Author's note: Thank you for all of your kind comments! ^_^ I'll try to keep the updates coming as quickly as I can, but sorry if they slow down a bit, finals and all that good stuff. I also added a pairing to the story, I hadn't been sure about it earlier, but now I think that's becoming one of my favorite pairings. Anyway, here's Mathias!

He didn't want to wake up. Anything but that. His head was pounding louder than a bass drum and even the tiny bit of light that was leaking into the room made his eyes ache if he opened them. Instead, Mathias opted to roll over on his face and groan occasionally into the pillow as he remained willfully asleep. He slept passed noon before he sat up cautiously, immediately aware of something strange.

Lukas had left him to sleep. Lukas never left him to sleep.

Yet, the lack of any kind of threat or pillow to the face told him it was true. The room was empty except for himself, and as he crawled over until he was sitting in the center of the large bed, he frowned sadly. He couldn't have forgotten about him, right? The Dane yawned nervously, holding his still aching head as he ran his hand through his voluminous hair, and then faint memories of the night before began to return to him, along with one in particular.

A kiss.

Not just any kiss, but a kiss from Lukas. He let his hand drop to cover his lips, stunned as he replayed the memory over and over. Lukas had kissed him. Just like that. A strange sort of excitement began to swell inside of him, making his chest tight, and even with an immobilizing hangover, Mathias found himself starting to grin.

He knew it. He fucking knew it.

After resisting the temptation to grab himself into a giddy hug, he glanced at the clock, still covering his mouth. Everyone would probably be up by now. Lukas was probably downstairs. He wondered if he remembered, but, how could he not? Now that he was fully awake, the memory was incredibly clear to him. But he had to find out for certain.

Mathias climbed out of the warm bed and washed up, changing out of his rumpled clothes and wiggling into clean ones. Then, he tried to compose himself before heading out, as getting Lukas to admit to anything so embarrassing (it really was embarrassing, but in a good way) would take an awful lot of tact, but half way down the stairs he started beaming again.

He wasn't in the kitchen, however, so he passed through it, ignoring the half-hearted demands from his stomach, and headed to look for him in the main room. Tino and Berwald were sitting together on the couch, the tall Swede listening to the Fin chatter away happily, seeming relatively at ease. He grinned when Tino paused to wave and say good morning and Berwald grunted in greeting. However, when he found that Lukas wasn't there either his smile began to fall to a thoughtful frown.

"What are you doing?" Tino asked brightly when he continued to stand in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips.

"Where's Lukas?" he asked, maybe a bit more intensely than he'd meant.

"He went out shopping with Emil," he informed him helpfully.

"Oh," he said, unable to keep his shoulders from falling slightly with disappointment.

Tino looked like he wanted to investigate further, but he didn't, and instead turned back to Berwald with a smile and a question as to where he had paused in his story. They continued talking as Mathias headed back into the kitchen, food being his main focus now.

"Breakfast," he muttered to himself, searing the cupboards and the fridge and then groaned loudly. "Why don't we have anything to eat?"

Tino sounded like he laughed before he spoke. "That's why they went shopping!"

The Dane just continued to make noises of anguish, considering falling down and rolling around on the floor. Not only did he have to wait for Lukas to return to quiz him about the night before, he had to wait for him to return so he could eat. Plus he had a headache. He wanted to go back to bed.

Mathias walked back into the main room and fell into the plush chair, spreading himself out awkwardly and stuffing his face in the cushion.

Tino giggled and Berwald gave a slightly exasperated sigh.

"If you want, I can see if I can try to make something for you, but we don't have much to cook with," Tino offered.

Mathias could almost feel the look he was getting from Berwald and as he turned his head he saw the most alarmed expression the Swede could muster. He laughed loudly, which hurt his head a little, so he dropped it back into the chair but kept laughing.

"What?" Tino asked, and then he heard him shift as he looked at Berwald with a slightly lower tone. "What?"

He stuttered and mumbled innocently.

It made Mathias laugh harder. Now, he thought, all he needed was that damn Norwegian and it would feel like they were back in Sweden again.

An entire hour later, the door finally opened and Mathias hopped up excitedly, already on his way over before Lukas loudly ordered someone to come help him and Emil put the groceries away. He looked at him strangely, seeing that he was the first to offer assistance, but didn't reject him. As the three of them went into the kitchen, Mathias closely watched Lukas for any sign of anything abnormal.

