Babysitting the Americans

Meet the States Pt. 6

After asking Georgia where the basement was, Canada waves goodbye and heads in its direction. It's such a large basement that there are numerous entries to it in the house, one of which is behind a bookshelf in the living room close to the front door.
"Why does Ame's house have hidden passages?" Canada wonders aloud. No wonder Mississippi could sneak his way through the house without anyone noticing.
As Canada pulls back the bookshelf in the living room, a wall of dust hits him in the face. Nobody seems to clean back here regularly. But large amounts of dust isn't the only thing he finds behind the bookshelf. Someone's clearly been around here recently, as numerous footprints in the dust on the stairs reveal that someone must have gone up and down it a lot today. Most likely Mississippi.
As he flicks the light on and shuts the bookcase door behind him. He takes a short walk down the stairs before coming to another hidden door. Opening it, he finds himself in the basement. The door he just came out of was disguised as some wine racks, and three states seem to be hanging out here.
"Uncle Canada?" One of them asks. Her flag is a garish design of 4 colors and she's wearing ripped jeans and a jacket with a planchette surrounded by the words "being dead isn't a personality trait." on it.
The other two turn to Canada. One of them has a white flag with a red x and a seal in the middle. He's wearing flip flops, booty shorts, an alligator tank top, and sunglasses resting on his head. The other has a blue flag with a seal in it like many of the others, but she has a crystal amulet around her neck and an olive green sweater. Those two seem to be huddled around a summoning circle.
"If you're here cause of Mississippi, he went through here but he told us not to tell ya." Says the state with the sunglasses.
"FLORIDA!! You can't just tell Canada that!!" The state in the sweater yells.
"Listen. If you had to share a room with that bitch, you absolutely would rat him out." Florida responds with pure sass.
"I'm gonna tell him you called him a bitch." The state with the planchette jacket says.
"I fuckin dare you." Florida says as he gets up to intimidate the other state.
"Hey, don't fight each other." Canada says, trying to be the responsible adult.
"I wasn't gonna." Says Florida as he sits back down. "I don't care if Maryland tells Missy that I called him a bitch. He already knows I do." Florida pauses for a moment. "Sometimes I think he likes it, the freak."

Germany continues to wander the house in search of Mississippi. He looks into many bedrooms that seem absent of states, before coming across an office. He looks inside and sees two states hard at work.
"Have either of you seen Mississippi?" Germany asks the states in front of him. Both of them turn towards him, and he notices the dark circles under their eyes, especially the one with 3 red stars and 2 red stripes on his flag. Germany recognizes him as DC.
"Nope." The other state, one with the classic blue plus seal combo, says. She's in casual clothes, some loose-fitting gray sweatpants, a sweater, and reading glasses.
"I'm too busy working. Since dad's on vacation I gotta do all the work he's missing." DC says without looking away from his computer screen. He's wearing a red tee, blue shorts, and a white, long-sleeved shirt under his tee.
"DC make sure not to overwork yourself." Germany says. DC doesn't even look at him. "Mhm." He hums.
"How do you know DC?" The other state asks.
"I'm your dad's boyfriend, Germany. I've seen him at a few UN and NATO meetings helping Ame out."
"Oh! Well I'm Virginia, attorney at law!" She puts her hand out in a handshake.
"Oh you're an attorney?" Germany says with surprise as he shakes Virginia's hand.
"Yep. Just going through some paperwork right now. Decided I'd help DC while dad's away and I don't have any work to do." Says Virginia. "I'm gonna go crazy if I don't have any work."
"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess." Germany chuckles.

"Uncle Canada, do you know any demonology?" Maryland asks her uncle.
"What?" Canada asks, stunned. "No? Why would I?"
"I was just asking." Says Maryland.
"It's cause me and Utah are tryna summon a demon." Florida answers Canada's question before he can ask.
"Yeah and we thought it would be easy with all our magical knowledge together." Says Utah. "But I specialize in crystals and divination, Florida's into voodoo and witchcraft, and Maryland knows the paranormal. Didn't realized it'd be this hard."
"I don't even wanna be here." Says Maryland. "Flori and Utah just dragged me here against my will."
"Why are you even doing this in the basement?" Asks Canada.
"Cause where else would we do it?" Flori says.
"I don't know? Your bedrooms?" Canada answers.
"Nah, not spooky enough." Utah says.
"If you wanted spooky, you should've just gone into Rico's room." Says Maryland. "Like, that place is crawling with ghosts."
"We want people ghosts, not animal ghosts." Utah says.
"Well where do you think Franklin spends all his time?" Maryland shouts.
"I still don't believe Franklin's real." Florida says with annoyance.
"His urn is literally in Rico's room." Maryland says incredulously. "Also bold of you of all people to doubt my ability to speak to ghosts."
"Benjamin Franklin?" Canada asks the arguing states. "No." Responds Maryland.
"Well, I need to find Mississippi. Which way did he go?" Canada asks the trio of states. They all point to a ladder going into a vent.
"Yeah I'm not going in there."
"Well there's a door to the pantry up those stairs." Utah points behind her to a set of stairs dimly lit by orange light.
"Well then I'll be leaving. Don't cause too much trouble."
"No promises." The three yell.

"So he stole your wallet?" Virgina looks tired as she says that.
"Yep. Immediately after we came inside. Arkansas and Wyoming pulled a prank and then he snatched our shit." Germany recounts.
"This is the exact kinda shit that he always gets in trouble for." Virginia complains. "Whenever we travel to the human world he always goes on pickpocketing sprees. And guess who he comes begging to. Me!"
"So he even steals from regular people?" Germany asks.
"Yes! Even from his own citizens!" Virginia exclaims. "I've had to represent him so many times. He's even got in trouble with the mafia!"
"Oh dear that doesn't seem good."
"Yeah! He's lucky he's a state. They shot him! He would've died!" Virginia rants. "He luckily got an earful from Me, Mass, and Dad so he hasn't tried to fuck with organized crime anymore."
"I'm glad none of my states have tried stuff like that." Says Germany.
"I think shit like that is what happens when you have 55 siblings to contest with." Virginia states. "Dad tries to devote time to all of us but being the busiest country in the world doesn't really allow him a lot of time to begin with."
"That sounds rough." Germany says.
"I mean it's understandable. We get that he can't always be there for every achievement or performance we have but he always tries to reschedule his work last minute if he can." Says Virginia. "He never forgets our birthdays though, which is hard to do. I barely know anyone's birthday here besides Maryl, DC, West, and Delaware." She smiles.
"Well I'm gonna need to start remembering all of your birthdays soon." Germany states.
"Anyway, I should be looking for Mississippi right now. It was nice getting to know you." Germany gets up and waves at Virginia. As he leaves, DC finally notices him.
"Hey Virginia! Was that Germany?" He whispers.
"Yeah." Virginia replies as she gets back to work.
"When did he come in?"