I'm Already Falling

Series: Hetalia

Rating: T for now, but later it will change to M, for hot guy-on-guy smex, mild cursing (especially compared to AAA...) and some adult innuendo. Though I think any of you who cared about that stuff stopped reading after the 'guy-on-guy smex.'

Genre: Romance, Humor

Characters And Pairings: Iceland/Turkey, Sweden/Finland, Norway/Denmark, also with Ladonia, Sealand and Wy, and references of Greece/Japan.

Summery: Iceland invites Turkey over for the holidays as a friend. F-R-I-E-N-D. Not that this stops his fellow Nordics from teasing the hell out of him and plotting to pair the two off despite his fervent protests. This was going to be a long week. IceTurk, SuFin, NorDen.

Notes: I wrote this because I just really wanted to write the Nordics and I think IceTurk is the sexiest thing since sex. There's a romance plot but there's also a lot of nice and mostly innocent Nordic fluff for you guys who like that stuff. Basically I just thought of everything I would want to see in a Nordic fic and crushed it into one story of about 7 or 8 chapters.

By the way, I consider this fic compatible with Awesome All Along continuity, though it takes place more or less in the present and doesn't reference AAA at all, so you can read this without even knowing the other exists. Also, a quick note for those of you waiting for an update to Awesome All Along, I swear to God I've been working on it, nonstop even, it's just that everything I write doesn't seem to work as the next chapter. But fear not, I haven't lost hope or interest, I'll figure things out eventually, and most of the stuff I've written is still going to be used, just for later chapters, so you can be thankful that I haven't been wasting my time completely. So until that works itself out, have some Nordic shenanigans.

Regarding Human Names: Human names are occasionally used. Official names are Sadiq (Turkey), Berwald (Sweden), Tino (Finland), Peter (Sealand), Kiku (Japan), and Heracles (Greece). My human names for characters without official names are Emil (Iceland), Aksel (Denmark) and Linus (Norway). My unofficial names for Ladonia and Wy are Aaron and Zoe, but I don't think I've actually used them.

I'm Already Falling

By NoirGrimoir

(Story told from the POV of Iceland)

Chapter One: Dangerous

Before I'd even rung the doorbell to Sweden and Finland's house, I could already tell this year was going to be that kind of Christmas—the kind that blows. I can't pinpoint what exactly drove me to this conclusion, but it might have been when something hard, cold and wet plowed into my face and exploded on impact just as I reached the doorstep. (But that's just a theory.)

For almost a whole minute I stood there at the door, too traumatized from the sudden assault to do anything but twitch as a slushy mess dripped from my hair and chin onto the shoulders of my coat. Snow-bombed, I'd been freaking snow-bombed, and I hadn't even set foot in the property yet. Wow, this was going to be a long week. Why hadn't I made up some excuse to skip out on the family reunion when I had the chance? Why hadn't there been a convenient volcanic eruption near my house that stranded every plane and ferry in my island nation? It wasn't like it had never happened before, but I guess volcanoes weren't exactly known for being accommodating.

"Oh, shit—," someone cursed, and I wasn't surprised to hear who the voice belonged to. I suspected said person would be subjected to a dambolis if Sve caught him using that kind of language, though.

Sealand jumped out from behind a snow drift and shouted across the yard. "Ladonia, you idiot! You hit Uncle Iceland!"

Caught red-faced and red-handed, Ladonia sprung up from a second snow drift and hastily spluttered, "Sh-shut up! You're the one who hit him, it was totally you!"

Sealand denied this ruthlessly and the exchange turned into a "Shut up!"-contest as Wy popped up behind yet another snow drift, yelling, "Both of you shut up!" and pegged the two boys in the face with snowballs, threatening further bodily harm from her fists if the other two micronations didn't comply immediately.

For my part I was kind of busy sneezing out a whole five-star ski resort's worth of powdery snow from my nose and trying to dry off with my not-remotely-dry scarf before any more liquidy-ice leaked down the back of my neck and soaked my clothes in it's mission to give me hypothermia. It was during my attempts to wipe what water I could away from my eyes so I could actually open them, when I was given my second probable concussion for the day.

"Hey! Kids!" I heard someone, who could only be Denmark considering the volume, shout from inside the house.

Obviously he wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention (as usual) because an instant after the front door was yanked inward with a suction-y pop of the weatherproof door-lining, I only had an instant to see the older nation fiddle with the latch before the out-swinging wrought-iron screen was flung open to bounce off my face.

I stumbled backwards, whimpering as I clutched my abused forehead, and tried to ignore the kids guffawing at me in the background. This was actually pretty easy because my head was throbbing so painfully I could barely pay attention to much else.

"Kids, it's time for—Oh, Ice, buddy!" Den said way to cheerfully. I could just hear him grinning stupidly as he turned around to shout into the house, "Guys, it's Iceland! Ice is finally here!"

I rubbed the huge, soon-to-be bruise that was the entire left side of my face, shooting Den a frown. Denmark just beamed at me like an overeager child. I could never tell if he was actually that oblivious to when people were pissed off at him or he just pretended to be for some reason I couldn't comprehend. I was almost certain it was the latter, but I didn't understand it at all.

"Why are you just standing outside on the doorstep, buddy?" Den asked, clapping me on the shoulder genially only to recoil as he made contact with my dripping coat. "Ew, and why are you all wet? What is this?" He demanded to know, shamelessly wiping his wet hand off on my jacket.

I frowned. "It's snow." Moron. "What did you think it was?"

He shrugged, not the least bit embarrassed that he missed something so obvious. Probably because he hadn't missed it at all. "I don't know," he said and tilted his head at me, rubbing his chin in (mock) confusion. "But why were you rolling around in the snow? And why is one side of your face all red?"

I was about to pointedly ignore that question when Sealand jumped up excitedly with an answer. "Ladonia hit him with a snowball!" he announced to the whole neighborhood (which fortunately consisted of Fin and Sve's house, a few birds nests and a clan of squirrels, so far was their residence from civilization).

"I didn't!" Ladonia insisted.

Denmark snickered. "Ha, really? Right on, kiddo!" He flashed Ladonia a thumbs up—yes, right in front of me, this is the kind of family I have. The three children (yes, Den is a child) chuckled together in immature camaraderie at my expense for a minute longer until Denmark suddenly became deadly serious, adding, "But don't tell Sve I said that."

They stared in silence, faces oscillating between confusion and terror, before Den's face broke out into a smile and everyone was laughing again. Except for me who was pissed and Wy who looked bored. Sve was definitely going to hear about this, even if I had to be the one to tell him. And God help Den when Berwald found out the kinds of habits the other nation was instilling in his impressionable children. I could taste the revenge already.

Wy trudged over to the porch, wearing a bushy-browed frown as she rubbed her arms with her gloved hands. "Man, it's really cold. Can we go in now?"

"I second that motion," I said, with a modestly raised hand. I wasn't all that cold but I was quite wet and looking forward to five minutes without Den pretending he wasn't shamelessly teasing the shit out of me.

"Oh right, Wy is used to it being summer right now," Sealand remembered, following her. "That's so weird."

Ladonia rolled his eyes. "Psh, it's not cold, but whatever. What were you saying when you first came out, Uncle Den?"

Denmark blinked. "Oh, I was saying it's time for lunch." He looked over at me, still standing directly in front of him, wearing my blankest, mostly coldly distant expression. The one I inherited from Norway and that, while affective against most other nations, unfortunately didn't affect Den in the least. "Are these all of your bags, Ice?" Denmark asked after a quick inspection. I was loaded up with two large suitcases, one digging into either of my shoulders.

I sighed and shook my head before indicating back towards the driveway. "The presents are in the rental car still." I was regretting it too, extra cargo was expensive. I should have just mailed them.

