Marry Me

III

I don't know how long we stood there, connected by the lips and dead to the outside world, but by the time we hesitantly separated there was a small trickle of guests filtering out from the large lounge room and into the main foyer to leave.

We separated nervously and went our separate ways soon after, he stealing another kiss before rushing down the stairwell to leave with the rest of his rowdy group of men when he heard the familiar voices. And I returned to the party with a downcast gaze and the reddest of reds colouring my cheeks.

When I returned Sweden tried to joke that he'd thought I'd gone for a nap in one of the guest rooms. I told him I'd had to sit down for a while- nerves, I'd lied. He believed me too easily.

"Y'look red," he'd mumbled, placing a large hand on my forehead, "hot too. Y'should sleep if y're ill,"

I smiled weakly at him as my stomach churned with both excitement and guilt. He wasn't a bad person but Denmark… he'd made me feel a passion I'd never felt for anything or anyone before. He was like a fire that had enveloped my entire being to life and left me craving more and more. A fire that I soon discovered would keep burning and burning stronger every day.

I entered into small talk with Sweden once the other guests had left. I found myself more upbeat, more relaxed after my meeting with the other man and for a moment we returned to how we used to be. Until our families arrived, parents drunk and roaring with laughter and humiliating congratulations to the two of us.

Sweden apologised for everything.

I said I forgave him.

I didn't really.

He tried to kiss me again and I let him.

I put my hands on his cheeks and closed my eyes as our lips touched.

I found that if I closed my eyes and dulled the world around me I could imagine that the man kissing me was Denmark instead.

The kiss was different from the one before. I could tell that he was nervous, the old shyness that I used to mock him for returning at the worst of moments, as he moved his thin lips against my own.

I didn't feel the need to throw up that time.

We said our goodbyes to one another's families, or in Sweden and I's case he kissed me goodbye with promises to visit the day after the next, and left.

I sprawled out in my bed and curled up above the sheets, gripping my favourite pillow once we got home.

I dreamt of Denmark that night.

The night repeated itself but with him at my side instead of Sweden. And the meeting on the stairs was still with him. Though not shy and secretive. What I recall we'd ran away from the party to be together more… intimately. All as dream Sweden watched me through Denmark's place with heartache scribbled across part of his features.

I awoke the next morning to Iceland hovering besides my bed and grinning wickedly, not exactly the best thing to wake up to but still better than other things… like Sweden's "husbandly" embrace that I'd soon have to adapt to.

Iceland's eyes danced and her grin widened as she crawled up and under the sheets with me- how I'd gotten under the sheets in my sleep was a mystery in itself- and cuddled up against my back. And all it took was two simple words to make my body lock up and freeze,

"Who's Denmark?"

I leapt back once I regained some composure and in doing so rolled straight out of bed and landed headfirst onto the floor, "Nobody!" I shouted up at her.

"Sure didn't sound like nobody," she sing songed, hanging over the side of my bed and staring at me like a cat that had cornered a mouse, "Denmark, oooh~ Denmark, not here, they can see…" she still sang, imitating my voice.

Any other circumstance I would have paled and considered suicide. But this was my sister. And it was the prerogative of the elder sister to beat up the younger when she was misbehaving.

A small wrestling match and some squealing later I found myself sat triumphantly atop my sister's pinned body swearing her to secrecy. When she'd sworn her allegiance I climbed back in bed, it had been a cold August that year, and lay beside the younger girl under the covers.

"He's that man from the party isn't he?" Iceland smiled. It was too early for her sneakiness so I kept my lips sealed. "Unless there's another man besides the one I saw you cuddling up to outside of Sweden's parents' bedroom…"

I remember slapping my hands over her mouth and holding her down. Iceland says that my face on that day was the most hilarious she'd ever seen. I could have cried! If Iceland had seen us who else had? Spain? Mama? The entirety of the party?!

I was snapped out of my panic by Iceland hugging me and resting her head on my chest, "I won't tell anyone," she promised, "I love you too much,"

And then I did cry. I held her close and cried happily into her silver hair before telling her everything. She hung off of my every word like I was reading her a passage from one of mama's romance novels that I'd caught her sneaking under her pillows in younger years.

I was thankful that of all the people to have possibly caught us it as her. Iceland knew everything from the very beginning and I knew my secret would be safe with her.

But I was now a little bit angry with Denmark for being so foolish as to pounce on me in a busy hallway- he could have at least taken me into one of the bed chambers for the privacy.

