Beta-Note: Hi readers of Treyen's fabulous fic! Sorry for the delays here and there; they were all my fault because I'm English-Canadian: my memory is terrible (because no-one remembers me) and I'm lazy (because America has been rubbing off on me. Oooooh, candid UK/US reference. Yum). Anyhoo, hope you guys have had as much fun reading this as I have beta-ing it, and I think Trey deserves a HUUUGE round of applause and lots of reviews to tell her how special and awesome and Prussian she is for writing such a mammoth-spectacular fic. LOVE YOU TREY!
Main Conference Room
10.55 a.m.
Japan hid his face behind his hands and stooped down to hide somewhere so people wouldn't affiliate him with his Asian brother and sister. Meanwhile, Korea laughing his head off.
"They set off unlawful fireworks in a park," Germany listed, trying to sound calm. Greece just nodded an affirmative and Germany continued. He kept pausing after each sentence because he really desperately desired each indiscretion to be a mistake. "Then evaded the police."
"Yes," Greece said.
"Destroyed a shop's display window with fireworks."
"Exactly."
"Set off fireworks at a police patrol."
Greece nodded again.
"Stole a car."
"Two of them," Greece corrected. "The first one they managed to crash."
Germany's eyebrow twitched violently. "And currently they are on the run from the police somewhere in Greece."
"Actually, according to the last update in my information, they're almost in Turkey already."
Turkey laughed. "So no following them long anymore? Smart little brats."
"Stop laughing!" Greece snapped and slammed his palm down onto the table. "How much work do you think this gives me? It takes money to repair everything, give overtime wages to the police and to hide everything from the public. Also, the police chief in charge will soon no doubt demand extra training for his subordinates so they'll be able to handle things next time something like this happens. Because I'm the host, this is all my fault."
"Yeah, yeah, you'll have our sympathies, cat freak," Turkey said indifferently. "Oh and about that, get this thing off me." He pointed at his shoulder where a white kitten clung meowing and batting at his ear.
"Korea, be quiet," Germany ordered the still-laughing nation in a tone that told he was in no mood to joke around. Korea apparently didn't hear because he was laughing too hard (but it was rather more likely that he had heard and just didn't care).
"Korea, SHUT UP!" Germany raged, his face beet-red. When the other didn't react, his eyebrows twitched again dangerously.
"Korea," Norway warned indifferently.
"Sorry," Korea answered immediately with straight face. His damp, red eyes were the only sign he'd ever been laughing himself into hysterics.
"Oi," Romano muttered and Seychelles started laughing, but she stopped when Germany glared at her.
"Greece?"
"Yes," the host answered and coughed before continuing. "Furthermore, there are some other things I'd like to tell you. Firstly...I have had to call three therapists in total to calm down my employees. They have been shocked over all the running, shouting and other various traumatizing acts." At this point he glared at Romano. "Two of the therapists alone were needed to council those who ran in on a...er...not-so-private act of indecency and were given a nasty surprise. I also needed several charwomen to deal with the ridiculous amount of mess generated by all this. Would you please look up while I'm talking, China? I'm referring to you too." China didn't respond and Greece took a long pause in an attempt to recollect his thoughts.
"Two therapists for...?" Estonia repeated, frowning. "We... er, heard about Netherlands' and Ukraine's case already, but...what was the other one?" he asked carefully.
Greece turned red with anger. "Indeed..." he mumbled and then turned to shout at his neighbour: "You two just had to have your wicked way in the infirmary bed, didn't you!"
Turkey snorted. "Your staff are just too prudish; find people with a stronger stomachs, man. Aren't you supposed to be renowned for se–."
"Why the curtains?" Greece interrupted. "Curtains, for cat's sake."
"Oh shut up, you're loud today," Turkey said, rebelliously digging his little finger into his ear. "That was fun. Right Canada?"
"Y-yes," Canada said, smiling timidly. "Very enjoyable."
"I'm sure Estonia would have liked that too," Turkey said, winking at Estonia, who kept himself from responding for the sake of his pride.
