Chapter six: Girlproblems and an almost-lack of coffee

Denmark was in the middle of a rather nice breakfast, when the eerie tones of the Divine Comedy intruded on his cosy morning. It took him approximately twenty-six seconds to recognize it as this week's ringtone for Sweden. Those twenty-six seconds does incidentally correlate perfectly to the first time the name Sweden is mentioned in the song, but as we all know; correlation does not signify causation, so there. He could almost feel Norway slap the back of his head, and rubbed his hand through his hair to sooth the phantom pain. Then followed a rather hectic minute of trying to locate his phone in the slightly-less-than tidy, borderline cluttered living room of his flat (which absolutely was not a fire hazard). When he finally found it, he stumbled back to the kitchen table, almost tripping over a book that had somehow found its way underneath a rug, and magically avoiding stepping on any of the LEGO pieces on the floor. It's his secret superpower (which is not silly at all, any parent in the world would give just about anything to gain the ability).

He dumped down in his chair and took a fortifying swig of beer before answering the call.

"Hiya!"

"Good morning," Sweden began, and like usual, he didn't wait for a reply. "Norway is a girl, could you come to Oslo?" He half asked, half commanded, though it sounded more like a statement.

"Sure thing, man," said Denmark automatically, sipping his beer. The line was quiet for a moment before the words registered. When they did, Denmark tried to choke down the beer to answer, but swallowed wrong and coughed most of it out over his half-eaten meal. Sweden removed the phone from his ear and waited (im)patiently, slightly disgusted by the sounds coming from the other end. "'Scuse me, what did'ya say" asked Denmark, voice scratchy from the coughing fit.

"Ye heard me."

"I don't think I did," Denmark answered, shaking his head rubbing his watery eyes. He heard Sweden sigh.

"Just come," he said, followed by the beeping of an ended call. Denmark removed the phone from his ear to check that Sweden actually had hung up on him, and wasn't just playing a recorded track of the beeping noise (wouldn't be the first time it happened). Nope, no ongoing call. Well then. He stared blankly at his now unappetizing breakfast (being sprayed with spit and beer does that to things).

It must've been a joke. Right? Only, Sweden doesn't joke like that. He usually messes around with the furniture, sabotaging it so that it collapsed at a certain weight, gluing it to the ceiling (wasn't that from a Roald Dahl book?), painting everything blue and yellow, stuff like that. One time, he switched every single piece of furniture in the World Meeting locale and the hotel they would use with kiddie stuff. Every single one. Seriously, it was amazing. The tables? Tiny, like the ones in doctors' offices with a box of Legos in the middle. Chairs, equally tiny, with cutesy flowers, apart from the ones in the cafeteria, which were high chairs. The beds were replaced with cribs. Fucking adult size cribs. He had even corrupted the staff and forced them into his nefarious scheme. It was awesome, but it would've been even better if the blame hadn't landed straight in Denmark's lap (seriously, he was the host, but they couldn't actually expect him to micro-manage everything). But anyways, not the point.

Norway. Girl.

Maybe he'd misunderstood, because sure, he was amazing, but sometimes Sweden didn't really manage to make himself understood. That must be it. Norway had girl-problems, and Sweden had failed at delivering the information.

He tilted his head back a bit and tried to imagine a bashful Norway trying to woo a woman. Then he had a flash-back to the Cabin (I hope you like … SPAGHETTI!) and bit his lip to hold back laughter. After a few seconds of shaking with supressed laughter he realized that he was alone in the apartment, and there were no one to stop him from laughing at his neighbours. Which he did. Loudly.

Silence suddenly exploded as Denmark remembered one crucial detail. Sweden asked him to come to Norway. Which meant that he could jump over the sea, annoy Norway, and blame Sweden for it all.

Forty minutes later, he was at the airport. It would've been faster taking the bus, but he was too impatient for the ten-minutes wait, and thusly took his bike instead. He locked his bike in the designated bike parking lot, and spent twenty minutes bouncing through airport security (at times literally) and driving a poor security guard to the brink of tears. The man had been tasked with bringing him safely and unarrested to the gate with minimal damage to their surroundings. Denmark arrived just as they closed the doors, and spent the next half-hour testing the patience of the cabin personnel. He was the first out of the aircraft, rushed through the controls and pushed his way through the crowd on his epic quest to get to the train on time. He made it, surprisingly and with a great grin, and crashed down in a seat. He wriggled a bit in the hard seat, and kicked his feet up to reach maximum relaxedness for the journey (totally a thing).

