#liluwrites

Prompts: Memory, Ghosts

Characters: Norway, Iceland

Word count: 176

Every morning, when Emil puts on his trainers to walk the dog, he thinks of Lukas; the way he had taught him to tie his shoelaces, patiently guiding Emil’s clumsy fingers through the motions. As he prepares dinner, he remembers how they would cook together, how Lukas would let him wear his oversized apron and call him his sous-chef. When he climbs into bed at night, he thinks of Lukas tucking him in, kissing his forehead, telling him, “I love you to infinity.”

There was a time - after the hospital and the funeral and the heavy, all-consuming grief - that Emil had wished he could forget all this. Every memory struck a raw nerve and spent him spiralling, like he would never breathe again.

Prompt: Fog

Characters: Lithuania x Poland

Word count: 172

Fall was always Tolys’ favourite season, but this year, he watches the auburn leaves drift to the ground, and he feels nothing. It isn’t new, this nothingness. It comes and goes in tides - a soft pull of exhaustion from somewhere deep within - and every time it fades, he convinces himself it will never happen again. 

But it always does.

Feliks comes by one afternoon, when Tolys is still in bed, his face bright from the cold. “Come for a walk with me,” he says, as if it’s that easy, as if Tolys can just get out of bed and wash his face and change his clothes, as if the idea isn’t insurmountable. 

“Maybe another time,” Tolys smiles. “I’m feeling lazy today.”

So Feliks leaves, and Tolys stays. He’s so tired. Maybe the air would make him feel better, if he could only get out of bed. He doesn’t have the energy to feel better.

This will pass. It always does. 

Characters: Lithuania x Poland

Word count: 190

He finds Feliks curled in the window seat at midnight. Rain lashes against the bay window, tracing like tears down the glass, and in the darkness, shadowy trees shudder and scream with the wind. Tolys approaches slowly, slides his arms gently around Feliks’ chest – but still, he startles.

“Oh,” Feliks says. Soft, anxious. “It’s you.”

Tolys smiles at him. “Who else would it be?”

He shrugs, turns his face back to the weeping window. Tolys sees the reflection of his eyes in the glass, troubled and distant.

“What is it?” He asks, cupping his cheek.

Feliks leans away from his touch. “Nothing,” he whispers. “Just…doesn’t it sound like they’re crying? Like they want us to find them?”

The trees moan again, and this time, Tolys listens to the distorted words, the breathless voices. His blood runs cold. “It’s nothing,” he lies. “It’s just the wind, nothing more. You mustn’t go out there – come to bed with me.”

In the morning, Tolys wakes. The storm has calmed. The voices are gone. The house is silent.

Characters: Lithuania

Word count: 118

When you’ve been alive as long as Tolys has, you’ve seen everything.

Lifetimes pass by like heartbeats; the endless, human cycle of birth and death and new birth, flickering across the surface of an ever-changing earth. To each, their lifetime is an eternity – they each believe that they will be the one to change the world.

He watches them make the same mistakes over and over. The wars, the genocides, the atrocities… "we’ll do better," they say, but lifetimes are short, and generations forget.

The thing about Emil is that he is indisputably, unquestionably, without a doubt the cutest person on this entire planet. 

There are a hundred - no, a thousand - reasons why Emil is superior to literally everyone else, and if Leon had the time, he could list every one of them: his shy smile, his soft cheeks, his beautiful lavender eyes; the way his ears go red when he eats even mild curry, the way he flushes when Leon winks at him, the way he goes limp and whiny in hot weather, sprawling himself on the floor in front of the electric fan.

They’re ordinary things, things he wouldn’t notice in anyone else, but Emil simply does them better.

Right now, Emil is wrestling with his chopsticks, holding them completely wrong (how has he even managed to twist his fingers like that?) and it’s the most adorable thing Leon has ever seen.

A lump of rice drops from Emil’s chopsticks, and he makes a noise of frustration. “Why isn’t it working?”

“You’re not holding them right, Em,” Leon says, smirking.

Emil pouts at him. “Yes I am. I’m doing exactly what it said on Wikihow.”

He laughs. “No, you’re not. Let me show you.”

