De-anon from the APH kink meme.

Based off of the song "Post Blue" by Placebo. I suggest listening to the song at least once before reading. And, if you like it, I also highly suggest looking into this band. Placebo has been one of my favorite groups for years and their music is delicious.

-

Post Blue

-

Norway never has quite understood how he and Denmark have made it as far as they have.

They are very different, the two of them. Closely linked by language and history, yes, two sides of the same bent, rusty coin lost in the same salty waters of the same sea, but there isn't a single thing about them that is exactly common. Not in the physical, not in any shade of personality. Norway's pieces are jaded and precise from centuries of creating as much differentiation as possible, cold and battle hardened and always meticulously shined to a mirror finish. Denmark's pieces are sharp and random and jagged from being pulled apart and able to rotate into to a million different shapes and sizes with a limitless number of options to choose from but all too small to exist without the others.

Two pieces from the same puzzle.

Two pieces that shouldn't ever be able to fit together.

Perhaps they've been forced by some higher hand; water between them that acts as super glue that holds their pieces together in a crude rendition of what the puzzle is supposed to look like, showing a twisted picture that is supposed to be, but isn't quite.

He once thought it must have been Denmark that forced them together. He kept Norway safe; kept him fed and sheltered and clothed and always held close, spoiling him with gifts always brought in a bag of golden brown, woven by soft wool and stitched with heavy twine, sometimes containing silver or precious stones, but usually something wistful and stupid. Fragrant herbs or flowers, colorful and enticing to the young, untrained mind. Gifts and a home; tantalizing him to stay and be coddled until he couldn't bring himself to leave.

Trained him not to bite the hand that feeds.

But that was impossible. Denmark's brain was too flighty and unpredictable to be able to plot that well.

Norway always had been the more calculating one of them. Smarter, more level headed. He is much more adept at problem solving and issue breaking when Denmark is much better suited to the shield and sword or the occasional lucky break in literature.

Nonetheless.

Norway still can't get his head around it.

They're too different. Opposites only attract to a certain degree and it is a line they have surpassed hundreds of years ago simply by existing. They shouldn't by any discernable logic be as caught up in each other as they are and no matter how many times Norway tries to break it down or break it off, he can never bring himself to go.

Stockholm Syndrome, he thinks sometimes.

They don't live together, but they might as well with how often they are in each others presence. Denmark's house is large and made of colorful brick, warm, rich carpet running beneath heavy, intricately carved furniture, adding another parallel to their backward lives every time Norway visits from his own home, built of sturdy oak and minimalist in decoration and still smelling of herbs and sweet flowers.

Denmark's bed is big and soft; Norway's is perfectly square and supportively firm.

He can never sleep when he stays at Denmark's. He sits on the edge of the bed, naked and facing the heater, satin blankets slippery and cool beneath his hands as he watches Denmark through half-lidded eyes, uninterested and waiting as he stands in the bathroom, away from Norway, swallowing the pills that keep him smiling and keep him from destroying the house that he is so proud of.

Maybe that's it.

Fear.

Maybe he's afraid of Denmark's temper.

Maybe there is a part of him that is terrified of watching him fly of the handle and rip his own life in two, splintered wood between his fingers and blood on his knuckles, lovely chairs in pieces against lively brick walls as he gets lost in his own head. A whirlwind of anger and unchecked emotion that flies out of him in such a rush that it always bowls Norway over in the wave, Denmark always coming to his rescue when it passes, sobbing and full of apologies as broken as the furniture.

But it's only ever the chairs or the plates or the tables. He never lays a hand Norway. He never has and Norway doesn't think he ever will.

Fear can't be it. He's too gentle with him.

The gentleness is another dissimilarity and the only one that should be grossly out of character for each of them. Denmark, for all of his anger and festering temperament, goes out of his way to be overly kind; his hands are hard and calloused but so soft and slow whenever he runs his fingers down Norway's skin, eyes closed and lips warm and yielding each time they brush against his neck or collarbone or ears, never baring teeth or nails, his pace always so measured and sweet even when Norway is spurring him on, clawing at his back and growling beratement at him.

Norway is all teeth and nails. He bites at Denmark, digs into his thighs and ribs and is husky and loud when Denmark only ever whispers. Norway likes to fight in bed. He likes the rolling struggle that leaves them breathless and hot before they even touch each other; angry foreplay against walls and headboards, leaving bruises as a reminder the next day. Norway likes to be sore in the morning with every hair out of place and streaks of the night before dried on his stomach with the sheets half stripped and the blankets a tangled, sweaty mess around their feet.

Denmark just wants to touch him without breaking him.

It's backwards, but in a way, it's a special thing they share.

It can't be fear. It can't be loyalty. It can't be anything that makes any sense because love is never that easy. Norway knows it can't be explained, but he can't quell the burning desire he constantly harbors that leaves him always wondering what exactly it is that keeps them so solidly pieced together in such a mismatched, ill planned mess. They can't be a puzzle and they can't be a coin because even that simplifies it too much. They're just too separate to be together in the way that they are, but somehow, they've become attached.

Undeniably, there is something that draws them together. He isn't sure if it's an emotional force or a physical force or a spiritual force, but somewhere between them, a frequency exists, one that's been droning on for thousands of years, and only they can hear it and keep it in the air. Too far apart and it gets painfully loud; too close together and it disappears completely.

But they've somehow managed to get it just right.

The love they share is impossible. Should be impossible. They are too far on opposite ends of the spectrum and they always will be, no matter how many pills Denmark takes or how many times Norway tries to counteract their effects with red lines down his back. They have different houses, different cultures, different languages, different sex, everything is just too different while still being too similar for Norway to understand. It's an unexplainable situation with logic that will never be exposed and at the end of the day, Norway just has to accept that there is no clear cause for why he and Denmark love each other as much as they do; no clarification for why they are so irreversibly stuck together. And after so many years of thinking on it and justifying it and trying to strip it down, Norway can only come up with one reasonable explanation.

There must be something in the water.

-The End-