Disclaimer: Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya, and Alice Isn't Dead belongs to Joseph Fink. I do not own either of the works. If you believe that I do, please send a note in to your local police station reading as follows, "The local fool has been found, please do not be alarmed."

Peter was asleep in Feliciano's lap, who in turn, was also asleep. Alfred could use some rest too, but he had a destination in mind. Somewhere needed going. He didn't know what he would find there, but it was a step, at least… having a direction, even if Alfred didn't know where that direction would take him.

Alfred and Feliciano were on their way, and it was all thanks to the kid.

Alfred couldn't just leave him there on the side of the highway like that.

"What do you know?" he asked. First thing he said, even before getting into the truck.

"What do I know?" Alfred asked. "Lots of things. I know you're a kid, and you shouldn't be on the side of the road like that. So if we're making a list, we could start there."

"You stopped and looked at one of those billboards. The new ones. You were looking at them and crying, and your boyfriend started hugging you." Feliciano flushed red at the word "boyfriend." "Do you know who put them up? You must know something."

Alfred didn't say anything, just started driving, and Feliciano didn't say anything either, as it wasn't his story to tell.

The kid smelled strongly of something Feliciano couldn't place. Like a walk through a park, but condensed into a single overpowering scent. Floral, but also herb-y. It was intense.

"Okay, maybe you don't know anything," he said. "Fine. I don't know anything either!"

Feliciano had a lot of questions for him, and he was sure Alfred did as well, obviously, but he let all three of them stew in it for a bit. The kid kicked some of the books out of the way to make room for his feet.

"What's your name?" Feliciano asked him.

"Peter. Peter Kirkland."

Feliciano hummed. "I've heard of that name somewhere," he said. He couldn't remember where. Recognition without link.

"Common name, I guess," Peter said.

Alfred frowned. "Are you related to an Arthur Kirkland?"

Peter shrugged. "Not that I know of. Kirkland's a common name."

Peter wouldn't tell them anything. They were almost at Alfred's destination at this point, in the suburbs of Atlanta.

"No offense, I just have to know if I can trust you," Peter said. He really did sound sorry.

"Well, I have no idea if you can," Feliciano pointed out. "After all, we don't know what we're being trusted with."

"You've seen it too," Peter said. "Strange visions out on the highway? The road takes weird turns for you, same as it does for me."

"What have you seen?" Alfred asked.

"What have you seen?" he asked, and smiled. "My dad and I, we used to travel a lot. Part of our life. On breaks from school we would go. Lots of time in cars, We started to see what other people were missing between the rest stops and Taco Bells. There's something dangerous out here. There's a crack somewhere, and something terrible is seeping through."

"Do you know what that something is?" Feliciano asked.

"Hmm," he said. "Don't you wish sometimes, that you could forget? That you could have your memory wiped, and then you wouldn't be a person wandering, but a person who was almost somewhere? A person about to arrive? And when you arrived, you could just stay? You could just stay."

Alfred and Feliciano answered immediately, with no hesitation. "Yes," they said.

"Yeah. God, yeah, me too," Peter answered.

When Alfred dropped off the shipment, Peter hid. He didn't ask him to. He didn't think he had to- after all, he'd been dropping off shipments with Feliciano right next to him, and nobody had questioned that, and the people at the supermarket seemed friendly enough. But Peter crouched on the floor of the cab, flipping through books.

After the delivery was done, he crawled back up into Feliciano's lap.. He held up Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens.

"Is this one any good?" he asked Feliciano.

Feliciano shrugged. "I'm not sure, I've never read it."

"Okay," Peter considered the cover for a moment before tossing it by his feet. He turned to Alfred. "Hey, I need to ask you something. Or, to do something, and I can't tell you why. Would you do it?"

Alfred's first impulse was sarcasm or something similar, but instead, he just sighed.

"Honestly? Probably."

Peter took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, I need to get to Swansea, South Carolina. Can you take me there?"

"What? South Carolina is the complete opposite direction of where I'm going. I have to get to the distribution center in-"

He cut Alfred off.

"Look, I wish I could tell you everything, but I can't. I'm still asking though. You're the first person I've talked to, like really talked to in… I don't know, weeks? Months? I need you to take me to Swansea. It has to do with… you know…"

He gestured, his hands circling out to indicate all the things neither of them were willing to specify.

Alfred snorted and shook his head. Feliciano sighed.

"Peter, we're adults, okay?" Feliciano smiled apologetically. "Alfred especially. He is an adult man with a job, and that job says he has to go to a distribution center-"

"Not drive a kid hundreds of miles to a town I've never heard of, for reasons the kid won't even tell me. I am a responsible God damn adult!"

Three and a half long hours later, Alfred sat in the driver's seat of a truck, with Feliciano in the passenger seat and Peter in his lap, in Swansea, South Carolina.

