*Uploaded 2/15/2014

*Re-edited 2017

(The irony of life is that those who wear masks often tell us more truths than those with open faces.)

Allen F. Jones was not the type of person to be friendly or kind.

One can say he does not have a single good bone in his body.

He isn't the sort to smile in an inviting or joyful way, if he does ever smile then be assured that someone would be found soon, beaten and broken beyond repair. He is just that sort of person.

He does not laugh because something is funny, he laughs because someone is pleading, begging for mercy, though he never gives it (mercy, always mercy). He is just that sort of person.

He is not cruel to beget cruelty, he is simply being cruel to other people who will then be cruel to someone else. That is the cycle. He begins were he will always end, in darkness. That is simply the fact of life.

No one really knows where he came from, one day he was just there, a being with no fears or mortal constructs to chain him. One day he just stepped into view and everyone just knew that was a man you must never cross. A man who had nothing left to lose.

He was the boogeyman parents whispered to their children's of.

He was the demon that you must run from.

He lived for himself and fought for himself. But what he called survival others called unnatural. Abnormal even to these quaint little masses who lived with eyes closed, believing, wishing, that everything in this world was alright.

It isn't.

Allen knew this the same way he knew the sky was blue. The same way he knew the populace of this small backwater city would see nothing but a creature playing at human skin, yet never ask why. They'd play at ignorance, believing it must have something to do with that vintage bombers jacket he wore like armor. They would lie, even to themselves, believing it must have something to do with those odd eyes glowing eerily against tan flesh. They would turn their backs, believing it must have something to do with that obvious baseball bat chucked ten ways to Friday with jagged nails and dark stains (bloodbloodbloodblood) covering the wood.

Well. They were not half wrong, though they equated him to be some sort of murder, or close to one.

He isn't.

You cannot equate human things with something that isn't human.

He is no monster.

Well, not to those who knew.

To others who did not, who only felt but did not see or hear or want to, he is a monster, a demon, a murderer playing human. To those who did know, who felt and saw and heard even when their very senses screamed not to - they would see something playing human, but not a monster. Not a demon and certainly not a murderer.

Allen F. Jones is an animal. No really, he is an animal playing human.

Allen F. Jones is nothing more than a wolf playing human.

It is magic that allows him to do so, just like many others here in this city and across the world.

Just like that baker with colorful pastels (that strange man with bright smiles and gleaming pale eyes). Or that artist down the block, near the market (his eyes as dark as the ink he worked with). Or that man in the underground (his smile as sharp as his tongue) and so many more still that have disillusioned their true nature, their form, with magic that allows them to appear human.

No one would suspect though, in the same way no one would expect Allen to not be human at all. After all, wolves are said to have been extinct for a long while now, decades even, a myth nowadays. Ironic even that the wolves have forgotten how they had learned to survive.

He knew by association, but there wasn't much to gain from the knowledge. Who would really care that the Kirkland family had been the ones to create the magics, to bear the wonder of the earth screaming out and changing and spreading? Allen didn't have the power to do anything, even if he was a cousin, a small outside pack of litter from the same family, blood so diluted that it was unable to sustain what the Kirkland's could.

He didn't even want to go into the strangeness of the main family either.

It was obvious though, as much as everyone tried, something was odd about him, about them, about everyone who knew and saw and felt.

But not that girl though. Not that strange girl who owned the animal shelter near the center of the city. She was a wolf, he knew that. But even he could admit that he had to give a double take, as at first glance, he had registered as human.

Madisson Diaz.

A white wolf breed with something a little silver.

(Through alleyways and streets, the seasonal winter blowing harsher than normal, biting at his wet nose - Allen remembered.)

He couldn't quite recall what lead him to her.

(The tension thick in the air for something to do, anything - he met her there. At the busy intersection, the animal shelter nestled neatly between large buildings that one could have passed by and not given a second glance, or a first.)

He only remembered the heat of bodies packed together on the crossing streets, the smog and death palpable on the brittle trees and artificial grass. But then the wind shifted, pollution a backdrop in his mind when he caught her scent.

It was something wild and new and old. It was sweet and bitter, and Allen could have likened it to so many things, but at the end of the day, all he could say, was that it is a reprieve - a release - of the everyday. Of all the disgusting things in the air pushed back just for that short while and he just knew.

(The door was ajar and he could see her, dark curls of hair tumbling down slender shoulders, and eyes old with something only she knew, hiding away behind a never ending sea of brown. Of brown that turned various shades of hazel and amber in sunlight. Of brown that reminded him of fallen bark at the bottom of a lake. Of brown that just couldn't quite be contained.)

There was something different about her.

