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nordipalooza2015-05-24 09:51 pm
returnofthepundead) wrote in nordipalooza2015-05-24 09:51 pm
Entry tags:
[Fanfiction]: cupid? more like STUPID, amirite?
Title: cupid? more like STUPID, amirite?
Author/Artist: returnofthepundead
Prompt: Denmark, Any Nation - New acquaintances
Other characters: Sweden, Finland, Norway. Brief mentions of Turkey and Greece.
Rating: T
Content notes: Denmark is Mathias, Sweden is Berwald, Finland is Timo, Norway is Lukas. Turkey is Salik, Greece is Herakles. If you don't like any of the human names, just, like, copy and paste it onto another document and replace the names. Human names are a pain. Potential Sweden/Finland. Rating for language and innuendo in the form of puns. Takes place in an English secondary school; all characters speak in English unless otherwise specified. Finland is a year older than everyone else.
Summary: Mathias Køhler had always fancied himself to be a bit of a Cupid. Some might disagree, but... well, yeah, actually, they might kinda have a point there.
Mathias Køhler had always fancied himself to be a bit of a Cupid. Not that he was particularly interested in ~true love~ and all that crap - Hallmark could keep all its soppy overpriced shit to itself, as far as he was concerned - but he did have to admit that he possessed a certain flare for matching people together; the lucky few paired up by him more often than not ended up making lovey-dovey eyes at each other across the room in English Lit or Gov Pol or whatever lesson they were in, and sometimes even achieved the pinnacle of success for a relationship in the Lower 6th: ‘going out’.
(There was of course the famed disaster of Herakles and Salik, but c’mon, how was he supposed to know that what he had mistaken for sexual tension had in fact been complete hatred? Honestly, Mathias still wasn’t sure why everyone had been so angry at him afterwards. Herakles had only given Salik a little bit of a black eye, and as for Herakles, who the hell needed thirty two teeth, anyway? Surely having any number over twenty five was merely pandering to the bourgeoisie and their love of excess.)
Anyway, Mathias was a self-proclaimed master when it came to matters of the heart, and so when he saw Berwald sneaking furtive glances at a boy in the year above with floppy blond hair and a near-constant half smile on his face, he seized his opportunity.
Namely, he called Berwald seven hours later, after school.
“So,” he cooed down the phone, “what’s the deal with you and lover boy then?”
There was a long pause in which Mathias delighted in Berwald’s angry silence, and then the phone beeped once, high and irritable. Mathias brought it down from his ear and stared at it mournfully. Son of a bitch had hung up on him!
Well, damn, there was no pleasing some people. Mathias decided to be the bigger person and ignore this betrayal of their friendship by sending Berwald three voicemails of him making fart noises, eight texts (each one with an increasing number of passive aggressive emojis), and hacking into his Facebook account to update his status to: I once wanked over a herring - ABBA makes me sooo horny ;-). He then resolved to talk to Berwald about it at school tomorrow, and settled down for a long session of Dragon Age: Inquisition, maths homework lying forgotten on the floor.
***
“So,” Mathias said, as he approached Berwald the next day, “herring, huh?” Berwald shot him an injured look, but he was gratified to see Lukas’s customary half-smile creep onto his face. Pleased, Mathias grabbed a chair and span it round so it was facing the other way, before collapsing onto it, torso slumped over the back of the chair. The 6th form common room was noisy and smelt a bit like old cheese; stacks of unwashed plates cowered in the sinks at the scene of disarray in front of them.
“I just don’t understand you,” Berwald said. Then, with more feeling, which for Berwald meant furrowed brows and two worry lines in his forehead, “You’re such a dick.”
“I am the one true chaotic force in the universe,” Mathias said solemnly, “much like Loki before me, to comprehend my destructive force is to know true fear -”
“One day, you’re gonna go too far, and then what’ll-”
“Have you done the maths homework, Waldy?” Mathias asked. Berwald broke off, momentarily thrown.
“What? Yeah.”
“Ah fuck, I was hoping you hadn’t. Robbers is always really pissy if it’s just me that hasn’t done it.” Berwald looked faintly pleased at the thought of Mathias getting into trouble, but Lukas shook his head.
