I originally wanted to use this story for a different pairing, but one day while doodling Denmark I recalled a bunch of fanarts I had seen in which he was paired with Norway and my liking for this pairing was rekindled. My stab at a more angst-ridden story will now be for this DenNor AU. By the way, soccer is mentioned once, and they mean the American form of soccer, as in, game that is played with a black-and-white ball.

As is often the case in fandom, Denmark's name will be rendered Mathias.

Norway's fandom hasn't agreed on a name for him yet in absence of one from Himaruya, so I will call him one of my own choice: Aleksander. The "and" part of his name, by the way, is pronounced more elegantly, as in, Al-ecks-AHN-der. NOT the "Al-igg-ZAN-der" way many Americans tend to say it.

If or when Himaruya names these characters, I will change their names here to their official ones.

The heart asks pleasure first

And then excuse from pain.

-Emily Dickinson.

It was the week after his mistake. His last mistake, Berwald said. He didn't feel like remembering what they were mad at him about. He could tune it all out except for the fact that they were serious this time.

No tomorrow. No next weekend. No sorries, no bruises to pat. Berwald swore that unless he changed his ways, they would move away. They were sick of him.

Mathias was alone. This was punishment enough. Companions who had stood by him for years, since school days, no longer wanted him. There was no hurt quite like being unwanted. He tried to dull it, and short of putting himself to sleep, this was the best and simplest way. There was an empty glass in front of his hands that said so. Before long it would start dancing or growing orange polka dots. Whatever his mind felt like dreaming up when in a drunken stupor. He'd dreamed up a zombie invasion once. Anything would be fine, so long as it made him forget that this was nothing but his fault.

"I hope you're gonna pay for all those drinks," somebody in front of him said. "Hey, look up. Seriously, if you can't pay for these, get out."

He felt a faint desire to punch this guy. Greater still was the desire to not look up as commanded. It compelled him to remove his wallet and let slip a number of bills he didn't bother to count. They were all taken right off the table, all wanted. Mathias wondered if any one person in the world was loved more than most people loved money. No one ever told money it was overbearing and loud and violent. And never forget violent.

Someone sat on the stool next to him, and he lifted his head to see, or say hi, because he could be a nice guy if he could rein in his mouth a little, and he wanted to remind himself of it. He lifted his head from its sunken, leaning place between his shoulders to look and say, "Hey, have you been there long? I didn't see you."

It was a man, perhaps his age, perhaps younger, sitting with a glass of some fizzy beverage near one hand. Navy jacket and a funny hat sort of like the one Tino wore sometimes. Hair some shade of blonde he'd never seen named, most of his bangs sticking out of the hat and hanging a little over his face. Over one ear, there was a little section of hair that was held neatly back with a hairclip in the shape of a cross. He was smaller, thinner than Mathias. Certainly not a bad sight. But frowning.

"I've been here half an hour." the young man said, and though he was a little blurred at the edges in Mathias' vision, he could nearly see the frown in his voice.

"Well…I've been sitting here longer than that and didn't see ya. So, sorry. I don't mean to be ignorant of you…hheh…" A smile curved pleasantly across his face. "I don't mean to be ignorant. Ha!"

He chuckled to himself for a bit about that—he didn't like letting jokes fade if they were good—and realized too late that it might irritate Hairclip, so he stopped. Hairclip didn't say anything. Mathias looked up again and saw him looking up at one of the six flat-screens this place used to bring in all the sports fans possible. It was usually rather successful, but this was merely a replay of yesterday's tepid match between Brazil's and Italy's teams. Mathias rubbed his eyes to help his vision clear, and squinted at the man; he was watching the game with as much focus as Kiku did on an Xbox.

It got quiet except for a family in a corner seat whose daughters kept laughing at something and waving around forks speared with frikadeller. The volume on the screen wasn't loud enough to tune them out, and thrice people walked in front of the TV to get to the bathroom, but Hairclip ignored the interruptions completely, hardly blinked, and kept watching.

