Title: The End of the Rainbow

Pairing: Sweden x Finland

Rating: A for Awesome

Berwald looked down at the Earth from above. Up here, up above the rainclouds, he felt like God or something. Okay, no, he didn't, he just felt like he was looking at the world from above.

He was waiting for it to stop raining, since he couldn't exactly throw a rainbow across the Earth if it was still raining. Well, he could, but only if the sun was out, which it wasn't.

...And yes, Berwald was, in fact, what was called a Rainbow Sprite, meaning that he grabbed one end of a rainbow and he threw it across the earth to his Rainbow Sprite partner, who would catch it and anchor it to the ground.

As Berwald waited for the sun to come out, he realized a strange thing: He had never, ever met his Rainbow Sprite partner. They hadn't even talked. They had never tried to communicate. They just went where they were meant to be and then threw rainbows at each other, which Berwald figured was pretty sad.

Maybe I'll go meet my partner, he thought to himself. Today, in fact. Hey, maybe right now? Yeah, that sounds good.

Just at that moment, the sun came out from behind the clouds. He fumbled at his belt, pulling the lid off of his rainbow container and pouring a thick globule into his hand. He rolled it between his hands for a couple of moments then, keeping tightly ahold of one end, he threw it across the wide expanse of sky, watching the glittering colors unfurl and shine brightly in the mix of sun and rain. He smiled to himself, then stood up on his cloud, directing it to float to the ground. He stepped onto the wet pavement below him, feeling raindrops fall into his hair and fog his glasses, but he ignored it. He was going to... well... the end of the rainbow. Maybe he would find a pot of gold.

AYE**LUV**YOU

Though he walked fast, it still took him nearly half and hour to get to the other side of the rainbow. In that time, he had run through at least forty theories about who his partner was. An old man? A young girl? A sulky teenager? A middle-aged person? Honestly, it could be anyone at all, and he was so intensely curious that he was astonished at himself. He hadn't been this interested or invested with anything in a long time, and it was a refreshing change from his dull- though vaguely exciting and fulfilling -life of making rainbows.

Finally, he saw the rainbow dip over onto the ground and there, right beneath it, struggling to fasten it to the ground, was a petite figure. Berwald speeded up his pace to a light jog, reaching the figure in less than a minute. He stopped running a little before reaching him- he could see now that it was a him -so that he could examine him. The boy- for really, he was barely more than that -had silvery-gold blond hair and elegant features that were pulled into a concentrated pout. He fastened one end of the rainbow to the ground, started on another, then cursed under his breath as the previously fastened part became unfastened. He moved back to that part, fastened it, then turned to the other part just to have the first part unfasten once more.

He leaned back on his heels, letting out a sound of discontent as he gripped the end of the rainbow. He examine the ground, then moved a little to the left, then the right, then back again, then to the right more, and he began trying to fasten it down again.

This time, when one end became unfastened, Berwald was there to pin it down.

At first, the boy didn't seem to notice his presence, too intently focused on his work. The tip of his tongue was sticking out of his mouth in concentration, something that Berwald thought was far too cute to be real.

Once the rainbow was fastened down, the boy turned to Berwald, face beaded slightly with sweat. "Thanks," he said appreciatively. "I always have trouble with fastening them, they don't like to stay put, do they?"

"Mm," Berwald agreed, shaking his head. Because he and his partner switched turns throwing and fastening rainbows, he knew how troublesome it was to fasten rainbows to the ground, but possibly he would have to talk to his boss about giving the fastening duties only to himself, so that he wouldn't have to trouble this boy.

Said boy got to his feet. Berwald stood with him, then stared as the boy offered him his hand. He took it hesitantly, feeling a warmth bubble up inside of him as the boy shook it firmly up and down.

"Hi there! My name's Tino, by the way. I'm a junior Rainbow Sprite. What about you?"

"B'r'w'ld," Berwald said bashfully. "S'n'or R'n'bow Spr'te."

The boy looked surprised at Berwald's strange way of speaking at first, then shrugged and smiled, gently removing his hand from Berwald's grasp. "It's nice to meet you, Berwald. May I ask what section you work in?"

Berwald shrugged, pointing to the rainbow. "I s'nt th's ov'r."

Tino frowned slightly as he tried to puzzle out what Berwald had said. When he realize it, his eyes lit up and he smiled angelically. "Oh, that's cool! I've always wanted to meet my partner, I've thought about it a lot, but it's just that whenever I think about it it's always when I'm in the middle of making a rainbow, I never think about looking you up or anything when I'm at headquarters, which is stupid, but yeah." He reaches up and scratches the back of his head in an embarrassing, endearing way.

"S'me," Berwald agreed. "I n'v'r ev'n th't ab't it."

I never even thought about it, Tino mouthed in concentration, figuring out immediately what Berwald had said. He smiled triumphantly as he got it, then said amicably, "Well, I'm glad we've finally met! Maybe we should do something sometime!"

Berwald nodded once, the movement almost harsh in his excitement. "That wou'd be nice," he said, strange accent/slur clearing up a bit in his excitement. Tino smiled, then reached out and wrote his identification number with a rainbow sharpie on Berwald's arm.

"See you!" he called as he turned and disappeared, back to headquarters. Berwald stared at the rainbow sharpie markings on his arm before he, too, disappeared.

A/N I'm so vaguely proud of myself for this, because it was requester by Joni Smith, who wanted fluff, and then mentioned something about rainbows, so I was like, "Haha HA, I can give you RAINBOWS," and then this happened.

ANYWAY, SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG AND CAME OUT OF ORDER AND I WILL BE TRYING TO UPDATE THINGS BUT I AM READING SPAMANO RIGHT NOW AND IT'S LOVELY.

(Also, if anyone wants Spamano fic recs, I have a lot of good ones that are beautiful.)