A/N: Nope. Still don't know Finnish. I also learned after writing this chapter that there are not polar bears on continental Norway, just help me out and roll with it. Everything else should be pretty accurate.
Iceland furtively squinted at the rearview mirror, the side view mirror, and occasionally watched the road. Daring, just daring a cop to show up. He wasn't in the mood for talk, not that Finland was known for his ability to hold stellar conversations. He reread Sister Sweden's text and continued to silence Denmark's relentless calls. He still couldn't make head or tail of anyone's actions, even though hints were dropping like clichés. It was then that a thought gripped his chest like a vice. For the first time that day, he took the respite to assemble what little information he had- Denmark calling him, the missing car, and Sister Sweden's refusal to see him. In a moment of sheer, unabated terror, he sent her a second text: "Oletko Tanskan kanssa?"
The reply came swiftly. "No, I need to stay clean." Finland was awash with relief for a few, blissful seconds.
The landscape shifted from geysers and glaciers to mountains and valleys. They had made it without a gram of trouble. "Okay, we're here. Good luck." Iceland sighed then donned his usual smirk. "I'll call you." Then he sped off.
Finland strolled to Norway's house and noticed the door was already cracked open. The back door was open too. Signs of a brief struggle dotted the living room- broken bottles, couch cushions splayed about the floor, and a dead fish tangled in the curtains. Everything stank of fish- frozen fish, fresh fish, pickled fish, baked fish, rotten fish, and numerous other methods of storing fish Finland had no knowledge of.
In the back yard, he wandered past a dead polar bear and spied a figure rippling in the water among the North Atlantic fjords. He sincerely hoped it was not a narwhal. Their mating season was at hand and the males, saturated with testosterone, tended to get stabby. Finland could relate. Bubbles rose in a small concentration betraying a great struggle beneath the surface. Instinctively, he knew standing poised on the water's edge was a Bad Idea. As a precaution, he dropped his phone and knife at higher ground. The gurgling waxed intense as the current shifted and swirled. Finland crouched in closer and a halibut no less than 35kg burst forth, its tail pummeling his face. The fish stared hard at him. Its vacant, beady eyes bored into the depths of his taciturn, Suomi soul. Whatever remained of Finland's hangover was knocked out of him promptly.
Norway followed not a second later, an octopus tentacle clinging to the left side of his face. "Quick! Grab it!" Automatically, Finland seized at the appendage slapping him on all sides to keep it still. A flash of red passed across his vision. Norway possessed a battle lust unwitnessed since the Napoleon War as the gargantuan halibut dragged him under. Finland held fast to a rock with one hand and a tail with the other, desperately wishing he had kept his knife. For one horrible minute, it appeared as though the fish would drown them both. Finland took a few gulps of precious air when he could as his grip on the stone slackened. His story may have ended here. He may have been pulled out to sea with Norway by a fish possessing the strength of an empire the likes of which the Nordic boys had never encountered.
Finland mourned what he'd never do again. Dead people couldn't relax in the sauna, couldn't laugh at Sweden for losing Eurovision, and couldn't rock out to heavy metal. He wrapped his last two fingers around the rock as a flurry of gills, scales, and water flew all around him. He thought of Norway, who'd been under for a full minute at least, destroyed by the very animals he loved. This very well could have been the end of the story. This sentence fragment right here.
It wasn't though. Something miraculous happened. The halibut, in its dim awareness, zigged left when it should have zagged right. Norway took the miscalculation to blast through the surface and suck in gulp after gulp of air, and then shoved the fish toward land. Finland renewed his hold and gave the tail a singular, powerful tug whereupon Norway leapt onto it once more and summarily dragged it to solid ground. With one swift motion, he located Finland's knife and drove it into the halibut's spine. He breathed deeply and contentedly. "Great teamwork."
Finland noticed that a school of fish observed their comrade's execution with abject indifference. After all, they were fish. All animosity melted from the Norwegian's eyes. He planted a palm onto the halibut's head, and then gave it a lick. "It's perfect! Do you think this will be big enough to feed all of us?" He ran a wet arm over his wet face. "I feel bad about usurping Sweden's dinner party. We really do owe him… Finland! Don't give me that look. He's your friend too."
In spite of the mild reprimand, Finland continued to glare. Had his efforts not exhausted him; he would've killed Norway for nearly killing him.
"Denmark's calling you." Norway said, extracting the knife. "That's weird, he can just come down here to meet you." One problem solved. Finland smiled a devious smile while surreptitiously trying to reclaim his weapon.