He reaches across the table to guide Emil’s hands, but Emil pulls back from him, flushing. “Leon, we’re in public,” he hisses. 

“So?”

“So, keep your hands to yourself.”

“Fine.” Leon shrugs, trying to hide his amusement. “If you won’t let me teach you, then…” He picks up a piece of rice with his own chopsticks and holds them across the table to Emil’s mouth. “Aah.”

Emil goes scarlet. “Leon, no. You are not feeding me in a public restaurant.”

“I guess you’ll just go hungry then.”

A long silence. Emil sighs. Then, he opens his mouth obediently and takes the mouthful of food. “Mmm.”

Leon grins. “Good?”

Rather than answering, Emil opens his mouth again eagerly, like a baby bird. Unprepared for the display of cuteness, Leon is pretty sure he suffers some kind of cardiac arrest - but, like the good boyfriend he is, he feeds Emil another spoonful of his own meal. And another, and another.

Emil is so preoccupied with eating that he doesn’t notice the spontaneous combustion occurring inside Leon’s chest - but that’s how it always is. Emil is so oblivious, he has no idea how perfect he is.

The Red Sweater

Matthias' red sweater is his favourite to steal. 

It's old, worn into softness, and it's far too large for him - the shoulders too broad for his slim frame, the sleeves reaching almost to his fingertips - but above all, it smells like Matthias.

Whenever Lukas misses him - which, due to their work, is often - he slips on the sweater and buries his nose into the neckline, and imagines he is with Matthias in whichever foreign country, held close in his arms. And when Lukas has to travel, he packs the sweater in his luggage and wears it as he struggles to sleep in crisp, cold hotel beds with empty sheets.

I miss you, Matthias texts him on those lonely nights, and Lukas imagines the sweater is his embrace, and the words are whispered into his ear. I love you.

And, even though they are thousands of miles apart, separated by oceans and time, when he reads Matthias' words and wears the sweater that feels like home, he finds the distance barely matters at all.

@dennorweek

The thing is, Matthias is a happy person.

That's what he's always been told, ever since he was a little boy. His parents had cooed over his bright smile, his teachers had praised him for his energy and enthusiasm (even if he sometimes got too overexcited in class), his friends had admired his optimism and boundless joy.

"We like you because you're always smiling," his friends had once told him. In his mind, that established a standard, a simple mission - be happy all the time.

He doesn't know what to do with other emotions. When he's nine years old and his pet goldfish dies, he doesn't cry; he doesn't know how to, anymore, so he sits on his bedroom floor and hyperventilates until his mother calls him for dinner. When he's sixteen and he breaks up with his first boyfriend, and it feels like the sun will never shine again - he smiles, because that's his job, and he doesn't know how to do anything else. When he leaves for college and hugs his parents goodbye, they are sobbing, but he doesn't shed a single tear. He holds them tightly, bids them farewell, and he smiles, smiles, smiles.

College is hard. He doesn't sleep, barely eats, longs for home with an ache that never goes away. Suddenly, it becomes hard to smile; it doesn't reach his eyes, anymore.

Then he meets Lukas. Soft, gentle Lukas with beautiful eyes and a mouth that smiles from joy rather necessity, and he falls hard. They kiss at a party, amidst the pounding music and nauseating lights - then they kiss in Matthias' dorm, sprawled on crumpled sheets - then they kiss by the river after dark, when the moon is full and the fireflies are dancing.

"I love your smile," Lukas tells him, tracing a hand over the curve of his cheek. "But I wish you didn't smile all the time, because it's hard to tell when you're sad."

"I'm not sad," Matthias says quickly, because he isn't allowed to be.

"Never?"

He shakes his head. "No, never."

Lukas sighs, moves the gentle hand upwards to comb through his hair. "It's okay to be sad sometimes, you know." Before he can stop them, Matthias' eyes well with tears - and Lukas must see, because he gives him a small, sympathetic smile, and whispers again, "It's okay."

Matthias can't remember the last time he cried. The tears come hot and fast, spilling over uncontrollably, and Lukas takes him in his arms and strokes a hand up and down his back, slow and steady, and murmurs over and over, "It's okay. It's okay."