Well, here's a new paring from me, DenNor, as requested by Prussium. Norway is a mysterious, fascinating person who Denmark admires from afar, thinking he's out of his league. So, I turned it into a human AU. And here it is. I've never written for this pairing before, so I hope I did them justice. I really like them both, but writing a pairing is always different than just reading them.
And then I thought (or maybe I didn't think), so... I'm writing a pairing I never have before, why not experiment when writing style as well! That makes total sense, right? No, it doesn't. But, I did it anyway. So the whole thing is basically written as a string of vignettes. Most of it is written from Denmark's POV, except for the ending.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hetalia.
Just Ask
There!
Darting around and about the people crowding the grocery store at the end of the day, Mathias Køhler saw him, Mr. Glacier. And, quickly lost him again as he darted around a mother and her three children crowded around the bread. He sighed—oh, well—and continued his shopping.
There again!
He would know that icy blonde hair anywhere (as frigid as his stare) and the blue-grey peacaot and the page boy hat and the poky little cross barrette that held back his fringe. Mathias saw him everywhere. Appearance always just as cold, just as aloof, but far more impenetrable than the ice mask he wore. At least he had plenty of opportunities to attempt to break it. The ice, not the man. He wouldn't do that!
Mathias was amazed how he could continue to run into the same person so often in such a large city. Now, he could understand if it was just on the bus or just in the grocery store or even just outside the cafe he where worked. No, it was all those places and more. Uncanny, that's what it was! How could two people keep such a similar schedule? It was so staggeringly unlikely and Mathias thought himself lucky to have fallen into such an awkwardly glorious situation. And, he blessed the day that he had decided to transfer to a university in America so it could happen.
He didn't know the man's name. After a week of orchestra rehearsals staring down at him from the piano, he resolved to fix that problem. And he might possibly talk to him instead of just glare if he encroached upon his space. Everywhere he went was a potential chance to meet that cute little guy occupying the first seat in the violin section of the university orchestra. He didn't often make it down to his section when they broke after practices. And, that guy was fast. Fast wherever he went.
Oh! There, by the cereal, Mr. Glacier was standing in front of that healthy stuff. There was no accounting for taste.
"Here!" Mathias reached up and grabbed a box of corn flakes. "Lemme get that for ya."
"I didn't ask you to..." Mr. Glacier's voice was not as icy as his appearance, it was just flat.
"Aw, I know." Mathias grinned. "Ya didn't need to."
"What are you saying?"
"Nothin' Just trying to be helpful."
Mr. Glacier studied at him a moment. His eyes themselves weren't icy; they were a dull blue, they fit glare. "Keep it."
"I'm not much for these good for ya cereals, y'know."
"And, I don't care."
"But, I guess there's something to be said for 'em."
"Whatever. Go away." Mr. Glacier reached up to get a box of a different type and brand of cereal—oh! so he didn't like the yicky gross kind; it had flavoring, cinnamon or some such, Mathias noticed.
"Cool, you like the good stuff, me too 'cept I really prefer pastries, though they don't keep long." He grabbed a box of the same kind of cereal and tossed it into his basket.
"Yeah, I don't care." Mr. Glacier tossed the box in his basket and dashed away, turning the corner, leaving Mathias to stand there smiling. Mr. Glacier talked to him! That was the first conversation they ever had. He was so happy.
Mathias would see him again, just a few minutes later, both of them lugging their groceries home and onto the bus. Much like the grocery store had been, the bus was also crowded. Oh, well, he'd admire from afar.
Mr. Glacier stared from the back as they both settled in for the ride, clutching sister poles from opposite ends of the bus. And, Mathias wasn't sure how that happened.
He lost sight of Mr. Glacier in the rush to get off the bus. He must have used the back exit.
Mathias nearly stopped in his tracks in the middle of the sidewalk as he saw the man approach his apartment building, key out and ready. Mathias was nearly trampled by the crowd.
He lived in the same building as Mr. Glacier! How much luckier could he get?
"Get out of the middle of the sidewalk, idiot!" someone shouted at him.
He blinked and started fishing out his key from the depths of his pocket and proceeded out of the way of the rushing tide of people.
"Hey asshole," Mr. Glacier growled at him, though, the tone was still oddly deadpan. "Stop following me."
