Tino had given Emil a ride to the airport, to pick up Vladimir and Arthur. At this moment, Emil was patiently, yet somewhat anxiously waiting for the two men to arrive. Vladimir should arrive fairly shortly after Arthur – only about fifteen minutes. If everything went according to schedule, Arthur should be here in about five minutes. But planes. Suck. Ass. They are never on time. Ever.

Emil had sat down near Caffé Ritazza, with a bag of licorice he'd brought and a cup of coffee.

Leon had told him to greet Arthur for him if he got the chance. If not, he could always still do it himself, giving Emil a choice. The Icelander had quickly made the decision he'd let Leon greet the Brit himself. He would tell Arthur he was over, though, so it wouldn't be a complete surprise.

As he was casually drinking his coffee, a girl hesitantly approached him.

"God morgen." She said shyly.

"God morgen." Emil replied. The rest of the conversation was in Norwegian too but author-chan is too lazy to translate.

"What's your name?" The girl asked.

"Emil." He replied

"Nice to meet you, Emil. I'm Sanna."

"Nice to meet you too." An awkward silence followed.

"So, Sanna, how old are you?"

"Fifteen. I turned fifteen a week ago."

"Oh, happy birthday then." Emil tried to smile but failed miserably. As he tilted his head, she looked slightly familiar. Beautiful, violet eyes, long, dark-blond hair, she seemed a little chubby, too. Strong but shy, Emil thought, his first impression of her.

"Thank you. Eh, this may seem rude asking, but what's your last name?"
Not wanting to tell his real name, Emil took his brother's. "Bondevik."

"Norwegian?" Sanna laughed softly.

"Of course." Did she expect differently? "What's yours?"

"Räikkönen."

Sanna Räikkönen. A truly Scandinavian first name, Mathias had sometimes told Emil of a girl he once knew named Sanna. She was one of the bravest girls he'd ever heard of. Räikkönen was obviously Finnish, maybe Estonian, but there the options ended too.

"Finnish?" Emil frowned.

"Well, my father is Finnish. I never knew my mother, but dad told me she was Norwegian."

"A friend of mine is Finnish." Emil strangely enjoyed this conversation. He felt as if he was talking to Tino, strangely. Such a cheerful young woman...

"So, do you have a relationship?" Sanna asked, giggling.

"Not really," Emil sighed, "I mean, I do like someone... I'm pretty sure he doesn't like me back, though."

"He?"

"Yes, he. Why?"

"Oh, nothing." Sanna giggled. "You just don't seem like the stereotypical gay guy."

"What, did you expect rainbows and glitter?"

"No!" Sanna laughed. "But you always hear of those stereotypes, and they're always cheerful and judging on your clothing, you know? A close friend of my father is gay too. Doesn't fit the stereotypes either. Ah, you know, not every Swede is blond, or tall..." Emil chuckled a bit. That was generally true.

"Not every Dutch is addicted to drugs." He added to the list. Sanna laughed softly.

"Not every Brit loves tea, not every American loves fast food." Stereotype after stereotype was denied.

"Not every Romanian is a vampire." A voice said behind them after a while. "Is Arthur not here yet?"
"Huh, Vlad. Hi. No, he isn't."

"Vladimir!" Sanna threw her arms around the strawberry-blond male.
"Sanna? Geez, that's been awfully long! How have you been?"

"Good! How's Killian? And Eliza? Gilbert? Roderich?"

"Calm, girl. They're all good. Or as good as one can be, of course, when their nation is dissolved."

"Oh, yes, right." Sanna giggled.

"You know each other?" Emil asked, surprised. Vladimir opened his mouth to answer, but Sanna put a finger to his lips.

"He was friends with my parents, but I've only seen him twice after mom passed away." Vladimir seemed to understand where she was going, and shut his mouth and simply nodded.

"And she knows about..." Emil trailed off and looked at Vladimir meaningfully. He nodded again. "Absolutely."

"Mm."

"Anyway, Sanna, you better go back to your father." He ruffled her hair and she looked at him, with a frustrated expression on her face. He laughed and stuck out his tongue, before a muffled "fuck" came out because he'd closed his mouth just too early and bit his tongue, with his vampire-like fang literally piercing through the side of his tongue.

"Oh my God, Vladimir." Emil and Sanna sighed, chorusing. Emil knew that's what Lukas would've said.

"Well, I'll go back to my hotel..." Sanna walked away and turned around to wave. Both men waved back.

"The hell was she doing here?" Vladimir asked, tilting his head.

"I don't know, but why is Arthur not here?"

"I hope nothing bad happened."

"Jesus, Vlad, stop acting this mature. It's creeping the living shit outta me."

"I'm sorryyyyy. I'm just worried. I get like that when I'm worried." Vladimir laughed cheerfully and in a slightly childish manner.

