Panacea
Pairing: DenNor
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Fluff
Rating: T
Warnings: male/male pairing, blood, vague sexual innuendo
Wordcount: 1481
"I am not pouting!"
"You're pouting," Norway insists evenly, casually finishing his grilled salmon from lunch. "You're a complete mess in my kitchen, and you're pouting."
Denmark only stands there, axe swung stiffly over his shoulder, clothing in ruffled tatters, valiantly dripping blood and sweat and mud onto Norway's nice clean floor-and very clearly pouting. Norway gives him a look that indicates he has suspicions as to whether or not Denmark may be an alien and takes another bite of his fish.
Obviously this is all quite insulting to Denmark, who makes a face that continues to resemble a pout and yells, "I am not pouting, and if you care more about your stinking floor than your stinking boyfriend, maybe I should just leave!"
Norway opens his mouth to deliver some swift remark about how Denmark certainly does stink, but it is at this point that Denmark sucks in a loud, watery, unmanly sniff, and Norway watches the moisture pool up in the corners of his eyes.
"Oh, well, you're crying in my kitchen; that's much better," he observes sarcastically without thinking about it much. From the way Denmark shouts, "I am not!" and dashes into the other room with the most pathetic look on his face, he decides it may not have been the best thing to say.
It's nothing unusual for Denmark to be this melodramatic-or, indeed, this thoroughly beaten up; Norway is only surprised he isn't also drunk (that he can tell). Since long before they started dating (or whatever it is their relationship is to be called; Norway admits he's sometimes a little unclear on that point), Denmark had been excitable, enamored of his alcohol, and aggressive. As Norway finishes his salmon, he reminds himself of the thousands of other times Denmark has shown up at his doorstep beaten to a bloody pulp and survived just fine-but then Denmark lets out a particularly despondent, pained, attention-seeking moan from the sitting room and Norway finds himself sighing and trotting off to retrieve the first-aid kit from the closet.
As he extricates the necessary supplies from the kit, Norway curses himself for putting up with Denmark's antics and his over-zealous romance and his bullshit all these years. His life would be so much simpler if-but he happens to glance over at the wall and there's that stupid painting Denmark did for him, not to mention he remembers the rock ballads and the poems and the-well, Norway just grumbles and marches back down the hallway to find his boyfriend, medical supplies in hand.
When he enters the sitting room, the curtains have been drawn, the lamp Denmark made him accept as an anniversary gift is turned on in the middle of the day, and the radio is set to some station blaring that one pop boy band of England's who sound like they would make Sweden proud (something about get out, get out, get out of my head, and fall into my arms instead). Norway grunts and taps the power button to shut the entire system off.
"I was listening to that!" Denmark wails indignantly, curled up in a chair on the far side of the room, a few tears having made their way down his face.
"You were bleeding on my furniture," Norway corrects him flatly, waving the bandages and disinfectant in front of him. "Up. Put the axe down and give me your arms."
Denmark proceeds to ignore him and makes a point of looking as far away as he can reasonably muster without hurting his neck. "This chair is from Ikea! I can smell it!" he bellows, putting undue stress on the word smell.
"I didn't go out and buy it from Ikea; Sweden gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago. I put it out to replace the chair you ruined at Christmas." Norway wrinkles his nose in distaste, and somehow the light blush that dusts his face only makes his hard expression that much more intimidating.
"Technically it was you that ruined the chair, Norge; I just-"
"We don't talk about that," Norway snaps. "We agreed. Stop bleeding on the stupid Ikea chair and get over here."
Denmark's only response is to sniffle loudly and make a grand show of wiping a cut near his palm on the arm of the offending chair. Norway curses at him sharply and Denmark ignores him.
"Søren," he tries.
"Lukas," Denmark mimics.
"That is two of my chairs you've ruined, so you're buying me a new one." Norway informs him, bristling. "Now get over here and let me clean those before they get infected and you die."
"...Don't want to. Nations don't get infected and die," Denmark mumbles childishly in a very wobbly voice, a tear rolling down his cheek despite his Herculean efforts to obstruct it.
