IMPORTANT:

I'm CHANGING MY PENNAME to

[ witchfingers ]

be alert!

The sky is blacker than black when he comes back to the world of the living, but that dreadful blackness not of the night, but of clouds pregnant with storm. Unwilling dread wells up in his throat, to add to the other bitter feelings that wrap around him like tight chains. The tide has risen and he barely makes it to the safe part of shore, hopping over stones slippery with moss, moisture and seaweed. He sees a small sailboat far in the distance, and he is thankful it's not him out there, when the first thick raindrop grazes his cheek on its way to the already wet ground. Saltwater and sweetwater, the scents rise to him and make him feel like he could be a new himself if he tried.

At least, something inside him feels a bit less heavy.

The sky scatters lazy droplets as he sprints over the lane that hugs the coast. He doesn't usually run, but he doesn't want the storm to hit him full force in the middle of nowhere. Strangely enough, it feels good to run for a change. Such movement makes him feel more alive than he's felt in a while, or at least alive in a different kind of way. In an 'I'm-breathing-and-free' kind of way, with the scented air beating on his face, the cool raindrops dotting his clothes, the solid ground under his feet.

Alive. Alone.

He's only entering back into the cobbled streets of the older part of town when the storm begins for real.

The world immediately becomes bleak and grey and aquatic, and, shivering despite himself, he must slow down to a walk if he doesn't want to slip on the wet cobblestones and end up making a mess out of himself. It's empty. There's not a soul out in the street, and, obviously, too. If he can see half a block ahead of him is saying too much.

"Ey!" Someone calls.

"Ey! Norge! Is that you?"

He halts, looks around wildly, squinting to try to make something out other than blurry facades and rain, rain, rain. His hair sticks to the sides of his face and his clothes are soaked beyond decency.

Suddenly there's a warm hand on his shoulder and he catches a whiff of a damn familiar scent.

"The hell are you doing out here?" he asks, even and blunt and mechanic.

She beams at him, he sees it clear and close because she's come to stand before him, soaked as much as he is.

"I came out to find you, duuh," she says, evidently pleased in having found him, "'Cause you left just like that, and the storm looks nasty, so… yeah." She could pass for nonchalant, too, if that damn sheepish smile didn't give her away.

He'll overlook the endearing detail of her being worried about him. He's right now too confused to know whether he wants her to remove her hand from his shoulder (like his rational mind suggests) or not, like some other odd urge would rather. Inwardly. Outwards, he's looking blankly at her, as if to question the idiocy behind her rushed decision.

She feels the need to clarify. "I was worried about you, Norge!"

He raises an eyebrow.

"There's always loads of drowned sailors sinking after storms like this," she adds, an afterthought that only confuses him further.

He points out they're on land.

"I know," she sighs, "I was worried anyway, huh. Can't help it." She shrugs and smiles at him, raindrops trickling and trickling down her pretty face, and somewhere between her words and her smile and her eyes, somewhere there, Norge accepts he's lost his footing.

The full weight of Eiríkur's words and warnings and spell-like advice dawns on him subconsciously but in his mind he only acknowledges the fact that she may be gone soon, that he can make her go, that he doesn't want to make her go, because, well, damn her; and damn him.

"It's because you're an idiot," he mouths, however, bittersweetly. Succeeding in not betraying his maddening thoughts. Catching himself just on time before his cover falls. Like he always does.

All she does is laugh under her breath, play-punch him. "Come on, Norge. You're always like that," and she says it as if they weren't standing in the middle of a nameless street in an old seaside town, as if the sky wasn't raining like it wanted the world to flood, as if everything went like it was always meant to go. "But I like you, anyway. Wanna go back now?"

No, he doesn't. Everything spins just too fast, and for once, he'd like to know where he's standing.

"…Norge?" She's frowning. "Did something happen?"

You, oblivious little thing.

"Do you want to go back?" he asks.

"Some coffee would be awesome," she replies in all honesty.

He frowns softly. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what…" she frowns too, privately. "…oh."

"So?" It's not like him to be impatient. It just needs to be asked. It just needs to be known. "Do you?" Why does it sound like he's accusing her?

He never has a kind word to offer her even when he fervently wishes she'd say she doesn't, and he finds he regrets it.

"May be," she begins, thoughtfully, "… but it'd not be cool not to see you again. 'Cause I like you... I told you I like you, right?" she sounds scared when she asks that last part-

-and Norge is taking a step towards her and wrapping his arms around her following some instinct that was dormant somewhere deep, burying his face in her soaking shoulder and the rain replaced her scent.

He doesn't know what to say, so he just doesn't, and a while later her arms find their way around his waist and pull him close, and he doesn't really know how it's happened

but it still rains on them and now they're both getting colder,

except for Norge's hitched, nervous breathing against her neck.

.