"Ooh! Presents!"

Ladonia and Sealand practically teleported to the car. One second they were standing next to the frost-covered hedges on either side of the porch, the next they were trying to pick the lock of my rental Prius with sticks. (I'd have preferred something that was better at driving on snowy, backwoods roads, since the family house was in the middle of nowhere, but when you don't reserve a car during the busiest vacation season, this is what happens).

Ladonia banged on the trunk impatiently. "Hurry up and open it, Uncle Ice!"

"Hey, Denmark, Iceland, if we bring them in for you guys then do we get to open one early?" Sealand asked with a hopeful twinkle in his eyes.

I flashed the brats a displeased expression and unlocked the car with the key ring remote as Denmark answered, "Uh, sorry, that's not my call, kids."

Undeterred, Sealand changed targets and I found him practically hanging off me as he pleaded "Can we, Uncle Iceland? Please ~ ?" with the biggest pair of puppy-dog eyes I'd ever seen.

It was more unnerving than it was convincing and I leaned away, trying to reclaim my personal space. Iceland is an isolated nation, okay? I need something between me and everyone else, and since I didn't have a body of water, air would have to do.

I looked away from my nephew uncomfortably. "Don't you guys want to save them for Christmas Eve?" I asked reasonably.

"But that's in like four whole days! It's forever from now!"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh my God, four whole days, such torture," I deadpanned.

"I know, right?" Sealand responded with complete seriousness. This kid didn't really get sarcasm.

Coming to my rescue (for once), Denmark interrupted. "We're just the uncles. You'll have to ask your Papa Sweden, guys."

Sealand wilted. "Aw,but he'll say 'no'..."

"You just have to suck it up then," I said with no sympathy whatsoever

"Arg, damn it! I want to open them now!" Ladonia cursed. He'd been in the midst of holding a wrapped present from the trunk to his ear and rattling it in an attempt to discern it's contents. At this rate I would definitely get to see him stuffed in a box and shaken, not stirred. I was kind of looking forward to it.

Light footsteps clopped behind Den and my brother Noway popped up at his side from within the house. "Hey, guys, Fin says lunch has been ready for like ten minutes," he informed us in his usual monotone. There was barely even a twinge of recognition as he noticed I was on the porch. "Oh, hey, you're finally here, dear little brother. What are you just standing on the doorstep for? And why do you look like you were punched by a snowman?"

"It's Ladonia's fault," Sealand was quick to explain with a finger pointed at the culprit.

"It wasn't!"

"Heh, he got snow-bombed!" Den grinned and poked me in the cheek, as if everyone might need a visual aid or something.

Norway bobbed his head, amused. "Heh. Nice."

I felt a migraine coming on. This cluster-fuck was pretty much exactly what I had to look forward to this Christmas: my older brother barely acknowledging I'm around except to demand I use cutesy nicknames for him and ask stupid questions I didn't feel like answering; Denmark teasing me every chance he got and encouraging the children to do the same; Ladonia and Sealand shouting at each other half the time, and double-teaming me the other half, trying to get me in trouble with their parents.

At least Sweden and Finland tended to be relatively sane—the key word being relatively.

"Hey, can you guys stop blocking the door already? I'm freezing out here!" Wy complained, jumping up and down, trying to warm herself up. I could have hugged her.

Denmark finally got a clue. "Oh, right, sorry. Come on in, guys!"

We all managed to get inside the house despite Den being as obliviously obstructive as possible, but Sve made everyone go back and help me with my luggage before eating. Fin then made everyone go back to kick off their boots and hang their coats in the slush room, as well as wipe up the trail of mud and ice they'd thoughtlessly made when coming into the house (which the family had probably slaved over cleaning the day before).

While the kids were stampeding back to the kitchen for lunch (and again I definitely include Denmark under the umbrella of 'kids'), I headed straight for the room I always occupied whenever I stayed over at Sweden and Finland's, intending to change shirts since mine was soaked.

As soon as the door closed behind me, I released the tension that had been building up in my shoulders since I spotted Sweden's house driving up the road in the rental Prius.

Peace, blessed peace. This was my room, to be alone in for the next week. My haven from screaming children and adults who acted like children. Or it was supposed to be, the door didn't have a lock so anyone could just waltz right in, though luckily the bed was high enough off the floor that I could hide under it if it came to that, (yes, I had done it before). It wasn't my home, but it was as close as I was going to get to it until Christmas was over. I didn't even have to share with Mr. Puffin—he'd decided he was in love with Monaco and was vacationing there. I was supposed to expect a postcard.

Taking my time, I moved my bags to the bed and started putting everything into the empty dresser. I hadn't packed all that much, but winter clothing was thick and took up a lot of room in a suitcase. When everything was moved—clothing in the dresser, toiletries in the bathroom, books and other entertainment in the side table drawer, my extra boots thrown in the closet and extra jacket hung up—I picked out something to replace my wet shirt and sweater-vest, put it on and hung up the old clothes to dry as well as they could before I washed them again anyway. That finished, I took advantage of the quiet time to collapse backwards onto my bed and rest for a minute. I'd been sitting in a plane or a car, or standing on a porch all day, and laying down felt heavenly.

As I was just lying there on the bed in the blessed peace, vaguely considering just going to sleep, something in my pocket vibrated and I realized it was probably my cell phone and not one of my brother's invisible gnome creatures.

Retrieving my phone and unlocking the touchscreen, I found I had a text message from Turkey. Hey, kid, what's up? :), it read. Wow, he must have been really bored. It had an emoticon and everything.

I rotated my phone horizontally, activating the touchscreen's dialing pad to convert into a full keyboard, then typed out: You really have nothing better to do than text me? Herakles and Kiku must be in Japan.

He was probably hovering over his phone, because it was only a few seconds later that I received the message, Ugh, don't even mention that brat! He and Japan are going on some kind of week-long date in Nagano, and they didn't even invite me! How fucked up is that?

I sighed at my phone screen. I'd meant that as a joke, but I guess Greece and Japan being away was the only thing that could make Sadiq so bored he was texting me with a smiley face, expecting to be entertained. (I'm really not that entertaining of a guy unless snowballs are involved, apparently). Spying on the couple as they went about being dull and having weird conversations about how cute cats were, and possibly while wearing animatronic cat-ear headbands made in Tokyo, took up most of Turkey's time normally. While he sometimes texted me his opinions and observations, he rarely asked me what was going on when he had the two target nations' relationship to distract him.

I was honestly sort of surprised that Turkey seemed to like talking or being around me at all, even if it was just to vent about how much he hated Greece. I wasn't exactly known for my wit and charm, you know, and it made me kind of happy that I was the first one he always talked to about these things, though it was also rather frustrating. I actually didn't like to listen to him talk about Japan and Greece at all. I wanted him to move on and be happy, and stop wasting time agonizing over someone who didn't appreciate or deserve him. I wanted him to find someone new to obsess over. Someone like...well, not me, but somebody, okay?

Well, they ARE dating, Pops, I typed in response. What did you expect? There. It wasn't exactly supportive, but it wasn't outright confrontational about the subject either.

After a minute the return message appeared: For them to date somewhere closer so I could stalk them and make sure that damn Greece doesn't take the purity of my sweet, defenseless little angel, Japan!

I snorted at this message. I was pretty sure Japan's so-called 'purity' had been taken quite some time ago, but Sadiq was really emotional when it came to Greece and Japan. If I brought it up, he'd probably just hate me for staining his perfect little picture of Kiku Honda, and I didn't want that.

That's probably why they left the continent, I reasoned.

Stop being logical, you're supposed to be outraged on my behalf! was the immediate response.

I rolled my eyes. Arg. Outrage. I typed back.