Mathias dragged his eyes up and down the man's frame, and saw nothing indicative of a sports fan on him. His clothes looked almost like a naval outfit…wasn't that a style nowadays? Or last year? He had a belt on, over his jacket. Was that a style, too? And of course the hairclip. Gift from a girlfriend, perhaps. Maybe he liked to style his hair. Or was gay. Hm.

"Italy wins." He said, nudging his empty glass. "Somehow!"

"I know. Twenty-sixteen. Ricardo Mancini gets kicked in the left calf, fractures it. His teammates have to carry him off the field screaming."

Well, the game had been tepid except for that, Mathias told himself. "If you've seen it already, why are you watching again?"

"My place doesn't have TV. This place does."

"Ah, that sucks, man."

Hairclip didn't try to add anything else, even when commercials came on and showed a trailer for an exceptionally boring movie. Mathias then decided most guys wouldn't appreciate being thought of as "Hairclip," even ones who wore hairclips, so made a kind motion to fix that. "What's your name?"

"Why do you care?"

He gave that some thought, or tried to, and voiced the vague but certain concept: "Because it's a kind thing to do, I guess. It's better to talk to someone who's a little less of a total stranger than someone whose name I don't even know."

The strange blonde looked in his direction for the first time and Mathias noticed his eye color. Blue-ish purple. Maybe he had contacts. He took a sip from the straw in his drink—Coke?—and murmured back, "I'm Aleksander."

"Aleksander?"

"Aleksander."

"Al-ecks-ahn-der!"

Aleksander curled his lip. "If I tell you my name is Shut Up —"

"No, no, it's just," Mathias laughed, his shoulder shaking. "you got a little bit of an accent. I can hear it when you say your name. Otherwise, you sound almost like a native. Let me guess. Um. Norwegian?"

Aleksander's brows rose up the slightest inch. "Yes." He said, sounding unfortunately not surprised at all. "And you're Danish."

Mathias had to smile. "Ja, jeg er. How'd you know? My natural sex appeal?"

Someone came out of the kitchen at that moment and changed the channel on the flat-screen Aleksander had been watching. Now it was showing a documentary about birds of prey. Some type of raptor with enormous, speckled wings was dive-bombing towards the ocean, which was interesting to watch and all, but Mathias wanted to watch Aleksander right now. But Aleksander murmured, "Ohh," and then was watching the documentary, and with a different expression than before. Mathias studied it and tried to decide how it was different, and at last came to the conclusion that he was…interested. He liked birds more than sports.

'Why is that? Tell me why, I want you to tell me why,' He tried to project, but Aleksander paid him no mind. He was watching the bird—falcon, the British-sounding narrator said—deftly take a fish from the surface and glide up towards a cliff nest as though it had plucked up the cure for cancer.

Mathias' hand tightened on his glass. 'What have I done to deserve being ignored? Stop it. Look at me!'

"You like…birds?" he ventured.

"My brother has a pet bird."

"Pet falcon?"

"Puffin."

Shaken a little more into alertness, Mathias scoffed back, "A puffin? Are you serious?" but he got no reply. He ground his teeth. This stranger had no right to treat him like some high school outcast. He had never been the object of such shame and loneliness, no, he had always lived the very opposite. No pretty foreign boy would shun him like an invalid. He inclined his head slightly, narrowed his eyes just so. If the foreign boy was looking, he would have taken notice. People always took notice of him. Aleksander would take notice of him.

Another bird appeared on screen and screeched. "I'm talking to you," Mathias said in time with its cry.

"I don't care. Please keep your mouth shut. I want to see this." Aleksander said.

Did the guy know what a dick he looked like right now? "Don't pretend I'm freaking bothering you or something. If I was bothering you, you'd have left already."

The Norwegian replied, "You are bothering me. I come here to watch television, not listen to people talk."

"Maybe people would talk to you a little less if they didn't think they were being willfully ignored half the time." Mathias replied.

