, but you shouldn't use it. I'm not sure if it's possessed or what, but it's the physical embodiment of evil. It exists to destroy the free world, conquer all that stands before it, and build a new empire of fear and tyranny upon the ashes." Alfred explained.
After a moment he added "I call it Hitler."
There was a long pause filled only with the sound of the car engine.
"Of course." said the man "Of course I'd get picked up by a crazy one."
Alfred felt that this was a bit unfair. If he was crazy, then he was the type of crazy who had harmless arguments with inanimate objects. His passenger was the type of crazy who carried a gun and hijacked cars.
Which one of them would society be quicker to condemn?
"Do you have a map?" the man asked.
Alfred snapped out of his musings. "What?"
"A map. Do you have one?"
The man had an accent. Alfred hadn't noticed before. It was intriguing. Too bad he'd get shot if he asked. He assumed he'd get shot at any rate. The man didn't seem overly aggressive. Still, accents were put on his list of things to not talk about.
"Glove compartment." he replied instead.
His passenger turned on the overhead light. Damn. How had Alfred missed those eyebrows? They were practically eating the stranger's face.
"Um." Alfred was hesitant to interrupt as the other shifted through the assorted garbage that had collected in Alfred's car. Napkins, straw wrappers, MapQuest printouts, and Happy Meal toys cascaded down onto the floor.
"What? Does the Devil dwell in your glove compartment? Should I be worried about disturbing him?" He tossed a plastic dinosaur over his shoulder with an impressive amount of force. It hit the backseat with a thump. Alfred winced.
"No. At least, not as far as I know. It's just that it's hard to drive with the light on."
"And if I turn the light off, how am I supposed to read this?" he held up one of the maps Alfred had just purchased. It was already wrinkled and had acquired a mysterious purple stain in one corner.
"Um..."
"I thought as much." the man turned back to the paper folds "Take the next right."
Just to be contrary, Hitler chose this moment to start working again.
"Turn right." it echoed.
Alfred wished horrible things on both of them.
Twenty minutes of driving found them in front of 'Motel'. Not 'Mountain Pass Motel' or 'George Washington Motel' or 'Small Town Motel'. Just 'Motel'.
Its appearance was just as bland and unassuming as its name.
Alfred pulled up, parked, and killed the engine.
"Give me your keys." commanded the stranger.
Alfred handed them over. The stranger pocketed them.
"Good. Now, we're going to go to the front desk. You're going to rent a room. You are not going to act distressed. You are not going to say anything out of the ordinary. Do you understand?"
Alfred nodded, not sure if he was allowed to speak.
"Then let's go. Remember, act normal."
It turned out the stranger needn't have worried. The woman behind the desk wouldn't have cared if Alfred was bleeding and on fire, much less distressed. She barely looked up from her magazine as Alfred requested a room.
Alfred handed over the money and ignored the watchful gaze screaming into his back. He was doing as he had been told. Besides, the stranger wouldn't shoot him when there was such an obvious witness. If said witness even cared. She probably wouldn't.
"Room six." The woman didn't bother to hand him the key, instead laying it on the counter.
"Have a nice stay." she tacked on unconvincingly.
The motel room was like motel rooms everywhere. There was a bed, a scattering of poor quality furniture, and a lamp. The carpet was marked with constellations of stains. Alfred was able to identify rabbits, Abraham Lincoln, the Eiffel Tower, and a weird mushroom before the stranger started talking.
"Stay here. Don't touch anything. I'll be back."
He tossed his bag aside and vanished into the bathroom.
Alfred waited for the door to close, and then turned his attention to the bed, where the man had left his pack.
Motel beds were to be approached in the same manner in which one approaches a cluster of bushes in the jungle. You never knew what might be living in there. Alfred snatched the pack off the bed, quickly backed off to a safe distance, and began digging through it. His one hope was that the stranger had put his gun there. The odds weren't good.
There were some clothes, but the pack was filled mostly with papers. Some were stapled together. Some were bound with paperclips. Some were free floating. There was standard printer paper filled with neat type. Lined notebook paper crammed with slanted writing. Sticky notes with scribbles. Napkins covered in numbers and odd geometric shapes. Stained index cards with- Were those scone recipes?