Better, Sadiq responded, and I couldn't help but smile at my phone. Turkey could be kind of immature. A lot like my brothers, actually. Weird that when it was Turkey I found it sort of funny, but when it was Denmark or Norway I found it annoying. Just one of those paradoxes of life, I guess.

So how's it going with the fam'? Turkey messaged me. You're at Finland and Sweden's house now, right?

Oh good, a subject change. This was a topic I could deal with.

Just got here, I replied. Already wish I was home sick with mono instead. I was only half joking.

Exaggerator. I bet it's not that bad, he messaged back.

It is absolutely that bad, I insisted. I got hit in the head with a snowball before I stepped through the door.

Not a second later I was met with the singular response of: LMFAO! It was written in all caps. I don't really know why it needed an exclamation point, either. I guess he found the image of me getting clocked in the face with snow to be as amusing as my family did.

Thanks for the support, Pops. Go ahead and laugh in my face, I don't mind, was my sarcastic reply. I wasn't really that annoyed about it, though. If my humiliation was able to make him laugh when he was depressed over Greece and Japan's date, then that was at least one good thing that came of it.

I've got tears in my eyes! Oh man, I wish I'd been there, I bet it was fucking hilarious! he messaged back.

I wish you were here, too, I texted.

"Oh, shit," I cursed in realization at how that message must look. "I wish you were here, too,"? I sounded like a teenage girl pining for her crush. Damn it, Turkey must have been reading this and thinking I was getting the wrong idea...

I had to fix this.

You know, to keep me company, I hastily typed in an attempt at damage control. After a second to look it over (just to be certain I wasn't making things worse for myself), I did a few backspaces and changed it to, You know, to keep me sane, before sending it. Hopefully that would mitigate any misunderstanding caused by my slip up. I didn't want Turkey to stop talking to me, and if he thought I liked him it would probably make him uncomfortable. It's impossible to be friends with someone who has feelings for you which can't be returned. That's what everybody always said, anyway.

After three minutes of waiting with baited breath, hands clenched around my phone, there was still no response. Either I'd freaked him out and he was avoiding me, or something had just come up and he couldn't answer right away. It was probably just the latter, right? Right?

I rubbed my eyes, frustrated with myself. I hoped I hadn't messed things up with something so small and stupid. I hoped this was was just overactive nerves and I was worrying for nothing. It was probably for nothing, but...

Stashing my phone back in my pocket, I rolled over onto my back with a tired groan. Well, nothing I could do now, I supposed, I just had to wait for a response. Having friends could be so complicated...

My door suddenly opened without so much as a knock and I lolled my head backwards off the edge of the bed to see an upside-down Norway peaking into my room.

"Hey. Little brother," he said. "I thought you were just changing your shirt. Hurry up, there's hardly any lunch left. Aksel and the kids ate it all."

"Eh," I mumbled, making a wry face at the ceiling as I ran my thumb over the buttons on my phone anxiously. I wasn't really enthused about eating. Somehow I'd lost my appetite.

My older brother eyed me with suspicion. Or it could have been irritation, I don't know. He always looked like everything he was doing was a tedious favor he'd had no choice but to accept.

"Hey, Emil," he said. "Are you still put-out that everyone thinks it's hilarious you were hit by a snowball?"

I rolled my eyes. "No." Well I was, but that had nothing to do with this. Besides I wasn't that self-centered as to get visibly upset over something like that, especially in this family where silently putting up with mockery was a way of life. If I threw a fit over every little thing they've pulled on me, I'd have died from an aneurism sometime in the Dark Ages.

Norway leaned against the door frame, his posture unconvinced. "You sure? You seem kind of down."

"It's just jet-lag," I lied.

"Well, cheer your ass up. It's Christmas," my brother commanded. "And come down for what's left of lunch. Berwald's all sad that you haven't said 'hi' to him yet."

I sighed. Oh, Berwald was all sad? We couldn't have that.

"Fine," I said, and rolled off the bed to follow my brother downstairs.

Downstairs, I found the kids were laying on the floor in the living room, arguing at each other as they tried to play their hand-held video games while Hana Tamago went to each of them in turn, licking at their faces. In the same room Denmark was crashed out on the sofa in a food-coma, half paying attention to something on the television. Typical.

I walked into the dining room, where Sweden and Finland were sitting next to each other at the table, Fin with half a sandwich left and Sve drinking something dark and hot from a mug.

"Hey, Iceland, there you are!" Finland said with a cheerful smile. "We thought you were hiding," he added as I took a seat across from him at the table.

"He was just pouting in his room," Norway said and sat down next to me. There wasn't a plate so I guess he'd already finished eating and was just planning to make annoying comments where they weren't wanted.

"I wasn't pouting," I denied. Mostly because I wasn't.

Grabbing some bread and what was left of the sandwich fixings laid out on the table, I started scrounging together some lunch. My brother hadn't been kidding, Denmark or somebody had plowed throw everything and there was hardly a slice of ham or Swiss cheese left in sight.

"Hey, Icel'nd," Sweden greeted me, and pushed a hot mug he must have been saving for me over to my side of the table. I sniffed it: it was hot chocolate. The spicy kind with chili in it. Nice.

"Hi Sweden, hi Finland. Thanks for the hot coco," I said sincerely and took a sip from the mug that warmed my throat. I was starting to remember why I put up with any of these people on the holidays.

"So how was your flight?" Fin asked me. "Are you too tired to help us make Christmas cookies later? Sve's been looking forward to doing it with all the kids."

Berwald nodded. "'S gunna be fun," he said, and looked as excited as he ever did, so he must have honestly believed that, the poor fool. In my experience, anything involving children was sticky at best, and a disaster at worst.

"The flight wasn't so bad, I'm not too tired," I said, downing half the hot coco in my mug before I took a large bite from my sandwich. "But do you really need my help with cookies when you have so much free child labor around this year?"

From the chair next to me, my brother draped himself across my shoulders, his arms wrapped around my neck lazily so that I was practically holding up his entire weight. "But you used to love helping to make cookies with us, little brother," Norway chimed in right next to my ear.

"No, you used to love making me make the cookies by myself," I corrected him. I was trying to push his face away from mine, but it was mostly just choking me. I assumed this was what a tree felt like when a sloth decided to hang from it. Ugh, I hated when my brother got in an 'affectionate' mood...

"What? I helped you..." he pouted.

The sofa in the living room creaked with the sound of someone getting up and Denmark entered the kitchen, stretching languidly before plopping into the chair between my brother and Sweden. "Helped Ice, what?" he asked, drowsily.

"Make cookies. Which he never did," I explained.

"I did too..."

Den smirked. "Heh, 'eating' isn't 'helping', Norge."

Norway shot Denmark a frosty glare and squeezed me hard enough around the neck I thought I was going to suffocate. "Shut up, Den. Nobody asked you," he growled.

"Can you get off me now?" I complained and finally managed to wrestle Norway's dead weight from me. He feigned a hollow stare at the side of my head, like he'd just been abandoned or something, but I didn't freaking care, he was just being annoying and he damn well knew it, too. I couldn't tolerate his brotherly skinship-cuddling or whatever the heck it was, which was probably why he found doing it so appealing.

Ignoring Norway and Denmark arguing and me trying to get my brother to leave me the hell alone, (both very common occurrences at family gatherings) Finland smiled at me. "Well, you don't have to help if you don't want to, Emil," he said easily.

I sighed. I knew Finland meant it, but still, I'd have felt guilty anyway, from backing out of the family activity. And this wasn't even counting whatever Denmark and Norway would tease me with to make me feel guiltier.

"It's fine, I'll help," I said, dooming myself to a few hours of cookie making, probably alone because the kids would no doubt lose interest after fifteen minutes. I was so stealing cookie dough later when no one was looking...

