'ᴜɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴇᴀᴛʜᴇʀ' || ʜᴇᴛᴀʟɪᴀ

12

"Norge, you're angry at me, I can tell," Denmark said.

Norway let out an almost undetectable scoff, that said 'yeah, no shit, Sherlock,' and he averted his head slightly as he stared off into the blue horizon.

The pair were sat on the edge of a boardwalk that pointed westwards across a deceptively small Norwegian lake. Lukas was fond of the spot, using it frequently as a place to read, but he had found that Mathias had wanted to tag along this time, and he hadn't the energy to refuse, and it was only the middle of the afternoon.

"If I've done something wrong, you need to tell me . . ." Mathias continued after a short silence. He hated it when Lukas ignored him like this; it made him feel so much worse about himself as a person. "Tell me, and I can fix it."

"It's in the past. Unless you have a time machine, fixing it will be hard," Lukas responded curtly.

"Then I can learn a lesson for next time. That's what history is all about, after all," Denmark mused, staring down at his feet as they childishly swung over the edge of the platform. "We learn from our mistakes in order to better ourselves. It helps us to--"

"You'd make a terrible motivational speaker."

"God, I hate those people!" Mathias remarked, ready to go off on a rant, completely off on a tangent. "They always tell people to chase their dreams, but do people ever hear of anyone who has caught their dreams? No! It's a wonder that kids actually learn anything from people like that!"

Lukas gave a small smile to himself, knowing that Matthias wasn't looking. He couldn't stay mad at him; it wasn't physically possible, because no matter what stupid thing Mathias did, he always found a way to make Lukas happy on the inside. Maybe it was his compassion, his enthusiasm or just his general energetic, happy, lively self, but something always seemed to draw the Norwegian back . . .

"Perhaps you should motivate them, then," Norway suggest offhandedly. Sure, he was smiling, but he could hardly let the Dane know that he was feeling like that.

"Nah, if I spoke to kids, they'd all be hitting the pubs and suffering from liver disease by twenty," Denmark sheepishly responded. He paused again--they both did--and his calmer, sadder demeanour returned. "Are you gonna tell me what's wrong, Norge? I don't want to go back not knowing . . ."

Lukas sighed lightly, and rubbed his left temple. "You're an idiot, that's all," he said. "You didn't tell any of us what was going on or how you were . . . We were just worried."

"But you especially, given that you're the only one who looks like you're trying to not rip my guts out every time you look at me . . ."

Norway slowly nodded, the smile having faded. Of course he'd been worried--Denmark had locked himself away for ages, and not a single noise had come from his room! Lukas had thought he was dead at one point, and was ready to ask Berwald to break the door down and drag his dead corpse out into the garden! But the Norwegian had kept his cool, and had remained perfectly calm.

"Like I said, you were an idiot," Lukas reiterated with a small shrug. "Next time you plan on dying, let us know, OK? I don't want to make a horrifying discovery one day."

Mathias smiled. "Sure thing, Norge."

Without instantly noticing, the Dane placed his hand on top of the more pale and slender one of the Norwegian. It felt soft, and cold . . . It was actually quite a relaxing touch, and Mathias thought that it was probably quite gentle and-- He withdrew from his thoughts and retracted his hand almost instantly, coughing awkwardly and praying to the gods that he didn't look too flustered at that moment.

He hated it when that happened. It was a rare occurrence, but whenever the pair physically touched, accident or not, Mathias always found it calming before he was suddenly struck with a storm of embarrassment and tried to play it off smoothly. It didn't often work, and sometimes, Lukas seemed just as uncomfortable as Mathias did.

"Anyway," he said, trying to forget what had just happened out of his mind, "I was thinking that--"

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

Mathias frowned slightly. "What? Do what?"

"Stop," Lukas muttered with the most miniscule hint of disappointment in his voice.

"Norge, I am really not following. What exactly do you want me to stop doing?" Mathias questioned. "I mean, I can stop talking, but I will warn you that I'll get incredibly bored and find another way to annoy y--"

"Just shut up," Norway sighed.

"Hmm . . . Alright then . . ." Mathias responded quietly.

He looked up at the overhead clouds, and tried to envisage them as different things; cars, frogs, flowers, you name to. As he watched, half-bored and half-asleep, that cold soft touch registered again in his hand. Mathias glance back down at his appendage only to see that Lukas' hand now sat calmly on top of it.

"Uh . . . Norge?"

Norway hummed in acknowledgment as he stared out across the lake.

"What are you doing?" Mathias asked.

"You started it," Lukas responded, eyes not moving away from the darkening horizon. "I thought I would continue it."

He tried to contain himself and not slap his forehead for such a pathetic, childish remark, and he didn't look at Mathias. He didn't want to look, he didn't want to know. The care they shared for each other was obvious to both of them, and evidently others. Tino had once commented that the pair needed to just sit down and talk it over to give the sexual tension a knock on the head; it was driving everyone else insane! At that, Lukas had become flustered and red-cheeked, storming out of the room, and Mathias had done his best to laugh it off.

Was that the constitution of their unspoken bond? They denied it to all, but secretly knew that the other wanted more than they would ever admit, and refrained from speaking up? Mathias sighed, bored of it all. He didn't want that to be as far as they went together. The occasional chat and hand-hold wasn't nearly enough for him; he needed something more so that could be sure that Lukas really did care . . .

"Hey, N-Norge?"

"Yes, Den?"

Mathias gulped silently. "I was wondering if you, uh . . . You know . . ."

His hand fidgeted restlessly under Lukas' but the Norwegian did not move his hand away.

"No, what do you mean?" he said, looking at Mathias, hoping and fearing that he was going to ask something that been on his mind for so long. "What is it?" he urged.

"I was just sorta wondering if maybe you wanted to . . . Be my . . . ?"

"Has the word left your vocabulary?" Lukas deadpanned.

"Dear Zeus," Mathias groaned in exasperation. He took a breath and as quickly as he could, said: "Do you want to my boyfriend?"

"Yes."

"I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ask-- Wait, what?"

"I said yes, you idiot." Lukas responded.

Mathias' heart skipped a beat, and his trapped hand turned underneath Lukas', and they held each other firmly. Mathias felt a head rest on his shoulder, and he glanced at Norway, still trying to recover from the shock of the last ten seconds of his life. Had it really been that simple? Was that all it would have taken, say, three months before?

Probably not, he decided, but that wasn't going to stop Mathias from now giving all his time and attention to Lukas whenever it was needed, and wherever he was; what they had was too important and precious, now. He couldn't risk it all falling apart.

'I'm not gonna ruin this,' he told himself confidently, a bright smile on his face, "I am going to make this work . . . For us, and for the others too. . . I will make us all happy.'