"Keep Estonia out of this," Greece warned. "And you're going to buy me new curtains, just so you know."
"Just so you know, I'm not," Turkey answered.
Greece sighed and turned back to his papers. "I'll deal with you later. Now on with the damage report: Japan and Iceland."
Japan blushed, trying to keep a straight face with little success. Iceland stared back at Greece with his "I'm-listening-but-not-actually-interested" -look.
"The bathhouse in this place has one bigger pool for swimming and one smaller one for relaxing," Greece said and then picked up a photograph from between his papers, raising it for everyone to see. "Exactly what...did you do to make it look like this?"
.
Jungle
Around 9.00 local time
Lithuania sighed and sat down beside a tree. "Whose idea this was again?"
"..." Egypt answered, raising his eyebrow at his companion.
Lithuania sighed. "Oh yeah, mine..." He glanced at Egypt who was standing beside him. "Why did you accept the idea in the first place?"
"Heart–"
"I know!" Lithuania interrupted before Egypt could finish. "I can't really blame you, so this is all just my fault, isn't it?" he asked, defeated, and put his head in his hands.
"This is fun," Egypt assured aloud, because the other nation wasn't paying enough attention to pick up on the nuances of his usual method of communication and sat down beside Lithuania.
"Really?" Lithuania asked, partly amused, and raised his head. "Well I guess it is." He laughed nervously, trying to ignore the big spider on his foot. "At least this is something I won't experience very often."
Egypt smiled and closed his eyes, trying to relax after all the running they had done.
"Um..."
He opened his eyes when he heard Lithuania talk and move restlessly. "?"
"...Could you... take this off me?" Lithuania asked and pointed at the spider that was climbing up to his knee.
"^^" Egypt's shoulders shook with silent laughter.
"Stop laughing," Lithuania begged and tried to move away from the spider: a nigh impossible task that would have meant amputating his own leg. "I think it likes me..."
Egypt frowned, irritated.
.
Main Conference Room
11.08 a.m.
Norway stared at the photo for two seconds before he leant back in his chair and closed his eyes, sighing. Finland snickered. "Oh dear, Ice. You're worse than Denmark."
"It wasn't me," Iceland answered bluntly, eyes averting from the picture of the bathhouse that now had water overflowing everywhere. The main pool had newly acquired a big slide, a Jacuzzi, and—quite bizarrely—some kind of net spreading over one half.
"What is that for?" Hungary asked, absolutely amazed and pointed at the picture. "That net. What exactly did you do there?"
"We swam," Iceland said simply. "Mostly. Japan made the net for us to rest. It was nice and humid on that."
"So you went and reconstructed my bath?" Greece confirmed. "In one day?"
"Pretty much," Iceland said and took a cookie from a basket in front of them.
"Why are you complaining?" Finland asked Greece. "If someone did that to my bathhouse, I'd be overjoyed."
Greece had hid his face behind his hands. "Who exactly do you think they'll send the bill?"
"Oh," Finland said and gave Iceland a cautious glance. Iceland snapped his cookie in two and ate it like this had nothing to do with him.
"I… I…" Japan stuttered and then sprang up from his chair, dashing out of the conference hall into the preparation room, banging the door shut after him.
"What's with him?" Korea wondered, partially wanting to go after Japan. But that would mean he would have to let go of Norway, whom he had been hugging for a while, and Korea didn't want to do that.
"He's afraid you'll ask him for details," Iceland answered, sounding like he was talking about the weather, especially so, because he had half a cookie in his mouth. "And he's just embarrassed about the trouble we've caused. I'll go check that he's okay." That said, he rose from the table and left the room after Japan. Puffin didn't follow but stayed where she was and watched her master leave.
Greece shook his head. "I want to go to sleep. Must. Sleep. This is a dream."
"In that case, shouldn't you wake up rather than fall asleep?" Romano asked.
"Maybe I'll have another dream and this will all go away," Greece said and sighed. "This is not going to be good for my economy…"
.
Somewhere in Athens
Monday morning
"Found you," Prussia said and leaned against the doorframe. "Man, I've been looking for you everywhere all morning, you know. You're damn good at getting lost as always, prissy-pants."
