Longest. One-shot. I. Have. EVER. Written. *flops on floor to breath for a moment*

Okay. Now that I know what's down and up and left and right again... PLEASE DON'T KILL ME FOR THIS. I've worked on this very hard - like, three months hard - and I hope to get some good feedback... or, you know, any feedback at all DX That said... onto the "important" bits of this...

Disclaimer: I own nothing, aside from the plot.

WANRING(S): Mentioned past mpreg; mentioned yaoi (DenNor, not NorIce); my attempt at writing Iceland/from his perspective.

KEY:

Emil = Iceland.

Lukas = Norway.

Matthias = Denmark.

All words in Icelandic/Norwegian should be self-explanatory.

99% Probability.

There was always something that had bothered him about that. It seemed… almost as if even the results themselves were unsure of something. Along with that, there had been that pause, before Norway had even said anything about it, and even then… even after things had descended into chaos and he had left, disgruntled, he couldn't help but notice there had been a tiny shift in the elder Nation's voice. He couldn't have said what it was; only that it was there, and that he was sure none of the others had noticed it. Add to that the fact that calling the stoic Norwegian "stóribróðir" just seemed... wrong, somehow, untrue, and you had a recipe for disaster. Of some sort.

Eventually, it had bugged the Icelander enough, that he had swallowed his pride, and gone to speak with Norway. He really didn't want to do it, but he got the feeling it would drive him mad if he didn't. That in mind, he had pulled the older blonde aside the day before the World Meeting in Oslo. (Technically it was after the lunch the Nordics always shared together the day prior to the World Meeting, but that wasn't important just then.) Most Nations other than the Nordics themselves, who all had roughly the same time zone and needed little adjustment, had arrived a day or two before the meetings were to begin, and though Iceland was usually no exception, this time, he had made an exception. All that said, he had found it rather strange, how willing the other Nordic had been to speak with him, and even by the time they had arrived at a small, secluded cafe, Norway hadn't even once brought up what he would have preferred that Iceland call him. Granted, they hadn't spoken at all, but that really wasn't the point.

The silence, however, was short-lived once they had been seated.

"What was it you wanted to speak to me about?"

Iceland paused before answering. It wasn't the words, but something in the Norwegian's tone he couldn't quite place. It made him... dare he say it, uneasy. "I wanted to speak with you about the DNA test results," he replied eventually.

Norway merely nodded, indicating that he continue. That, in and of itself, would not have been off to any other Nation. To Iceland, though, it was strange that the elder Nordic hadn't said anything about calling him big brother yet. Deciding to simply be cautious and ignore it for the moment, he continued. Or, rather, he would have continued, had the waitress not arrived then, and asked what they would like to order. Slightly annoyed at the timing, the Icelander quickly ordered a small piece of apple cake – he had always secretly had a bit of a sweet tooth – and coffee with milk and cream. He then intended to continue, but was distracted once more, this time by something else.

"...Aren't you going to order anything else?"

He couldn't say why he cared, but something struck him as odd that the other had only ordered coffee. Perhaps it was that, now that he thought about it, he had never actually seen Norway eat (or at least, no more than a very little), no matter how many times Denmark, Finland, or even Norway himself practically forced the youngest Nordic to join the others for some sort of meal. Or perhaps it was because he had been previously struck by the fact that the already-slight Nation seemed almost... frail. Whatever it was, Iceland was having to deal with the strangeness of warning bells going off in his head.

"I just wanted coffee." Should he have been surprised by the emotionless reply, and the cool shrug that came with it? Even when he knew that Norway knew he hadn't touched the food Finland had made for them? Probably not; it was the Norwegian's way, after all, to be cool and unaffected no matter the situation. "Aside from that, didn't you have something you wanted to ask me? ...About the DNA test, wasn't it?"

When he received confirmation via a nod, the older blonde continued by prompting, "Well? What was it you wanted to ask? I thought the results were fairly straightforward..."

Though outwardly he remained as expressionless as the other, inwardly, Iceland frowned. He was perceptive enough to sense a deflection when it was used, but for the moment... for the moment, he had other concerns. "Já," he said simply, "já it was..." After taking a moment to compose himself and order his thoughts, the Icelander continued speaking, finally getting to the point of this whole... discussion.