Aleksander reached his hand up and removed his hat; faint hairs floated back down to rest on his scalp. He turned his eyes on Mathias, who for the first time noticed a true emotion in them, and wondered why it was not irritation, or even anger. He saw traces of sadness, everywhere. "What can I not ignore from you during the next commercial break that will make you be quiet?"

Mathias' mind processed Alksander's hair, lying as smooth and naked as it was meant to be, and his eyes that didn't look normal, and now that he thought of it, his voice, too, and quickly drew a suitable conclusion.

"Go out with me?"

Aleksander dropped his drink. Thankfully, he was only holding it some two inches above the counter, but it was more than enough for the Dane to draw pleasure and grow a delighted smirk from this stranger's surprise. He took in the slight parting of his mouth, complete stillness of his body and very wide eyes. At least until Aleksander reined in control of himself and slammed closed everything that had been open and obvious. His eyes took in Mathias up and down so quickly it seemed he only looked at his feet and head. "You're gay?"

With a careless shrug he replied, "Dated a guy in my second year of high school. He wasn't any better or worse than most girls I went with before or after." No response; an irritating clinking of glasses from the bartender. "What, you a homophobe?"

"I could care less if you were attracted to cats," Aleksander replied smoothly. "I also think you're a half-drunk idiot and you want a person of either gender to fuck your troubles away, and it won't be me. Even this town has a few prostitutes if you look hard enough. Goodbye." He took his hat by the hem and glided off the barstool and out the door.

The bird documentary came back on and began a segment on the courtship rituals. Mathias exhaled slowly and rested his head on one arm, looking gloomily at the fingers at the end. He curled them, tightened the fist till the hurt began to distract him. He always felt rage after failure, and tried to control it, usually, but this time it was tainted with something else that made him wish eagerly for an excuse to explode.

Clinking those glasses again, pressing some buttons on his phone, the bartender got in his face again. "Dude. You didn't give enough before. You still owe ten thirty-two."

Mathias had to be thrown out that night.

"You're an angel, babe. I mean, seriously. Can I do something for ya? Take out some bitch at school? Get Vash outta the house?"

Laughing in that cute way of hers that no one could copy, Lilli tied her black waiter's apron behind her back. It was almost too cute for a young woman a few months off from graduating high school. Mathias had known her and her brother since they had moved out of their parents' house some four years ago.

"Oh, no, no. You're a good friend of my brother's. I've known you a long time. That's certainly enough." She glanced to the side as a man with round glasses walked by and shot Mathias a dirty look. "Mr. Berg isn't a harsh manager, really. It wasn't so hard convincing him to let you in again. He wants me to tell you, though, that the next time it happens, he'll call the cops and make you spend a month in jail."

She pushed a little plate of pastries towards him and he took the biggest one off the top. "S'his fault for hiring such a weak little pussy. Doesn't leave me the fuck alone, says I owe him money that I don't, he totally deserved a good bitchslap in the face."

Lilli smiled humorlessly. "You broke his nose, Mathias. Jenna tells me she saw you talking to a cute boy and he left a minute before you punched Lukas. Did he say something to make you mad?"

It had been a week since that day, but he certainly wouldn't forget. A smile appeared on his face of its own accord and he replied, "Yeah, I was. He was from Norway. I think I was annoying him…he wouldn't go out with me."

Now she was trying to hide a genuine smile. "You—hhah!—you punched someone because you were angry a stranger wouldn't d-date you? Did you consider he was probably just not attracted to men?"

"He was hotter than hell!" Mathias tried to defend himself. "Plus he had a friggin' adorable accent, just a little one. And when I actually asked him, he looked like I'd just grown a Predator's face; that was like icing on the cake."

"That an attractive person didn't want to date you is not a reason to hit someone."