"Leave me alone," Austria growled and turned away. "I do not want to see you."
"That's cruel, hey," Prussia said and approached the nation backed into the corner of the room. "It was you who started it after all."
Austria turned sharply and gave Prussia an embarrassed glare. "To be precise, it was you and your ways to get Hungary's attention that started it. Now would you kindly take your leave and–"
"No," Prussia answered and grinned his most awesome grin. "You see, prissy-pants, you left me rather quickly this morning." Austria blushed furiously, but before he could comment, Prussia pressed his thumb to Austria's partially open mouth and used his other hand to grasp Austria's collar, pulling him closer. "So I'm not satisfied yet."
.
Main Conference Room
11.25 a.m.
"Germany~! Everyone~! How are you doing?" Italy sang as he flung the doors open. "I had so much fun with Poland, you can't guess! Oh, brother~, how are you?"
"Hi!" Poland greeted next, closing the door behind them.
"Italy!" Germany said sharply and turned. "How late do you guys think you are? The meeting started– Italy, what has happened to your hair?"
"Oh, this?" Italy asked, fingering his flaming red hair—and, duh, of course it included magenta highlights; Poland had decided on the colours. "Poland styled it for me. Isn't it great?" Italy gave them a sunny smile.
Germany and Romano stared first at Italy, horrified, and then simultaneously turned to glare murderously at Poland, who was ignoring them with Style. Yes, bolded and italicized.
"Like, where's Liet?" Poland asked suspiciously and glanced around. "Egypt isn't here either…" he added, sounding unhappier by the minute.
"They're in–" Latvia started but he was cut short by Estonia who pinched him.
"They're not coming," Estonia said quickly and sent Latvia a warning glance. "But Lithuania told they are fine and just friends."
"Oh…" Poland thought about this for a second. "I guess that's kinda, like, okay then…"
Germany coughed. "So, Italy, Poland: why are you so late?"
"We forgot about the whole thing until about an hour ago~," Italy answered cheerfully, making Germany facepalm. "Oh, Germany, Poland bought me a beautiful dress, you wanna see it?"
Seychelles chuckled as both Romano and Germany turned scarlet. Nobody knew whether it was down to fury or dirty thoughts, but knowing those nations it was probably both. A dangerous mix.
"Maybe later, Italy," Germany mumbled and turned back the table. "Now sit down."
Poland and Italy sat down and a moment of silence spread amongst the nations. Everyone—okay, at least a few of them—was trying to think up something to say. Hungary managed to open her mouth first.
"What are we going to do now?" Hungary asked, looking around the table. "Most of the pairings have been found and returned. The rest are probably best left to it, seeing as there's no promise we'll find them any time soon. Do we continue the conference?"
"I can't see why we would do that," Liechtenstein said and everyone looked at her in surprise. She explained herself. "I don't think anyone is in the mood for that. Don't you agree, sister?"
"Mm." Finland nodded, thinking. "True, it's been a bit hectic."
"A bit?" Norway repeated dryly and tried to push Korea away, only managing to become even more entangled within the Asian's arms.
Finland ignored him and continued: "Everyone is either tired or wants to gossip about their experiences." He laughed and scratched his head. "Besides, we'd never catch up with the agenda... even if we started now."
Liechtenstein smiled and gave a little chuckle.
"I guess that's true too…" Germany sighed and turned to look at Greece (currently adding up all the expenses with an abacus that looked like it had belonged to his mother). "Greece especially looks like he needs a break…"
"Decided," Turkey said and stood up, stretching. "I'll be going then."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Poland objected and smacked his hand down onto the table. "We only just got here and now, like, you're telling us we actually didn't have to?"
"Wait, Turkey," Canada said too. "Aren't we deciding this a little too quickly now?"
Turkey took a deep breath. "Not really. Think about it. Do you really think we can get anything done here now? Most of us aren't even present, physically or mentally–" At this point he nodded in China's direction. "–so too many are missing to make valid decisions. Our host is like that and too many of us had too fun yesterday to think clearly." Now he nodded towards Korea. "What's the point of even trying?"