“He’s going to be too busy working through his hangover to care whether or not you’ve done homework.” Mathias and Berwald stared at him in confusion. “Do you two not know? His girlfriend broke up with him. Classic ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line. She left him to go ‘discover herself’ in Greece. Well, that’s what she says, but really she’s gone to live with her girlfriend in Manchester. They’re going to rent a flat together. Two cats.”
“How do you know that?” Mathias said accusingly, but Lukas frowned and pursed his lips together.
“Makin’ it up,” Berwald said, but even he sounded doubtful.
“That’s what you think,” Lukas said, and stood up, lazily grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll see you in five minutes. I’ve just got to go see someone about… something.” He starts to go and Mathias leaps to his feet.
“Two cats,” he cried, pointing his finger at Lukas in a manner akin to Lord Kitchener’s iconic ‘Your Country Needs You’ pose. “What kind?”
“A tabby and a tortoiseshell. Wilma and Buttercup. Both three years old.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
But Lukas said nothing in reply and strolled out of the common room. Mathias fumed silently for a few seconds, eyebrows drawn close into each other, before sighing in defeat and flopping back down onto the chair. Berwald said nothing, instead choosing to root through his bag for his Physics textbook. Mathias started to jiggle his foot irritably. Then he tapped his fingers on the tabletop. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap. Berwald scowled but clenched his mouth shut, staring down at the textbook with the kind of intensity that only students concentrating so hard on reading something that they forget to read it can muster. It was only when Mathias started to make fart noises with his hands that Berwald wrenched open his jaw and told Mathias, in slightly more colourful language, to be quiet. Unfortunately for our noble hero, this meant that Mathias was reminded of the reason why he had called Berwald yesterday.
He leaned forward, hands on the table, a leer etched on his face. Berwald bristled.
“What.”
“Does he take any of your subjects?”
“What.”
“Of course, I’m with you for Maths and Chemistry and Physics, so that just leaves Tech, otherwise I would have seen him around before… Omg!” Mathias squealed, completely without shame. “Did you meet in Tech? That’s fuckin’ great, god, I can see it right now -”
“What.”
“-him bent over some table he’s made or some shit like that that you weirdos do in Tech and you saying ‘Do you need a screw?’ - or wait wait wait actually what happened is that you say ‘Do you want to get hammered?’ and he looks at you and says ‘No, but I’d loved to get nailed by you’ and then you say ‘Well, I’ve got plenty of wood’ and then he says ‘Is that a file or are you just pleased to see me, you big bastard and -”
“Please stop,” Berwald said weakly. Miraculously, Mathias did, and stared at Berwald with shining eyes. He was still leant forward, hands screwed into excited fists.
“What’s his name?”
“I dunno,” Berwald said hurriedly, but he had hesitated just a fraction of a second too long because Mathias grinned, shark-like, and said,
“I didn’t know you had a thing for older guys, Waldy -”
“Oh my god -”
“-and blonds too, huh? Keeping in with your Aryan roots, Hitler would be prou-” Mathias stopped suddenly and recoiled in his chair as in in horror. His hand reached up to tug at his hair. His blond hair. Blond. Blond. Slowly, his mouth opened to ask the fated question, tremulous and uncertain. “Never me, right?”
Berwald choked, as though wounded.
“Right?”
“Never you,” Berwald managed to force out, looking ill just at the thought. “Never you, Herre Gud, din dumme jävel, har du piss i huvudet, eller?” He clawed at his face and continued to grind out Swedish profanities, as Mathias sank back in his chair, breathing as though he’d just ran a marathon.
“Oh thank god,” he moaned.
And this was how Lukas found them when he returned; Berwald still giving an impromptu lecture in Swedish swearing to any who might care to listen and Mathias groaning with relief, shoulders pinched together. Lukas made a face at the two of them and reached over to push Berwald’s textbook further onto the table - it had been balancing precariously on the edge.
“Everything alright here?”
“I think I’ve just had some of the best news of my life,” Mathias breathed, his shoulders slowly relaxing, his mouth widening into a delirious grin. Lukas looked surprised.
“Oh, did Berwald tell you the name of the guy he likes, then?”
Mathias shook his head sadly, and then his head jerked up, eyes trained intently on Lukas.
“Do you - do you know who it is?”
“Lukas no-”
“Timo Väinämöinen. Finnish. Takes German, French, RE, and Music. Has a dog called Hanatamago. Friends with that Russian exchange kid.”