"What, it's not like I just wanted to screw him. God, everyone thinks that of me!" He leaned forward a little, quickly, and tightened his hand on the edge of the bar. "His voice was interesting. I wanted to hear him talk. His clothes were sorta fancy, so maybe he was rich or they just wear things like that in Norway, and I wanted to know which it was. And he was obviously irritated at me, but he looked sad. I still want to know why that is. And how the hell his brother got a pet puffin. That's freakin' weird." He added a laugh at the last few sentences, to make sure that "weird" was conveyed as the kind of weird that brought up smiles, and joined friends.

Lilli dusted the countertop and hummed, and took the order of two women who sat on the opposite side of the bar. When she came back, she lifted a notepad and pen out of her hand. "Hello there. Sit anywhere you like, and may I start you off with a drink?"

Seeing as the nearest flat-screen was showing commercials, Mathias turned to look and perhaps people-watch whoever sat next to him. Aleksander.

'Huh. Am I gonna get struck by lightning, too?'

He had the same blank, handsome face that his memory had been keeping dutifully alive. His hat was gone but he wore the same navy jacket, and the cross-shaped hair barrette was also still there. He stared close-mouthed and disapproving at Mathias for a moment, and Lilli shifted her weight on her feet awkwardly, till Alekaander sat down on the Dane's right and requested some soda. Lilli swiftly went to the kitchen to fetch a larger glass.

Commercials were still running. Mathias moved fast as he could. "Didn't think I'd see you again. Hey, can you, like, elaborate on how your brother got his pet puffin? 'Cause that story's gotta be cool."

"You mean weird."

"Huh?"

"You just said you think the story of how my brother got his puffin would be freakin' weird."

Mathias felt a soft trill of laughter inside himself. "Then you probably heard everything before it, yeah?" Lilli came back with his drink and the moment she dropped the straw in, Aleksander leaned down with his face balanced slightly in his hand and took a sip. Stalling. Cute. "You say nothing, I'll assume yes. Come on, commercials are still going and nothing's on but this gay thing about the history of McDonald's. Storytime, please."

Instead of answering, he looked down beyond the other side of the bar to a table where a man in a green coat was cutting into some kind of meat. "Excuse me," Aleksander asked Lilli. "I would like what that man in the green jacket has." Scribbling something on her pad, she walked off to the kitchen.

Instead of adding, "Hey, I'm waitiiiing," like he wanted to, Mathias sat and waited. "My brother goes to Iceland during the summer to visit his friend," Aleksander began.

"Iceland?"

"Yes."

"Iceland?"

"Shut up. My brother's friend lives near a beach where puffins come to breed, and they would walk there after lunch every day. They were nearly back home from one such walk when they noticed a chick following them, and it wouldn't leave. They took it home, fed it, gave it a blanket to sleep on, and it still never left. My brother brought it home with him—took it on the plane with him—because it would never leave him alone. So it was his pet from them on."

"What's your brother's name?" Aleksander did not stall by sipping his drink this time; he merely stared at the TV and its completely uninteresting McDonald's documentary. "The story's cute an' all, but when you tell a story the people it's about usually have names. Sooo…."

Now Aleksander sipped his drink, and took in more in one sip than a typical person could probably fit in their mouth. He glanced at Mathias, who didn't look irritated in the least at his obvious stalling gesture. Aleksander swallowed, hard, and said, "Gunnar. And his puffin is named Narfi."

"Okay. See, you could have said that first. Anything else?" This got him nothing but a raised eyebrow. Mathias had to smile, and a low chuckle rumbled out of his chest without his meaning to. He gladly let it. "What? I like hearing you talk."

"I don't like talking."

"So? I still like hearing it."

The little bell on the kitchen door rang as Lilli stepped out from behind it and announced Aleksander's Grandfather Duck dish would be ready in just a minute. Mathias quietly ground his teeth. It wasn't food she was bringing out, it was an excuse for Aleksander not to talk to him. And were she anyone else but his old friend's adorable sister, he'd be goddamned inclined to slam that kitchen door shut and jam their fingers in it besides.