"So you're giving up?" Hungary said.
"No," Turkey answered. "I'm being realistic."
"I don't have anything against quitting," Switzerland announced.
"I don't think that surprises anyone, brother," Liechtenstein said gently, smiling again. She thought their weekend had been funny and enjoyable, but judging by her brother's dismay, he obviously had not had the same impression.
"Well if no one is against it, I'm leaving now," Turkey said and turned to leave. "See you guys later."
"Wait," Greece said suddenly and Turkey stopped, baffled. "Here." Greece handed him a package. "It's your mask," Greece explained, when Turkey looked at it like it was poisoned, cursed or in any way dangerous or Grecian. "You left it here yesterday. And your sabre should have been delivered to your hotel room. I guess you didn't think to check there."
"Oh," Turkey said, scratching his head, and took the mask, trying to come up with a way to deal with a nice Greece. "Well er… thanks."
"I'll come with you," Canada offered and left the room with Turkey.
Other nations started gathering their belongings as well. This was no small task seeing as no one had taken their papers or such with them when they'd left on Saturday. No one had cleaned the table after all the hullabaloo and as a result it was quite the mess. Cuba in particular noticed, to his displeasure, that that someone had stepped on—or rather run over—his belongings at some point. Various papers had been misplaced, but most were found again with a little effort. Not that this conference really needed documentary to share with the bosses, because they probably didn't want to know.
"Are you having problems checking the expenses, Greece?" Estonia asked and rose from his chair after he finished gathering his papers to come and stand beside Greece. "Do you need some help?"
"Thanks, some help would be good," Greece answered and together they forgot everything else and concentrated solely on Greece's papers.
"Ve~ so I can go back to sleep?" Italy asked and stretched. "Poland and I were so busy with all the pasta and shopping so we didn't get much sleep. Oh, you know what? Poland taught me all the important stuff about shopping. We should all go together at the next conference! You come, won't you brother? I would have been soooo scared, but Poland was there for me. Germany will come too right? And then the pasta was bad but then it became good though the cook was a bit confused and– oh, I skipped the hair salon part! We were–"
Switzerland rose, pointedly ignoring Italy who was still explaining his Valentine's Day to a reluctant Germany and anyone else willingly listening (Hungary). "Come Liechtenstein. We can finally leave."
"Yes, brother," Liechtenstein answered and rose as well. But when they were about to leave, she stopped. "Oh, I almost forgot! How silly of me," Liechtenstein said, laughing and Switzerland wondered if he should be worried or not. Liechtenstein continued, turning towards the table to nod at Finland. "Could Finland come visit us some day? We could make some food together."
Switzerland looked horrified and decided he should be worried. "Why should we?" he asked quickly and glanced at the door so he wouldn't have to watch Liechtenstein's smile droop. "We can manage by ourselves without some… Nordic."
"But, brother, I'm sure you'd like his recipes too," Liechtenstein wheedled. "Please, brother, you could talk about guns or something while we cook."
"Well uh…" Switzerland stuttered, trying futilely not to give in to his sister. Inevitably, he failed. "Okay but… only once then…"
"Oh, thank you, brother," Liechtenstein gushed, giving him her brightest smile and then looked over her shoulder at Finland as she followed her brother out of the door. "You hear that, Finland? I told you he would agree. I'll give you a call when it's good time for us. Bye for now!"
"Bye bye," Finland said and smiled after them when the door closed. He wasn't sure he wanted to be staring down the barrel of Switzerland's gun in the near future but at least Liechtenstein was happy. He turned his smile to Norway because smiling at the closed door felt stupid, but he didn't feel like not smiling. Norway had given up getting Korea off him and rewarded Finland's cheerfulness with a glare that clearly said: "Don't you dare tell Denmark about this." The two didn't look like they were in a hurry to leave.
Finland saw Hungary make to leave, playing with her video camera the whole time. Finland decided to speak up, since now Norway wasn't there to stop him. "Could I see your recordings, Hungary? Or are they top secret?"