Berwald looked at Lukas in desperation, saying,
“Et tu, Brute?”
Mathias meanwhile, was glowing and beaming from ear to ear.
“Scrap what I just said. That’s the some of the best news of my life.” He picked up his books and swooped over to Lukas to drop an enthusiastic kiss on the top of his head. In response, Lukas rolled his eyes so far up that his gaze went into orbit. Mathias span round to face the despondent Berwald, hands clasped together, a look of crazy anticipation on his face. He narrowed his eyes slowly, faux Western style.
“It’s time to catch us some blondie. I’m going to Finnish what I started - namely, the two of you will fall deeply in love, get married (’cos it’s legal now), and adopt a tiny child called Peter. I will be best man, of course. But you can be godfather, Lukas; I ain’t being no Sirius Black.”
A pause. He turned to Lukas, bewilderment carved on his face.
“And how the fuck do you know that?”
***
Lukas had begged off from their mission, and so it had just been Mathias and Berwald who entered the library when they found Timo sitting there. Mathias had muttered something frantic about hiding places and then dove for the nearest beanbag, pulling Berwald down with him by his sleeve. They fell. It was not a graceful descent, but as they toppled to the floor, Berwald at least had the presence of mind to try and steer them towards the beanbag in question. They landed awkwardly, Mathias’s elbow lodged in Berwald’s gut, and Berwald gave a grunt of pain before shoving Mathias off of him. They exchanged a long look, before simultaneously scrambling up to peer through the book shelves at their target. Timo was sat at a table in one corner. He thumbed through the book in front of him, occasionally mouthing a few words to himself. Berwald turned to Mathias.
“What’re we meant to be doing here?” he hissed. Mathias didn’t look away from Timo, his eyes fixed on the older boy.
“Think of it as a reconnaissance mission.”
“A reconnaissance mission?”
“Yeah, a reconnaissance mission,” Mathias said mockingly. Berwald scowled, and pushed him slightly.
“’nd what the hell’s that supposed to mean? What’ve we learnt here other than I’m probably gonna bruise ‘cause you’re damn heavy?”
“Well,” Mathias said coolly, because he didn’t take kindly to completely unnecessary comments about his weight, thank you very much, “we’ve learnt that he’s coming over here to tell us off for being too loud.”
“Hey, look, you two do know that this is a libra- oh, hello Berwald.” Berwald’s head whipped round guiltily and he stared up at Timo from his crouched position on the ground. Timo coloured slightly and his eyes flicked to Mathias, who sprung to his feet and seized Timo’s unoffered hand, shaking it energetically.
“Mathias Køhler, delighted to meet you, Mr Väinä - fuck, Väinämö -”
“Timo will do,” Timo said, amused and not exasperated with Mathias’s pitiful attempts at pronunciation, which Mathias chalked up as a win. “Are you one of, um,” here he glanced up at the towering Berwald, who had clambered awkwardly to his feet, “Berwald’s friends?
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Mathias said brightly, and Timo blanched.
“Um, what?”
“He’s one o’ my friends,” Berwald said firmly, and then added in a bitter mutter, “though why, God knows.”
“Don’t listen to him, I’m the pinnacle of wonderfulness,” Mathias told Timo. Berwald snorted and Timo had a little tender smile on his face as he looked up at him, and said,
“I’m sure.”
“Although I’m very disappointed you don’t take tech,” Mathias said reproachfully. “I had loads of tech related puns all ready to go. It’s much more difficult to do ones about German and French, especially when I don’t speak either of them. All I can do is resort to old stereotypes, and they’re boring.”
“I’m sure he’ll survive,” Berwald interjected. Mathias rolled his eyes, and, after seeing the way that Berwald and Timo were looking at each other, rolled his eyes again.
“Oh no,” he said, in an extremely fake sounding voice, tone flat as a pancake. “I have left my mathematics homework outside in the pouring rain.” They all turned to look at the sun beating down on the glass. Mathias continued. “I must go and retrieve my mathematics homework for I am a diligent student and therefore give many fucks about my academic prowess.”
Berwald and Timo looked at him.
“Okay have a nice time!” Mathias windmilled out of the library, leaving Berwald and Timo in the aftermath. Timo blinked, once, twice, and then grinned at Berwald.