"Hmm, g'd. We'll need th' help," Sweden said with a grateful nod. "We hafta make 'nough to feed all the bott'mless pits 'round here."

"Aksel's stomach has a bottom, it's just always empty," my brother noted, innocently adding, "Probably because he throws it all up before it can settle."

"Hey, that is not true," Denmark complained. "And I'm such an experienced drinker, that I don't even get hangovers from alcohol anymore!"

Norway rolled his eyes. "That's not something to be proud of, moron."

Den crossed his arms defensively. "Well, tell it to Tino," he said, nodding towards Fin, sitting across from me. Yeah, he wasn't deflecting negative attention away from himself at all... "He drinks almost as much as I do."

Fin frowned. "Yeah, but I don't run around outside the house naked when I drink."

I would have grimaced if my face was capable of contorting that much. I definitely remembered that incident (unfortunately). It took us almost an hour to get Aksel to come in, and by then his toes were almost frost bitten, and there were four or five failed attempts at making snow angels with penises scattered around the yard.

Denmark didn't even have the grace to look embarrassed. Instead he countered by saying, "No, you just randomly start hopping on people's backs and yelling, 'On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen ~ !' doncha Fin?"

"Or 'mush'," Sweden added unhelpfully.

Finland scowled. "What? I don't do that..." he said, but his face was turning red, so if nothing else he had more shame than Denmark, even if he lacked honestly. That was something, I guess.

Den smirked and leaned across the dining table, practically laying on it like a beached seal and nearly knocking over Sweden's mug. All this just so he could reach over and poke Finland repeatedly in the cheek to annoy him. Poke, poke, poke...

"Oh yes you do, you Christmas-fiend you ~ ! Santa-complex much?" he said in a teasing, sing-song voice. Fin looked like he would have been alright with suddenly dropping dead in order to escape the situation. I felt a bit bad for Tino, but mostly I was just happy it was him everyone was tormenting and not me. Welcome to my world, Fin. It's not fun, is it?

"I don't know what you're talking about," Fin lied, and then bent over to scoop up his dog. Sitting the fluffy white pooch up in his lap like a child in a highchair, he played with it's paws. "Right Hana Tamago ~ ? ," he cooed, making kissy-faces at the bewildered animal. "Den is just making up stories, isn't he my puppy ~ ? "

"No, you totally do that, Papa Fin!" Sealand yelled from the living room to confirm, followed by Ladonia with, "Yeah, you do!"

Fin grumbled something that no one payed attention to because they were too busy snickering, and snuggled his dog for comfort. Sweden patted him on the shoulder consolingly like a good partner and then got up to pour Fin some more hot chocolate, nearly knocking Denmark off the table and onto the floor where he probably belonged anyway for being in the way all the time.

"That's like England," we heard Wy say in the living room, talking to the boys. "He always does stupid stuff when he's drunk and then tries to deny it later, as if it wasn't all over YouTube already...or like my brother Australia, but he admits to everything. He's too much of an idiot to realize he ought to be embarrassed that when he's drunk he climbs trees and claims he's a drop bear." She made an angry snort. "He thinks it's funny, but it's just stupid..."

Den choked back a guffaw and whipped around, shouting, "Holy crap, Jack does what?"

"What the hell is a 'drop bear'?" Norway demanded to know of no one in particular.

"Stop eavesdropping!" Wy yelled back to the nosy adults. Sealand added a heartfelt, "Yeah!" that was pretty hypocritical considering he'd just been eavesdropping not two seconds earlier, and Ladonia made a vague sound of indignation because he was expected to. Probably he was too busy playing pokemon on his Nintendo DS to come up with anything comprehensible.

"Anyway," Fin said, accepting that coco from Sweden. "You done eating, Iceland?"

"Yeah," I answered. I was, too, but even if I hadn't been finished with my food, I was so finished with this messed up conversation, so I'd have taken the exit anyway.

"Okay, we're going to clean up the kitchen here and we'll get started on the cookies in a few minutes."

"Okay. You want help cleaning?" I offered, mostly because I like to be polite with people who actually deserve it (unlike my brother and Den).

Finland smiled and waved me off, grabbing my plate from me before I could start helping. "Naw, you just got here and there's not much to do, since it was just sandwiches. Me and Sve can take care of it."

I let out a tired sigh. "Okay, I'll just be in the living room until you need me then," I told him and fled the table before Norway and Den could decide that following me might be entertaining.

Escaping to the living room (not much of a hiding place, but at least it had satellite television), I took up residence on the couch Den had been occupying. Wy, Sealand and Ladonia where still there, lying on the plush carpet surrounded on two sides by the large sectional. It was an area that was usually occupied by a coffee table, but it had been shoved against a wall to make room for them. The three micronations were locked in there own little worlds, concentrating too intensely on their hand-held game systems to even notice me—which was exactly how I liked it.

Sve's furniture was pretty comfortable, so I stretched out and commandeered the remote, scanning the channels for news on the weather. It was pretty nice out right now, (for December in Sweden, anyway): sunny, but still cold enough to keep the snow on the ground. However, you never knew when a blizzard was going to roll in out of nowhere and ruin all your holiday plans. I hoped to God a freak storm didn't shut down airports and get me snowed in and stuck here for two weeks...one week of torture with my family was enough, thank you.

Sealand glanced up from his video game, noticed me and I suddenly found myself his target. "Hey, hey, Uncle Iceland!" he said, crawling over to the sofa. He shoved his face so close to mine it took up my entire field of vision and I leaned away instinctively, shoving myself against the back of the sofa to get some breathing room. Did no one understand the concept of personal space anymore? Christ...

"Hm?" I asked cautiously. These kids were always up to something.

"So," he said with cheeky nonchalance, "what's in the presents you got us? We won't tell Papa Sve you told us."

Oh, that's what this is about. I should have guessed.

"I'm not talking," I informed him, and went back to messing with the remote.

Sealand sat back down and pouted. "What? Come on! Not even a hint?"

"Here's a hint—it's a surprise."

Sealand frowned and sighed dramatically. "Lame ~ !" he declared and started rolling around on the carpet in frustration. I was just glad he was out of my face. Do you know how many germs children carry? They're vectors for disease, I tell you.

Wy rolled her eyes, not even taking them off the screen of her light blue DS. "You guys are so impatient," she said, sounding disgusted. "You don't even have to wait as long to open your presents as I do. You get to open them on Christmas Eve and I have to wait until Christmas Day!"

Sealand sat up off the floor and cracked a smug grin."Hee hee ~ ! I get to open presents on both days! On Christmas Eve here with Papa Sweden and Fin and on Christmas Day with England, Scotland, North Ireland and Wales!"

"That's so not fair..." Wy complained, jabbing the buttons on her game system harder than necessary.

"I know, right?" Ladonia added.

"Well, maybe you just need to sell yourself on eBay, like me!" Sealand suggested with a smirk. "Then you'll have two families, too!"

Wy made a face. "Sell yourself? That sounds kind of wrong."

Ladonia snorted and loftily said, "Whatever, I don't need to do something like that. I'm the guy who defeated Sweden, after all."

"Are you still going around claiming you defeated Sweden?" Wy said, one brow raised quizzically.

"Well, I did..."

"Beating him at Mario Kart doesn't count, you know," the female micronation deadpanned.

Ladonia stuck up his nose indignantly. "Shut up, that's not what happened! I did it fair and square. He even said, 'I'm dead!' and everything."

Wy just shook her head. "Sure, Ladonia, you just keep thinking that."

"It's true!"