He had to think of something, fast, something interesting, something that'd be interesting enough to a guy who liked birds and hairclips and being an emotional floorboard—and Coke—that he'd want to talk to him and eat at the same time.

Fuck. Nothing. Well, he'd have to fall back on whatever the hell was in front of him. That usually turned out okay.

"So, what's up with the hair dec?" And he pointed at the cross-shaped barrette just in case it wasn't obvious.

Aleksander narrowed his dark eyes just enough to make his distaste known. "A gift."

"From who?"

"I don't see how that affects you at all."

"So?"

"…"

"…Pretty please?"

With a sigh of, "God, even sober, you're annoying," Aleksander slid off the barstool. "The waitress can just give the food to you." When Mathias called, "Wait a sec!", Aleksander decided to be kind and stopped with his hand ready to push open the door.

"I realized I forgot something last time, and almost this time." he laughed. "My name's Mathias."

Not even a blink. "Goodbye, Mathias."

He whirled around joyously on his barstool and saw Lilli standing there with the Grandfather Duck held smoking and sweet-smelling in both hands. She stared in the direction of the door openly, admiringly, the way he sometimes caught Berwald looking at Tino. She set down the plate and broke the silence by murmuring, "Keep trying. I think he'll be worth it."

BEEEEEEP

"What's up! You've reached Mathias Sørensen, battle axe extraordinaire! Leave a message at the beep, and Francis, if you spam my message machine again with read-aloud erotica, I will hurt you. Thanks!"

BEEEEEEP

"Mathi'es. S'Berwald. Callin' from the hosp't'l. Tino wanted me t'call you fer days now, ask'd me to a doz'n times. I dun see why. This is yer fault. Fer yer inform'tion, the doctors couldn't re'ttach a single thing. He needs a pros'tetic han' now. …Fuck you."

Days passed and he went all that time without going back to the restaurant, without looking for the boy who refused him and without being able to contact Berwald or Tino. Both their cell numbers were no longer in service. Vash didn't know anything about what was going on with them, and didn't really want to talk to him. His last girlfriend, Elizabeta, saw him in a movie theatre, met his eyes, and deliberately walked out.

He wanted to drink. So he did. But he didn't go back to where he had found Aleksander, where he wanted to wait for Aleksander. He found an old hangout from his best days with Vash, a darker place where slightly dimmer lighting pretended to mask the unsettling things that went on in the most unlit corners.

He used to know people who came here, but he had since drifted out of their shadow. Now he had a foot back in their territory again. Someone he thought he knew was sitting on his right, and some new catch sat beyond him.

The guy's name was Stefan. Probably. But they had definitely used to be somewhat close, close enough to tell stories like this to one another. So after the story had been relayed, Mathias told Stefan, or growled to him, "I don't see the fuckin' problem. We were supposed ta try an' hurt each oth'r, tha's the point of the exercise! I didn't fucking mean to do that."

Stefan's little catch was texting, and had been listening, too. She said, "Aleks was probably right. Sucks to be in your friend Timo's boat. You do need a pretty little someone to fuck your troubles away for a while. Stefan here's done with me at eleven."

Aleks, she said. Aleks, like she knew him and he would let her call him anything but Aleksander. He would call Aleksander "Aleks" one day, not this leather-clad little tramp.

"Don't want you!" he spat, a drumbeat of alcohol making his head ache. "Want Aleksander. Want him to care. Want Tino t'be…better…t'forgive me."

She scoffed as though no rejection had just occurred. "Tch. Bet if I found your lovely Aleks and asked him, he'd have me."

Bitch didn't know him at all. "Aleksander doesn't think I'm up to 'is standards, 'e's not gonna sink to your level, you little cunt."

"And you've met him, what, twice now?" Stefan slurred, picking at his fingernail. "God, you guys must be sooo close. I bet you shared your diaries and everything. You should do each other's makeup."

"Yer gonna need a lot of fuckin' makeup if you don't shut yer mouth."