“Is he always like that?” he asked. Berwald sighed.
“Yeah. Unfortunately.” Timo reached out to pat Berwald reassuringly on the shoulder.
“I think he seems pretty nice, actually. Don’t be so worried.”
Berwald blinked at the betrayal - for describing Mathias as ‘pretty nice’ counted as a betrayal in Berwald’s eyes - and then his shoulders slumped forward.
“I’m surrounded by Brutuses everywhere,” he said dejectedly, and Timo’s fond laughter floated up to the ceiling.
***
“You didn’t tell me you already knew him,” Mathias said accusingly when he saw Berwald next, which was at Mr Robson’s next maths lesson. Berwald said nothing, although Mathias knew he had heard him, and continued to dutifully take down notes from the board as Mr Robson droned on about identifying the properties of logarithms. Mathias jabbed him in the ribs with his pen as punishment.
“Ow!” Berwald said, turning round to glower at Mathias. “What was that for?”
“You didn’t reply.”
“What was there to say? Yeah, I didn’t tell you I already knew him. So?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Maybe it was ‘cause I knew you’d take the piss if I did?” Berwald said dryly. Mathias floundered.
“That’s, uh - that’s actually a pretty good point,” he admitted, and Berwald nodded, as if to say duh. There was calm for a few minutes, and then Berwald said mildly, as though this would most likely be of no interest whatsoever to Mathias,
“We’re gonna hang out, actually.”
“Huh?”
“Me and Timo. We’re hanging out this weekend.” Mathias gawked.
“Shit! Really?” He reached over to ruffle Berwald’s hair. “My baby boy’s all grown up -”
Berwald jabbed Mathias in the ribs with a pen in retaliation, and Mathias’s resulting yelp was loud enough to wake even Mr Robson out of his stupor.
“Mr Køhler,” he said icily, “is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class?”
Mathias started, and then a slow, lazy grin travelled across his face.
“Well, you see, sir,” he said earnestly, “I just can’t understand any of this. It’s not you, sir, it’s me - I’m afraid it’s all Greek to me,” here Mathias’s lip curled, “sir.”
Mr Robson flushed dark red, and his hands clenched into fists. He looked angry and unsure what to do for a few moments, and then his face cleared and a triumphant expression reigned.
“Have you brought your homework, Mr Køhler?” he asked.
“Ah, fuck,” Mathias muttered under his breath, and then added, more loudly, “No sir, I believe I have not.”
“Detention, Mr Køhler, I will see you at lunch today. Now, as I was saying -”
Mathias turned to Berwald, with big, forlorn eyes.
“Knowledge is a terrible gift,” he said, and Berwald gave him an unpitying smile. But after a few moments, even he broke under Mathias’s doleful expression, and shrugged and said,
“Blame Lukas, not me. He told you.”
***
Lukas refused to share any of the guilt, and argued that although he had told Mathias about Mr Robson’s divorce, he hadn’t been the idiot who had brought it up in a maths lesson, you stupid prick, so you can stop your whining and go to your detention.
Unsurprisingly, Mathias didn’t. Stop whining, that is. He went to his detention.
Whining about it all the way.
END
Notes
(Swedish) Herre Gud, din dumme jävel, har du piss i huvudet, eller? Oh my God, you stupid fuck, are you fucking stupid? ('Har du piss i huvudet, eller?' literally means 'Do you have piss in your head, or (what)?') Which quite frankly is an amazing insult. Also, although I think this is reasonably accurate, if there are any native/advanced Swedish speakers who wish to offer corrections, please feel free.
A 'big bastard' is a kind of file - me and my class were introduced to this fabulous name during our first ever tech lesson, which ensured our little minds were enraptured by tech lessons for the rest of the year.


Does a bear shit in the woods? - this is a phrase that I came across whilst looking up Is the Pope Catholic? on Wikipedia, and I thought it would suit Denmark down to the ground. Amazingly, a derived term from those two is Does the Pope shit in the woods? which unfortunately, I thought would be a bit much/too bizarre, even for Denmark.
Also: I apologise very much for the title. I was running out of time and I couldn't think of any good serious titles, so I had to go with that. Whatever. Serious probs wouldn't have suited this fic anyway.
Anyway, thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!