"It isn't that I'm saying I don't believe we're related," he began, "but... it just seems strange. It never felt right, what the results said." It may have been awkwardly worded, but he really had no idea how to put it otherwise, and... Well, they were both rather socially awkward; it was to be expected that some of the things they said were a bit... off, at times.

"So, is that why you refused – and still refuse – to call me storebror?"

Norway seemed unruffled by what the younger Nation had said, but Iceland had learned to read the other at least a bit, and could see that he was hiding something. Exactly what, however, would remain to be seen. At least, he hoped he could figure out what it was – since it seemed that it both had to do with their relation, and something that Norway wished to keep concealed. Something he seemed to wish very much to keep hidden, actually, Iceland realized, as he saw the barest flicker of… fear or worry, in the older blonde's indigo-violet eyes. Filing this away, he responded as their coffee and his cake arrived.

"Já, but it wasn't only that," he couldn't stop his cheeks from flushing a bit, "as I said, I'm far too old to be calling you that anymore."

Iceland watched Norway's too-thin and too-pale hands clench around the coffee mug he held, as he waited for a response, and found himself internally reeling for a moment. How had he not noticed that? Every time the muscles and bones shifted under that paper-thin, paper-pale skin, they looked like they would rip through at any second, not to mention that the blue veins could bee seen in the back of his hands and the inside of his wrists. Granted, he didn't often look at Norway's hands, and the other frequently wore black gloves (just as the Icelander himself wore white, ironically), but still... The fact that he hadn't noticed at all was rather like a slap in the face. The other's speaking drew him from his thoughts. And yet, this had the younger blonde's gaze flicking to his face, and the almost sickening lack of flesh where it should have been. The Norwegian looked as if he were recovering from some sort of sickness, but Iceland knew he hadn't been sick lately (that much attention he did pay the other). Of course, just the way his facial structure seemed to want to just through the skin wasn't the only thing the younger noticed.

Once again, he found himself reeling, but this time at the broken expression on Norway's face. Even if it only lasted for a moment, before violet-indigo eyes were closed, and the far-too-sharp – boney – features were smoothed out, it remained in his voice. "...I knew I couldn't keep lying to you forever," the Norwegian whispered. When he opened his eyes again, there was nothing but a dead tiredness within them, something that the older Nordic didn't even bother to hide. "Just... just call me storebror once, and then..." The words, Iceland noted, seemed to almost pain him. "And then I will tell you the truth."

Sky-blue eyes narrowed, and Iceland was suddenly furious with him. Suddenly, everything he had noticed and possibly realized didn't matter at all. What did, however, was what the Norwegian was doing right now. "So, not only have you been lying to me, for who knows how many hundreds of years," he hissed, "but now you're blackmailing me into calling you that."

"...You're young, Emil," was the tired response that he received, "you'll understand – I hope – when I explain."

For some reason, this just enraged him more, even if his icy facade remained in place. "No," he responded coldly. "You will tell me everything – right now, and we'll see if I ever speak to you again."

At length – something the Icelander despised – the elder blonde spoke. "...Have you ever wondered... about your parents? About why, sometimes, I used to cry on your birthday when you were younger?"

Emil blinked, trying very hard not to lose it completely. "Get to the point, Noregur," he gritted out, doing his best not to glare at the other, the fact that they should use their human names in public be damned. Getting mad wasn't going to help; he knew that logically, but, just then, the fury he didn't know this conversation would evoke wasn't something he could control. Of course, he had often wondered about his parents – Denmark, and sometimes even Sweden, would talk about their Father, Ancient Scandinavia, but, conversely, he he had never heard Norway so much as utter a word about the man – and he had used to wonder why Norway cried on his birthday, but by the time he had gained enough courage to ask about it, the older had been taken away be Sweden, and then... And then, things had grown cold between them, and he had only again seen the older male following the Second World War, nearly a century and a half later. By that point, too much had changed between them. So yes, though he had often wondered – and had often come up with many theories for the reason he knew nothing on both subjects, even if he had dismissed each and every one he came up with as implausible – he failed to see what that had to do with this conversation, hence his response.