Stefan didn't take him, anything, seriously. That could have been the flaw that got him here. Mathias' tired eyes held onto his old friend's face, waited for a cocky little smirk, a stupid remark. He wanted to hit something. A broken jaw probably wouldn't show too much with the guy's goatee. He straightened up, one side of his mouth curled upward in the retard smile he always smiled when he was shitfaced. He was about to get it.

"Whaaat? You don't want me talking about your boyfriend 'cause he doesn't like you?"

Mathias stood up.

"Calm down, Mathie-kins! Hahaha! You get pissed so easy! Seriously, man, jus' let him go. In fact, let me have a try at him, he sounds pretty hot. Um, you said the restaurant you saw him at was—"

He went back to the restaurant the day after, hoping and hoping and hoping like a stupid little child on Christmas morning to find his new object of affection. And like a child with very considerate or rich parents, his hope was completely fulfilled. Sunday night, business was slow and the number of diners low. Aleksander was at the bar again, but on the opposite side of the square, so he saw him coming. He had no jacket on today, merely a comfortable, long-sleeved shirt, so his body frame was more open for admiration. Mathias promptly began to admire.

There was no frown on his face as Mathias made his way around the bar to sit next to him. No scowl or narrowed eyes, just his normal blank face that Mathias decided then that he didn't want to stop looking at.

"I hope you realize I'm gonna sit next to you every time I see you here?"

"I'm tolerant," he replied, and pressed a button on a remote that was laying by his hand. He changed the channel on one of the restaurant's four televisions until he stopped at a movie of some sort. A doctor crouched by a bleeding, stuttering prisoner in a cluttered cottage, and at the prisoner's request, euthanized him. The actors all spoke a language he didn't understand, but subtitles were present and helped him understand.

"Reminds me of the war in the north," Mathias remarked, and got a dark-eyed, just-a-little irritated glare in return. "What's that look for? For like three years now, around the coast of Norway, and it's about done—ah, shit, I'm retarded. You're from there, I'm sure you know—"

"I know."

"—yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't get much sleep last night so I'm sorta out of it. I mean, I got like, four hours. I haven't done that since high school. It was worth it, though."

"Four hours is nice." Aleksander commented.

"Nice? Um—"

"I would love to sleep four hours uninterrupted," he added, softly nudging the straw in his Coke.

Mathias sensed the thread waving in front of his face. He grabbed onto it, reached for more. "Why's that? You work a lot?"

He lifted his drink and sucked some through the straw slowly. His adorable little stalling maneuver. It made Mathias grin. "No. My job is fairly normal. I just don't sleep well."

He reached for another thread. "Where do you work?"

"None of your business."

"Aww."

When Mathias went home that night, he slept deep and blissful, and dreamed about puffins on planes, screaming boys and an axe, a phantom bottle of Coke, and taking that bottle in his hand and giving it to a blurred figure with a blue hat on. He knew it was Aleksander, and sat bouncing and impatient until he came into focus, and sipped his drink…and smiled at him.

Please, please, please, please, please, let me see that for real. I want to touch it for real.

He woke up the next morning and craved it. He went through the next several days working, walking, talking and ignoring the fact that he wanted it. He went back to the seedy place where he had thrown Stefan onto the floor and broken both his wrists for his fucking rude comment and looked for the girl he'd been with. She was there, and knew just what he wanted and whose name he would cry out that night. Her name was Natalia, and she freaking loved bondage.

She was almost worth what she charged for her parting words as she left Mathias' apartment: "I hope you have fun showing those games we played to your little Aleks."

Nice girl, that Natalia.

He got a text the day after that, from a number he didn't recognize, but that didn't matter.

Hi, it's Tino :) The operation's done and my new hand's great. Pretty soon Berwald will let you come and see!

It made his heart warm. It made him want to see Aleksander. He gave in to this impulse and, tossing on his favorite black coat with handsome red cuffs, drove down to the restaurant that had become his favorite in the past several weeks. It was a little more crowded than he would have liked, but the bar was mostly vacant. The side where Aleksander was sitting only had one other person on it, a woman with an iPhone who would pay them little mind.