Author/Artist: returnofthepundead
Prompt: Denmark, Any Nation - New acquaintances
Other characters: Sweden, Finland, Norway. Brief mentions of Turkey and Greece.
Rating: T
Content notes: Denmark is Mathias, Sweden is Berwald, Finland is Timo, Norway is Lukas. Turkey is Salik, Greece is Herakles. If you don't like any of the human names, just, like, copy and paste it onto another document and replace the names. Human names are a pain. Potential Sweden/Finland. Rating for language and innuendo in the form of puns. Takes place in an English secondary school; all characters speak in English unless otherwise specified. Finland is a year older than everyone else.
Summary: Mathias Køhler had always fancied himself to be a bit of a Cupid. Some might disagree, but... well, yeah, actually, they might kinda have a point there.
Mathias Køhler had always fancied himself to be a bit of a Cupid. Not that he was particularly interested in ~true love~ and all that crap - Hallmark could keep all its soppy overpriced shit to itself, as far as he was concerned - but he did have to admit that he possessed a certain flare for matching people together; the lucky few paired up by him more often than not ended up making lovey-dovey eyes at each other across the room in English Lit or Gov Pol or whatever lesson they were in, and sometimes even achieved the pinnacle of success for a relationship in the Lower 6th: ‘going out’.
(There was of course the famed disaster of Herakles and Salik, but c’mon, how was he supposed to know that what he had mistaken for sexual tension had in fact been complete hatred? Honestly, Mathias still wasn’t sure why everyone had been so angry at him afterwards. Herakles had only given Salik a little bit of a black eye, and as for Herakles, who the hell needed thirty two teeth, anyway? Surely having any number over twenty five was merely pandering to the bourgeoisie and their love of excess.)
Anyway, Mathias was a self-proclaimed master when it came to matters of the heart, and so when he saw Berwald sneaking furtive glances at a boy in the year above with floppy blond hair and a near-constant half smile on his face, he seized his opportunity.
Namely, he called Berwald seven hours later, after school.
“So,” he cooed down the phone, “what’s the deal with you and lover boy then?”
There was a long pause in which Mathias delighted in Berwald’s angry silence, and then the phone beeped once, high and irritable. Mathias brought it down from his ear and stared at it mournfully. Son of a bitch had hung up on him!
Well, damn, there was no pleasing some people. Mathias decided to be the bigger person and ignore this betrayal of their friendship by sending Berwald three voicemails of him making fart noises, eight texts (each one with an increasing number of passive aggressive emojis), and hacking into his Facebook account to update his status to: I once wanked over a herring - ABBA makes me sooo horny ;-). He then resolved to talk to Berwald about it at school tomorrow, and settled down for a long session of Dragon Age: Inquisition, maths homework lying forgotten on the floor.
***
“So,” Mathias said, as he approached Berwald the next day, “herring, huh?” Berwald shot him an injured look, but he was gratified to see Lukas’s customary half-smile creep onto his face. Pleased, Mathias grabbed a chair and span it round so it was facing the other way, before collapsing onto it, torso slumped over the back of the chair. The 6th form common room was noisy and smelt a bit like old cheese; stacks of unwashed plates cowered in the sinks at the scene of disarray in front of them.
“I just don’t understand you,” Berwald said. Then, with more feeling, which for Berwald meant furrowed brows and two worry lines in his forehead, “You’re such a dick.”
“I am the one true chaotic force in the universe,” Mathias said solemnly, “much like Loki before me, to comprehend my destructive force is to know true fear -”
“One day, you’re gonna go too far, and then what’ll-”
“Have you done the maths homework, Waldy?” Mathias asked. Berwald broke off, momentarily thrown.
“What? Yeah.”
“Ah fuck, I was hoping you hadn’t. Robbers is always really pissy if it’s just me that hasn’t done it.” Berwald looked faintly pleased at the thought of Mathias getting into trouble, but Lukas shook his head.
“He’s going to be too busy working through his hangover to care whether or not you’ve done homework.” Mathias and Berwald stared at him in confusion. “Do you two not know? His girlfriend broke up with him. Classic ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ line. She left him to go ‘discover herself’ in Greece. Well, that’s what she says, but really she’s gone to live with her girlfriend in Manchester. They’re going to rent a flat together. Two cats.”