"Can't!" Mathias grinned and that lovely man with the dull blue eyes, what did he do? He hit him. Mr. Glacier hit him with his very heavy grocery bag. What the hell did the man buy besides the cereal, and the bread, and the fish and the milk and the apples, anyway? Damn, he was stronger than he looked. "Ow! I live here too!"
"Oh, hell, you're loud." Mr. Glacier hit him again, at least it wasn't as hard that time.
"And proud!" Maybe he could save this situation. "Here, I'll get that." He reached for the building door to open it now that Mr. Glacier had it unlocked. In the process Mathias dropped one of his four bags.
"Ow! You idiot. Just-just back off and..." Mr. Glacier picked up his bag. "Here!" He shoved it in Mathias's face, and then shouldered his way inside the building. "Could do with buying a bit less beer. Damn lush." But, he couldn't be too sure about that last bit. Did he call him luscious? He swallowed thickly. That was bizarre. They didn't even know each other. Sadly. Or did the man call him a drunkard? He shrugged. However proud he was of his expertise a good old fashioned drinking contest, how would Mr. Glacier know that either?
Mr. Glacier didn't even change expressions or the tone of his voice while he was griping at him. Wow, that took talent. Surely he did some time or other. Everyone's expression changed at some point.
They crossed paths so many, many times, perhaps Mathias would get a chance eventually?
Mathias found that he would have to test the stretches of his patience and that of his friends as he awaited the answers to his questions and the disclosure of his quest to find a crack in the ice facade of the man with the dull blue eyes.
His wait would last weeks.
For the next two weeks, Mr. Glacier attempted to avoid Mathias altogether; try as he might he could not catch blue eyes nor blond hair of that mysterious blue-eyed man outside of orchestra.
By the end of the second week after their grocery store encounter, he had discovered nothing more about him.
Eventually, he discovered, through a mutual friend—good ol' Tino!—that Mr. Glacier changed his schedule. Mathias couldn't be sure, Tino was curiously, and uncharacteristically, vague. Oh, well.
"Why don't you just back off a bit, Mathias?" Tino glanced over at the cafe door, and then sighed over the rim of his coffee cup—probably waiting for Berwald. "You really come off a little strong sometimes."
"Haha! Nonsense!" He grinned and waved off his friend. "I'm just a people person is all. I was just tryin' to get him to warm up to me."
Tino glanced at the door again. "Right..."
Their conversation changed abruptly soon after that as Berwald joined their table.
After pestering their French landlord—boy had that been a strange encounter, and he came away from it feeling a little more and a little less of a man, though he would not speak of that to anyone, ever—he learned that Mr. Glacier's apartment was the source of the strange squealing music that saturated the building's walls Saturday evenings. Well, the building was replete with classical musicians, but it was nice to know the origins of the extreme guitarist, the apartment directly across from his. Small world. A little too small. It cut into his own practice time. That Frenchman derived a bit too much pleasure from telling Mathias details about the man (height, weight, preferences, the fact that he played half a dozen instruments or something)—he lost track—all except his name.
Mathias would get to the bottom of that. He would.
He had other friends, neighbors in the building, at school, at work.
None of them would tell him Mr. Glacier's name. Not even the American brat who lived next door and played bass guitar in the guy's band. What was the deal with the mystery?
He could just kick that American for the new bit of information. And, curse him, the kid wouldn't tell him the guy's name either—practically blanched when Mathias asked him. The American did confirm that Mr. Glacier had, in fact, been avoiding him. He had changed his work schedule, re-scheduled one of his classes, all but moved out of the building. Affordable, quality housing was hard to come by.
"Dude," Jones said, after swallowing a huge bite of his pastry. "He complains about you constantly." He eyed the window of the cafe, losing focus for a moment, and then cast a critical eye back toward him. "What the hell did you do to him?"
"No idea." He scratched his chin in thought. "Nothin', I was only bein' nice to 'em. Why do ya ask?"
"He said you were stalking him or something."
"Stalking?! That's ridiculous." He rubbed his arms. The air in the room dropped several degrees, someone had just entered the cafe.
"Well, that's what I heard from Artie."
A huff, interrupted their conversation. "Do not call me that, fool."
"Oh, hey Art." Jones smiled. "Was just talking about you."
"Oh, were you?"
"Well, kinda," Mathias interjected. "We're really talkin' about, uh, um, what? A mutual friend? Yeah."
"Yep, our lead guitarist." Jones nodded.
"Hey, Kirkland!" Mathias shook the Englishman's hand as he took the seat next to Jones. "You know anything about him?"