Aleksander had no soda this time, and Mathias concluded he must have just come here minutes before and had no time to order a drink. He had a remote again—the kindness of Jenna, a waitress and friend of Lilli's—and was adjusting the volume of a show on brown bears in the wild. He glanced up when Mathias came into view but didn't return his wave.

Once he'd sat, Aleksander told him, "You're sad tonight."

"No way, I'm feelin' great. I'm hanging with my favorite Norwegian."

Aleksander exhaled sharply in irritation, a rare sight. "And you're masking it. I guess that's to be expected. You've been ungodly happy every time I've seen you. Having that happiness taken away for once would be just shameful."

"Weeeelll, maybe I'll tell you…" Now he was sending out a thread; if he was lucky, Aleksander would reach out and take it. "Try and guess."

"Guess why you're sad?"

"Yeah."

"That's stupid."

"I'll pay for your drink."

"…You were fired."

"Please! I'm the only real man Mr. Bonnefoy's got."

Aleksander paused for a moment's thought, and a waitress set a coaster down and placed his drink on top of it. "Hm. Relative in the hospital."

'Oh. Close.' "No. Getting warmer, though. Sorta."

"This is idiotic. I could be watching bearfights." He turned his head and watched two male bears dash through a shallow creek and tackle each other.

'I'm about to tell you something. Look at me. Look at me. Just me.' "It's a friend who's getting out of the hospital." Mathias told him, but there was no response except a dimmer play of light on the Norwegian's face as the sun set in the bear program. "My friend Tino. He got a prosthetic hand."

His lips sliding off the straw, Alexander paused, yet kept his eyes on the television screen. Mathias knew well enough that his attention was caught. He could not let it go. "How did he lose his hand?" he asked.

"Me."

Aleksander looked. "Really."

"Yes." He drew up the words carefully. He'd been waiting a long time to say this, to tell someone about it, and to make Aleksander pay attention to him. "The war in your country…this country is still supplying troops to aid the effort. Tino, Berwald, Vash and I were all going to go together. I know you think I'm stupid. And if you didn't guess before, I get…violent sometimes. And even when I know I'm doing something wrong, I don't stop, because I like fighting. I like winning fights."

He was looking, listening. Yes, yes, yes. "We had to do six months of training before we left. We only had a month to go, and we were doing a combat exercise, with weapons that were more or less real. Tino had a shotgun that shot tranquilizer darts. I had an axe, tall as Lilli, and it was dull and mostly hollow. We started the fight, and got hurt some and people cheered us on a lot, and it was going good. And the captain blew a whistle to stop. And I didn't. Couldn't. I knocked Tino's gun away with my foot. And cut off his hand with the axe."

Mathias heard the familiar sound of glasses tinkling near the bartender, and felt the familiar wrench in his heart at the destruction he'd caused. He'd stolen a car in his second year of high school, picked and won as many fights as he had teeth, and came uncomfortably close to drinking himself to death at Berwald's graduation party. And he knew now that he'd do it all over again the reverse way, be a responsible kid, get a better grade in his math classes, be good, if he could do the exercise over again and not maim his oldest friend.

At some point his head fell into his palm and he held it there, his mouth contorting like he wanted to cry, but no tears would come. He had clenched his free fist enough times for his fingernails to nearly have busted through the glove by the time he felt a hand on one shoulder.

He didn't look. That could drive it away. "I'm sorry. That's an awful thing." Aleksander said, but Mathias heard so much more from the hand resting on his shoulder. Aleksander had never touched him before, not even offered his hand for a shake.

When it tried to retreat, his hand tore away from his own face and captured it. "What, are you a girl or somethin'?" he said, trying to keep from grinning. "If you're gonna touch me, actually touch me." He moved Aleksander's hand to his own face, pressed it there gently, and held it there with his palm. "I didn't tell that story just to get it off my chest."