“How do you know that?” Mathias said accusingly, but Lukas frowned and pursed his lips together.
“Makin’ it up,” Berwald said, but even he sounded doubtful.
“That’s what you think,” Lukas said, and stood up, lazily grabbing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “I’ll see you in five minutes. I’ve just got to go see someone about… something.” He starts to go and Mathias leaps to his feet.
“Two cats,” he cried, pointing his finger at Lukas in a manner akin to Lord Kitchener’s iconic ‘Your Country Needs You’ pose. “What kind?”
“A tabby and a tortoiseshell. Wilma and Buttercup. Both three years old.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
But Lukas said nothing in reply and strolled out of the common room. Mathias fumed silently for a few seconds, eyebrows drawn close into each other, before sighing in defeat and flopping back down onto the chair. Berwald said nothing, instead choosing to root through his bag for his Physics textbook. Mathias started to jiggle his foot irritably. Then he tapped his fingers on the tabletop. Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap. Berwald scowled but clenched his mouth shut, staring down at the textbook with the kind of intensity that only students concentrating so hard on reading something that they forget to read it can muster. It was only when Mathias started to make fart noises with his hands that Berwald wrenched open his jaw and told Mathias, in slightly more colourful language, to be quiet. Unfortunately for our noble hero, this meant that Mathias was reminded of the reason why he had called Berwald yesterday.
He leaned forward, hands on the table, a leer etched on his face. Berwald bristled.
“What.”
“Does he take any of your subjects?”
“What.”
“Of course, I’m with you for Maths and Chemistry and Physics, so that just leaves Tech, otherwise I would have seen him around before… Omg!” Mathias squealed, completely without shame. “Did you meet in Tech? That’s fuckin’ great, god, I can see it right now -”
“What.”
“-him bent over some table he’s made or some shit like that that you weirdos do in Tech and you saying ‘Do you need a screw?’ - or wait wait wait actually what happened is that you say ‘Do you want to get hammered?’ and he looks at you and says ‘No, but I’d loved to get nailed by you’ and then you say ‘Well, I’ve got plenty of wood’ and then he says ‘Is that a file or are you just pleased to see me, you big bastard and -”
“Please stop,” Berwald said weakly. Miraculously, Mathias did, and stared at Berwald with shining eyes. He was still leant forward, hands screwed into excited fists.
“What’s his name?”
“I dunno,” Berwald said hurriedly, but he had hesitated just a fraction of a second too long because Mathias grinned, shark-like, and said,
“I didn’t know you had a thing for older guys, Waldy -”
“Oh my god -”
“-and blonds too, huh? Keeping in with your Aryan roots, Hitler would be prou-” Mathias stopped suddenly and recoiled in his chair as in in horror. His hand reached up to tug at his hair. His blond hair. Blond. Blond. Slowly, his mouth opened to ask the fated question, tremulous and uncertain. “Never me, right?”
Berwald choked, as though wounded.
“Right?”
“Never you,” Berwald managed to force out, looking ill just at the thought. “Never you, Herre Gud, din dumme jävel, har du piss i huvudet, eller?” He clawed at his face and continued to grind out Swedish profanities, as Mathias sank back in his chair, breathing as though he’d just ran a marathon.
“Oh thank god,” he moaned.
And this was how Lukas found them when he returned; Berwald still giving an impromptu lecture in Swedish swearing to any who might care to listen and Mathias groaning with relief, shoulders pinched together. Lukas made a face at the two of them and reached over to push Berwald’s textbook further onto the table - it had been balancing precariously on the edge.
“Everything alright here?”
“I think I’ve just had some of the best news of my life,” Mathias breathed, his shoulders slowly relaxing, his mouth widening into a delirious grin. Lukas looked surprised.
“Oh, did Berwald tell you the name of the guy he likes, then?”
Mathias shook his head sadly, and then his head jerked up, eyes trained intently on Lukas.
“Do you - do you know who it is?”
“Lukas no-”
“Timo Väinämöinen. Finnish. Takes German, French, RE, and Music. Has a dog called Hanatamago. Friends with that Russian exchange kid.”
Berwald looked at Lukas in desperation, saying,
“Et tu, Brute?”
Mathias meanwhile, was glowing and beaming from ear to ear.
