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No… No, no no.
It all feels wrong.
There's an unsettling scraping in his chest and he's fighting the urge to scream. He digs his fingers into his hair, clawing at the frayed locks for reasons he isn't sure of.
Maybe he's just dehydrated. Maybe that's why he's so dizzy, why his head feels like it's been slammed into a brick wall, why there's something sharp and unwelcome prickling under his skin.
The ticking of the bathroom clock is driving him mad, drilling into his skull and pounding through his head. It's all he can hear above his heaving breath and it's loud, too loud. He feels like throwing up but he's sure there's nothing left in his stomach.
Exasperated, he finally sinks to his knees on the cold tile floor, the blue skirt falling in little waves around him. He clenches his fingers around the hem of the fabric, so hard his knuckles turn whte, a feeling of disgust boil inside of him. It feels so wrong, but he can't stop.
What had he done? He'd been doing so well--at least, he thought he had--and then he'd taken it all one step further and everything fell out from under him.
It's almost instinctive, the way his other hand grabs his wrist and his nails dig into his miserably soft skin, leaving angry red marks right next to the bruises. He just, does it, he doesn't know why. Denmark argues that it counts as self-harm. How can it, if he's never drawn a blade against his own skin?
Now, he's collapsed on the bathroom floor, in a woman's clothes, because he's trying to fix the wrongness. Because he's trying to make up for getting rid of his breasts, for ever wishing them gone in the first place.
Somehow, the needles seem to mock him now, glinting sharp in the overlit bathroom, daring him to do it. Daring him to go through with it, to change himself when he now knows it's been stupid to even try.
A pathetic little sob forces its way up from his throat. He hardly ever cries anymore, thanks to HRT, but this is too much. There aren't enough hormones left in his exhausted body to tell him who he is.
So maybe that's why he's been pacing back and forth, ripping out his hair, growing more and more hysterical as the minutes steadily wander past.
Or maybe it's the drugs. It's like he can still feel the smooth surface against his fingertips, the all-too-familiar weight in his hand. He hadn't meant to take so much. He hadn't really meant to take them in the first place.
But he had, and now he's suffering the consequences.
He exhales, pulls himself to his feet and braces against the bathroom counter. Denmark will be home tonight, he promises himself, over and over until it becomes a prayer more than anything, It will all be fine.
He just has to stay alive until then.
He finally, finally decides on what to wear: a white t-shirt that's too big for him. Obviously--it's Denmark's.
It falls to a little above mid-thigh and smells like cotton and laundry soap. It brings him a faint pinprick of comfort in his misery.
Now, he's wrapped up in a blanket, laying on Denmark's side of the bed. He's not sure what time it is, but the sun is too bright. It's burning his eyes and heating up his face.
He closes the curtains.
His dreams are troubled and deranged, and in all of them he still feels the sickening wrongness lurking just below his skin, slithering up his spine amd scratching into the wrinkles of his brain, burrowing down, embedding itself inside of him.
No matter how much he picks and peels at its stringy, wet layers, it regrows, strengthens its hold on him with tiny little teeth and spindly tendrils that twist through his nerves and attatch with spiky little sunction cups.
It hurts.
He sees himself, his reflection, blurred outlines of memories and daydreams and times gone by and times he wishes he could forget and times yet to come that forever seed themselves into his anxieties, sending their little taproots to carve their way through his flesh.
He looks down at himself with the eyes that have sprouted up in places that eyes are never meant to be and sees the dress, lacy and white and crushing his torso because it's so tight--he can't breathe--the fabric is heavy and suffocating, and it feels so disgusting.
But the moment he tries to take it off, he feels even worse.
The clock chimes one.
The single bell cracks through his skull like a gunshot, reverberating and warping.
It doesn't die out, it simply echoes around his head.
It's loud, too loud.
He tries to sit up, and a wave of nausea hits him like a semi truck.
His guts are all twisted up.
The shirt feels too tight, sticking to his skin and heavy with sweat.
The covers are crushing him, but when he tries to kick them off they won't budge. He's too weak and fragile, like most other girls.
Only then does he realize that he covers have already been pushed off in his restless sleep, there are no blankets on top of him.
It's the air, then--stagnant and heavy and electric, it's trapped in his lungs, burning-hot and sticky like smog.
He wonders if this is just a dream, too.
Denmark unlocks the front door and drags his exhausted body into the darkened house. He's sure Norway is already asleep--it's very early in the morning--and he wants to be as well.
He hangs up his coat and sets his briefcase by the door to be dealt with tomorrow. It's good to be home after a week of politics and boring meetings and people wearing suits.
As he makes his way to the bedroom, he notices the bathroom light is on. He sticks his head in through the wide-open door to see that it's empty. He notices several things, though, that he doesn't expect.
The first is a small pill bottle. Its lable is worn and illegible, but it doesn't look medically issued, exactly. He bites his lip and begins to worry a little--he knows Norway's had some drug problems, but he's been clean for years…
The second is a scrap of blond hair, neighbouring several others. It isn't cut--it's been ripped. Denmark turns it over in his fingers, rubbing the soft and familiar texture.
