"Stop crying, stop crying, nonono, it's okay, shh shh shh," Sigurd muttered frantically as he bounced his baby brother lightly. People were looking and laughing behind their hands. A bus was absolutely not the right place for this. Eirikur wasn't hungry, he'd just gotten his diaper changed, he just wouldn't stop crying.

Before Sigurd could break down and cry himself- which was saying a lot, because he prided himself on his calm outer appearance- the bus screeched to a halt in front of his stop. He climbed out of the bus, Eiri still crying as he sat down to wait for his friend, who was going to babysit for a few hours while he was in class. Damn Tino! He couldn't have forgotten again- his prof would kill him if he brought Eirikur into the biology lab again, but he didn't have money for daycare on top of bills and food and school. At least his boss was letting him use his parental leave flexibly so he could take more time off for Eirikur.

With an almost startling suddenness, said baby stopped crying and started laughing. Sigurd looked up, hoping it was Tino. Well, even though Eirikur mostly just slept around Tino, and the finn had a hard time making him laugh. Instead of Tino, though, there was a guy who looked around his age with spiky hair waving at Eirikur and making silly faces. Eirikur, instead of giving his normally displeased stare, was burbling and giggling.

The man looked absolutely mortified when he saw Sigurd staring at him, and hastily apologized. "No, that's fine, I'm just relieved he stopped crying. Eirikur seems to like you a lot." Sigurd deadpanned, shifting his brother to a position he could look at the man closer.

"Hey Eirikur…" the man cooed as he wiggled his fingers in a tiny wave in front of him. "I'm Magnus by the way, Magnus Densen. Your son is very cute. Who are you by the way?"

"Sigurd Bondevik, Eirikur's older brother and legal guardian. Nice to meet you. Magnus is a pretty Scandinavian name, you from there?"

"Yeah, I'm dan-!" Magnus yelped as Eirikur grabbed his spiky hair and pulled his head into Sigurd's chest. "Um, I'm danish."

Eirikur babbled happily as he messed with the blond hair that was now available as a toy. Sigurd winced slightly. "Sorry, he likes to mess with people's hair. I should have warned you, especially because yours is so, er, loud. I'm norwegian by the way. Eirikur's icelandic."

Magnus yelped in pain a few times as he gently loosened his hair, the nine month old whining, and sat down next to Sigurd. "Nah, it's alright, kids like doing that to me. So when did you move here?"

"Hmm, about eight months ago for university, I'm getting a M.D. although I'm still keeping my options open." Magnus seemed to brighten significantly, even though Eirikur was messing happily with his hair again. "I'm a medical student too! I'm going to be a pediatric nurse, actually."

Sigurd nodded, contemplating. "You don't happen to have a swedish cousin named Berwald, do you? I think he may have told me about you, in the way of 'my idiotic danish cousin with a lego fetish'."

Magnus snorted. "Yeah, that sounds like something Ber would say. Though he can't talk, he probably makes out with ikea furniture." He sighed. "I'm actually here because I asked him to drop off some textbooks, and he said to meet him here because his boyfriend had something to do. Timo or something? All I know is that I had to drag Berwald's tall ass here because our moms wanted us to look out for each other, and since he's not applying to college because he already managed to get some sort of furniture design deal, he came here and meets this little creampuff of a thing."

With a slight roll of his eyes, Sigurd stated, "Tino may look weak and innocent but he is one of the best metal bassists I know. He's actually coming here to pick up Eirikur so I can go to class." Magnus stared for a second, before shaking his head as much as he could without bothering Eirikur. "Speaking of that, look, there they are!"

Sigurd looked up, and saw Tino running towards them, waving a large book, Berwald walking behind with a few others. He sighed in relief, gently handing the baby to Tino and grabbing his bag, throwing a "See you around!" over his shoulder as he jogged off to class.

Sigurd fell backwards onto Magnus's couch, holding Eirikur to his chest as the pair bounced slightly from the impact. The two had grown to be close friends over the past couple of months, and Sigurd has moved post of babysitter from Tino to Magnus, both of whom were elated. Eirikur had grown to view the two as parent figures, but there were still times where Sigurd would wake up to Eiri crying, and nothing he could do could stop it, but he would walk the five minutes to Magnus's apartment, and the two would try to calm him down.

Magnus walked into the room, and stretched. "Yo, Sigurd, how are you? You normally knock and normally don't act like this, moper."

"Class, and finals are coming up. That one person keeps messing with my cadaver, or thinking it's theirs or something. God, what a dick." Eirikur decided that it was time to be held by the other parent figure, and sat up on his brother, making grabby hands as he burbled, "Magus! Magus!"

Both stopped what they were doing and stared. "Did he just?" "Yeah."

Magnus whooped and grabbed Eirikur, who giggled as he spun around in circles. Sigurd smiled, a little jealous, but happy for Magnus, and happy Eirikur has said his first word- twice in a row. "I betcha gonna melt, huh Sigurd? He said my name, oh my god, he's amazing. I can't believe you said my name oh my goodness!" Magnus had slipped into danish halfway though in his excitement, hugging a giggling Eiri.

"First word, too. I was wondering when he would talk." Sigurd smiled, because even though he'd been trying to get his first word to be brodir, this was still amazing.

"Oh my gosh his first real word was my name oh my gosh!"

Sigurd stood up hugged the two, him and Magnus making a little cocoon around a very proud-of-himself Eirikur.

03:27 glowed red on the digital clock by Sigurd's bed. Magnus rolled over to the side of the bed as he yawned and stretched. "I'll get him," the dane muttered sleepily(Completely without realizing it was in his native language-what a cutie- no, not a cutie, his annoying friend who had just moved in because it was more convenient and they spent most of their time together and- you know what, Sigurd somehow doubted that train of thought was much better.) through Erikur's crying.