When Norway finally spoke again – Óðinn damn this man and his cold silences! – Iceland felt as if the ground had dropped out of his entire world. Never, ever had he expected this answer. He had known, of course, that all male Nations were capable if it, simply with a spell, and that some (England, China, and possibly even Finland, for example) didn't even need the spell, but he had never known that Norway himself was part of the later category. Even if he should have known, not only because the elder Nordic possessed the most powerful magic of all the current Nations (even Egypt had said, once or twice, that Norway might have been magically on par with the Ancients when it came to magic), but because he knew the Norwegian and Denmark had three daughters; Kristina, the eldest, representing Greenland, and Aleksandra and Diana, twins representing the Faeroe Islands. He had actually been there when they were born. And yet... and yet, he had still never, ever expected what Norway told him.

"...Perhaps..." Another pause, words weighted and measured and – and then, "...Perhaps... it seemed so wrong... because it is..." Indigo-violet and sky-blue met, and neither knew if he should be screaming or crying or what – "...Because... Rather than bróðir... you should have grown up calling me... Móðir."

When he fainted, Iceland barely registered the fact that Norway was using Icelandic terms, and that he had probably known that – somehow, someway – all along.

The next time he was aware of himself, he found himself looking up at the ceiling of his hotel room.

For all of one moment, he didn't quite know what had happened. And then, everything came rushing back. The results. His uneasiness over them. The meeting in Oslo; the Nordic lunch get-together. Finally speaking with Norway. And then... and then... For a moment, all Iceland could do, was mentally reel. Even if it all made sense, even if everything made sense now... Even with the strange ache those words and revelations had left in his heart, that still didn't change the fact that he had been lied to for over one thousand years (to be technically correct, it was nearer to twelve hundred). And that hurt, even if he would never actually say it; it hurt to know that the man who had raised him – his own mother, who had given him life, damnit! – couldn't have been honest with him sooner. Of course, he chastised himself a bit, as he slowly sat up and looked around the room, finding Norway curled up in a chair near the window, quite obviously blacked out from the physical strain of carrying the younger Nation back from the cafe, he supposed he could understand why...

After all, he thought, as he traced the shape of the older blonde's features with his eyes, Lukas himself had only been eight hundred years old at the time, he estimated, and would probably have been physically even younger than the Icelander himself was. Mentally, he began to put the pieces together, from the stories he had heard over the years, of the older Nordics' Viking days. How Norway, the youngest of the three brothers, had disappeared for an entire year without a word or anything, and then returned with a young child, one he called Island – Ísland, Iceland – and how he had been much... quieter, after that. How the most ruthless of the Vikings had become calmer, colder, more occupied with taking care of the child, than conquering and slaughtering and pillaging and other such things. How the on Nation who could out-drink their entire family, despite his small, thin, girlish frame, had stopped drinking completely, and one would meet the end of his mace should they ever try and make him.

But, that wasn't the only thing the Icelander was thinking about. He remembered, despite having still been physically a child at the time, when Norway had stopped wearing anything without long sleeves. He remembered the way, whenever Denmark and Sweden would fight, the youngest of the three brothers would shield him; mostly how, if it happened at any meal time, the Norwegian would use it as an excuse to not even so much as touch his food. He remembered seeing odd dark patched, on the fabric of the sleeves of the blue gowns he wore. Of how he had caught glimpses of the bandages beneath, and, sometimes, if he caught the feminine blonde in the morning... the scars that he realized now his brother – his mother had been using magic to hide for centuries, and then later concealer, when the magic became too taxing, or would have affected his children. Iceland also remembered, now that he thought about it, that he had never – not ever, not once since his earliest memories – seen Lukas actually eat anything.

