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reverse-caretaker-hetalia · 5 years

Text

Nightmare Before Christmas

"Toni! It's almost Christmas!" Austria gushed, taking Spain's hand and swinging it with his own. Antonio flushed and quickly turned away.

"It's December First," Spain muttered, snatching his hand back. "Plus, I don't celebrate Christmas."

Roderich gasped, clutching at his heart. "You don't!?" Antonio rolled his eyes.

"No, I celebrate Three Kings Day in January," he said. "I tell you this every year."

"Yeah, and it's always just as shocking to me!" Austria sighed. "You know, just because you don't celebrate doesn't mean you have to be a Grinch."

Antonio could help but smile. "I prefer to think of myself as an Ebenezer Scrooge," he said. "Getting haunted by ghost sounds cooler than stealing Christmas. And who would want to have a bunch of expensive consumerist bull anyway?"

Roderich raised an eyebrow. "'Consumerist bull'? Is that what Christmas reminds you of?"

Spain blinked. "Well, yeah. Feli and Jackass are big on Christmas. Feli's always making too much food and coming to my place uninvited to tell me how much family matters and stuff. Boss is more concerned with making a fancy presepe and getting Epiphany presents cheap."

"But that's not how we celebrate!" Austria said. "In Austria and some other German places we have this thing on the Fifth called Krampus Night where we dress as these evil demon minions of Santa who beat bad kids with crops!"

"Wait, what?"

"You heard me! One year we all went and Lud dressed up and scared the others so bad Lili suplexed him and Vash shot him in the face," Roderich beamed.

Antonio gaped. "That sounds... Awesome!"

"Well, compared to the Christmas you know. I haven't even gotten to Frau Perchta, but that's a story for another day," Roderich grinned. "My favorite part of the Holidays is trying to scare Gilbert. Sadly, it only works, like, twenty percent of the time."

"Well yeah. Gil seems to have some kind of a nerve of steel," Antonio smirked, "but I know who'd be easier and more fun to scare."

Roderich hummed, suddenly excited. That was a dangerous smirk, and Spain's "playful" side was not to be taken lightly. Ever.

"I'm listening."

-----

Francis, too, was excited for Christmas in his own respect. It was just about time to start decorating for the Holidays, and he loved making the clay figures for his crèches. Sometimes he sold some in the Christmas Market, and he could use the extra money to buy Fête des Rois presents. There was just so much to look forward to!

As he went to find his sculpting clay and paints, he could've sworn he heard something fall in the other room. Now France was no coward, but he might've maybe jumped just a bit, and something grazed his arm.

France nearly stumbled out of his closet space and tripped and fell on his back just as quickly. He looked up, and found nothing out of the ordinary. The thing that had brushed against him was just an old outfit he got from Canada, the thing he tripped over was some wood for his crèche, poorly placed by his fault. Francis sighed. He still felt like something was off, but played it off as an overactive imagination.

He picked up the wood and went into the other room to investigate the noise from earlier. Nothing seemed out of place, but a fallen book, but he couldn't shake off that weird feeling. Almost as if on cue, the lights went off with a flick. Feeling panic raise in his throat, Francis quickly went to turn the lights back on, only to be disappointed when the room stayed unlit.

"A cut wire?" He asked no one in particular.

"Or the spirits of the season here to make you repent," came a deep growl in reply.

France couldn't help but scream as he threw the wood he was holding in the direction of the voice. It hit something with a 'thud', and he took that as a sign to scramble out the room. Every light in the house was flickering in no particular order or pattern, but that barely caught Francis' attention.

What really scared him was a suit of armor unhooking itself from the wall. Slowly, it reared its head and Francis saw two red glowing eyes. Francis froze. His heart began racing, but it seems his nerves completely fried and he couldn't move. As the rest of the suit moved towards him, he felt a hand make it's way up his neck. He shivered.

And the lights finally cut out.

-----

Katyusha liked spending time with her siblings around this time of year, even if they didn't celebrate their Christmas this month. Perhaps she thought they could prepare for New Year together, or just appreciate the fact it wasn't quite as cold as it would be in January. Whatever the reason, the fact was she always went to Ivan first, and she always insisted on him helping her knit.

"I want to make Sestra a scarf," she said.

Ivan raised an eyebrow. "More than a month before Christmas?" Ukraine nodded.

"It gets cold just around January," she smiled, "and I don't want to give it to her after the cold season starts."

So Russia agreed, deciding to ignore—for Ukraine's sake—the fact that it was always cold and that Belarus was weird enough to Cossack in a blizzard wearing practically nothing. Once inside, Ukraine headed towards the living room and Russia excused himself to answer his ringing phone.

"Allo?"

"Do you believe in fate?" Came a low voice from the other end.

Ivan blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Do you believe in fate?"

Ivan was confused. The number was unknown and the voice unfamiliar. He might have to do some hacking later. "Who is this?"

"Non-believers shall pay. Sinners shall repent. Fake prophets such as yourself pay with their lives." And suddenly the call ended.

Ivan barely had time to process that before a gunshot sounded from outside and a scream was heard from the living room. Hesitating only a moment, he put his phone down and went to check on his sister.