"You told it to hold my hand?" Aleksander nearly growled.

"Partly," And he adjusted his friend's hand slightly to feel the new skin on his, and it felt good. "Partly because I wanted to tell it to someone who wouldn't act like I'm the goddamn devil for it. I do feel sorry for it. It makes me fucking sick that I did that. I want to apologize to him more than I can tell, I want to cut off my own hand, but I can't even contact him until Berwald calls me."

"Also," he added, "partly because I wanted you to pay attention to me. Not dismiss or ignore me for once."

"Then you've achieved your goal," Aleksander said slowly, and Mathias happily noted that slowness. "Now let my hand go."

"But I'm not done!" Mathias said a little too cheerily. "Now I have to pay attention…" He pulled hard on Aleksander's hand, nearly spilled the glass of Coke, and pulled him nearly as close as he had been in his dream. "to you."

Mathias kissed him. He merely felt the shape of his lips first, which was good for a first kiss. Kind, he thought. But it didn't last long. He got impatient and hungry, and went hunting for more. Aleksander was either surprised or weak; he offered close to no resistance when Mathias moved his tongue past his lips and began to explore. A soft moan permeated his mouth when he tried to move back, but Mathias had been waiting far too long to have the patience left to allow such a thing.

Aleksander had moved back half an inch or so before Mathias pulled them back together and they both had a slim opportunity to look each other in the eye: Aleksander saw the talkative fool who had been interrupting his peaceful nights here had all but gone and had left a grinning beast in his place; Mathias gleefully saw his blank-faced foreigner's cheeks were dusted faintly red, his palm was most definitely beginning to sweat and his eyes perplexed and far more innocent-looking than he'd believed they could be.

Lilli was right. This was worth it. He forced Aleksander's head closer to his with one hand, pulled at his shoulder with the other to pull his whole torso closer—mouths weren't enough. He felt a hand on his arm pushing slightly, resisting and shaking at the same time. You'd think he'd never been kissed before, and by a man, this was probably true. It showed all but obviously in the movements of his tongue, its resistance and awkward attempt to keep away from his, and that made it all the more fun to dance and play with it and bring it back. And taste it. Because he was fond of that taste already. Perhaps it was because he'd been a bit of a bully in his younger days, but he felt a slight thrill to be playing with something, someone, who was resisting. But it was not mean-spirited like that kind of playing; someday Aleksander would understand that and want to play, too.

He was suddenly compelled to end the kiss and touch their foreheads together. End softly. Tenderly.

Aleksander was breathing fitfully, sweetly, by now and trying to mask it, but he didn't have nearly the amount of composure as when he was taking a long, slow drink from a straw and he was all exposed now. He grasped the young man's arm and gripped it slightly, trying to say a half a dozen things Aleksander's own heartbeat was probably too dramatic to allow him to hear verbally right now.

Some people were probably staring at them now and they may just get thrown out for such an obvious show of affection between men, but who the hell cared, now that he had Aleksander? Aleksander, who would soon be Aleks, his Aleks.

"Well…Aleksander…" He said, being polite, for now, "wanna come to my place?"

HOO BOY. That's a week's worth of writing right there. (Don't hope for a lemon next chapter. Lime, maybe. But I'm not that bold.)

Obsessive!Denmark ftw, everyone. Everyone tends to write him as either very violent with a dash of playful, or very playful with a dash of violent. I suppose I've gone for the latter, and added a sprinkle of angst: Denmark's natural ability to be violent got carried away beyond anything he'd ever done before, and he's paying for it by knowing the damage he caused Finland will extend for the rest of his life. Denmark being a drinker is canon, by the way. Hm.

Norway has a secret of his own, too, of course, but he will not give his up so easy. Or maybe he will. (Hint: He's lied about it already.) My plans for the other half of this two-shot are not complete, so I can't say, myself...

Oh. And I support Sweden being somewhat unintelligible when he talks. He mumbles but he doesn't have his mouth sewn shut, guys.

See you in the other chapter…