Here they were again, in the same old situation, staring at the same old ceiling, feeling the same old sensation of alcohol pounding thicker than blood in their veins, the strangest exhilaration pulsating at the back of their skulls, tongues loose and lubricated and speaking words that may or may not be forgotten in the morning. But regret was not a feeling capable of a drunken man.

They sprawled out across the teak floor, bottles scattered out even to the far edges of the room, the crowns of their heads almost touching as they chased the air bubbles floating hazily across their vision.

He spoke first.

"...hey Nor."

"...what?"

"...it's hot. And I'm bored."

Norway grimaced slightly as he tugged his slightly sticky shirt away from his body.

"Thank you for stating the obvious, you moron. If you don't like it, find something for us to do."

Denmark rolled onto his stomach to stare at Norway with a slightly vacant expression, as though thought escaped him for a few moments.

"...no way in hell, Nor. You're too drunk to do anythin'," Denmark said slowly, rolling onto his back again.

"You're drunk too, idiot. We're both drunk beyond reason. Besides, just sitting here drinking is depressing."

The Dane laughed and stretched his hands towards the ceiling, as if he could reach the high beams of wood spanning the room from end to end from his place on the floor.

"Ain't nothin' else to do this time of night...mornin'...night. Half past three, isn't it?"

Neither of them really knew; both their phones had run out of battery hours ago. They lay there quietly for a few moments, only the sounds of their breathing and the cars outside breaking the silence. Then it was Norway who spoke first, voice low and hesitant.

"...Søren."

Denmark started slightly at the sound of his nameand gazed in Norway in shock for a moment, taking note of the glazed eyes and high blush of drunken colour in the Norwegian's cheeks before speaking.

"...Ja?"

Norway's hand groped blindly across the floor, tangling his fingers in the Dane's hair roughly and tugging on it slightly.

"You...You talk about something."

Denmark slid a few scant centimetres across the floor and closer to Norway, face blanketed with confusion.

"...like what?" he murmured, clearing his throat.

Norway hesitated for a moment, fingers loosening in Denmark's hair before tightening again as a thought occurred to him.

"Tell me something you've never told me before," Norway's expression darkened slightly, "Something you never told anyone."

Denmark pondered this request, eyes roaming over the walls of the Copenhagen high-rise loft as he sifted through centuries and centuries of memories.

"Well, shit," he said finally, one hand rising up to clasp over Norway's and hold it on his head, the other arm sprawled out haphazardly across the floor, "You were there for most everything and you wouldn't believe the other shit anyway."

"Try me," Norway challenged, pressing his flushed cheek against Denmark's slightly cooler one, staring at the ceiling expectantly and with the intense focus only a drunk could manage.

"If there's somethin' you wanted to know, you could just ask."

Norway's mouth opened to retort sharply, but he paused as his mind went blank.

"...can't think of anything." He admitted in a low voice, a slight pout gracing his features. Denmark grinned brightly.

"Nothing for you then!" Denmark singsonged softly. "Okay okay, just let me think...uh...ah."

He regarded the shorter Norwegian with a serious expression.

"For a hell of a long time, I hated booze. Drank it 'cause the water was nasty, and that's what there was."

Norway made a slight disbelieving noise in the back of his throat, thumping a sceptical fist against the floor.

"Liar. You're lying. Doesn't matter because I'm drunk," Norway muttered, eyes half closing in thought, "M'turn, I guess. Uh...I get jealous of your fishwife."

"My WHAT?" Denmark squawked in bewilderment. Norway shot him a look that could have meant 'you know what I'm talking about' or 'be quiet, you're loud and I'm sitting right here', or a million other things. In any case, it shut the Dane up quite effectively.

"Your lille havfrue in the harbour." Norway said shortly, curling in towards Denmark in a fit of sleepy affection he would have never dared display if sober, "The bronze sushi woman you had immortalized for all eternity or something."

"My mermai—oy. Shut up, you priss." Denmark feigned an angry scowl that wasn't fooling either of them after so many years in each other's company.