A wolf who acted human.

A wolf whose image seemed to strengthen without thought, obscuring even her true form to the wolves of this city. If Allen hadn't paused, hadn't gotten closer and actually looked he would have missed it all entirely.

(But he could see it now.)

The wolf underneath the illusion.

(Once he saw he couldn't stop seeing.)

She wasn't a wolf built for fighting, her slender and smaller form breed for speed than anything else. Still, he couldn't deny the fire in her eyes. The way those eyes had looked at him, burning and promising chaos should he try and cause trouble.

It was a challenge as much as it was a warning, but damned if Allen didn't want to see what she was made of.

He hadn't meant for it to become an obsession.

It wasn't her quiet approach to danger, eyes analytical and lips curled up into a devious smile. It wasn't the softness of her eyes and the warmer touch to her lips when she would speak to a child or hold a smaller animal in her arms. It wasn't the very amusing way she snarled, frustration on her face and her entire body wired for a tousle.

Maybe he just wanted too much, had needed too much, and he fell long before he ever had a chance to stop.

An obsession that skewed the longer she existed.

Yet for all the fascination he held, Allen still couldn't wrap his mind around the fact she preferred a human life.

("There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human," Her hands weaved through the fur of the blonde cat on her lap, gentle and precise. She looked up at him then, something so very clear hiding beneath those eyes, "In not having to be just happy or just sad - in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.")

What was it that was sweet about the human life? What was it that was innocent? What is it that made her abandon her very blood in favor these creatures who have polluted and brought the very earth to near destruction? He couldn't understand and it frustrated him greatly that she seemed to have no care about her true self, about the wolf she is and not the human she mimicked everyday.

Then one day, it just didn't matter anymore.

(You wanted to drown in a woman. Here's your chance. Drown in her blood.)

She no longer stood in the fake skin she had held tightly to like a lifeline. Right at that moment she peered back at these strangers with her pale eyes and fur. It was a small group that had approached, yet it was the one with short pink hair who seemed the most eager to meet Madisson.

It was this same woman who Madisson returned a smiling face, tail wagging hesitantly before billowing with full force when the woman approached her, closer to the point the woman could now dig her hands into fur. She did. Her fingers combed through curls of fur and she knelt down, burying her face into the scruff of Madisson's neck. The woman seemed to be in post bliss.

The wind shifted and Allen stilled, scenting something new. It was coming from the pink haired woman. It smelt like flowers. His nose twitched and he snorted, finding the scent both pleasant but overpowering. It was different compared to Madisson, but now that he was there, he could say it was a more diluted form of this woman's scent.

Not as flowery, a little bit more wild, and Allen found he preferred Madisson's scent compared to the pink haired woman.

His eyes narrowed and he watched as she seemed to be happily shaking in the woman's arms. He had never seen her do that before, looking so emotionally invested that her entire being shook. He hated it. He hated how her eyes lit up with joy and her body bounced from side to side as if she were just a puppy again. He hated it, how she acted this way with people he was certain she had never met before.

Then the white one - snow white - came just a little too close for Allen's comfort. There wasn't much space between them, fur bristled and practically trying to lay his scent on her. Allen's ears pricked forwards and he heard, and he couldn't help but want to snort in disbelief. In fact, he might have, moving a single hand over his mouth to cover the laughter he felt bubbling up his chest. Unbelievable.

"Will you follow us to Paradise?"

They believed in such a fairy tale? Allen was feeling so ridiculous in believing that anything could occur that he turned on his heel to leave, reassured that Madisson, with her prudish sort of existence would not even think twice of declining. Paradise? Such a thing could only exist in death, not in life, and not here in this sort of world.

"Yes,"

He froze.

What. He must have heard wrong.

He looked back at Madisson, noticed how she moved closer towards the group, agreeing -

Allen shook his head, surprised, and without much warning he dropped down upon them, paws hitting ground and his fur bristled. His eyes were upon her, ignoring the others who tensed at his arrival. Madisson kept her head high, rebelling against him with every step he took.

(It still looped around his mind, her eager smile, her acceptance for something that had become a children's legend shelved away even to the humans, to wolves themselves.)

"You must be joking, sweetheart." He spoke, heavily sweetened with open wonder. "You can't honestly believe in such a story can you?"

He couldn't understand her thought process. But he could understand the cowering female, the pink haired woman keeping as much distance as she could from Allen, even as her blind eyes widely stared at him. She was afraid, just as afraid as the little pup of the group, staying behind someone else. They were simple. Them he can understand, their fear he can understand, but Madisson - with her acceptance, her agreement to disappear and never come back - he just couldn't understand.

That appeal, her unpredictability, wasn't so appealing now.

