Lukas: Norway
Emil: Iceland

It shouldn't be happening, not like this.

Lukas isn't foolish enough to believe that countries live forever, because power shifts and eventually, someone will have to go. Life creates an interminable surge and wane of greed and control and sometimes, those surges are so strong that they consume themselves and the wanes are so weakening that they vanish like smoke.

But it shouldn't be like this.

Emil coughs, and he knows that it is.

"Bróðir?"

He hears the question escape from the younger's chapped lips, weak and heartbreaking as Emil's hand trails over the ground—searching. Lukas takes his hand.

"I'm here," he whispers back and brushes the fingers of his empty one over the sweaty locks of the other's hair.

Emil nods and doesn't say anything. His mouth is too dry and it hurts to move any part of him. It hurts like nothing he has experienced before. He vaguely remembers that there is something like a twisted wreck of metal embedded in his stomach, but he can't be sure anymore. It feels like it's everywhere. He's been lying in his own blood for so long he can feel the red dye his skin and he vaguely wonders if Lukas looks the same.

He doesn't ponder any longer before he allows unconsciousness to overtake him.

It's been like that for days.

Emil wakes intermittently and then allows sleep to pull him under again. Lukas hasn't moved from his side and he patiently waits with his lap cushioning his dying brother's head as missiles fly across the sky. He doesn't register the burning thirst in his throat or the gnawing hunger in his gut as he waits for Emil to get pulled under for the final time.

When he'd found his brother there, lying in his own blood, gasping because he couldn't breathe on a punctured lung, he'd insisted on getting him to a hospital but the vice-like grip on his arm when he'd voiced the idea dispelled it altogether. He wanted to die there, in his nation's most beautiful place, even though he couldn't see it anymore.

They can save you there, Emil.

and all he got in return was a wry smile because they both knew he was lying. Nothing could save them now.

Lukas wakes from his own exhaustion-induced doze to what he thinks is day five.

Nothing has changed. War is still waging and there is no end in sight. No salvation. Just the interminable wait until they are done away with as well. Lukas had once hated them, but not anymore.

The way he feels now can't be encompassed with a word like "hate."

"Bróðir..."

There comes Emil's voice again, more broken than before. Lukas hadn't imagined that there was a way for his heart to shatter into more pieces.

"I'm here," he responded again, and this time his voice cracks.

Emil remains silent for so long that Lukas thinks he has fallen asleep again, but then the other takes a shaky breath and says: "Talk to me, bróðir."

Lukas swallows even though there is no more moisture in his throat, and he does.

He talks about the beginning. The very beginning, when he met Emil. They were both younger then—Emil had been nothing but a child and Lukas was barely more, with an aggressive calm and an ambitious humility, cold as his northernmost regions where the sun refused to set in winter. He talks about the wonder when he first saw the pale child, the affection that was almost immediate. He talks about their lives, of how they fought and of how they loved. He talks about guilt and betrayal and despair. He talks about magic and science, life and death, love and hate. He talks about them. He talks about singing Emil songs and telling him stories, he talks about his stubbornness and delicacy, he talks about kissing him and pulling him close and never letting go again. He talks shamelessly and with passion, because that is what Emil wants.

He talks about happiness.

When his voice finally falters and goes, he doesn't know how long it's been. The sun has long been blocked out and the only way to tell time is from the aching weariness in his bones. But it doesn't matter how long he's been talking, because Emil has listened the entire time. He hasn't said anything and his eyes are closed, but Lukas knows all the same.

He takes a deep breath—

—and finally, finally, voices the thought that has been haunting him since day two. His fingers caress the cold metal at his hip and his voice is barely a whisper.

"Shall I end this?"

Emil turns his head towards Lukas' voice, eyes open but not seeing. He's still for so long that Lukas wonders if he would receive an answer at all.

But then, Emil nods.

The movement is slow and pained, because every action he makes hurts him like a new wound and he doesn't want it anymore.

Lukas swallows and it goes down hard in his dry throat. The answer is final and there is no turning back, but he will make sure that he won't regret it.

Carefully, not wanting to cause Emil any more pain, he slips out from under his head and pulls the gun from his hip, chest clenching at the inevitable groan that slips past Emil's lips. Now, motion hurts him too, and every muscle screams at movement after being kept in the same position for so long. Lukas ignores it and straddles Emil's hips.

He bends down, lingers to feel Emil's stuttering breath, then kisses him and feels Emil respond. It's weak and barely there, but it's enough for him as he presses his mouth against the other's and keeps it there.

The cock of the gun is loud, the fire louder, but loudest of all is the murmured "I love you" against Emil's lips.

Lukas doesn't cry, doesn't think, doesn't hesitate and presses the muzzle to his own temple.

He still has one round left.