Three minutes passed.

Nothing happened other than food being put away neatly at Lukas' orders. He was beginning to feel rather disheartened when, while handing him the last bag of groceries, their fingers brushed. It was barely even able to be considered contact, but it was obvious. Lukas almost dropped the bag and turned around quickly, not looking at him. He had to bite his cheeks to keep from grinning. So that was something.

Again, as they made lunch together for everyone, since their chance at breakfast had long passed, while moving passed him to get to the stove, he let the back of his hand lightly skim the back of Lukas' arm, and was able to see the way his entire body tensed up as he jerked a bit, as if he had been electrocuted. He must not have been as subtle as he thought, however, because Lukas glanced over his shoulder at him once he was composed, and the intensity caused the Dane to freeze as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. After that, the harder Lukas tried to hide any reaction he had to Mathias, the more obvious it became that he did indeed remember at least part of the night before.

The only thing left to decide was what he would do with this information.

Later, he found himself out on a short walk with Tino, who he had noticed had been itching to get out of the house, but had missed going with Lukas and Emil. Mathias had told him he would go along for safety, but he honestly felt that he needed to get out, too.

They strolled side by side along the stone pavement, hands in their pockets as their feet left prints in the light, wet snow. It was strange how snow could change depending on the place. Back in Sweden it was thick, powdery, and fell with every intention of sticking until the thawing seasons, but here, it sometimes changed from snow to rain and back to snow in a single storm. Sleet, they sometimes called it. Ew. Still, the air was cold and clean, a nice change from the close, too-warm air that recirculated through their small house over and over again.

Tino took a deep breath which turned into a puffy sigh, and Mathias tilted his head, aware that was usually the signal that the Fin was about to speak.

"You know, I'm glad that Lukas shot Ludwig."

Whatever Mathias had expected him to say, it wasn't that.

"Huh?"

Tino giggled innocently. "I mean, I'm glad that he ended up coming with us, and stuff,"

"Oh," the Dane said, but kept an eyebrow quirked. "Why?"

He would have rubbed his arm if his hands hadn't been in his pockets, Mathias knew enough about the short Fin to tell that much. "Well, because, you know…"

"Because he's got the Swede's attention?" he asked, his eyebrow falling into place and a slight smirk crossing his lips.

Tino crinkled his nose adorably as if he didn't like the way he phrased it, but nodded. "Yeah."

They were quiet as an older couple passed by, glancing at them over thick scarves and large coats, unable to understand why the two Scandinavians looked so amused by their clothing, wearing nothing more than light jackets and gloves over normal clothing. As they headed away from the buildings and along a path lined with sleeping trees, Mathias looked down at him again.

"Do you miss it at all?" he found himself wanted to know.

Tino regarded him thoughtfully with his round eyes, and then stared ahead again thoughtfully. "…No."

"No?"

"Well, not really." he admitted, pausing to admire a beautiful waxwing perched on the bare branch of a tall bush. "But, now that Ludwig's here, I guess I can see what he meant in doing, things that he did."

Mathias listened quietly. He knew how shy and awkward Berwald was, and sometimes he escaped his understanding entirely, but Lukas certainly seemed to understand most of what he did, if not everything. Sometimes that began to annoy him, but hearing Tino say that he understood his behavior now made him feel a little better.

"Not that I'd change the way things are now," he added quietly.

They glanced at each other briefly as their road led them up to a quaint stone bridge, which they walked to the height of and then stopped to look into the river. It was only slightly swollen from the snowfall, accustomed to the wetness known to this part of the island nation. Still, it flowed smoothly, creating a strangely glass-like effect below them, reflecting the bridge and them on top of it artistically.

"You know, when I was little, my brother told me that trolls lived under bridges, and that they demand tolls for you to cross them. He also said that if you try to cross without paying, they'll drag you under and eat you." Tino was smiling softly in memory, even as he retold a story that he must have been scared of for years. "I didn't cross a bridge by myself until I was almost ten."

Mathias looked down at their watery reflections. "…My brother threw me off a bridge once and I almost drown,"

Tino let out that surprised, high-pitched laugh and then covered his mouth with a gloved hand. "That's terrible,"

"So are brothers," he winked and smiled wryly.