The Englishman's expressive eyebrows furrowed. "I see." He cleared his throat. "I'm afraid you should really back off a bit, Mathias. He...doesn't particularly like you, I'm afraid."
"What?!" He laughed. "Who wouldn't like me? I'm the king of likeable."
"L-, um, my friend would beg to differ." Kirkland sighed. "He says that you accosted him in the cereal aisle and then attacked him just outside the apartment complex."
Mathias gaped. "No way! I was just trying to help him."
"'Fraid so," Jones spoke into his coffee, exchanging a glance with Kirkland.
"But...I! I wouldn't do that!"
Kirkland shrugged. "That's what he said. He had his leg wrapped for three days."
"I heard he hates you," Jones said.
"No, the words he said were 'creepy' and 'stalker' and 'getting on my last nerve.' You weren't there for the real rant."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. I just caught the tail end, I guess."
"Yes, because you were late." Kirkland punched Jones lightly on the shoulder.
Mathias's world seemed to close a little. Mr. Glacier hated him? That couldn't be right. This was all a big misunderstanding. He had to set things straight. He had to see him again, and soon.
"Anyway..." Jones rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't recommend approaching him anytime soon or the guy might call the cops on you."
"What!?"
"Well, I don't know about that. But, well, I guess he very well cou-"
"No!" he cut off Kirkland before he could say anything more absurd. He just...he couldn't. Mathias watched the rain swirl outside the window, storm brewing like it was inside himself. And his heart sank.
"Okay," Kirkland cut through his tempest of thoughts. "Care to share with the class, or should we leave you to stew?"
He didn't get it. He was only trying to be nice. He only wanted to brighten those mesmerizing dull blue eyes, watch them spark—sparkle! See him laugh instead of scowl. Smile instead of frown. See him happy.
Jones waved a hand before his eyes. "Hey Mathias! Earth to Mathias! Whoa, you're in deep. You serious about all that?"
Mathias blinked. "All what?" Wait, he said all that aloud. Well, shit.
Kirkland cleared his throat. "All that overly affectionate—"
"Lovey-dovey mushiness," Jones interrupted.
"-blubbering," Kirkland finished. "Well, yes that works."
And, so they left him there shortly after that. Knowing that his mysterious Mr. Glacier hated him changed the game a little. No, it wouldn't change things! Not at all! Mathias gulped down the rest of his coffee, and went back to work. "I'll just watch from a distance then." Still, he could deal with this. He could.
The next time he saw Mr. Glacier on the bus again, things had changed.
It seemed that their schedules overlapped once again. That was a nice adjustment, Mathias would openly admit. He would not—refused to—openly admit to his disappointment at having to admire the man from afar.
He had been thinking about Mr. Glacier—as he did so often on the bus (in the grocery story, on the way to class, at work, walking into the apartment building)—when the object of his affection sauntered through the door and sat down just across the aisle. He couldn't help but watch.
"Did you have something you wanted to say?" Mr. Glacier spoke directly to him without him saying anything first. His mind froze.
"What?" Mathias blinked. The man was staring, his eyes still an unaffected dull blue, his mouth still set in the firm straightness of anti-expression.
"Hasn't anyone told you it's rude to stare, stupid?"
He wanted to tell the man that he was captivated, that he wanted him to smile, that he wanted him to laugh.
"All the time, man." He laughed. "All the damn time." Stupid.
"Maybe you should take their advice." He took his hat off and whacked Mathias in the shoulder."
"Ow!"
"Oh, that didn't hurt you. But, really, if you have something to say to me, just say it and stop following me around everywhere like a creeper. That's an idiot thing to do." That was more than Mr. Glacier had ever said to him at other moment combined and multiplied. Creeper. Idiot.
He blinked again and froze. Out of some perverse reflex, he pulled the bus stop cord. "Oh, hey, here's m'stop." He rose as the bus put on its breaks. "Nice talkin' to ya. We should do this again sometime."
"But we didn't actually have a conversation, you fool."
Mathias didn't stay around to answer. He didn't look back as he bolted up the bus aisle. He fled trench coat flapping in his self-made breeze.
Stupid.
Creeper.
Idiot.
Fool.
His friends were right.
After all this time, he finally realized, Mr. Glacier hated him.
And he would never learn his name.
Lukas batted away the tail of Mathias's long coat that had caught him across the face as he fled the bus. The guy couldn't even do that right. He was like an overgrown child. An overgrown, permanently drunken child, but a child nonetheless.