Norway sighs and takes a few more steps forward until he can reach out and grab Denmark's shoulder. "Søren, come on, get in the bathroom," he commands. When Denmark doesn't move, he trails the hand upward to rest on his cheek; Denmark grimaces, another tear rolls over Norway's fingers, and Denmark automatically reaches up to wrap his fingers around Norway's with a trembling squeeze. As soon as Denmark finally lets the axe clatter to the floor to lean into his touch, Norway brushes the ghost of a kiss on Denmark's other cheek and then clamps down his hold on the stubborn idiot's hand and drags him forcefully to the bathroom, ignoring his protests all the way.
Denmark puts up token resistance consisting mainly of shouting and wiggling halfheartedly until Norway dumps him on the bathroom floor and glares at him until Denmark sighs and removes what's left of his shirt, revealing a great mélange of bruises and cuts in various stages of severity and development all across his torso.
"I see you had another fight with Sweden. How many is that this month?" Norway comments as he sets to work cleaning Denmark's wounds.
As Denmark does not respond except to wince dramatically, whine, and flex his arm to stop the disinfectant from stinging so much, Norway makes a small noise of understanding and continues rinsing the dirt out of a particularly nasty slash. "I see you lost another fight with Sweden."
"I did not!" Denmark erupts suddenly, flailing with such vigor that Norway nearly jabs a cotton swab into the cut and smacks him across the face as punishment. "Finland broke it up before we got to finish!" Denmark continues angrily, undaunted. "I was so totally not losing!"
Norway nods in sarcastic understanding. "Which is why you ran all the way to my house to cry to me about how you won and bleed all over my chairs in triumph. I see."
"That's not what I meant," Denmark mumbles, and Norway rolls his eyes and finishes wrapping bandages around his fingers before proceeding to the scrapes and other gashes on his chest. "I mean, I guess we were kinda equal," he concedes after a few moments. "So Sweden is probably havin' to have Tino patch him up way more right now. Since he's so big and all."
With a raise of his eyebrow, Norway swipes the cotton along a cut a little more roughly than necessary, and Denmark yelps. "So what you're saying is you plan is to go off and get yourselves completely trounced in battle and then come home expecting Finland and me to fix it all the time? Stop squirming, Søren; I'm almost done."
This shuts Denmark up for a few minutes, during which he gazes contemplatively at the wallpaper while Norway surveys the rest of his body for injuries (out of pure professional concern, of course; that's all it is). Finally, he concedes in a small voice, "I mean I'm just...if I can't even beat stupid Sweden in a fight...I just...I used to be head honcho around here, y'know?"
"I remember, thank you," Norway interrupts sharply. "Maybe you don't need to be like that anymore. Maybe you don't need to try to break Sweden's kneecaps every time you get your hands on something heavy. We're not in the Renaissance anymore, idiot."
Denmark doesn't answer but breaks down and wraps Norway in a bear hug, tears streaming down his cheeks, covering Norway's face with wet, sloppy kisses in-between violent sobs. To his credit, Norway stands there and takes all of it calmly, even going so far as to embrace his histrionic boyfriend back and rub small, soothing circles along his shoulders.
"Where would I be without you, Norge?" Denmark asks fondly through a few straggling tears and hiccups, nuzzling into the dip in Norway's shoulder.
"You'd have frozen to death on a mountain somewhere," Norway breathes across Denmark's neck. "Now come on, stupid. Let's get you something to eat. And until you steal the entire blanket like you usually do, you can sleep in my bed tonight."
A/N: This was written for Meso the Hanyu's birthday; she asked me for some DenNor hurt/comfort with a fluffy ending and somehow it turned into this. Since she enjoyed it, here it is for your viewing pleasure (?) and I hope you enjoy! Read, favorite, review, ignore, do whatever you like. This being the Hetalia fandom, I thus blame all oversights and typos on the fact that I am an American (but you are totally encouraged to point them out to me anyway so I can fix them).
That said, I have absolutely no idea about the radio popularity of One Direction in Norway, nor will I express any particular opinions of their music except that holy crap it is catchy.