A/N: Short one here. Even though I really like these two :P
He's not crazy.
He's not.
Everything that he said happened, did.
He's not crazy.
It started right after he showed his DNA results. He had kicked a chair running out of the room a few minutes after and that, Iceland found out, was a big mistake. The nightmares started soon after.
The chair would show up in his nightmares. It was angry.
"You Pikachu," it hissed in a Jamaican accent. "I never did anything but provide you with a place to sit and how do you repay me, man? You kick the bolts out of me. Do you know how much it hurts to lose a screw without it being loosened first? Screw you, Iceland. Screw you."
Iceland woke with a start and, in his haze, he swore he saw the chair outside of his window. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. There was nothing.
The nightmares kept increasing in frequency and more than once, Iceland saw the chair. Outside of his window. At the end of his bed. In the bathroom mirror. Outside the shower.
It was stalking him.
Of course, Iceland couldn't tell anyone. They would think he was crazy. It was probably just from the stress, anyway. But it kept happening.
Things started escalating right before the next world meeting. Iceland could handle the nightmares and the hallucinations but not anything else.
He swore when he was in rooms alone that the chairs, all of them, would somehow end up tripping him. It was like they were all conspiring against him. One of them always ended up in his path. And he swore, he just swore he heard laughter every time he would fall.
Once, after a lengthy football practice, Iceland dragged himself out of the locker room after all of his teammates and headed to the parking lot. As he was walking down the hall he heard it. The rolling. He turned around and saw nothing.
"Nor?" he asked, hopefully.
No response.
As Iceland continued walking, he kept hearing the rolling. Finally, he took off in a dead sprint toward the door and out the parking lot. He swore when he looked back that it was there. Staring out the window at him. It was then that Iceland knew for sure that he wasn't crazy. The chair really wanted revenge. And it wasn't going to stop.
The first person he told was Norway. He sat on his bed while Norway was sitting on his desk chair, hands folded in his lap and very attentive. His brother looked at him with furrowed eyebrows and scooted away a little by the time he had finished his story.
"Iceland…I think the stress of your results is getting to you."
"I'm not crazy!" he insisted. "I'm not."
Norway didn't believe him. He started recommending some kind of vitamin things. Iceland wasn't really listening. He just took the containers of pills and tossed them in his desk drawer. It was a mistake.
Iceland had another dream that night. This time, it was his desk chair.
"You stupid boy," the chair said. It had an Australian accent. "You don't even care about him. You don't listen to him. You're selfish. And you'll get what you deserve. We'll make sure of it."
"No," Iceland mumbled.
"Oh yes. I know what you did, Iceland. It told me. I know what you did. I know how you treat people and you'll not get away with it anymore."
When Iceland woke the next morning the pills were on the seat of his desk chair, facing him.
"I'm in so much trouble," he mumbled.
Iceland took to not sleeping. If he didn't sleep, the nightmares didn't come. But it didn't help with seeing chairs staring at him everywhere. He went out to dinner with Norway and he swore the chair he was on bit him. It was after he told Norway "The chair bit me" that he began distancing himself.
"He's in love with someone else."
Iceland spun around and looked at the blank wall behind him. He was in the hotel room doing some dance practice when he heard it. It was a hissed whisper.
"He's in love with someone else. And we'll do all we can to make sure he gets what he wants. He deserves better than you."
"This isn't funny!" Iceland yelled. "Who is it? Denmark? England?"
"Just us, Iceland. He comes in here to talk. And he loves someone else. Someone who doesn't abuse us."
"Come on!" he growled. He spun and looked at the chair he had kicked two years prior. "One time! I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry I kicked you. I was angry and I shouldn't have. Can you please just stop this?" he pleaded. "Please?"
"It won't stop."
"This is stupid! Just leave me alone!"
"Dude?"
Iceland snapped his head up to see Denmark standing in the doorway, eyebrow arched.
"I was…there was this uh…"
"You were talking to a chair."
"I know."
"Are you…okay? You need to go to the nurse or somethin'?"
"Nah, I'm alright."
"Alright. I'll leave you alone with your chair."
Iceland looked back down at the chair in front of him and he swore he could see it smirking.
It was the world meeting that made him snap. Everyone was slowly drifting to their seats when Iceland tripped over a chair leg and he completely lost it.
"I'm sick of this!" he yelled, jumping to his feet and hovering over the chair. The chair taunted him with a chuckle. "You think this is funny? How about this?" He picked up the chair and threw it with all his might into the wall and laughed maniacally when he saw the wood base crack in half. "Yeah, who's laughing now!" The other chairs were horrified. But that didn't stop him. He needed to show them a lesson. One by one, he picked up each chair and threw it, all the while laughing and taunting them.
The rest of the nations fled the conference room after the second chair was thrown. Iceland didn't notice, only focusing on the pure joy he felt throwing the chairs into a pile and yelling at them, making them sorry for everything they'd done.
"Iceland?"
Iceland stopped mid-throw when Finland appeared in the doorway.
"They were taunting me," Iceland said. "They wouldn't leave me alone. I had to do it. I had to."
And that was how Iceland found himself in a white-walled room with nothing but a bed and a desk. The chair was removed after he screamed like a girl and passed out at the sight.
He's not crazy. He's not.
Epilogue
Norway sat in the lobby of the phsychiatric hospital to visit Iceland. The chair he sat in was a little wobbly but Norway took good care to slip a few pieces of paper under it to even it out.
"And I didn't even think I was the crazy one."
The voice belonged to Iceland. He was standing in the doorway with a little smile.
"I suppose I should've kept an eye on you after you confessed this to me," Norway said. "But I just felt myself pulling away from you."
Iceland nodded and carefully stepped towards his older brother, taking great care to look at the chair. He knelt down on one knee to be at eye level with Norway. The pair sat in silence for a while before they finally met each others' gazes.
"Iceland, I…"
Before Norway could say anything, the gap between the two nations inexplicably closed – the chair scooting forwards on its own accord. The result was NOT Iceland's lips against Norway's. That's just disgusting. Both assumed the other had been the one to move and would never question it. When they finally got up to leave the lobby there was an applause immediately after the door slammed shut. When Norway opened the door to look in, no one was there. Just the potted plants, the magazines…..and the chairs.