“Scrap what I just said. That’s the some of the best news of my life.” He picked up his books and swooped over to Lukas to drop an enthusiastic kiss on the top of his head. In response, Lukas rolled his eyes so far up that his gaze went into orbit. Mathias span round to face the despondent Berwald, hands clasped together, a look of crazy anticipation on his face. He narrowed his eyes slowly, faux Western style.
“It’s time to catch us some blondie. I’m going to Finnish what I started - namely, the two of you will fall deeply in love, get married (’cos it’s legal now), and adopt a tiny child called Peter. I will be best man, of course. But you can be godfather, Lukas; I ain’t being no Sirius Black.”
A pause. He turned to Lukas, bewilderment carved on his face.
“And how the fuck do you know that?”
***
Lukas had begged off from their mission, and so it had just been Mathias and Berwald who entered the library when they found Timo sitting there. Mathias had muttered something frantic about hiding places and then dove for the nearest beanbag, pulling Berwald down with him by his sleeve. They fell. It was not a graceful descent, but as they toppled to the floor, Berwald at least had the presence of mind to try and steer them towards the beanbag in question. They landed awkwardly, Mathias’s elbow lodged in Berwald’s gut, and Berwald gave a grunt of pain before shoving Mathias off of him. They exchanged a long look, before simultaneously scrambling up to peer through the book shelves at their target. Timo was sat at a table in one corner. He thumbed through the book in front of him, occasionally mouthing a few words to himself. Berwald turned to Mathias.
“What’re we meant to be doing here?” he hissed. Mathias didn’t look away from Timo, his eyes fixed on the older boy.
“Think of it as a reconnaissance mission.”
“A reconnaissance mission?”
“Yeah, a reconnaissance mission,” Mathias said mockingly. Berwald scowled, and pushed him slightly.
“’nd what the hell’s that supposed to mean? What’ve we learnt here other than I’m probably gonna bruise ‘cause you’re damn heavy?”
“Well,” Mathias said coolly, because he didn’t take kindly to completely unnecessary comments about his weight, thank you very much, “we’ve learnt that he’s coming over here to tell us off for being too loud.”
“Hey, look, you two do know that this is a libra- oh, hello Berwald.” Berwald’s head whipped round guiltily and he stared up at Timo from his crouched position on the ground. Timo coloured slightly and his eyes flicked to Mathias, who sprung to his feet and seized Timo’s unoffered hand, shaking it energetically.
“Mathias Køhler, delighted to meet you, Mr Väinä - fuck, Väinämö -”
“Timo will do,” Timo said, amused and not exasperated with Mathias’s pitiful attempts at pronunciation, which Mathias chalked up as a win. “Are you one of, um,” here he glanced up at the towering Berwald, who had clambered awkwardly to his feet, “Berwald’s friends?
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Mathias said brightly, and Timo blanched.
“Um, what?”
“He’s one o’ my friends,” Berwald said firmly, and then added in a bitter mutter, “though why, God knows.”
“Don’t listen to him, I’m the pinnacle of wonderfulness,” Mathias told Timo. Berwald snorted and Timo had a little tender smile on his face as he looked up at him, and said,
“I’m sure.”
“Although I’m very disappointed you don’t take tech,” Mathias said reproachfully. “I had loads of tech related puns all ready to go. It’s much more difficult to do ones about German and French, especially when I don’t speak either of them. All I can do is resort to old stereotypes, and they’re boring.”
“I’m sure he’ll survive,” Berwald interjected. Mathias rolled his eyes, and, after seeing the way that Berwald and Timo were looking at each other, rolled his eyes again.
“Oh no,” he said, in an extremely fake sounding voice, tone flat as a pancake. “I have left my mathematics homework outside in the pouring rain.” They all turned to look at the sun beating down on the glass. Mathias continued. “I must go and retrieve my mathematics homework for I am a diligent student and therefore give many fucks about my academic prowess.”
Berwald and Timo looked at him.
“Okay have a nice time!” Mathias windmilled out of the library, leaving Berwald and Timo in the aftermath. Timo blinked, once, twice, and then grinned at Berwald.
“Is he always like that?” he asked. Berwald sighed.
“Yeah. Unfortunately.” Timo reached out to pat Berwald reassuringly on the shoulder.
“I think he seems pretty nice, actually. Don’t be so worried.”