While the kids were arguing amongst themselves, I finally hit on the full-time weather scan channel and was informed there would be a few inches of light snow tonight, but the weekly outlook was pretty clear. It was going to be extremely cold tomorrow evening, but apparently there wouldn't be enough precipitation in the air at the time for it to snow or sleet much. There was only a twenty percent chance Sve's house would get any of the fluffy white stuff tomorrow, so if the Doppler radar wasn't lying, then tonight looked like it, as far as new snow, until Christmas day. But then again I never trusted the weather-people to accurately predict the weather for the next five minutes, much less a whole week into the future.

I sighed and reached into my pocket for my cell phone. I wanted to tell Sadiq we were getting snow tonight. You had to go pretty far out of your way in Turkey to find anything cold that wasn't made that way artificially, so he found snow to be a pretty cool phenomenon, unlike my jaded self.

Unlocking the screen, I checked my messages. My phone was set on vibrate, so I ought to have felt it if he'd sent a reply, but there was always a chance I could have missed noticing it while eating and getting talked at. Not much of a chance, but some chance.

But of course I hadn't missed anything, there were no replies. So disappointing.

Out of my nagging worry at his silence, I read over our conversation again, looking for where it all went wrong, (assuming that it had gone wrong at some point, and I was directly responsible for Turkey not responding).

Had I freaked him out that much that he didn't want to talk to me? Had I made him angry somehow? I felt like I knew Sadiq pretty well these days. He'd been known to take things the wrong way when it served his interests, (like when doing so gave him an excuse to pick on Greece), but I'd thought we were friends. That if there was an issue, we could just, I don't know, talk about it, or something. There was always that one thing I absolutely couldn't say to him, but everything else was fair game. I'd thought we were at least that close, but...

Hmm...maybe he just didn't have anything to say? Maybe he was waiting for me to bring up another topic? Maybe I needed to stop agonizing over this before my head imploded.

I sighed. This wasn't getting me anywhere. After a few moments of consideration, I decided to pretend nothing was wrong and compose another message.

According to the weather scan channel, there will be some snow tonight. We'll see how that turns out, I typed.

Being cautious, I examined the message critically. It looked pretty innocuous, pretty normal. Nothing in the message to cause alarm. I decided it was acceptable and chose to send it.

Immediately after pressing 'Send', a box with a big exclamation mark symbol popped up and yelled at me. It read: Message not sent. CMS ERROR 47.

What the...? A freaking Error Message? Are you kidding me? I didn't even know you could get an error message from a phone! Apparently mobile phone technology was so sophisticated now that it could reject you with jargon-filled excuses that explained nothing, just like a tech-service hotline operator.

Though I tried sending the message two more times, I just got the same response. There was an option to read the details of the error, but it just supplied me with a window that said, Resources unavailable, unspecified. The hell did that even mean? To find out, I was directed to consult the manual for my remote carrier, but I didn't have one with me, because who carries around the manual for their phone everywhere? Nobody. I didn't even think I'd kept it. I think I'd recycled the thing without even reading it because I objected to all that nonrenewable paper being used to compile a manual I was never going to need (except now apparently).

"Damn it..."

"What's wrong, my adorably grumpy little brother ~ ?" I heard.

I looked up and found that Norway was hanging across the back of the couch, looking over my shoulder at my phone as I tried to make it do something constructive. Normally it would annoy me to find someone, especially my brother, was trying to read my private conversations without permission, but my last few messages received were all automatic technical bullshit from the phone company's system telling me stuff wasn't working and not much else, so the joke was on him this time. If Linus was expecting something juicy then he was out of luck, not that my life often produced the kind of melodrama he enjoyed to gossip about anyway.

"My phone refuses to send my text," I answered, choosing to ignore being called 'adorably grumpy little brother' by Norway. Acknowledging it would have just made me more angry than I already was from my stupid phone malfunctioning.

"What a bitch," Norway declared. Yes, he just called my phone a bitch. Surprisingly it did make me feel a little better. I almost cracked a smile involuntarily. "Who were you texting?" he asked me.

"Turkey," I answered. "We were messaging earlier."

My brother pinned me with a bored stare, resting his head on one hand as he looked down at me. "You guys text a lot, huh?"

I just shrugged. "I guess so," I answered, confused. Where had that question come from?

"Hey, you're talking to Turkey?" Den asked as he sauntered over from the dining room and plopped down on the vacant two-seater end of the sectional. "Are you going to invite him over for Christmas again? That was pretty fun that one time when he came over."

Norway rolled his eyes, did a somersault over the back of the couch and landed right on top of me, nearly knocking the wind out of my lungs. If Sve had seen him do that, my brother would have been banished from the house for the foreseeable future.

"And you would definitely know that because you were here the whole time," Norway said to Denmark as he stretched out, taking up most of my part of the couch, using me as some kind of cushion. I tried to push him off but he made himself limp and unwieldy so I had to give up. If I was the violent type I would have smacked him in the face with the television remote control, but I'm not, so I just imagined what his expression would have looked like if I had done so.

"Oh, wait," Den said, "Actually, now that you say that, I don't think I was here that year, was I?" He frowned in thought and scratched his head. "Man, what was I doing instead? I don't even remember."

"That's probably because you were drunk," Norway suggested.

I decided to just ignore those last few comments. "I didn't invite him," I said, answering the original question. Why would I? It was really boring here, and the only person at the house Sadiq really knew well was me. We talked all the time, I wasn't that interesting, and I was even less so in person as I was over the phone. Even if he wasn't busy with something already, I doubted he'd want to hang around my annoying family, doing activities related to a holiday his religion didn't even celebrate, and put up with bratty kids around on top of that. No, I wouldn't put him in the position where he had to feel like he had to come around to be polite. It would be selfish on my part to subject him to something like that just because I wanted him there.

Denmark was disappointed. "What? You should invite him, Ice." He flashed me a smile and a thumbs up. "That old guy is a good drinking buddy."

"If you really want me to, I'll have to wait until my phone starts cooperating again." Which could be never, because I was seriously considering crushing it under my foot out of frustration. Stupid technology. It never worked when you actually needed it to. It's reliability seemed constricted to redirecting you to Rick-rolls, and facilitating the obligatory robot apocalypse in every other American movie.

My brother propped his chin on my shoulder and looked at me suspiciously. "Texting...hanging out...you've sure been spending a lot of time with Turkey, Emil. Is there something you want to tell your elder brother about that? Because you can tell me anything. Just say, 'Bwig bwudder, I've got something to tell you,' and make your confession."

I shot him my most annoyed look. "Firstly, I don't know what you're talking about, and secondly I'm not calling you 'bwig bwudder'."

Norway smirked and rolled onto his back, using me like a lap pillow. "Oh, I think you know what I'm talking about. Really, I think we all know ~ ," he said.

"Well, you can enlighten me, because I have no idea," Denmark said.

Norge flashed him a superior look and snuffed in irritation."Psh, if you don't know, then I'm not going to tell you." My brother's mouth stretching into a small smile that was positively wicked. "But I'll give you a hint. It starts with Iceland going to sleep one night and ends with him having a dream about Turkey as a half-naked Santa bringing him 'presen—mmfhm!"

I'd slapped my hand over his lips to stop him from talking. Norway's hands came up to try to pry mine off his mouth but I was in the superior position for once and he had to resort to licking my palm—it still didn't work.

"You see, this is why I don't tell you anything," I complained as I suffered through getting my hand slobbered on. Stupid brothers telling the whole freaking world your secrets...that was told in confidence, damn it! See if I said anything personal to him ever again.

"Woah, woah, woah, hold up!" Denmark said, practically jumping over to our end of the sectional. "You like that old guy Turkey?" he demanded in a loud whisper, a hand held up to hide his lip movements from the kids. "For real?"

I don't know why he bothered, the kids had long since clued in to the fact that something even more shady than usual was going on, and they were staring directly at us.

I narrowed my eyes at the three micronations. "Don't you guys have something to do?"

