North American Hurricane (Hetalia)

Author: Ashynarr

Summary: In the same vein as Bunnies For Your Amusement, I now bring you my collection of oneshots and short stories featuring the North American twins, America and Canada! Now including non-LJ drabbles.

Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine.

Warning: Random Shit, Bros Being Bros, human au, time travel

(Set in the 90s for Matthew for important reasons.)

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Matthew wasn't fond of summer in the States at the best of times, what with it being far hotter than he'd grown up with in northern Ontario, and the current heat wave only made it more miserable. Between that and the lack of weekend plans, he really hadn't had much reason to leave his new house, leaving him bored enough to start cleaning out the attic in case the previous owners had left anything interesting or useful.

All he'd found in the end was a lot of dust, some old books, a box of clothes dating back to lord knew when, and a broken mirror that would have looked nice downstairs in the front hall if it hadn't been so damaged. Not a huge haul, but then again he hadn't been expecting much to be left behind in the first place.

Oh well. At least he had space up there now for whatever he felt like storing up there, even if he didn't have much to his name as of yet.

With a bit of clever maneuvering he was able to get the box of books out of the attic and dusted off, the cardboard having seen better days as he cracked it open again to browse through the collection inside. Most of the books were still in good condition, allowing him to set them to the side to put on one of the bookshelves later, while a few were damaged by water or bugs to uselessness, forcing him to toss them out.

The last book, stuffed into the side corner, turned out to not be a book at all, but a journal. An old one at first glance, only confirmed when the earliest date mentioned by the writer was April 1937. Maybe this belonged to a relative of the old family? It was a shame he couldn't contact them, because this seemed like something they wouldn't have wanted to leave behind.

...not that he knew for sure they'd care one way or the other, but it was a shame to him at least. Matthew set it apart from the others, figuring he'd at least glance through it that evening after he finished cleaning up and putting away the other books.

He forgot about it for nearly a week - having gotten caught up in reading one of the old novels until dinner and the rest of his weekend chores, then a long week at the library reorganizing an entire section after a frantic finals week at the nearby college - only to rediscover its resting place on the living room table when he was sat down with a late dinner that Friday.

"Huh, I forgot about you…" Matthew muttered, flipping the cover open with one hand and rereading the first entry of the boy from Manhattan who just wanted to help his family in the aftermath of the Depression.

He set it down again in order to eat, but his curiosity remained piqued throughout the meal, bringing him back to his chair and the journal almost as soon as he'd put his dishes in the sink to soak. He hesitated briefly about going through someone's journal, before deciding that if nothing else it was better than it being forgotten completely, and that perhaps once he finished he could see if there were any archives collecting this sort of thing for historical preservation.

(If nothing else, he could just hold onto it, but as he wasn't family it didn't feel quite right to just keep it to himself.

...He'd think of something eventually, probably.)

It was getting late by the time Matthew hit the final page, describing Alfred's thoughts on his next mission, a flight out over Germany to take out some factories in the eastern part of the country. He paged through the rest of the book, but either Alfred failed to continue writing in it afterwards - perhaps having lost track of it for a while? - or else… well…

It wasn't an issue either way. Reading Alfred's retellings of his life up to and including his joining the air force was intriguing, and he found himself wishing that he could have met the man, if only to see how he'd come out of the war. Ah well, that was fifty years ago - if he were still alive, he'd be well into his seventies by now, not to mention he could be anywhere in the country at this point, or even outside of it.

Whatever the case, it was late, and he could worry about the fate of the old journal tomorrow.

~0~0~

He was in a warzone.

He was in a warzone, and he didn't know how he'd gotten there, but a fuzzy part of his mind was telling him this couldn't be real, although he couldn't really hear it over his confusion.

Someone stomped to a halt in front of him, pulling his attention up from his huddling spot on the floor. "What are you doing here?" The soldier asked, disbelief in his tone. "There shouldn't be any civilians here."

He shook his head, unable to find his voice, and the man sighed before crouching down. "C'mon, let's get you out of here before the place gets shelled."

He stumbled to his feet, walking with the grace of the shambling dead as the soldier half-carried him out of the room he'd apparently been in, keeping their heads low and steps as quick as possible as they walked. Their pace picked up as something whistled and a muted explosion rang from down the hall, startling them both.

"C'mon, c'mon, almost there" The soldier muttered, right before his eyes widened as they reached the outside. "Shit, get down-"

Matthew shot awake, heaving heavily as his mind slowly reacted to the reality of his plain, boring, safe bedroom, far away from any sort of battlefield or bombs or whatever else. Taking deep breaths to calm himself, he decided that even if he had the option he was not going to read anything else about the joys of war right before bed.

Shoving himself out of bed, he shuffled over to the bathroom, splashing himself with water to wake up the rest of the way before making his way back into his bedroom on the way out to the hall towards his coffee machine, recalling only after a few seconds that his digital clock had a red glow, not blue.

He turned back on his heels in the doorway, but there was no blue glow, just the dawn's faint light starting to peek through his window and onto the uniform of-

"-huh?" Matthew asked dumbly, staring at the man who looked just as utterly confused as he felt, only much more dangerous because those weapons were certainly real, and certainly loaded, and certainly pointed at him.

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AN: Older idea of mine, where Matthew stumbles across an old journal for a WW2 pilot Alfred and, after reading through it, wishes he could have met the man because he sounded, well, interesting, only to have it actually granted in the most surreal way possible – Alfred bring brought forward through time via the journal.

From there its a struggle to find a way to get Alfred back to his own time because he's out of place here and who knows how things might change if he isn't there to do whatever he needed to do, and at some point Matthew might end up a bit fond of the guy but they succeed eventually in getting him home so that all will be well.

It's a bit oddball sure but I feel like not a lot of time travel fics on here focus on how much the person who traveled might miss their own time, where they had families and loved ones and all of that. This is sorta my way to fix that, but IDK if or when I'll get around to a full fic.

(Set in the 90s because there wasn't the magic googlebox in order to just look up people, which is part of the drama because Matthew can't know how Alfred's life was supposed to go originally or what happened after he got home.)