"Of course, kjære." Norway shot back sarcastically, eyes closing at last. "Your turn."

Silence reigned for several minutes, stretching out long enough that Norway was preparing to smack the stupid Dane to see if he'd fallen asleep.

"...when you call me kjære, even when you're mad...makes me feel weird. In a good way. Kind of a ticklish feelin' right above m'stomach."

Norway's dark blue eyes opened slowly to stare again at the ceiling, and when he spoke, the words were slow and unsteady.

"...I like it when you call me a priss. Usually."

"Ah...? Really?" Denmark gave a short laugh, hand tightening reflexively where it rested atop Norway's in Denmark's hair.

"Don't make fun of me, you moron. You'll piss me off. "

"Wasn't making fun!" Denmark protested.

"Just—it's your turn." Norway rolled his eyes with overdramatic exaggeration.

"...I like it when you're mad at me."

Norway rolled inwards slightly so that his forehead rested on the curve of Denmark's jaw.

"Are you an idiot or somethi—wait, I already know that," Norway murmured into Denmark's ear. "Why?"

The tall man's mouth opened and closed several times as he thought of several ways to say what he was thinking and discarded the majority of them.

"Well..." Denmark said gradually, "...if you care enough to get mad...must mean I'm at least a little important to you."

Norway's hand jerked out from beneath his, the smaller male rolling aside to clamber clumsily to a position that was half-crouch, half-crawl as he hovered over Denmark's prone form on the floor.

The Dane stared in consternation as Norway's face closed off into his normal expression of ennui, save for the glow of good Danish akvavit bridging across his nose and cheeks.

"Your second-best feature is your eyes." Norway said in a flat monotone, sliding one leg unsteadily over Denmark's stomach to straddle his waist and slamming his hands down roughly on either side of the astonished man's head.

Those cyan second-best eyes peered up at Norway apprehensively.

"Hej Nikolai...am I in trouble?"

"No."

"Ah. Then why second-best? What's first-best, my belly button or something?"

Norway rolled his own eyes and trailed one hand across Denmark's jaw to rest his fingers lightly on the Dane's lips.

"What, you're really going to make me say it? You idiot. It's your turn." Norway murmured, leaning forward with a slight wobble.

"So is this the part where I pick out your best feature?" Denmark asked softly.

"I don't care. Rules are rules. Just say something."

Denmark searched Norway's face with a ponderous expression.

"How do I pick just one...?" he wondered aloud. Norway sighed and rolled his eyes. The Dane frowned and reached up to tug lightly on Norway's bangs.

"M'serious!" he protested.

"Then think of something else."

"Ah...hm. Can't think of anythin'."

"Lazy idiot. I won't tell you anything else either."

"—Greenland made me learn how to French braid hair when she was little." Denmark mumbled beneath Norway's fingertips. Norway inhaled sharply, gazing down with a piercing look.

"...I really was more upset about the ships."

"Ha!" Denmark laughed softly beneath him, "Shit, Nor. I already knew you loved your boats more than you cared for any of us. You'll have to try somethin' else."

Norway wanted to protest this, but the longer he pondered it in his alcohol-marinated brain, the more plausible it seemed.

"Fine," Norway gave a put-upon sigh and shifted his weight slightly, causing Denmark to groan in protest beneath him, "I thought you hated me for a long time."

The Norwegian stared off to the side in embarrassment or something like it as he heard Denmark exhale raggedly underneath him.

"Why would you think that?"

"After I left."

He caught the Dane staring at him expectantly in his peripheral and turned his head to glare down at him.

"...idiot. Why do you think I always need to be drunk to talk to you?"

Denmark blinked in surprise and reached up to gingerly run his thumb over Norway's barrette.

"...okej, Niko. Another secret. When you got married again to Sverige...I wrote you a lot of letters sayin' a lot of things. But I burned them all."

Norway used his free hand to run fingertips over Denmark's shirt collar, resting lightly on the top button before unfastening it in a manner that was surprisingly nimble for how inebriated he was.