"Even Oliver doesn't believe in that story and he has his head in la la land with fairies and unicorns."

Madisson glared at him, body filled with unbridled frustration, "What does it matter in what I believe in? What I believe in is my own choice, it has nothing to do with you."

"I don't care if you believe in Great ol' Saint Nick, but it does have something to do with me if you're trying to leave." Allen hissed, knowing in his heart that Madisson was a mystery, her thoughts, her feelings, her actions had never been something he could understand.

(Will he ever?)

"What makes you think you have any say on what I do?"

Allen scoffed. "For the same reasons you think I don't."

Madisson scowled in displeasure even as unease settled in her eyes. Snow white stepped up then and his eyes snapped to the other, sharp and unyielding, warning him to not do anything else or face the consequences. But of course he didn't listen, simply taking the challenge as it was given by standing side by side Madisson with head raised high. An alpha? "Step the fuck back, snow white!" Allen spat, anger boiling in his veins. His vision was practically going hazy with it, wanting to tear straight into the upstart who stepped foot into this city.

The other simply stepped further one more step, intent obvious - a fight. Snow white wanted a fight then; Allen laughed, eyes wild before he suddenly pounced, "FINE!"

It was one sided from the beginning.

Allen had never played fair, had never wished to, really. He was the type to fight dirty, to snap his jaws straight into any weakness he could exploit. He was just that sort of person. Even to the point of death - the blood splattering while a wicked gleam passed through Allen's eyes - he had never been kind to begin with. What made them think he would be so now? Ah, he's going to die. That wolf is going to die. Allen poised to rip out the throat when Madisson sprung instead, slamming into him and knocking him back enough to disorient him. Her teeth snapped viciously at him, and for a moment Allen likened her to a vengeful goddess.

That single thought didn't linger long though as he kicked her back, her small slender body flying. She landed near the pink haired woman, shaking the dust from her head and snarled at him. It was almost cute.

"You are not a fighter, sweetheart." Allen told her, and he smiled at the fire in her eyes. She stood only to flinch as one of her paws refused to give in to her weight, a twisted limb. Perfect - and he charged, barely registering as the big wolf with a collar pulled the pink haired woman away, more intent in crushing Madisson's body into the wall. She twisted and turned, but she could not dislodge herself from his person and the force of the wall. He could almost hear her bones straining, hear the sharp snap of something breaking before her loud whine of pain erupted into his ears.

(Nothing was inevitable. She had not chosen this way. It was her fate.)

He couldn't quite remember what happened after that, as his mind derailed in a long dark tunnel with only snippets of the things around him.

Such as that Snow White who attempted, even with such damage and blood profoundly leaving his body, to attack and keep Allen away.

Or when the one with the scar on his chest stepped in, haunted eyes palpable there on the elder face and seeming to understand something the others wouldn't, yet still tried to fight.

The same as that woman with pink hair and blind eyes, her continuous glances over her shoulder when the group decided to leave - the yearning, the pain, the things that should not be there for a stranger.

They had gone and in the very silence of it, Madisson lay before him, her anger and her pain mingling into one. She laid there, fur tousled from the fight, and her body too damaged to want to move. Her breathing was ragged and broken (whispering things he did not hear).

Allen huffed and turned away, spitting out the blood from his teeth, and glancing about the area. It was dark now, he doubted anyone would really linger about, no one else but the homeless, the starving, and the less than savory humans. His ears pricked as he walked away, away from what he had done, away from the girl whom he did not give a second glance to.

(He kept her even when he didn't need to.)

He was just that sort of person.

2/15/2014: So yah...this. No idea what I just did but it has been on my mind for SO long that I needed it OUT. Hated the way I did the ending too, GAAAAUUU - but I did enjoy the cross-over idea since I've never REALLY seen a cross-over between Hetalia and Wolf's Rain. But it got stuck in my head when I saw this photo of Italy and Germany's relationship resembling Toboe's and Tsume's relationship of older brother protecting younger brother.

Especially they way they LOOK, never even realized how ALIKE they appeared! O_O

It sucked too because I already had the cross-over idea even BEFORE I saw that blasted picture, but it was the tap that destroyed the damn and my patience. But hey, whatever! I still got something out even if it IS a oneshot with 2p! America~ the one and only.

And for a simple disclaimer: DO NOT OWN WOLF'S RAIN OR HETALIA, JUST MY OC MADISSON AND THE BRIEF PLOT HERE.

4/25/2017: Not much to really say expect obviously, I rewrote it all. I kept as closely to the plot I had previously, but some things were still cut out. Nothing to be noticeable, still, I hope you all enjoyed.