It lasted for a total of five minutes. He began tapping his fingers against the edge of the seat. Soon he was humming and nodding his head to La det Swinge, which led to him belting out the lyrics at the top of his lungs, much to the consternation of the other two passengers in the wagon. The 22 minutes journey to Oslo S was very, very long.

He bounded up the stairs of Norway's block, thunderous steps echoing off the walls in the stairwell, announcing for all the world (or at least this little part of it) that Denmark was coming. He stopped for a moment outside of Norway's door, but reasoned (yes, he does do that. Occasionally.) that anyone inside surely would've heard him already, and crashed through the door. He did belatedly realise that he might've destroyed the door, but a quick look at it revealed that it was from IKEA, and he decided it didn't really matter.

Looking around he noticed that the flat was squeaky clean. The disturbingly neat placement of the shoes along the wall guilted him into taking his own off and placing them down properly, instead of kicking them to Heimdall knows where. Usually Norway would have called out by now. He may keep his door unlocked when he's awake, but he does keep tabs on whoever comes and goes.

He happened upon Norway as soon as he stepped into the kitchen area. Well, he noticed Sweden first, because the sort of welcoming, sort of 'I'd really like to kill you now' glare he gave was kinda difficult to miss. Really. Anyways, Norway was slumped over the kitchen table, in the exact same manner that he'd reprimanded Denmark for at the last Nordic Council session. He would've called him out on his hypocrisy, if he hadn't looked so tired and small… Also, now that he'd had a closer look at the guy…

"Norge, you really need a haircut." Norway snorted and lifted his head.

"Sweden," he said with a smooth, pleasant, disturbingly high pitched voice "I never thought I'd say this, but why can't you be more like Denmark?" And ya know, as pleasant this reaction was, compared to the expected 'fuck you' or 'shut up', it was also weird and Denmark found that he really wanted to know what Sweden had done.

"Hmpf," Sweden answered, in a 'are you kidding, I'm nothing like that idiot and you're off your rocker for wishing differently' kind of way. Denmark stared at Norway, who was now sitting on the chair in his usual straight-backed manner, bringing attention to a couple of new acquisitions. Which brought on the question:

"Are you trans?" Sweden choked on his coffee, which he deserved, because not offering a cup to guests is just plain rude. "Not that it's a bad thing man- shit sorry, what I meant was; what pronouns d'ya want ta use?" He was obviously blowing this; Norway's face had taken on an interesting shade of greenish white. "'Cause you've obviously had a procedure or summat, and it seems like a shame that people should just assume but I really don't wanna force ya into anything yer not comfortable with and I'll shut up now."

The silence was maddening, and Denmark shut his eyes in anticipation of the hit he knew would come.
-:- -:- -:- -:- -:-

Translations:

None, and I'm afraid I lied last chapter, if you're still patient enough to wait for the story behind that last Swedish sentence, then your patience might be rewarded next chapter. 'Might' being the operative word.

Notes:

Sweden is the only song by the Divine Comedy that I find tolerable. And I rather like the first part of it. Also, Denmark would be the kind of person who sets different ringtones to everyone on his contact list. And changes them regularly.

The Cabin is a song (with video) by the Ylvis brother, the same guys who made What does the fox say which is possibly the most annoying song I've ever heard. It is hilarious though, and a remarkably accurate description of the common Norwegian cabin.

This is not my kind of music, which is why I'm not so enthusiastic about it, but I imagine Denmark would like it, or at the very least find it amusing. Also, the way I see it, Denmark is a bit oblivious, but he is good at finding new angles to most things and is generally open-minded and caring. And annoying, partially by choice.

Author's note:

So, I was right. This chapter is out after Christmas. The next update might take a while, because school and sleep and such things.

Yeah.

Review, follow, etc?

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, break, wintertime, and so on.

-Shrizyne