"What?" Hungary stopped and looked around to see who had addressed her. "Oh! No, please help yourself. I was about to go through this anyway."
Finland chuckled and rose up, taking the camera from Hungary and promising to return it shortly. Most of the nations had left already or had a good heads start by now. Before Finland could follow suit, his interest fixated on the table with a little "Hm? where Puffin was trekking past him.
The bird stopped in front of a certain nation and leant down with a cookie in her beak.
"Kurr?"
"Huh?" China grunted and raised his head.
.
Outside the Conference Room window
At the same time
"Just look at my little Italies, aren't they the cutest little sweethearts~," Rome asked, peeking cautiously in through the window and poking the blond male beside him. "Just look how happy they both are. You agree, right?"
Germania huffed, still irritated that only half of the Germanic nations had been present.
"Oh don't be so uptight, old pal, your guys surely had fun as well," Rome tried, half-heartedly, to cheer him up. He cared more about Veneziano and Romano, and watching as the latter now left the room, clutching a pile of disorganised papers in his hand and pulling Seychelles along behind him. "Oh, just look at my sweet little grandchildren and you'll understand. Right Eros?"
"Exactly," the god answered, looking very proud of himself as he turned to talk to the woman beside him. "Thank you for giving me permission for love-triangles, mistress. That made things so much funnier."
"You're welcome," Ancient Greece answered, smiling. "I hoped my little boy would have enjoyed this a little more, but I can't have everything. At least he had fun yesterday and the day before. Thank you, Eros, you've done wonderful job."
"I'm just happy to do as you say," Eros assured, bowing slightly, and then turned around to look at the last members of their little Peeping Tom group. "As you can see, Norway enjoyed it and still does, just as I told you."
All three trolls started nodding in agreement, happy that Eros had stopped them earlier when they had come to save their homeland.
"So," Eros continued and clapped his hands together. "I've told you how to use those." He pointed at the pink bows and quivers in the trolls' hands. The trolls nodded again, looking excited. Eros gave them a thumbs-up. "Well then, I'll trust you with this stuff next year in Norway. Okay?"
.
.
THE END
THE final A/N (for this fic at least): Beware now, because I'm going to rant. First of all, I want to share somethings with you about this part:
1. Now we all know why Greece's economy is all screwed up
2. I know I said Egypt and Lithuania had their outro, BUT: there wasn't originally this scene, but I added it later, because so many people were asking about them. If you want to know, in my mind they went on a safari and got lost. Of course, since there was no reason given in the main story, it'll be all yours to decide what exactly happened to them.
3. I had a kind of a crises with Italy's hair style, because, to tell you the truth, I had never thought about how it ended up looking. Originally, they weren't supposed to come back, but they'd call about their whereabouts. I gave up on this because someone mentioned in reviews that s/he really waited to hear about it.
4. I have never writed anything including Rome, Germania or Ancient Greece before, so this is my first try.
Secondly, my lovely reviewers:
Rennasakura: I'm not going to be writing more for now, but depending on the respond from readers, I might be doing something like this in future.
SweetFirefly: It's not exactly effortless, but I wouldn't say it's hard either. The hardest part is not to be funny (that's natural since I've got a weird sense of humour), but to fit it to the scene and the storyline. Writing comedy is not easy, at least for me, because keeping the plot on-going with all the randomness I added... uh... You know what I mean. (At least I hope you do...)
And finally, please everybody applause to the person who faithfully reviewed every single part from the very beginning and who I learnt to trust to give me some feedback no matter what I did:
ficfan3484: I'll be your friend forever, dear. Oh, and if you liked Taiwan's story, I'm surprised. Because I made it up trying to make it sound as idiotic as possible.
And thirdly (Now everyone please read this):
Thank you, for all the 155 reviews before the last part, all the 21 000 hits, all the 102 story alerts, every 69 favourites and 1 community. This story finished with over 60 000 words and it's all because you kept supporting me.
Special thanks to my dear beta, Lady Emzebel, who fought through this with me. Emzy, I love you for this. *growls*
Thank you. I love you all.