"Something is worrying you." Mathias spoke quietly, knowing his usually loud voice grated on the other, and knowing through experience this was one of the times to talk softly.

"Yes." Aleks hesitated. "No." He didn't turn – just frowned even harder at the world through the window.

Mathias knew that frown well. It had been his constant companion the past two and a half years, through the good and perhaps not so good times. Or nearly constant, anyway – there were times Aleks refused to see him for days.

He preferred Aleks' face when he was sad. The frown would go, his eyebrows raised in worry, and his eyes would open up, and really look at Mathias, unlike his frown-eyes, that merely acknowledged him as another thing put into his life to piss him off.

Mathias walked to where Aleks stood, leaning on the window frame, face to the light. He slipped his hands from his jeans pockets and instead wrapped his arms around the other's waist. Aleks didn't flinch, but the crease between his eyebrows got a little deeper. Mathias rested his chin on Aleks' shoulder.

"But there is something worrying you." Aleks' hair tickled his nose. "Because you only look out of this window when something's up. But I know it can't be that bad, 'cos you're still frowning. When the shit gets real, your frown falls off."

Said frown twitched, then Aleks turned to look at his partner.

"I'm going for a walk."

"Oh, OK. I'll come wi –"

"Don't. Please." Aleks walked to the door and pulled his coat from a peg. "I won't be long."

And he was gone.

It was when he was gone that Mathias disliked their house. Everything was pale; polished metal, bleached wood and Scandinavian pine, thick cream carpets and slate tiles. He liked it – it was like Aleks; functional, pale, with its own efficient elegance. With him gone it was just cold.

Then he would miss the times when they first met: when fire was for light and warmth, the romantic flickering just an added bonus. Times when everything was either made of cheap wood, or plastic made to look like cheap wood. Brown and orange everything – carpets, wallpaper, lampshades. Times when Aleks would punch him in the stomach and tell him he hated him. There was fire in their eyes and fire in the fireplace. Now they had gas central heating and were floating somewhere between love and indifference.

He stayed by the window, hoping to get something positive from the watery sunlight. The heating was on and a light switch at his fingertips, if he wished. Aleks had passed down the road beyond his line of sight.

You expect things to change, when you realise hate is in fact love. True, there are a lot of forms this could take, but it's a change all the same.

Mathias had always known he loved Aleks. Aleks had refused to accept it, and carried right on hating him. They slept together, sometimes drunk, sometimes not, Aleks all sharp fingernails and even sharper tongue. It was surprising how articulate his insults could be while Mathias bit his thigh. And Mathias pretended to hate him back – it seemed to make Aleks happy, and he got sex out of it – which may not have happened had he admitted his feelings for the other.

But it must have hit Aleks one night, as Mathias – his friend/enemy/bed-partner – opened and passed him a beer, before respectfully moving to the other side of the fire, so Aleks couldn't accuse him of trying to feel him up.

And something changed.

Mathias didn't know the exact moment, or what it was that had made Aleks realise, because the latter had never cared to share it with him. But he had spent the next forty minutes being frowned at by Aleks – a different frown than before – one of confusion rather than irritation, and attempting to make conversation. Aleks stood, cutting off Mathias' chatter about the how Norse mythology could be pretty damn sexy if it was told by the right person (himself) and folded his arms.

"You love me."

Mathias blinked. "Yes."

Aleks frowned especially hard, and Mathias tensed, ready for a punch in the jaw, but instead Aleks kissed him, in some ways harder and some ways softer than he ever had before.

Their sex stayed rough, but with insistence and desperation to show the other how they felt, like every time was their first or their last. But there were less bite and scratch marks to cover with coats and scarves the next day. There were now whispers shot through their shouts, strokes as well as slaps. They would look at each other; Mathias would look straight into Aleks' face above him and see it frown-less, soft, like he was looking at it through a net curtain. Aleks would no longer leave; push Mathias away from him and leave the room, leaving his lover with sticky skin and a face sliding from post orgasm to grim acceptance. He would stay, twisting a sheet around them both and lying close by. He had gradually got closer each time, but Mathias chose to keep this observation to himself.

Now it was all brief kisses and soft hugs, holding each other at night as a reminder that they weren't alone, nothing more. And Mathias couldn't understand it. Their feelings for each other had always been like fire, but now the wood refused to burn.

Apologies for the slightly depressing nature of this... but I enjoyed writing it anyway

Just in case, Mathias is Denmark and Aleks is Norway.

Characters belong to Himaruya.