Swansea was not the most bustling of towns. Everything seemed nice, but also empty. Life had left this town, Feliciano thought. There was less of it than there once was.

Peter had directed Alfred to an EZ Stop on the highway, across from a farm stand that was closed, and not one, but two different car washes - both of which were also closed. Alfred pulled the truck up to the side of the EZ Stop, and turned off the engine. Nothing covert about a truck like this. The ass of it nearly blocked the entrance to the parking lot.

"So, what now?" Alfred asked.

"We wait," he said, and he picked up the Charles Dickens book and started reading.

"Alright then." Alfred took off his seat belt and opened the door. "Uh, I'm getting some donuts for me and Feli." (Feliciano smiled at this nickname.) "You want anything, Peter?"

He didn't look up from the book.

"Suit yourself."

Alfred closed the door.

There was a flyer in the window of the EZ Stop. The Easter Sunday Bash, hosted by DJ Rob-Dog, quote unquote "The Blind Man in Command." Underneath that, it said, "Remember, we are all sexy grown-ups. Ladies 21 or over and gentleman 25 or over, please."

Easter Sunday was almost a year ago.

The guy at the counter was withdrawn. Didn't comment on Alfred's truck or his choice in food - four donuts. Didn't comment on anything. Seemed laid back, which was fine with Alfred.

In the truck, Alfred and Feliciano ate donuts (Alfred ate three and a half, as Feliciano showed his gourmet habits and could barely finish half of one) and waited… and waited some more. The sky changed its shade, and then its color. Peter got fidgety.

"He was supposed to already be here," Peter said.

"Who was?" Alfred asked.

"Let's just ask inside," Feliciano decided.

The three went inside and Peter asked the guy at the counter if he had seen a cop car in this parking lot recently, specifically a cop car from Georgia. The guy's eyes widened, and he shook his head. Alfred revised his impression of him. He wasn't laid back, he was terrified. He had seen something, and he wanted desperately to forget. Feliciano caught on quickly.

"Hey, mister, look at me. I'm going to need you to look me in the eyes, okay?" Feliciano smiled. "I know what you've seen tonight. Now I have seen terrible things too, and so has this boy and this man, and as long as we're all quiet, nothing is going to change. Those terrible things are going to keep on happening. Do you want to live in a world where what you saw is possible? Or do you want us to try to change that?"

Feliciano held his gaze.

"I'm sorry," he said.

So Feliciano sighed, and said, "Si. Okay, how about this? Whatever scared you, mister, know that my boyfriend and I can be so much scarier than that."

His mouth twitched downward and his fingers fidgeted. His eyes flew all over the room, panicking.

"I- I just don't know what you're talking about," he said. And as he said it, he pointed past the back wall of the store to the thick trees behind it.

"Nice," Alfred said. Feliciano smiled wryly.

It didn't take long poking through the leaves to find the cruiser that had been rolled there. No blood, but the seats had been torn up, slashed over and over.

And Peter, he collapsed by the car. Just went limp, gave up. He stayed there for a minute or two, letting whatever hope he had allowed to build in himself fade. And then he started telling Alfred and Feliciano a story.

Next to a gas station a couple hours north of New York City, Peter and his father, Tino, saw the Tribulus man - or as he knows him, as the world knows him, The Hungry Man. They saw him take a woman from her car. They saw what he did to that woman.

And his father did what Feliciano and Alfred could not: he tried to intervene. Tried to get the police involved, tried to get other people involved.

After that, Peter didn't have a father.

He went back to Georgia, was moved from home to home. No one would believe his story of what was out there, what he had seen. Or no one would admit that they believed him.

There was this one policeman, Officer Ludwig Beilschmidt, that took a special interest in his case. Something close to kindness. He warned him that he needed to stop describing what he had seen, needed to stop trying to get people to believe him, that it would be easier and better for Peter if he just let that go.

But that wasn't an option. Not for him, anyways. He ran away, went looking for what scared him the most.

"You went looking for The Hungry Man?!" Alfred said. "He's- He's dangerous!" Feliciano whimpered. He could still feel his arm against his throat, still smell the rotten smell of his breath.

"Oh, is he?" Peter asked. "I must not know that. I must be stupid."

"No," Alfred tried again. "That's not what I meant," he said.

"Yes, it was. You just didn't know it was what you meant."

Arm against throat, over and over. Alfred noticed, and grabbed Feliciano's hand, squeezing it tightly in an attempt at comforting him.

A few months ago, Peter checked his email on the computer at this friend of a friend's house that was letting him crash for a bit, and there was an email from Officer Beilschmidt. He said that since Peter was clearly never going to let this go, he wanted to at least help him. But it had to be secret, no one could ever know. He told Peter to meet him at this date and time in the parking lot of the EZ Stop in Swansea, and he would give him the information he had been able to find, all of it.