"Nope," Ladonia said, just as Sealand answered, "Not really."

"Hey, why don't you boys and Wy go help out your Papa Sweden and Fin with rolling out the cookies, huh?" Den suggested with a huge plastered-on smile that wasn't convincingly sincere in the least. "Sound good to you kids?"

"No way!" Sealand said with a frown. "I get a real mature-vibe in here. I feel like stuffs going on that I ought to be a part of!"

Norway, having pushed my hand out of the way while I was distracted, narrowed his eyes and gave the children his freakiest, soulless blank stare and commanded: "Out. Now."

The three kids looked at each other and released a unified sigh of irritation before reluctantly getting up from the carpet, grumbling as they trudged along, dragging their feet.

"You're uncles are weird," Wy informed her two friends as they headed towards the kitchen.

"Tell me about it...," Ladonia said, following after her with Sealand.

As soon as the kids were out of the room, I turned to Norway and Denmark, shooting them my harshest glower. "It was just a bizarre dream. It doesn't mean anything. So you can just stop trying to make something out of it, you pervs."

"Yes, we are the pervy ones," Norway deadpanned, rolling back onto his stomach so he could more easily stare me into submission. "As opposed to you, who had a borderline-kink dream about Turkey as a sexy-Santa."

Well, he had a point there. "I'm telling you, it doesn't mean anything," I repeated, not even believing I was having this conversation. "We're friends."

Den hopped up from the floor in front of me and unceremoniously sat his ass down on top of my brother's back, making Norway cough from the sudden weight on his lungs. These people were way too touchy-feely...

"By 'friend' do you mean someone you would totally screw if he showed up half naked on your doorstep?" Denmark asked. "Because I don't think that's what that word means."

I narrowed my eyes. "No, just a normal friend," I insisted. "Not that either of you would know anything about 'normal'..."

"Touché," Norway quipped, wiggling beneath Denmark, trying to get the bigger nation off of him. Yeah, it wasn't fun, was it Brother?

"Really though," Denmark said, completely ignoring Norway's attempts to shove the bigger man off of him. "Turkey? Turkey? I knew you had a thing for beefy guys, but..."

What! How did he even know that? A muscle under my eye spasmed. I'm pretty sure my face was turning crimson, so I tried to hide it by turning away and giving my two relatives the cold shoulder, but in all truthfulness I doubt it helped at all.

"No!" I objected, "Den, I already said it's not true." Sighing I added, "I mean, besides, he already likes Japan. A lot."

Yeah, Sadiq liked Japan enough to keep going after the guy even though he was taken...for anyone other than Kiku, liking Turkey was probably a lost cause, their feelings doomed to be unrequited. That was something I'd already resigned myself to.

"Aw, poor little brother ~ ," Norway said, reaching up to pat me on the head in a demeaning manner. I batted his hand out of the way. It wasn't like I was freaking Hana Tamago, I didn't enjoy being petted. "You were just too slow," my brother continued. I think he was trying to sound consolatory, but mostly he was just annoying. "Don't worry though, your loving older brother Norway will summon a troll to eat your competition. It's my filial duty."

"I'll help too, even though I think he's a little old for you." Denmark smirked. "But hey, who am I to stand in the way of young love?"

I sighed, standing up from the couch and dropping the remote in my seat. I was done with letting these two harass me. They'd had their fun and now I was done.

"You know, sometimes I hate you guys," I told them before walking out of the room and leaving Den and Norway to wrestle on the couch over the remote.

In the kitchen, things were pretty lively. The first batch of cookies were on cooling racks and Sweden was rolling out wax paper over the counter top where the kids were all set up to decorate. Fin was putting food coloring into different containers of vanilla frosting, and for the moment a huge bowl of sugar cookie dough was sitting unattended next to a flowered cutting board covered in more wax paper with a collection of cookie cutters and a rolling pin.

Finland smiled when he saw me walk into the kitchen. I blinked because he was wearing a bright red apron that matched his Santa hat. No, I don't know why he was wearing headgear while cooking. "Oh, hey, there you are, Emil! Do you want baking duty or decorating duty?" Fin asked me.

"Baking," I answered. Decorating was fun for the first five minutes and then it just became annoying trying to figure out something different to do with the same shapes and colors.

Fin handed me a plain, dark blue apron to put on, (in case I was attacked by a flour monster or something, I presume,) then I took my place over at the cookie dough station. Tearing off a lump of sugar cookie from the big ball of it in the bowl, I patted it down, covering both it and the rolling pin with flour, and rolled out the dough to the perfect width. (You could tell I'd done this a lot). I'd like to say the work was soothing, but it wasn't really. The best that could be said about it was that it had its own set of distracting irritations. Mostly from the children arguing, and the stupid angel-shaped cookie cutter that had some exceptionally thin bits, such as the neck, and the heads kept tearing off when I tried to move the limp dough. It felt vaguely sacrilegious.

"Man, I wish I had a boat-shaped cookie to decorate," Sealand complained as he absentmindedly spread yellow frosting on a star cookie. He already had green frosting on his nose and crumbs around his mouth and I think they'd been decorating for less than five minutes.

Wy looked up from sprinkling yellow sugar sprinkles on a white angel to make an indignant face at Sealand. "Why a boat? These are for Christmas." Glancing over at Ladonia's work next to her, she scowled. "And Ladonia, why the hell are you frosting that Christmas Tree blue instead of green?"

Ladonia paused in his decorating to snuff huffily. "Haven't you ever heard of a 'blue Christmas'? It's a freaking metaphor," he said unrepentantly.

"Think ya meant 'symb'lism'," Sweden corrected.

Ladonia rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said, and proceeded to pick up another Christmas tree cookie and frost it white.

"What the heck...you're doing that on purpose," Wy accused him, stabbing a finger in evidence at Ladonia's half-frosted Christmas tree that was an unnatural color for a pine. "Do it right, just make them green!" she demanded.

"This one is covered in snow," he defended himself and just kept frosting.

"Y' can make 'em however y' wan'," Sweden told the kids. This while making a beautiful lacy snowflake pattern in white icing, squeezed from a pouch with a decorating tip, on a blue-frosted star cookie. Sve was unexpectedly into this decorating stuff. He was also wearing a frilly white apron that I found remarkably appropriate.

Finished with the white Christmas Tree, Ladonia haphazardly spread random colored sprinkles on it and picked up another tree cookie. "This one is going to be red," he said with a smirk, "Because its covered in blood."

Finland, who was levering more freshly baked cookies from the oven onto the cooling rack with a spatula, raised an alarmed eyebrow. "Um, that's kind of morbid..."

Wy scowled. "Oh come on, don't make it red..." she whined, throwing up her hands in disgust.

"Too late," Ladonia said as he finished and scattered red and white sprinkles over it to complete his masterpiece. I agreed with Wy, he was just doing this to piss her off.

Sealand quirked his head and he took a bite out of the star cookie he'd just frosted, eying Ladonia's unusual interpretation of a Christmas tree with interest. "Who's blood is it Ladonia? Making the tree red, I mean," he asked.

Ladonia shrugged. "I don't know. Rudolph's?"

"N'ds garland," Sve decided after examining it as well. Carefully, he piped draping loops of white icing from his decorative frosting pouch onto the cookie as the kids watched. "There," Sweden said, satisfied.

Ladonia nodded in approval. "Looks good," he said.

I rolled my eyes. They were cookies. It didn't really matter what they looked like as long as they tasted good. Getting back to work, I positioned the cookie shapes on the rolled-out dough in the most efficient arrangement possible and pushed them down to make the cut. After peeled away the excess dough, I squished it into a ball to re-roll, and placed the dough shapes on a pan that Fin would whisk away to the oven once it was full.