"DENMARK! FINLAND'S OUT HERE!" Norway bellowed as he hefted the fish over his back and jerked the knife away. Finland glowered still. If Norway had not been armed he would have finished what the halibut started; but with sobriety taking its terrible hold, Finland tried to remain logical. The important thing was to locate Denmark and cause him grievous bodily harm. Minutes passed and his voice echoed through the mountains and valleys, but no reply came.
"Hm," Norway shifted his grip on the halibut, returned Finland's knife, and started toward his house. Finland's cell continued to buzz, just as it had, while Norway turned over the conundrum. With a deep sigh of one long suffering, Finland hit 'answer', set the call to speaker and passed it to Norway. "Uhm, hello?"
A light banging noise and some muffled clatter emanated from the microphone, but not a shred of dialogue. "Denmark?" A little rustling later, the call ended entirely. Norway looked gravely concerned. "I brought him back here last night." He explained as they walked.
Finland shrugged. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption that the Dane had stumbled home from Norway's early this morning, mysterious and terrifying bag in hand, and spent the morning drinking liter after liter of coffee before doing it all over again in the near future. Nothing to worry about, Iceland had that end covered. "I left Grimstad because he was asleep on Sweden's car and he's cranky when you wake him up. It's not a bad walk back here anyways." Finland took a long deep breath and smacked his forehead. Something was fishy and it had nothing to do with halibut. It was almost as if Norway was trying desperately to convince himself instead of enlightening Finland. "Denmark was already in my yard. I figured he was heading here and it was raining but he didn't want to come in." Norway called his name once more and finally received an irritated answer.
"SHUT UP!" It was very much not Denmark. In fact, the tenor voice laced with a Kalaallisut accent sounded exactly like Denmark's bad-tempered house elf.
Directly in their line of sight situated at 11 o'clock was a figure poking a fire next to the living impaired, biologically challenged, and otherwise dead mass that was once one of Norway's endangered polar bears. Norway let the fish slide from his grasp and hit the ground with a quivering thud. Inside of Finland, something exploded in an unholy combination of saliva, laughter, and compressed air all rising into his cranium causing some sort of concussion. Norway's expression morphed from pensive to confused and finally settled on unbridled horror as he realized his mistake.
"Greenland?" Norway gasped so hard he nearly choked. The country stood speckled in blood and smelled as if he had just taken a bath in cumin. "You killed one of Svalbard's polar bears! Do you have any idea how few of those we have?"
"Do you have any idea what you tried to do with me last night? It was more comfortable to kill a bear and sleep inside of it!"
"I-I thought you were Denmark." Norway said honestly.
"I thought you said I could camp here when I needed a break." Greenland thrust a harpoon towards Norway. "I swear to God I need to move in with Canada until I can afford my own place. That way, I won't be involved in your… twisted games." The Inuit fumed, narrowing his already narrow eyes.
"I was drunk. I'm sorry."
"That's no excuse to do such horrible things to me! Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to grab my dogs to haul home the carcass," he gestured to the polar bear. With that, using his harpoon as a walking stick, Greenland stormed off.
Finland found the exchange appalling. Not only did Norway apologize in spite of the dead bear, it also begged the question of what exactly Norway did to Greenland. At least the Nordics got to suffer as team.
He was almost curious enough to text Sweden and Åland to learn of their aftermath. Perhaps in a few hours, when he was desperate enough, he'd get in touch with them. Though this all came after he punished Denmark.
Norway stood rigid, hugging the halibut. "I thought Greenland was Denmark… I don't believe I… oh shit!" Afterwards, he dissolved into incoherence. Right on time, Iceland called.
"Hey Finland, I got bad news…" That seemed to be the standard for the day. Though the way Iceland delivered it; he might as well have been introducing a infant democracy to the world. "I was with the Faroes and he says Denmark never came home." Norway recovered and took great interest in the conversation. "So I'm at Sweden's now to ask if he can do anything with my camera." A long pause. "He just said he'd rather jerk off with a handful of bumblebees than see Denmark again and that we should let him rot." Why Iceland volunteered that information, Finland would never learn. Sweden yelled from the background for Iceland to kindly shut the hell up. "Just wanted to give you the update. Tell Norway hi!"
Finland hung up and exchanged glances with Norway. He was unsure how to succinctly convey, 'My girlfriend no longer wants to peg me, I'm going to owe Iceland money, and I really want to take this all out on someone and the man who tried to out drink me seems as good a person as any to blame but he happens to be definitively missing in action. I have ruled out you and Iceland of being at fault and rendered both of you blameless. Just to make you're aware of how strongly I feel about the whole situation, I am about twenty centimeters from going USSR on everyone's Aryan ass unless at least one of these problems gets solved soon.'
Instead, he gripped his knife as he reverted to his standard form of self-expression. "Perkele…" He muttered and began the death march home, motioning for Norway to follow.