Ukraine had heard the gunshot, but that hadn't been why she screamed. No, she screamed because she'd quickly had a sack thrown over her head and was picked up like she weighed nothing.

"Ivan!" She cried, but she was muffled slightly by the sack. She felt herself being carried down some stairs and she knew she must've been taken to the basement. She was laid on the floor, where—after hearing the door close—she quickly took off the sack and ran towards the door.

It had been jammed. She jiggled the knob but it wouldn't budge. Desperate, she banged the door.

"Ivan!"

Russia had to ignore the blood streaming down the basement stairs when he heard Katyusha call him. "Katyusha?" He called back, trying not to sound panicky. He was the older one, after all.

"Brat, I want out!" Katyusha cried. Ivan sighed, a bit relieved. He would've been more worried if she wasn't crying.

"Alright, hang on. Just get away from the door a moment." He went to unlock the door, but it still wouldn't open. He reached under the door to find wood blocks crammed under the door. He removed them and immediately the blood(or was that wine?) starting spilling into the basement.

Ivan when went in calmly, assuring Katyusha that everything was already, the door closed again. Russia heard it. The click of a lock.

"Shit."

"Do you know how to pick it?" Ukraine asked, panicky. "You can do anything, surely you could do this!"

"I'm a tech guy," he replied. "Not a criminal and not a miracle worker."

As Ivan started helping Ukraine wipe away her tears, lights flickered on. Confused, Russia looked up to see speakers in each corner. Then it started playing.

-----

Prussia didn't like coming home during the holiday season. Someone was bound to try and scare him at some point. In increasingly annoying ways, he might add.

When his lights didn't switch on upon him coming in, he knew today would be the day. He sighed, put his groceries on the counter, and prepared for the worst. Or worst attempts, seeing as he was used to it all by now.

He didn't flinch when the hand danged up against the window. He closed the curtains. He scream at the blood that flowed from his tap. He grabbed a bottle instead. He didn't jump at his reflection making scary faces at him in the mirror. He make faces back.

Finally, he was finished. "I know you're saving some shit. So hurry up and get on with it."

Almost as if on cue, the window reopened and three bats flew directly towards him. He dodged two and swatted the other one off of his face. Carefully placed red lights began to light the room, and scratch marks began to appear on the walls.

Bell sounds rang out, a couple flaming hands bursted from random places on the floor, and the lights began to flicker. But Gilbert stood his ground. Finally, with a couple flares, he appeared, covered in fur from head to toe. He cackled, holding a whip, ready to strike. He aimed it directly at Gil.

Prussia caught it, the leather cracking against his hand. "Merry Christmas, Austria."

And with that, Roderich lost it. "God dammit! Do you not a single fear in this world!"

Gilbert allowed himself to smirk a bit. "None that you've found."

Austria grumbled, throwing off his mask. "See! I told you he's hard to scare!"

Antonio emerged from the closet, holding a laptop and looking nothing but befuddled. "Damn. I used all my best stuff for this, too."

"Oh, I should've known," Prussia groaned. "Antonio does the backstage stuff in your stupid plays. You couldn't have pulled off something so elaborate on your own."

"Yes I could've, you dumb albino whore! And my plays are not stupid," Austria huffed. "At least not as stupid as your dumb knight stories."

"You take that back!"

"Make me!"

With Roderich and Gilbert arguing(yet again), Antonio had nothing to do but complain about all the props he wasted. He slowly shut off all his traps and turned the lights back on. All that and they didn't even get blackmail of Prussia. What a wasted night.

"If you guys are done, would you please get out of my house. When the mob comes after you two, I want them anywhere but here."

"Whatever," Austria sighed, reaching to pick up his whip. A roach crawl out from under it before he could, though. "Ew, that's-"

And before he could finish, a high pitched screeched pierced through the air.

-----

"I cannot believe you two did something like this!" Lili chastised. "You used all my expensive wine!"

"That's what you bring up first?" Italy questioned.

"I'll tell you what you dumbasses did wrong," Lovino stepped in. "You scared Francis half to death, Katyusha keeps crying about the horrors of vaporwave/disco, Ivan is so stressed from trying to blow up your speakers—which are still somehow playing your satanic Rasputin—that Vash gave him a box of his stress Cheez-Its, and Gilbert is a sobbing mess in Ludwig's arms!"

"I think my siblings are fine," Belarus pointed out. "They're quite used to being scarred, after all."

"I know, I'm just trying to make a point that what they did was bad."

"I don't know, I thought it was impressive," Germany said, awkwardly rocking Prussia.

"Dear God, please don't encourage them," Feliciano half-pleaded.

"I don't know why you guys are making such a big deal about it!" Austria blurted. "It's such a me thing to do."

"More like a little shit thing to do," Ludwig said, "but you are a little shit, so..."

"What are you trying to do?" Lovino snapped.

"Bih, it's winter break. I'm not trying to do anything."

"Our point is, we're very disappointed in you two," Liechtenstein finished.

Walking home Vash grumbled, "You owe me a box of Cheez-Its."

"I swear," Gilbert whispered to Germany, "I am going to bleach all of his dry clean only dresses."