And then there were photographs. The pictures were mainly of buildings, big and gray and nondescript. There were aerial shots of landscapes and snapshots of huge crowds. Alfred recognized none of the landmarks and kept flipping through until he reached the photo at the very bottom of the stack.
The photograph was of a man. He was smiling wide and bright and childlike. His violet eyes were shining, white-blonde hair falling into them. It was a nice picture, but not the type that you'd carry fondly in your wallet. It was impersonal, and if the man hadn't been smiling, Alfred might've thought it was a mug shot.
The bathroom doorknob turned. The stranger was coming back. Alfred dropped everything.
It was time for Plan A.
Plan A was to grab something and hit the stranger over the head with it.
He reached for the nearest item, the bedside lamp, and picked it up.
Or rather, he tried to pick up the lamp. It had been bolted to the bedside table. Probably to prevent theft. Or maybe to prevent someone from bashing it over the head of someone else, which was what Alfred had planned to do. But seeing as this had failed, Alfred gave up on the lamp and went with Plan B.
Plan B was to grab something else and hit the stranger over the head with it.
When the stranger stepped fully into the room, Alfred put Plan B into action and swung at him with all his might.
The sad thing wasn't that Alfred was trying to take down an armed man with a pillow.
The sad thing was that it worked.
His opponent went down with an "Oomph!" and a flailing motion. Alfred stood above him with the pillow raised for another strike. He hesitated, wondering if he should continue with the pummeling, and this cost him the upper hand. On the floor, the man contorted breakdance style and swept Alfred's legs out from under him.
Alfred hit the ground with an even louder "Oomph!", still clutching the pillow. A moment later, he was pinned to the floor with a knee in his back and his face smashed against one of the carpet stains. The weird mushroom shaped one.
Immediately, he started struggling. The stranger held him fast.
"Get off me! Get off me now, you son of a bitch!" Alfred screamed into the dirty carpeting.
"Stop it! I'm not going to hurt you!"
"If you want me to believe that, then get the hell off me!"
The stranger surprised Alfred again by doing exactly that. As soon as he was released, he scrambled back as far as he could.
"Who the fuck are you?" Alfred growled.
He hadn't been expecting a response, but he got one.
"My name is Arthur Kirkland. I am an agent in Her Majesty's Secret Service."
There were a multitude of ways Alfred could have responded. Under the circumstances, he felt he was valid in not choosing one of the more creative options. Instead, he went with a question.
"The hell is a British secret agent doing in Illinois?"
"We're in Indiana."
"Same fucking difference."
Arthur started to argue that no, no it wasn't, but Alfred was having none of it.
"Yes. Yes it is. You want to know why? Because if I was in Illinois right now, I'd still be as fucked as if I was in Indiana!" Alfred shouted.
"I have no job, I've just lost my chance at getting another one, and the odds that I'll get another chance beyond this one are decreasing by the minute! I have no house, I'm going to lose my car, and, so help me, if I wind up as a thirty year old living with my parents I really might just kill myself! My life was already cruising along the fast lane to Shitsville before you showed up! Then you showed up!"
By this point Alfred had hauled himself to his feet and was pacing the room indignantly.
"Now I'm being held captive by a foreigner with delusions of grandeur! If you're going to kill me, then just get it over with because I don't need your psychopathic bullshit!" Alfred finished and then slumped down onto the bed and its suspect sheets.
Arthur waited a moment and then cautiously sat down next to Alfred.
"Look, I realize this is where I'm supposed to appear sympathetic. But I have more important things to do than feign interest in your petty concerns."
Ignoring the still rather shell-shocked Alfred, he dug through his pack. It took several minutes of sorting to find what he wanted, no doubt due to Alfred's earlier meddling. Arthur withdrew from his disorganized belongings a single item and offered it to Alfred.
It was the photo of the violet-eyed man.
"This man's name is Tino Vainamoinen, and if you don't help me, then he is going to destroy everything."
[End Chapter]
Be honest. You thought the man in the photograph was Russia, didn't you?
Also, let it be known that I love all of you. Your reaction to the previous chapter was overwhelming and completely unexpected. I will try to live up to your expectations, though I feel this chapter fails to do so.
Continue?