Sigurd flopped backwards back onto the bed, squeezing his eyes shut. From the other side of the room, he could see Magnus rocking back and forth as he held Eirikur and sang, the gentle danish reminding him of his childhood, even though those long-ago lullabies were in norwegian. Eirikur was whimpering a little bit as he hung onto Mathias. "S'gurd." he whined as Magnus comforted him. Sigurd rolled out of bed and stumbled over to the pair, resting his head on Magnus' other shoulder as he rubbed Eirikur's back a bit, Magnus still singing. "It's okay, Eiri. We gotcha. We gotcha."

The next morning, Magnus stumbled out of the bedroom in the tiny apartment, placing Eirikur into the small living room that had been totally baby proofed and fenced off from the rest of the house. He tripped over his own feet as he walked into the kitchen and absentmindedly kissed Sigurd's cheek while he muttered, "Morning."

It took almost five complete seconds for Magnus to realize what he had just done in his sleep and coffee deprived state. Sigurd rolled his eyes as the dane began to redden and splutter, frantically making excuses and apologizing. Sigurd sighed, stood on his tiptoes, and planted a gentle kiss on Magnus's cheek, making him blush even more deeply as he shut up. "Good morning beetface. Your face is turning purple now. Is Eirikur in a clean diaper?"

"Huh? Oh, um, er, yeah. Yeah, he is."

"My mom is coming here."

"What?" Sigurd asked, looking up from the book he was reading Eirikur.

"My mom's flying in from Denmark next week. She knows me and Berwald moved out of the apartment permanently and now we live with other people, but she expects to stay here. I just got the news." Magnus winced, shrugging. "She dosen't know how tiny this place is, but she'd be alright with the couch."

Sigurd nodded. "Alright."

The next week, Magnus opened the door with a loud bang, announcing his arrival. Eirikur, who was toddling around quite quickly at this point, ran/wobbled towards him, and Magnus picked him up in a sweeping motion to introduce to his mother. "This is Eirikur, he's two. SIGURD! MY MOM IS HERE!"

Sigurd stumbled into the front room, hair sticking up and the imprint of a pencil, complete with graphite marks, on his face. He shook his head in an attempt to wake himself up. "Sorry," he yawned, "After a study nap is not exactly the best first impression. It's nice to meet you, miss Densen. You've probably guessed I'm Sigurd already. Magnus, you know I can't cook anything but fish, go make something edible."

"Christine Densen, nice to meet you. I can't say that Magnus has told me too much about you but you seem like a wonderful person."

Sigurd leaned down and grabbed her bags, saying, "It's nice to meet you too. By the way, you can use danish, it's close enough to norwegian and it's nicer to use your native language than english."

"Thank you, Sigurd, that's nice of you to mention. Oh, dear, where should I hang my coat?"

After a nice dinner, the group gathered comfortably in the living room, lounging on the couch. Once they had gotten into a nice conversation and Eirikur was asleep, cuddled into Sigurd with his tiny hand wrapped around one of Magnus's fingers, Christine said, "So, how long have you two been together? Is Eirikur's mother in the picture still?"

After a moment of shocked silence, Sigurd broke into rare laughter. "We aren't together, and I'm Eirikur's older half- brother. I got the legal guardianship when my stepfather was killed in a car wreck. My mom had passed away a few months before in birth complications."

Magnus nodded. "We met because I accidentally made Eiri stop crying and it turned out we had a few mutual friends, and I live with him because neither of us have enough cash for our own place and even with his savings he had to work like three jobs and do some serious penny pinching to afford to feed Eirikur and go to school. With my help Eirikur is always with one of us and it's easier to deal with expenses. Plus he can't cook at all so I help that out too."

Christine raised an eyebrow. "You two are telling me that you aren't even in a relationship? You look like Berwald's parents, Magnus."

"Mooomm!"

"Alright, alright."

"We have kissed once or twice before, mostly after either a bit of beer or aquavit or a night of severe sleep deprivation."

"Sigurd!"

"Shut up, do you want to wake up Eirikur?"

"Magnus, we should start dating." Sigurd said, out of the blue. Magnus started choking on his water. As he pretty much opened his mouth and dumped out his water with a lot of coughing, he gasped, "What?!"

"We've been tiptoeing around this weird sexual tension for too long. It's high time we got together."

"But you're not ever gay or anything!" Magnus cried in confusion, utterly lost.

"Neither are you, you're pan. And I'm demisexual, not that you even bothered asking. So there's no reason we shouldn't give it a go. We literally live together, raise a child together, share expenses, cook for each other, and have kissed on multiple occasions. Your own mother thought we were engaged." Sigurd explained calmly. "Do you want to be in a relationship with me or not? It's a pretty simple question, I think you can handle the yes or no answer.:

"Yeah but-" Magnus was cut off when Sigurd grabbed his collar. "Kiss me."

"Okay." Magnus yelped, voice small, as he leaned down and kissed- actually kissed, not just a little peck on the cheek or lips- Sigurd. Then, before it could really go anywhere, the two were interrupted by a loud, "Ewwwwww!"

Eirikur stood in the doorway, clutching the stuffed puffin his honorary (and now maybe soon to be actually) grandma had given to him, making a face. Magnus swooped him up and swung the now-giggling three year old around, giving him to Sigurd, who made a loud farting noise by blowing air against Eiri's stomach. "We really are officially a family now." Mathias whispered to Sigurd, who nodded and leaned against him. "I guess we are. I like that. We're a family."