Hello stranger~

Just like last year, my Christmas fic will focus on the DenNor pairing. This story will have multiple chapters and will begin rather dark and slightly disturbing(?) as our favorite Norge looks back on how his life used to be.

DenNor will follow later :3

Also, this is slightly based off my other story (A Summer Day in Copenhagen)

The only difference: (if I remember it correctly) the Copenhagen one had Lukas and Mathias as countries and this one follows the life of two humans.

Yeah...

I hope you'll enjoy~

Finally Christmas had arrived. The harsh winter weather had already dawned upon the streets of Oslo and the fjords were covered in a thick mist for 80 percent of the time. Big, round drops of snow had descended on Earth from the clouds and were now forming a cold and slippery white carpet on the streets. The sky was relatively clear, except for a few small clouds that were still dropping the snow down on Earth. An icy cold wind came rushing through the streets like a waterfall, messing up people's hair and making the few people who were still out on the streets shiver.

It was just a few minutes over 12 a.m. and the cold was at its worst. The wind was hard and almost froze Lukas Bondevik's nose as he crossed the street. His nose and cheeks were colored a bright red, his ears were covered by a woolen beanie with a few stands of hair sticking out from under it. Especially this one curly lock of hair that would never cooperate. His hands were buried deep into his mittens. Normally, he would have worn regular gloves, but he preferred to wear his mittens when he wasn't planning on doing much with his hands except for holding a to-go cup of coffee.

Some people passed by on the sidewalk. First, there was a walking man, who came from behind Lukas. He seemed to be about 80 years old and walked quickly, almost aggressively. He looked so sad, with his head down and his hands buried in the pockets of his jacket. 'He's lost his wife not too long ago and hates Christmas,' Lukas thought to himself .Then there was a teenage boy. His eyes were dull and he looked tired. 'He's heading home to spend some quality time with his dysfunctional family.' A couple, likely in their 20's. They were holding hands and spoke to each other quietly, giggling because of dry jokes they told each other. The two of them looked so happy. 'He's going to ask her to marry him on Christmas eve.'

Sometimes, Lukas found himself wishing he could ever feel the same way. But that would never happen. He repeated it over and over again in his head. He would never be able to keep the one he loved most close, because he never showed his emotions.

He'd fall in love and end up with a broken heart, because he was not able to show a person how much he actually cared about them. After that, he promised himself that he would never fall in love again, since it would only hurt him.

And so he spent his days alone, walking through Oslo. A cup of coffee in his hands and a piercing wind in his face.

Emil, his little brother, spent more time with his best friend Leon than with Lukas. Ever since the day Lukas turned 15 years old, he had been living with his grandma. It wasn't exactly approved by the authorities, but his distant relatives had succeeded in making him vanish off the radar. And when courts finally let him, he and the widower that used to be married to his aunt instantly drove all the way to Trondheim with the Child Protective Services right on their heels and took Emil to Oslo to live with Lukas.

At first, Emil had protested, because he didn't want to leave their house in Trondheim. Emil was still pretty young at the time, only 10.

In the end, Lukas convinced Emil to come along and they left the family they'd never wanted to be born in.

Lukas' father, who'd received the name Amund, had never had any sense of remorse or pity for others. He often went out hunting with the family's Jämthund, a dog that looked similar to a husky, and skinned the animals he captured when they were still alive. When Lukas was about 4 years old, when Emil wasn't even born yet, he went down to the garage to see where all the noise was coming from. His mother was at one of her friends at the time and wouldn't be there to save Lukas for what was to come.

The high-pitched screeching continued and Lukas was starting to get worried about his father. He'd been down there for quite a while and he might have gotten hurt.

''Far?'' he asked in a quite voice. He really didn't want to disturb his father when he was working on something in the garage, because, when he didn't get out of there for a longer amount of time, it usually meant whatever he was doing was important. At least to him, it was.

No reply came from down the stairs, only the piercing squeaking that chilled the small boy's bones, whose curiosity was getting the better of him. Trying to be as quiet as possible, so he wouldn't disrupt his father's business, he tiptoed down the creaking stairs.

''Far?'' he asked again as he got closer to the bottom of the stairs, where the wall surrounding the upper parts of the stairs was low enough for a small child to be peeking out from.

In the dimly lit basement, which could also be used as a garage, since it had a door and space for a relatively large car, Lukas watched his father as he held a red figure in his hand. It was moving and the sound seemed to be coming from the weird creature. It took the Norwegian boy a few seconds to realize that his father was holding a blood-soaked rabbit in his hands. It was alive, sadly, as the terrible man skinned it. It was screaming its lungs out in pain and the sight was nothing less than completely horrifying and traumatizing.

Lukas screamed at the top of his lungs, tears already rapidly running down his cheeks as he watched the once furry animal suffer in his own father's rough and merciless hands. He felt like he could faint any second now, as he watched the dark red pool that covered Amund's clothing, the floor and the metal table where the man had been 'working' on.

Lukas' father, enraged by his disobedient son, snapped his head in said son's direction and harshly smacked the animal down on the table.

''Come here,'' he demanded, his voice sounding as normal as ever, but with a dangerous undertone.

The young child shook his head and took a step back up the stairs, almost tripping and falling when the wooden planks seemed further away than he could reach in his just about frozen state. He watched as his father slowly took a step toward him, as if walking towards a deer you don't want to startle.

''For crying out loud, Lukas! Come here!''

Amund's voice resembled that of a creature that came straight from Hell. Roaring, heavy, loud. Terrifying. He would often make his voice sound so intimidating when he was around Lukas or his mother, who had become a something like a personal slave for him. She'd snapped a long time ago, making her mind even more fuzzy than it already was with dozens of pills that she took every single day. Sometimes her husband even had to force her.

It was his fault. All of it was his fault.

Lukas' mother wasn't crazy, he'd only made her seem crazy. Amund was a renowned businessman. Everyone knew him and everyone thought of him as the perfect man. In front of everyone else, he'd put up a smile and tell people how much he loved his family. He made their family dysfunctional, but he also made them seem happy.

The truth was that Lukas' mother, Lena, had never been insane before she started to take those pills. Amund just played a scene, setting her and the local doctor up against each other so that she would seem crazy. He made it seem like she had attempted to kill herself, like she had hurt Lukas, like she would go as far as to torture their dog. Amund had made pictures of it to make it seem legit. In reality, he was the one causing harm. He'd wait for his wife to arrive on the scene and then capture it to make it seem like he had the evidence to prove she was mentally ill.

When the doctors, who obviously trusted Amund because of his high status, looked into the case, they had decided to take Lena in for a couple of weeks to start the treatment.

Lukas remembered it so well. The day that the big cars came and how the men shoved his mother into one of them. Her screams went through flesh and bone. They closed the van's door and drove away while Lukas watched the whole scene from his bedroom window.

It was snowing that day. The tracks were still visible for hours after they had left. The Norwegian boy cried for hours, screaming for his mother to come back. Amund had left the house to go to town, not at all worried about his son, who had just learned to form the most basic sentences back then. Halvor, the dog, who was just a small puppy back then, had accompanied Lukas for hours. The boy dug his face into the dog's fur and slowly started to calm down as the dog gave him the love he yearned for so badly. Crying and screaming turned to tears and sobs. Tears and sobs turned to quiet whimpers.

And we have reached the ending of chapter 1! I hope my twisted mind didn't frighten you too much with the bunny... The poor animal...

Have a Merry Chrismas and I wish you all a very very Happy New Year!