"Hey, Iceland!" Wy suddenly called out to me, sounding irritated. "Don't make anymore Christmas trees! Ladonia just keeps doing them wrong," she commanded. I'd been just about to punch the Christmas Tree cutter down into the dough.

"Uh..." I hesitated, trying to decided if I should be listening to the directions of a child. I didn't think I had any particular obligation to do as she said, but all the same, I'm not the type to ignore instructions. It wasn't like I cared whether we had more tree cookies or not, I just didn't want to get yelled out for not doing things how everyone wanted them.

"No, those are my favorite! Do more, Uncle Ice!" Ladonia countered.

I looked down at the dough helplessly. "Um..." To cut or not to cut? That was the question...

"Guys, leave Iceland alone," Fin said, coming over to pat my shoulder with a sympathetic smile. "Just make whatever you want, Emil," he told me kindly. Great, now I felt like a child who'd had to be saved from the bullies. And I was supposed to be one of the adults here.

"I'm just making whatever fits on the dough," I informed everyone and punched the tree cutter unto the cookie dough decisively.

"Hey, those cookies done yet?" Norway asked, wandering into the kitchen with Denmark in tow.

"Some of 'em are," Sweden said. "But don't eat 'em all. We're goin' t' give some away."

Norge brushed Sweden off and ate Wy's white angel cookie, leaning against the counter to look over the proceedings with interest. I considered telling him the edge of that counter was covered in flour that was now all over the waist of his sweater, but I decided it would be more entertaining to let him figure it out on his own.

Suddenly someone clapped their hands on my shoulders loudly, startling me badly I jumped. I whipped around to find Den beaming at me. Of course. "Heh, did I scare you?" he snickered. "So whatcha doin' over here, Ice?"

"Stuff," I said, because just by looking it should have been abundantly clear exactly what I was doing. It wasn't as if this was alchemy or anything mystical and arcane like that. It was cookies. We did them every year.

Den ignored my crabbiness and just chuckled merrily. "Sure are!" he agreed. And then he didn't go away.

I stopped what I was doing and faced him. "Did you want something?" I asked. I could think of no other reason Denmark would be hanging around me when there were cookies he could be eating and my brother he could be bothering.

"Oh yeah, you left your phone over by the couch," he said, holding it out to me. I just stared at it because there was no way I was touching my mostly clean phone with my hands covered in flour and cookie dough, (and frosting, for some reason. Did those kids manage to flick frosting this far away? That was almost impressive.)

"Heh, Linus and I were trying to call Turkey on it, but for some reason we kept getting this annoying error message. Weird, right?" Den chuckled bashfully still offering me the phone, not realizing I had no intention of taking the mobile device from him.

I scowled. "Don't play with things that don't belong to you," I scolded him, "and stop bothering me about Turkey."

Den grinned, unrepentant. "Aw, we were just going to invite him over. It wasn't like you hadn't already agreed to ask him anyway."

Yeah, like I seriously believed that was all they intended to do.

I narrowed my eyes in irritation. "Will you stop holding out my phone like an idiot and put it in my pocket for me?"

"Oh, sure," Den agreed and slipped the phone into the front pocket of my jeans.

Fin came over to take the full pan of unbaked cookies next to me and put it in the oven. "What's this about Turkey?" he asked oh-so-innocently. Damn it.

"Nothing," I insisted, but of course I wouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

Den threw an arm around my shoulders and hugged me to him almost violently as he beamed at Tino. "Emil here has a cute little crush ~ ," he informed everyone.

Let me say that again: EVERYONE.

I kind of wanted to die. Or for Aksel to die. Either would have been good.

Fin's bright lavender eyes whipped to me, brimming over with excitement. "What? You do?" he demanded.

"I don't. Den and Norway are making things up to amuse themselves," I said, but Fin wasn't even listening. He and Sve were cloistered with Norway and Denmark only a foot or so away, telling bullshit stories to each other about how they just knew it, and how they thought it was just precious. What the hell were they even talking about? It wasn't precious. I was a grown adult, for Christ's sake.

Sadly, vomiting all over the counter-top was starting to sound like a good idea...

"They should defin'ly get t'gether," Sve was telling Fin, who laughed and nodded in agreement.

"I know, right?" Tino said. "Our baby brother is growing up. It's so nostalgic."

Berwald gave a hn and a solemn nod.

"It's really not," I said, but again I was completely ignored. It was like my brother and practically-brothers had transformed into clucking mother hens or something. I almost felt bad for Sealand and Ladonia. This was what they had to look forward to when they were adults—these same people doing the exact same thing to them. Those poor boys...

"Hey, what the heck is going on over there?" Ladonia demanded to know. All the kids looked pretty confused actually. It seemed they either didn't understand what Den had been on about earlier when he was talking about a crush, or they'd somehow missed it. Probably arguing over the proper color of icing for star cookies or something.

"Nothing. Go back to frosting," I said.

He groaned. "But I'm tired of this." You see? What did I tell you? Decorating got boring very quickly.

"Yeah, Papa Sve, stop chatting and come back to helping us!" Sealand said as he dragged a butter knife loaded with frosting across a Christmas ornament shaped cookie like it weighed ten pounds.

"Oh, s'rry," Sweden said and turned back to helping the kids with decorating the seemingly never-ending supply of cookies. Just then the smell of something burning reached everyone's noses and Fin shot out from the gossip circle to rescue the pan from the oven.

"So what the heck were you guys talking about?" Ladonia asked Sve.

"Yeah, you guys are acting all suspicious over there," Wy added.

My brother looked rather devious as he picked up an unfrosted cookie, spread icing on it in a half-assed stroke that missed most of it, and put it directly in his mouth, contributing nothing to the net number of finished cookies, as was typical of him. "Oh, you want to know, do you ~ ?" he teased in answer to Ladonia's question.

"Iceland's goin' to invite Turkey over fer Chris'mas," Sweden answered before Norway could get around to it. My brother shot him an annoyed stare.

I sighed in relief. Sweden had been a compassionate human being and didn't spill everything to the children, who would without a doubt have spread it everywhere if they'd found out about it, true or not. Now I remembered why Sweden is my favorite family member.

"That old guy?" Sealand shrugged, making a weird face as if he couldn't quite process the information. "Eh, he's was kind of cool, I guess. But he doesn't know anything about video games. I feel really embarrassed for him. Jeez, anybody who is anybody ought to know about video games, I mean come on."

I rolled my eyes. "The world doesn't revolve around video games, Sealand."

"Well it should," he insisted petulantly.

"Whatever. I don't care if he comes as long as he gets me a present," Ladonia said. He was playing around with his tree cookies, having completely abandoned the decorating activity. Ugh. Worse, Den had joined him and it looked like he was mounting an angel army to go against Ladonia's multicolored squad of trees.

"He's not getting either of you kids presents," I informed them both right then. If I invited Turkey—and right now the chances of that were zero because there was no way in hell I wanted him within a thousand kilometers of my romance-insane family members right now—then he would be a guest and under no obligation to do a damn thing for those brats. He wasn't even Christian, anyway. To him, Christmas was just an excuse to party. He didn't have to observe our traditions if he didn't want to.

Norway smirked. "Yeah, the only one getting a present from Turkey is going to be Iceland. And I'm sure it'll be a special present, too." Norway shot me his blankest stare, which was a sure sign that the innuendo had been intended. Of course this was Norway: the innuendo was always intended.

"Man, that's not fair..." Ladonia complained, oblivious.

"S' not that kind of pres'nt," Sweden explained, which didn't actually explain anything, thank God.

Ladonia frowned. "I don't get it."

"Good," I said.

—and then nearly jumped out of my skin as something rumbled against my leg. For a second I thought it was an earthquake, or an ice giant, or a tidal wave, and then I realize it was my cell phone vibrating in my pocket. Stupid vibrate mode. It was going to give me a heart attack one of these days.