The third is a skirt: indigo and ruffled and of moderate length. For a second, Denmark's heart nearly stops.
Is Norway cheating on him?
No, that's not it. There has to be another explaination. There has to be any explaination for… all of this.
Denmark folds the skirt and sets it on the counter next to the empty bottle and a few scraps of hair. Norway will give him an explaination--tomorrow.
Tonight, he's too tired to properly worry about it.
Denmark enters the bedroom to find it pitch-black. The curtains have been pulled shut, which is unfamiliar. He flicks on the closet light instead of the overhead, so as to not wake Norway, and changes into pajamas.
He looks over at his sleeping boyfriend, sprawled out on the side of the bed that isn't his, with all the blankets kicked to the other. Poor thing, Denmark thinks. He looks awful.
Norway stirs a little, as if he can tell he's being observed, and opens his eyes just a crack before stifling a gasp and squeezing them shut again. He buries his face in the pillow.
Denmark flicks of the light and lays down next to him. He runs a hand through Norway's uneven hair nice and gentle, just how the other likes. He wonders, worried, what made him pull it out.
Norway startles suddenly, flinches as though he's woken up after falling and nearly hitting the ground in a dream, sits up a little. He scrubs a hand over his eyes and stares blankly at Denmark for a few seconds before falling back over.
He reaches out a hand to hold Denmark's and mumbles in a broken and unfamiliar voice, "Help me."
Only incredibly alarmed, Denmark's eyes widen. "What's wrong?"
"Everything."
Faint morning light trickles through the gap in the curtains. Denmark gently rubs the back of a still-sobbing Norway, who clings to him desperately.
It's been a rough night. Denmark feels bad for even considering the possibility that Norway could have been having an affair, and even worse for not knowing anything was wrong.
"Why didn't you text me, Norge?" He asks. "You know you can trust me…"
"I couldn't… couldn't find my phone…" Norway murmurs quietly. He buries his face in Denmark's chest.
Denmark frowns, unable to tell whether it's a lie or not. "Why did it happen, anyway?" He thinks for a second to try and decided wether or not this is a good time to bring up the things he found last night.
"I… When you left I… Well, you know how we'd been talking about…"
Denmark nods to tell Norway to continue.
"…About how maybe I could--I could get surgery." Norway finishes.
He lifts the hem of the shirt to reveal the newly-healing scars on his chest. His hand is trembling. He continues. "And then… everything just--I don't know why--I felt--I feel…"
"Like you've made a terrible mistake?"
Norway nods, slowly. "Everything… it's all so…"
"I should have warned you," Denmark sighs. Norway's indigo eyes widen a little. "When I got top surgery, I felt the same way after. It's 'cause your breasts produce lotsa hormones, and then they're gone all of a sudden. It's called a hormone crash."
"So what did you do?" Norway asks.
"I told myself that I knew what I was doing. I doubled the amout of T that I took for the first few days. It helped." Then his voice softens a little and his tone darkens. He needs to say this in a way that doesn't sound angry, that will just make Norwaw feel worse. "And T isn't the only thing you took, was it?"
Norway pretty much stops breathing.
Of course. The bottle was surely out on the bathroom counter, for anyone to see.
He nods.
"I thought…" Denmark's voice begind to break, just a little on the edges, but it creeps its way along the words. "I thought you were clean."
"I… I was," Norway stammers. "I found them. I felt so awful… I just--" He exhales shakily. "I thought it would help, I-I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't mean to I just they were there and I took them I'm sorry, I-I won't do it again--" Norway sobs, panicked and hysterical.
"Hey, hey, calm down. Breathe, just breathe," Denmark tells him softly. "I love you, you're safe. Deep breaths, deep breaths."
Norway sniffles and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. Denmark frowns when he sees those stupid bruises, dark and raw against his boyfriend's otherwise perfect skin. He loves Norway, scars and all, but these don't belong.
"Come on," He says, swinging his legs off the bed and taking Norway's hand. "Let's go eat breakfast. I think it will help."
"Was yesterday the first time since you quit?" Denmark asks over a cup of coffee.
"Y-yeah. I was digging around in the closet and I found them…There were a few pills left. I took them all, since they were pretty old and I didn't think they'd work well but they did and I just…" Norway trails off, ashamed.
"It wasn't worth it, hm?"
Norway shakes his head. "It doesn't matter." His voice grows sadder, hopeless. "I'm addicted, Denmark."
"We'll get through it together," Denmark reassures him. "It will all be okay."
God, Norway really hopes he's right.
He stares down at the bubbles in the bathtub, looking at his body, scrambled and broken up by the ripples in the water. He's raw, unfinished, but he's unbothered by the light for the sound of water dripping lazily from the tap.
Denmark sits beside the tub with a comb, detangling his partner's matted curls.
"You should wearyour hair like this more often," He remarks. "It looks good on you."
Norway sighs. "If you say so."