"I figured." Emil sighed.

"So, how long has Lukas been in his room, locked away from the world?" Vladimir asked.

"I'd tell you, but I don't wanna tell twice. Licorice?" Emil offered Vladimir the pack. He took a little out of it and literally stuffed it all in his face. "Multumesc*!"

"You're welcome." Emil sighed. He'd taught himself greetings, goodbyes and thank you's in all languages he could possibly be associated with, so also Spanish, German, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, French, African languages, Hungarian... The list went on and on. There might have been three or four languages he hadn't learned. Three of which he already knew.

The two talked for a while, waiting for Arthur to arrive. They talked about little nothings, favorite song, color, if you had to spend the night with anyone but your friends, who would it be, the little things that generally don't matter. Especially not when your country doesn't have an army.

"How can you not have an army?" Vladimir laughed when Emil brought it up. Said Icelander shrugged, "I don't know, we just don't have one."

"D-o-l-l-h-o-u-s-e..." A creepy voice sang behind Vladimir. He jumped up. "I-see-things-that-no-body-else-sees..."

"Arthur! Dammit, you scared me..." Vladimir pouted.

"Nobody else? I never thought of Lukas as a nobody. Or of myself. Or your brothers."
"Ey, Wales doesn't see faeries." Arthur sighed.

"He only has eyes for that dragon of his." Vladimir added. "And you too?"

"Sadly, yes. Don't tell anyone else. Only you two and Lukas know of this which is more than originally planned."
"Sadly?!" Arthur exclaimed, earning a glare from Emil, and a couple bystanders.

"Shh, Arthur! Not everyone has to like it, you know? It does get you weird looks."

"He has a point there." Emil agreed.

"Now, what the bloody hell happened? It's nothing like Lukas to lock himself away in his room."

"Alright..." Emil sighed. "It might sound a little weird, but..." He started explaining. Carefully, detailed, for as far as he could remember.
"...and then, I pulled him with me, to the hallway. I ranted about a couple of things. By heart, it started about the fact that they were arguing about that Berwald called Tino his wife, Tino obviously clearly being a guy. I don't really remember what I said afterwards, but during something about self-harm... he..." Emil wasn't sure how to say it. Exactly like it was? No, that was too blunt. There weren't a lot of other ways to say it, though. None, to be exact.

"Yes?" Arthur asked curiously.

"He...?" Vladimir gestured for the teen to continue.

"He... he kissed me." Emil blurted out. Surprised at his own words, he clamped his hands in front of his mouth, eyes wide.

"Who else knows of this?" Arthur took Emil's wrists and slowly pulled his hands down.

"Only Leon and Berwald..." Emil replied hesitantly, tightly gripping the sleeves of his sweater. He had hoped no one saw it, but they did.

"Cold?" Vladimir asked.

"That can't be it." Arthur sighed. "Are you cold?" The Romanian shook his head. "Then why would he be?"
"I don't know. Maybe he caught a cold?"

"Emil? Would you please roll up your sleeves?" Arthur asked. Vladimir frowned and Emil shook his head. "No, thank you."

"Why not?" Arthur asked.

"...at least not in public. Tino is waiting outside." Emil quickly walked away, a confused Romanian and worried Brit following him.

"What... why did you ask that?" Vladimir asked.

"I think he may have hurt himself intentionally." The two spoke soft enough for Emil not to hear them.

"As in self-harm?" Vladimir replied. Arthur nodded. "Damn." Arthur then roughly grabbed his wrist and pulled him along. They'd lost their speed and gained distance in between them and Emil.

"If it's not the case, though, I want you to shut the bloody hell up about anything I told you." Arthur warned the Romanian man in advance. Said Romanian nodded in agreement.

After a couple of minutes walking over the parking lot, the three guys reached the fairly large, blue car that belonged to Tino. Emil opened the door for Arthur and Vladimir before getting in the passenger seat himself.

"Social." Vladimir commented.

"Shut up." Emil replied. Tino laughed and greeted them before they started driving. Back to the middle of nowhere.

The trip was rather quiet. After ten minutes, Tino turned on the radio. He and Arthur sang along to Bring Me The Horizon for a while and Vladimir and Emil just looked at each other regularly. They had absolutely no idea what was happening to them.

"Let's hang the jury, you sick judgmental force, I'll bury you, six feet deep, I'm so tired of your rules." Emil softly hummed along – this was one of the only songs on Tino's playlist he knew.

"You don't know shit, you don't know shit about me, you don't know shit, shit, shit, don't know a goddamn thing about me!"

Keep looking down on me, I am more than you'll ever be, cut me deep, but I won't bleed...

They were so going to kick him as soon as they found out how down he was.