Berwald blinked at the betrayal - for describing Mathias as ‘pretty nice’ counted as a betrayal in Berwald’s eyes - and then his shoulders slumped forward.
“I’m surrounded by Brutuses everywhere,” he said dejectedly, and Timo’s fond laughter floated up to the ceiling.
***
“You didn’t tell me you already knew him,” Mathias said accusingly when he saw Berwald next, which was at Mr Robson’s next maths lesson. Berwald said nothing, although Mathias knew he had heard him, and continued to dutifully take down notes from the board as Mr Robson droned on about identifying the properties of logarithms. Mathias jabbed him in the ribs with his pen as punishment.
“Ow!” Berwald said, turning round to glower at Mathias. “What was that for?”
“You didn’t reply.”
“What was there to say? Yeah, I didn’t tell you I already knew him. So?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Maybe it was ‘cause I knew you’d take the piss if I did?” Berwald said dryly. Mathias floundered.
“That’s, uh - that’s actually a pretty good point,” he admitted, and Berwald nodded, as if to say duh. There was calm for a few minutes, and then Berwald said mildly, as though this would most likely be of no interest whatsoever to Mathias,
“We’re gonna hang out, actually.”
“Huh?”
“Me and Timo. We’re hanging out this weekend.” Mathias gawked.
“Shit! Really?” He reached over to ruffle Berwald’s hair. “My baby boy’s all grown up -”
Berwald jabbed Mathias in the ribs with a pen in retaliation, and Mathias’s resulting yelp was loud enough to wake even Mr Robson out of his stupor.
“Mr Køhler,” he said icily, “is there something you would like to share with the rest of the class?”
Mathias started, and then a slow, lazy grin travelled across his face.
“Well, you see, sir,” he said earnestly, “I just can’t understand any of this. It’s not you, sir, it’s me - I’m afraid it’s all Greek to me,” here Mathias’s lip curled, “sir.”
Mr Robson flushed dark red, and his hands clenched into fists. He looked angry and unsure what to do for a few moments, and then his face cleared and a triumphant expression reigned.
“Have you brought your homework, Mr Køhler?” he asked.
“Ah, fuck,” Mathias muttered under his breath, and then added, more loudly, “No sir, I believe I have not.”
“Detention, Mr Køhler, I will see you at lunch today. Now, as I was saying -”
Mathias turned to Berwald, with big, forlorn eyes.
“Knowledge is a terrible gift,” he said, and Berwald gave him an unpitying smile. But after a few moments, even he broke under Mathias’s doleful expression, and shrugged and said,
“Blame Lukas, not me. He told you.”
***
Lukas refused to share any of the guilt, and argued that although he had told Mathias about Mr Robson’s divorce, he hadn’t been the idiot who had brought it up in a maths lesson, you stupid prick, so you can stop your whining and go to your detention.
Unsurprisingly, Mathias didn’t. Stop whining, that is. He went to his detention.
Whining about it all the way.
END
Notes
(Swedish) Herre Gud, din dumme jävel, har du piss i huvudet, eller? Oh my God, you stupid fuck, are you fucking stupid? ('Har du piss i huvudet, eller?' literally means 'Do you have piss in your head, or (what)?') Which quite frankly is an amazing insult. Also, although I think this is reasonably accurate, if there are any native/advanced Swedish speakers who wish to offer corrections, please feel free.
A 'big bastard' is a kind of file - me and my class were introduced to this fabulous name during our first ever tech lesson, which ensured our little minds were enraptured by tech lessons for the rest of the year.


Does a bear shit in the woods? - this is a phrase that I came across whilst looking up Is the Pope Catholic? on Wikipedia, and I thought it would suit Denmark down to the ground. Amazingly, a derived term from those two is Does the Pope shit in the woods? which unfortunately, I thought would be a bit much/too bizarre, even for Denmark.
Also: I apologise very much for the title. I was running out of time and I couldn't think of any good serious titles, so I had to go with that. Whatever. Serious probs wouldn't have suited this fic anyway.
Anyway, thank you very much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!
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How on earth does Norway know everything?!
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And... well, he has his - ahem - sources. (You learn a surprising amount if you keep your mouth closed and just happen to find yourself in locations where people are by chance having important conversations.)
:-D