.

the house smells like hot cocoa and cake and it's evident when they come in that they're not alone. Because there's quiet laughter coming from the kitchen and a damp, rumpled coat thrown over the sofa (where Norge sleeps, he notices with a frown), and she pulls his wrist to make him follow her until they're together getting warm by the fireplace,

her hand laced in his, although Norge's thoughts are too far away to notice that, and she's sighing contented looking at the pooled rainwater at their feet, listening to gentle talking from the kitchen.

A blonde woman with a charming smile brings fresh towels for them, she comments on the weather, tells them to dry fast or else their hot chocolate will become cold. Matthias asks who she is. Tiina, Norge answers distracted, Uncle Sve's fiancée, or wife, or something. She likes her, she comments, he hums something in response and hangs his head back. Matthias doesn't try to hide a frown.

"Hey, Norge… what's wrong?"

Everything, probably. From the warmth of the fireplace to his uncle and Tiina cooking in the kitchen; the faint scent of cinnamon and the homely air of it all. They're wet. They're ruining the parquet. Most likely, they'll never be the ones cooking in the kitchen but they'll always be the ones that will be wet and cold and misplaced like a greeting out of season, ruining someone else's perfect wooden floor, invading someone else's rainy afternoon.

And that's if they ever last. The back of his head rests against the chimney board and it smells like smoke when he inhales, and he's looking up at the ceiling in silence, silence, like always. She's looking at him.

"… Norge…?"

"It's nothing."

His hand is still in her hand, and she pokes his cheek with her free hand until he looks down at her eventually, focus falling on the world again with a surge of grief and the smell of sea water.

"I know!"

her voice rings different when she exclaims like that out of the blue, and for a moment Norge is startled enough to widen his eyes at her. But it passes.

"I think I know riiiiiiiiiight what you need!" she declares, and drags him by their hands that never stopped being linked. Up the stairs. Into the bathroom. He lets her do, flag him around and open the water warm and inviting, push him into the shower with his clothes still on, tell him she'll wait for him downstairs…

… tell him to come down before the chocolate gets cold,

to pull the door of the bathroom open and rush back in on him who knows when, later, later…. probably, yes, it's later already and he's not moved an inch, only stood under the warm water just like that, lost in his own thoughts. A storm of sorts, and he may drown if he's not careful. Who knows. Who cares.

She lingers in the doorway looking at him looking like she will…

burst out in laughter, "Norge…! You're still there!" she might squeal in amusement,

(she's laughing at him…? well, it would make sense, huh? his mind tells him, huh, doesn't it make sense, Norge. Doesn't it.)

He turns the tap closed with a sigh but never gets out of the shower because she barges in with him utterly amused (she's got traces of cocoa around her lips, he notices idly wishing he didn't notice),

turns the shower on again scalding hot and he hisses a curse and fights to turn the cold water on too, and then it's all a mess and everything is getting wet, and now he's depressed AND annoyed, probably kind of tangled in her formerly cozy robe (now soaked and heavy and the deep burgundy is starting run and dye the water pink),

"Damn you, Matthias," he groans, steadying himself against the slippery tiles on the wall and won't she ever stop laughing?

"Damn, damn, damn," he says through his teeth again when she's somehow ended up closing the cold water tap again, until slam!, they have gracelessly tumbled out of the shower in disgraceful defeat, only that though Norge is sprawled on the floor, sore and wet and god-damn-her burnt, Matthias is laughing heartily stretched over his chest in an awkward way, and the shower is still running, swallowing the bathroom in dense, lukewarm fog.

"What the hell!" he exclaims, too vehement for his character, "What the fuck were you thinking?"

"Haha, well now that's more like it!" she says merrily, gathering herself to sit up, her legs still across him and the burgundy robe weighing down on them both, "You talking to me like that!"

He glares at her though his soaked bangs, that drip water over his face so profusely he might feel like he's got gills or something.

"There's still something you've not said to me yet, and I'm kinda missing it," she adds, as an afterthought,

He glares at her.

"Idiot. You've not called me an idiot yet, Norge!"

He glares at her, quirks an eyebrow, and hopes with all his might that his lips don't twitch enough to betray a smile,

when the door opens and two outlines stand against the fog.

"See, T'na?" a familiar voice reaches them, "They aren't hurt. Just being dead imm'ture."

"Yeah, well," Uncle Sve is answered, "When aren't you right, Sve? I had to worry, though, with all those noises up here…"

Silence. Of the uncomfortable kind.

"…what on Earth were you two doing anyway? Trying to tear the house apart…? And Matthias, kindly get my robe off Norge and off the floor. And Norge, just, what the hell."

And yeah. What the hell indeed. Norge shrugs.

"We felt like fooling around. So kindly get out," he states as if he wasn't there on the floor like that.

"Clean this up," his uncle instructs laconically, no malice.

Then they're alone again. She looks at him. He looks at her. And when she starts laughing again… he will swear he's not done it… he joins her for a while, too.

A/N

Norge is being so angsty xDDD

Thankfully he has Matthias to take him out of his state of deep emotional turmoil xD

SOrry for the delay guys, this chapter was soooooooooo hard to write.

What do you think about it?