Quickly I washed the flour and dough from my hands and patted them dry with a dish towel. Pulling out my cell, my eyes widened upon reading the caller ID and I dashed out of the kitchen away from prying ears to answer it. Norway's eyes slide around to watch me go, but everyone else was too occupied with cookie decorating or eating or screwing around to pay much attention.

Sitting down on the couch in the vacant living room, feeling as if I finally had some actual breathing room, I gulped down some much needed oxygen and clicked the button to answer my phone.

"Hello?" I said, hoping I sounded casual and not like a quivering mess of nerve endings.

"Hey kid! How's it going?" Turkey answered cheerfully, and just hearing his voice made me smile and relax into the couch, feeling warm and accepted.

They were dangerous feelings.

"I was just helping Sve, Fin and the kids make cookies," I told him, relieved that things seemed to be normal between us. I'd just been paranoid. Sadiq was obviously tied up with something, maybe a meeting with his boss, and couldn't answer my text as promptly as I'd expected. That was a load off my mind.

"Heh, that sounds fun," he said, and I could hear the grin in his voice. "Did you wear an apron? Tell me you wore an apron."

"I didn't," I lied. Actually, that reminded me that I needed to take the stupid thing off. I propped my phone up to my ear with my shoulder and untied the garment from my waist.

"Aw. Disappointment," he said. "I bet that lazy brother of yours didn't do anything to help, either, right?"

If I hadn't still been smiling I would have smiled again. "Not a damn thing," I confirmed.

"He and that drunken lump probably just ate 'em all, huh? If I were you guys, I'd make them clean up the mess," Turkey suggested with a snicker. "After all that, the kitchen looks like shit, I'll bet."

"It's a disaster area," I agreed. There was flour everywhere, even somehow under the wax paper, and mountains of dirty mixing bowls from making the dough and holding the different frosting colors, and there were a half-dozen butter knives that had been used for frosting, and multiple baking sheets...God, it was like Chernobyl in there. It needed caution tape, screaming: DO NOT ENTER. I didn't envy whoever had to set that mess to rights.

"Heh, yeah, I like the sound of that. Make them clean it. That'll teach the bastards!"

"Good idea," I told him, and it really was. Having to clean up the kitchen would be a fitting punishment for Norway and Denmark. Turkey always had good ideas like that. That was why I actually talked about things with him, as opposed to with my brother, because as we've seen, things didn't stay private with him, (the jerk).

"Right?" Sadiq said sounding pleased with himself. "Hey, Emil, actually I called because I kinda got a surprise."

I blinked. "You...do," I said, confused. A surprise? What was he talking about?

"Yeah," he said, excitement in his voice. "Guess where I am right now!"

My smile melted off my face. Earlier today Turkey had been talking about how Greece and Japan were vacationing in Nagano, and now he was asking me to guess where he was. It didn't take a genius to figure it out. I didn't like this at all.

"Nagano," I answered, resigned.

"Man, you know me too well," he said with a chuckle. "But no, guess again."

Okay, now I was really confused. I wracked my brain, trying to think of the names of places Turkey liked to hang out, other than wherever Japan was. "Er...Istanbul? Athens?" I guessed.

"Heh, no!" he said, laughing. "Though going to Athens would definitely piss that drowsy cat-loving brat off. Think I'll drop in before he gets back, just to screw with him..."

I frowned. If it's wasn't Nagano and it wasn't Athens and it wasn't Istanbul, then I had no idea. It could be anywhere. "I give up," I told him, curious despite the stone in the pit of my stomach telling me I probably wouldn't like whatever he said.

"I am—" A dramatic pause. "At the closest airport I could find to Sweden's house! Surprise, kiddo!"

Wait...what?

"...what?" I said aloud, the idea that Turkey was here—here—right now, in the same country as me, simply not computing.

I mean, why would Sadiq come to see me? I wasn't cool or nice or knowledgeable or cosmopolitan or whatever. If he was that bored, he could have gone to see anyone, and they would probably make more sense than flying to Stockholm to hang with me and the other Nordics would. I just...I didn't get it. I couldn't really believe it.

"Yeah! You said that you wished I was here, so here I am!" he said, sounding quite pleased with himself. Then his voice changed to sheepish and Turkey added, "But I don't have a ride and the cost of taxis are a bitch, so can you come pick me up?"

I listened to him over the phone without responding, still dumbfounded. This was just...this must be a joke. Any minute now Turkey would yell, "Psych! Got ya ~ !" and he'd tell me he was in Cairo or something bothering Egypt and his pet...whatever it was...jackal-thing. He wouldn't really come...would he?

"Kid? Emil?" Sadiq said, sounding concerned. "Everything good over there? You're even more quiet than usual."

"I...," I started to say, but my mind was swimming in my own private contemplations and instead of finishing my sentence (or even starting it, really,) I just sat there on the couch silently, like a mute.

Sadiq...Sadiq was here? And he'd come because I'd offhandedly let it slip that I'd have liked him to? Could...could it be true?

My face flushed hot and I could feel my heart pound harder against my chest at the thought. I curled into a ball on the couch and ducked my head against my thighs instinctively to hide my blush, even though it was just me in the living room. I knew this feeling. I was reading entirely too much into this, I shouldn't be getting so excited. He'd probably just been really bored, or had so many frequent flier miles he'd felt like blowing some. But still...even so, I...

I was...really happy.

"Hey, Emil," Turkey said, his voice suddenly strangely serious. "Listen...I didn't make a mistake, did I? You can tell me the truth."

I blinked at the air, confused as hell.

"Am I putting you in a bad position?" he continued. "I can get a hotel if you don't want me over, and I can fly back in the morning, I just figured, you know...your fam' usually likes guests, and I had nothing else to do anyway, so...but it's not a big deal, I can just go back home. It's my own fault for just showing up."

My eyes snapped wide in panic. What? No!

"No! I'm glad!" I hurried to assure him, hands clutching my phone hard enough my knuckles turned white. "I just...I was really surprised just now."

"Well, that was kind of the point," Turkey answered wryly.

I scratched my head nervously, trying to summon the words to tell him what I was feeling without scaring him away. "Yeah, I know, it's just that I...I didn't think you would have wanted to come. It's not exactly exciting over here," I explained.

"Hey, don't say that. My best buddy is there," Sadiq responded. "That's all I need to have a good time, right?"

My breath caught in my throat. I could visualize his smile, white against his olive skin and suddenly it was hard to breathe. "Y-yeah," I stuttered out.

I felt hot and weak, powerless against what was building in my heart. I wanted to find somewhere dark and hide. I wanted to find somewhere bright and run. This wasn't good. This was dangerous. Sadiq didn't realize how dangerous the things he said were to me. What they did to me...how it hurt me every time he gave me hope. I was already falling, but no one would be there to catch me. I knew that, but even so...even so...

"So...it's really alright that I'm here?" Turkey asked again.

I blinked. "Y-Yes. Yes. I...I'll come get you right now," I told him, taking a deep breath to calm myself. It didn't work. "Text me the flight number."

"Will do. See you in a bit, kiddo!" he said excitedly.

I swallowed. "See you," I said, and the line went dead.

Staring at my phone, I sighed and fell back against the couch with my cell clutched to my chest, staring up at Sweden's living room ceiling as if all the answers might be found there.

Falling, I thought. I was already falling. Norway and Denmark could say whatever they liked about helping me win Turkey, but I knew the truth. I wasn't falling into anyone's arms, much less his. I was just inches from the ground and there wasn't time to pull the safety line, even if I'd had one.

And even if there had been some way to stop myself, I know... I wouldn't have taken it. This feeling...it hurt so much, but even so...

It felt so good.