All that said, however, he knew that those two issues, severe as they may have been, could not have been the only things tormenting the older blonde. Emil had been old enough, after all, to notice the turn the fights his parents (logic only followed the only man his mother had ever loved could only be his father) often had took, after Sweden and Finland left the Kalmar Union, back in the 1520s. He had seen them both emerge with bruises and other such marks, his mother being invariably the one with more simply because of his smaller physical frame, from their often-explosive and often-violent fights. He remembered watching his mother coldly live with his father's womanizing ways; he also remembered the shattered – well, shattered for someone who tended to be rather emotionless – look on his mother's face, when the treaty between Denmark and Sweden came about, with the Norwegian having no say in anything. Not the terms, not the forced divorce, not leaving his family behind, and most certainly not being all but sold like cattle to a man who had wanted him for centuries – as a replacement.

Emil had lived with hsi father and siblings after that. The oldest blonde was often drunk, and when he didn't completely forget their existence, had a tendency to be... cruel, at times. And when he wasn't, he was so depressed and hard to be around that the younger ones had simply stayed away. That said, he knew that his mother had gotten the worse end of the deal – the "short end of the stick," as it were. But then, the Icelander remembered bitterly, he had begun to stop caring, too focused on doing something for his people himself for a change, too focused on showing everyone he wasn't a child anymore, that he could take care of himself. Too focused on gaining independence, though it wouldn't happen for another century or so by that time... And then, when Norway had finally gained his independence – when he had come back, when he had come home – everything was far too different to ever have been the same again.

By that time, his parents could barely have even a single conversation; they could barely look each other in the eyes. By that time, Kristina (frozen in the body of a fourteen year old) was gone; she wasn't independent, but she wanted nothing to do with them anymore. By that time, Aleksandra hid behind cutting words and Diana hid behind her sister; both would be thirteen physically forever. By that time, he had distanced himself from everyone, too focused on becoming his own Nation; he had a constitution, very limited independence, and representation in the Danish cabinet, but it wasn't enough. By that time, their family – they had been happy, less than a century before that – had been far too broken to ever be fixed again. Even still, for the next forty years, they had tried to pretend that they all weren't too damaged to ever be whole again. And now, over a century of so much more anguish and sorrow and hurt later, Iceland couldn't help but wonder...

"...If I had been content to remain a child, your little one, Móðir," he murmured, "could I have spared you any pain...?"

It was a testament to the fact that Norway wasn't sleeping, when he didn't even so much as twitch at the words. He had always known his mother had trouble sleeping, but during those forty years at the beginning of the 20th century, he had noticed it the most. Every singe night, the Norwegian would wake screaming from nightmares he refused to say anything about. That was when he slept at all. From the looks of things – when the light hit right, Iceland could see through the make-up that had been applied to cover the dark circles he was sure marked the older blonde's continuing insomnia – the Norwegian still wasn't sleeping, or, at the very least, still suffering from horrible nightmares. Emil had never, before, cared enough to ask, and now... Now he wasn't sure he wanted to know. That said, however, he couldn't just leave things as they stood, or he was bound to have someone (probably his father) trying to break down his hotel room door trying to find Lukas and himself, eventually.

And so, fishing out his cellphone from his coat pocket, he called Denmark. He tried to keep the conversation brief, but he had learned early on that ‚brief' and ‚Denmark' did not go well together. Keeping his answers clipped and short, he explained the situation, and thankfully managed to cut off the Dane before Matthias could go off and rant about how happy he was that Lukas had finally come clean (the fact that he, himself, had only known for a few short months didn't seem worth more than a mention to they hyperactive blonde). Once all the needed information had been given, Iceland ended the call unceremoniously. Even if he now knew the man was his father, Emil still had no desire to speak to him more than was needed. Yet, he couldn't help but smile a tiny bit, when the Dane arrived, obviously concerned out of his mind for the Norwegian. His smile, small as it had been, quickly morphed into a frown, as he watched the overly-concerned Denmark treat the unconscious – and so painfully obviously sick – Norway as if he were made of glass, something the Icelander had never known Matthias to even be capable of. It seemed, that today's conversation and revelations wouldn't be the only such, to happen between himself and his mother. But, for now, Lukas was coming around, and was giving him such a sad look (strange for the usually completely emotionless Nation) that he couldn't bring himself to say anything just yet.

For now, he needed to assure his mother than he still loved him, and always had, no matter what.