"What did they say?" Norway asked distractedly, moving his hand down to start on the next button.

Denmark stared at the ceiling as if it was entirely normal to have a person straddling you and unbuttoning your shirt. It might have been for all they knew at the moment.

"...don't really remember." He said at last, "I stayed pretty well hazed after we ended it."

"Oh," was Norway's only reply as he undid another button, "...you know, that marriage was a farce anyway..."

Denmark froze for a split second as his eyes darted to Norway and then back at the ceiling.

"Ah," he said in a light tone, "Was it?"

"It was. Sverige was very...mm." Norway hummed to himself as he busied himself with yet another button, swaying slightly.

Denmark heaved a small sigh, and if it seemed relieved, neither of them commented on it.

"H-ha...well, he's a bastard anyway..." Denmark laughed quietly.

"So you say. Now shut up." Norway said in a low voice, splaying his hand out across Denmark's now-exposed chest.

Denmark blinked once, as though finally realizing their positions.

"Nikolai, what are you doi—"

Norway's finger pressed harder against Denmark's lips, cutting his words off.

"What are you talking about, 'what am I doing'? Don't be such an idiot. This is just like every other time."

Denmark swallowed hard, bringing his hands up to grip Norway's upper arms in a tight grasp—

—and tugged the slightly smaller nation off of him.

Norway stared at Denmark in bewildered and confused shock.

"I'm tired, Norge. I'm just too damn tired of this."

"What—"

With a moment of startling and terrifying clarity, Norway realized (and it was so obvious as he looked around to avoid saying anything) that Denmark was not drunk. Because Denmark did not get drunk off of 5 shots of vodka.

"I see," Norway said stiffly, getting shakily to his feet and he didn't know if it was the alcohol making him unsteady or that unfamiliar chill of rejection, "I...I see. I'll get out of your way."

"But it's 4 in the morning—"

"Shut up. If you didn't want me—want me here, you should have said so sooner."

Denmark shot into an upright position.

"Norge—Niko, it's not that," he said weakly, "I love you. I love you."

"I thought I told you to shut up." Norway said tonelessly as he gathered his things from where they had been untidily abandoned on the coffee table hours ago.

"Why do you keep coming here then? Every time. What's the point?" Denmark asked, watching the smaller man with a blank expression.

"You may forget at times, but I'm a man too and I have needs just like any other man. And you're convenient." Norway replied nonchalantly, shoving his wallet into his back pocket carelessly.

"—I still love you, even you are just usin' me."

"Thank you."

The silence hung on, interrupted only by Norway's quiet shuffling and Denmark's quickened breathing.

"So what makes this time different?" Norway said at last, snatching his keys from the table and fixing Denmark with an expectant stare. Denmark looked back, eyes resigned and slightly despairing.

"...if it doesn't mean anything to you, don't come back. Just don't. We can just pretend it never happened; that okay with you?"

Norway sucked in a breath and gazed at the blonde man still sitting on the floor before him.

"...fine. Fine. I won't come back."

And with that, he turned and walked out the door and out of the familiarity of that old Copenhagen loft. He slammed the door behind him, leaning on it for a moment before shoving himself away and wobbling drunkenly down the stairs that led to the main thoroughfare, which was empty so early in the morning.

"Idiot...idiot...what a complete idiot," Norway muttered to himself as he strode away purposefully, hugging his coat closer to himself, "Why ruin a good arrangement? Stupid moron..."

And if the road in front of him was blurry, it was because of the alcohol and not because his eyes were running.

"...idiot..." he said softly, squinting harder to try and bring the road into focus but instead forcing more tears to leak from his eyes.

"A complete moron...grow a conscience now, what's wrong with you—"

His knees went weak and he found himself half-slumped against a lamp-post, alarming an early morning bicyclist.

He stood there, raw and unopened underneath a flickering light, wiping the moisture away from his face ineffectively.

"Don't blame me if you were too dense to notice, you stupid bastard—don't make that face; nobody asked you to say that you loved me," he muttered sullenly into his hands.

"...it did mean something, you idiot..."