"I think he hoped that somehow I could put a stop to it, or at least tell the world," Peter said. "I don't think he knew what he had signed up for when he signed up for it."

And now, here was his car. Not a trace of Officer Beilschmidt. Feliciano suspected that there would never again be a trace of Officer Beilschmidt. Not in this world.

Alfred and Feliciano helped Peter search the car together, but it had been wiped clean. No blood, the computer destroyed, no scraps of paper, no sign of what he might have been able to tell Peter.

They searched quickly, because all three of them felt it - that it wouldn't be safe to hang around much longer.

"Okay, uh, okay," he said. "He was based out of a precinct in Savannah. We'll go there, see if he left anything that could tell me what he wanted to know."

Alfred scoffed. "I am not helping you break into a police station, Peter! You know, you dragged me a ways out of my way, but you are not landing me in jail! I have my own search to get back to."

"Alright. Take me to Savannah, drop me off. I'll be fine on my own. Been fine on my own for a while."

"We can't just-" Feliciano started. And Peter waved that off.

"Well, of course you can! You already want to. I'm giving you permission. Take me to Savannah, leave me near that police station, drive away. You don't ever have to hear about this again."

"Okay, yeah. Okay," Alfred said. "We'll take you to Savannah."

"Thank you." He didn't sound annoyed or angry. He sounded maybe even relieved. "What is it you two are looking for anyway? What did you lose to end up circling these roads like me?"

"Come on," Feliciano said, taking him by the arm and leading him back to the cab with Alfred right next to him, before anyone or anything came back to the abandoned cruiser. "We'll tell you the whole story while Alfred drives."

On the way through Georgia, a house by the highway with a pile of trash burning in its front lawn. Big orange flames, thick plume of smoke, a man standing there watching it burn. Feliciano only saw it for a moment, and only in the corner of his eye. And that slice of time was stuck in his head forever that way.

The man never moving. The fire never consuming.

Even after a couple of days, Peter smelled as strong as ever. Something natural, but not. Organic, but aggressively so.

"What's that smell?" Alfred asked.

"I was wondering how long you'd be polite," Peter said. "It's heather oil."

Feliciano gave him a weird look. "Why are you drenched in heather oil?"

"Yeah, I don't know," he said. "I've heard The Hungry Man, he doesn't like it. Wards him off. Probably just rumors, but…" he shrugged.

"Where did you hear that?" Alfred asked.

Peter scoffed. "You think we're the only lives he's touched? You think you two are the only ones he's talked to? Word gets around. I've been wandering this country for a long time. Others have seen him. I've met them. Most were too scared to be as helpful as you two."

Feliciano laughed. "Bad news," he said. "We're scared too."

Alfred smiled wryly. "Kind of all the time. I used to go to therapy and shit," he said.

"Not important if you're scared," Peter said. "You're helping anyway. You can't control the feeling of fear. You can control what you do while you're feeling it though. I learned that too."

"A hard-won lesson of life on the road?" Alfred asked.

Peter laughed. "Nah, I used to go to therapy too. Anxiety bros?" He held up a hand, and they made a perfect-contact high five, even if Alfred didn't look away from the road.

"Che diamine, I feel left out now!" Feliciano whined playfully.

Alfred laughed. "Right. Anxiety bros. We're still only taking Peter as far as Savannah though."

Feliciano smiled softly at Peter. "Right. Then we have to get back to our thing."

"I know," he said. "Man, I hope you guys figure everything out."

"Yeah," Feliciano said.

And then he said, "I hope you find it before it finds you."

"Yeah," Feliciano said. "Yeah."

They stopped the truck by a large park a few blocks north of the station in Savannah. Savannah looked like the way someone might vaguely remember a city looking - brick buildings sagged into themselves, the trees were more moss than trees.

Alfred parked next to Mason hall. The sign was bizarre, hand-drawn Mason symbols, a series of smaller hand-drawn icons, a pentagram, a chicken… Alfred swore that one of them was Link from Legend of Zelda. Maybe Link was a Mason?

They walked with him as far as the station.

"This is as far as we can take you," Feliciano said.

"I know. Listen, thanks, though. Good luck with Arthur."

He walked away. Feliciano and Alfred watched the kid walk towards the station, and Alfred turned back to the truck, and he just… couldn't. He couldn't let it happen like that. A single glance at Feliciano's conflict ridden expression showed he thought the same.

"Peter!" Alfred shouted.

He stopped, and Feliciano smiled.

"Yeah?" he said.

Alfred looked at Feliciano, who grinned. "Let's break into a police station."

Peter smiled.

"Thank God! I kept thinking, 'One of them's gonna offer to help me, right?' And then neither of you did, and I was like, 'Man, I thought they were good people!'"

Alfred laughed. "So we're good now?"

"Good? Mm… Remains to be seen. You're cool, though. Let's do this."

And so they did.