So much for taking matters into his own hands and talking to him.
All his friends had better be right about Mathias, if he was going to pursue this much further. At least he learnt that the man was utterly incapable of translating any form of sarcasm whatsoever. He would have to approach this differently. He huffed. How many more encounters of this type would he have to endure?
The man was more than a little ridiculous. Did he really think that Lukas didn't know his usual stops? That he had gotten off at the wrong place, a mile too early en route to their apartment complex. Oh, well.
The next morning, when he boarded the bus for class, Mathias had not been at the bus stop, had not rushed out of the building in a frenzy at the last moment. And, he did not appear for practice, so Lukas inquired to their mutual orchestra friends.
That night, he found Mathias quite on accident. Returning from a late gig with his band, guitar and violin cases in hand, Lukas boarded the bus, and there he was, eyes crossing in and out of focus.
Was he drunk?
"Hey! Mister Glacier!" Mathias grinned and beckoned him over to sit beside him, and he seemed to sober as he approached. "Fantastisk concert!
Lukas blinked. "You were there?" Somehow he found himself seated next to the drunken cheery Dane as his band mates filed after him and crept toward the back of the bus. He glared at them. The traitors.
"'Course I was there!" Mathias patted him on the back. Lukas batted the hand away. "Awe, don' be that way!"
"I'll be whatever the hell way I want, Mathias." Lukas deposited his instrument cases on the seat next to him, and then punched the Dane in the shoulder.
"Ouch!"
"And you'll take it."
"You 're great." He blinked.
Their friends snickered from the back of the bus.
"Wait!"
"What?" Lukas raised an eyebrow.
"Y'know my name?! How'd you know my name?"
Oh, the oblivious idiot. Lukas sighed and stared for moment at the ceiling of the bus. "We're in the same orchestra."
"I know that."
Well, maybe he wasn't as oblivious as Lukas originally thought. "You do?!"
"Well, yeah," Mathias said it so frankly.
Lukas sighed again.
"You play violin." He gestured down to the violin case.
"Yeah, first violin."
"Wait." Mathias held up a hand.
"Yes?"
"You're in m'orchestra."
"Yes."
"Shut up. I'm figurin' this out."
"Don't tell me to shut up."
"Okay, and you play the violin. First violin?"
"Yes, and you play the piano, Mathias. You're drunker than I thought."
"Said shush. And you know my name."
The tittering from the back of the bus was beginning more noticeable.
"What's you're name?"
Finally, Lukas was pleased that they seemed to be getting somewhere. "Finally you ask."
"Hey, you could have just told me. Now tell me."
"Far be it from me to twist that foot you crammed in your mouth to encourage you do something that makes sense."
"What does that even mean?"
The laughter in the back softened. "It means he wanted you to ask him his name sooner!" He waves his his hand dismissively in the general direction of his band mates and tossed his hat at them. If they knew what was good for them, whoever ended up with it would return it.
"Well, could ya answer me now that I asked?"
"Lukas," he smiled. "Lukas Bondevik. Nice to finally meet you."
"Yeah?" Mathias grinned. "Yeah!"
Lukas studied the Dane a moment. His eyes looked a bit blood-shot and tired and despite his smile, he was slumping a bit in his seat. "Hey, my band mates and I are going to get some post-gig coffee, would you like to join us?"
"Sure would!"
"I..." he cleared his throat, "I'm glad we finally got this chance to talk. I wanted to for a while, but you kinda creeped me out. I just wish you had asked me my name. We could have avoided all of this and been happy by now."
"Happy?"
"You're a good pianist."
"Thanks man."
"I suppose I wouldn't mind if you hung out with the band more often. Maybe join us if you like. We could use a good keyboardist."
Mathias could do that, though Lukas didn't know where this was going or why his mouth was running off with him.
All in all, this could be a good start, he thought, as Mathias babbled on about the opportunity. Lukas just tuned him out for moment.
Yes, everything had to begin somehow. This was as good a way as any.
It was really fun working on this fic. It didn't turn out even as I expected. I don't know if the other character appearances could even be considered formal pairings they just popped in to help things along, although they didn't really do anything to help things along as character usually do in this circumstances, did they. Haha!
Prussium, I hope you liked your fic. It was a challenge, but it was really fun. Thanks! And, thanks for being my first tumblr follower.