"Oh shit." Something told Ludwig there was gonna be a lot of fighting in his future.

"Uh, Francis," Spain started, "I'm sorry I scared you that much. I didn't think you'd react like that. I tried to go easy on you."

France smiled. "That's alright, Toño! Just know, this is why no one loves you!"

"Francis!" Romano yelled.

"Huh? What'd I say?"

"Oh, wait!" Austria suddenly stopped and ran back towards the latins. "Toni, I forgot to give you something!"

Antonio blinked. "You did? What?"

Roderich smirked, leaned in, and pecked Antonio on the cheek. "My gift! Merry Christmas, sexy." And with that, he was skipping back towards his family.

Lovino hummed. "Correction, one person loves him."

"Hello? Spain?" Veneziano said, waving his face in front of his face. "Earth to Antonio?"

"Oh, I am so taking a picture."

"Lovino!"

#reverse caretaker au #hetalia #axis powers hetalia #fanfic #submission #JAHESYSN THIS IS AMAZING #I LOVE IT THANK YOU #i laughed at the prussia part so gd hard #and the innocent ‘thats why no one loves you’ from france literally killed me

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queer-goldcrest-of-the-void · 3 years

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Sometimes, it's hard not to be resentful. I have fallen through the cracks a lot and I worry sometimes that I'll continue to do so.

I grew up in a deprived area in the UK. It's actually one of the most deprived areas in one of the very most deprived cities in the UK. Unlike other deprived areas in other deprived cities, the rent and taxes are still unbelievably high — the poor here are often a step away from bankruptcy and homelessness, because our council likes to "squeeze them harder". Most schools are crap. The good ones are inaccessible — either too far away, too expensive or both.

I went to college, because I couldn't get the education I needed at school. College wasted six years of my life and I came out with nothing to show for it apart from a B in English Literature. College was like school, only worse.

My late teens, I was ill. Probably a combination of stress from being shoved into a group of very aggressively cis(allo)het girls as a queer trans young man who thought he was just a weird cis(allo)het teenage girl (believe me, I was treated badly) and depression at knowing my life was going down the pan. I was helpless. I had no idea how I could turn my life around. Added to that, I was pressured into cishet relationships that I was not comfortable in — more than once to "save" the guy (never do this to a person — I can't describe how messed up that is). All the while, the "fat" (fatter than someone who made a UK size 6/US size 0 look oversize) girls treated me like shit because I was "slim". Nice! These people were slim — it was not my fault that I was ill and therefore smaller.

It took years, but I recovered. I spent some of my recovery working in a cinema, where I was frequently starved and made to work long hours that would kill a person who was fit and healthy. Luckily, I "escaped" and spent the rest of my recovery working for a pretty good, family-run business. They paid a fair wage and obeyed laws that determined the hours someone should be expected to work and how much breaktime should be allowed per hours worked. The hours were shorter, I didn't have to walk home alone at midnight and I wasn't being starved.

Then there was a recession. I lost my job. Lots of people did. Lucky me!

I didn't need to go back into education. I didn't need to retrain. I just needed to keep applying for retail jobs — something would come up. So said everyone I went to for help, anyway. Thing is, I was well over 21 and therefore expensive. 16-21 year olds are cheaper to pay and just as good as a 21+ year old. No retail company trying to keep afloat in a recession would want me. But...I had nothing else. The Job Centre kept telling me that I wasn't trying and constantly threatened to stop giving me the peanuts I was supposedly entitled to. I was too old (at the time) to take voluntary work — they wanted the people who were the age group I was in (16-21) when I'd left college with nothing and begged for voluntary work and/or a helping hand to get experience.

When I'd all but given up, I found someone willing to help. A local charity was running an admin and typing course. I lost my Jobseekers' Peanuts when I got a place, but hey, my father (on minimum wage and gruelling shifts) was able to support me without any trouble. Ha ha.

We struggled on. And on. Eventually, a few temp jobs later, I have a good job. You could say I have nothing to complain about.

Trouble is, I remember.

I remember being a teenager in obvious distress, who nobody wanted to help (apart from my mostly powerless parents and one good doctor, who my terrified mother dragged me to when I was weeks away from death and hanging by a thread).

I remember being a young adult in my twenties, struggling to find work and grateful for anything I could get, even when I was starved and overworked.

I remember being slightly older and trying to change direction, when everyone wanted to keep me where I was.

When I was unemployed and also without Jobseekers' Peanuts, I was approached by someone who wanted money to help "poor, unfortunate teenagers, who leave school with nothing and fall through the cracks". My brother was shocked when I gave nothing.

The money in my pocket? It was my father's earnings. Those teenagers? They had support systems I didn't. Systems I'd been turned away from. Why did they need me to give them money? What cracks could they fall through? I was still falling, myself, and I could see no hope for me.

My life is still turning around. For a long time, I was living from one glimmer of luck to another, with lots of bad stuff and despair in between. I was resentful. I'm starting to feel gratitude and hope, now. But nothing really changed for me until I was 35. That's a long time. My youth was stolen from me and I still have health issues because of my weightloss as a teenager.

I don't want sympathy. This is just a vent post.

#vent post #long post

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