I spent the entire day with Iceland by my side. We went into town around midday to shop and talk and just… relax. We slept in the same bed that night like we used to, we shared a bedroom anyway, and repeated this process the next day.

That day however Sweden, true to his word, had shown up at our door… with a black eye and an equally blackened Denmark in tow. They'd been fighting from the looks of it, two men who dislike each other don't just appear with black eyes on the same day by coincidence.

"D'mn'rk has somethin't 'say t'ya an' then he's got t'leave," Sweden explained, pushing the other man forward. Denmark smiled, waved and in a move that only served to infuriate Sweden further introduced himself to Iceland with a hug, a kiss on her cheek and an offer of marriage.

I swiped at his shoulder and laughed, "She's too young for you, come back in two years and we'll discuss"

He smiled and laughed, releasing Iceland but keeping a loose arm around her shoulder "I promise!"

I could tell he was just being playful, Sweden couldn't. He barked at Denmark to do what he came to and departed the room.

I stood with a hand on my hip and with my other hand drew it up into a fist and punched him straight in the gut. In a moment I look back on and laugh at, he yelped and hid behind Iceland for protection who in her own turn rounded on the man and kicked him lightly in the shin.

He looked horrified, backing up against one of the wooden walls of the study- I wondered how easily it would be to push him through.

"I'm sorry!" He cried at us, nursing his injured leg and stomach, "Wha' was that for?!"

I hoisted him up by his ear, where he emitted an even louder yelping noise, and pointed to the innocent looking Iceland, "That was for letting her see!"

He gulped, swallowing deeply and eyeing us both in horror, "You haven't told Swedey have you?"

I smiled again and let myself hug him, "No. And Iceland won't either; she's on our side,"

I felt his chest heave as he gave an audible sigh and let himself fall back, and taking me with him, onto one of the sofas. "So… she knows?"

"She knows," I nodded.

"I know," Iceland added.

"She won't tell?" He asked.

"She won't tell," I confirmed.

"I won't tell," Iceland echoed.

"So I can kiss you again?" He laughed.

"I'd be offended if you didn't," I whispered and smiled when I felt the warm lips once again rub themselves over mine, this time with ease, permission and no fear holding him back.

"Disgusting," I heard Iceland snort from somewhere across the room and laughed at her, letting Denmark gently prop me up with one of his hands.

We stayed, the three of us, like that for a good five or so minutes. My heart pounded with joy and my gut continued to churn in anticipation and want. I think it was at that moment I realised how uncharacterised I was being and pulled away, content for that moment to be held by him without fear.

Vaguely I wondered how different my life would have been if I had met Denmark earlier in my life. Would we be have been wed by now? I liked to think that yes, yes we would have.

It wasn't until much later that I punished myself for letting myself have such thoughts about a man I had only met two nights previously. There was just something about him that had made my entire body and mind lose control just from his mere presence.

From across the room I saw Iceland biting her nails, something she only did when she was either thinking hard or nervous. Iceland, despite her young age was one of the sneakiest women I'd ever met. She could lie her way out of nearly anything and think up a plot on the spot.

In this case, as she revealed to us while we were rubbing noses, she'd thought of a way for us to be together as much as we wanted.

The plan was simple. Opposing the rear garden window was a large flower growth, held up against the height of the house by a wooden mesh. Something that Denmark could climb up easily, Iceland theorised. That night we would ask father to move our bedroom from the current one to this unused one due to "foxes or some other animal making a racket in the front garden at night and preventing us from sleeping". And then all he had to do was wait for a small signal, climb up and Iceland would take her exit into the spare room until I deemed it safe to return.

It was so simple it was ingenious.

We smiled and kissed a final time before Denmark stood to leave, at the sound of Sweden and my father's voices outside, but promising us both to return at night.

I sat staring at my shaking hands and, it had to have been, a deranged look on my eyes as I grinned broadly. The next thing I remember hearing was Iceland's scream and her tackling me back against the sofa, for the second time that day I'd been attacked on that thing, and hugging me until I couldn't breathe.

We were soon interrupted by a not too happy looking Sweden entering the room and whisking me away for a "romantic" stroll around the garden. When we returned and it was time for Sweden to leave, he had a football match that night, my mother commented that I was glowing. Looked the happiest she'd ever seen me in the last few years and that this engagement was a godsend.

Truthfully?

I'd been fantasising about Denmark sweeping me away in the dead of night that evening the whole time.