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After thirty or so years of hard-fought for peace and prosperity, Norway's life is stable enough that he can see the sickness coming on, although he can't stop it. It always comes at least twice a year; sometimes more, but always at the spring and autumn equinoxes, something in him reacting to the shifting of the earth, and the change of seasons. It started back in the days when he spent years confined to his bed, the plague decimating his population; he never fully regained his health after that, and although he's stronger now he still gets aches in his bones when it's cold, and these times - the sicknesses - that crawl over him.
He notices the signs more nowadays: the creep of the sickness begins in his face. His lips chap and crack at the edges; his eyes become sunken and ringed with bruise-black; small clusters of spots appear on his chin and cheeks. At the same time his sleep becomes more and more distorted, and every moment he snatches doesn't feel refreshing, just leaves him with an aching head and uneasy memories of his dreams, which are always bewildering and never worse than when he's sick.
The fatigue creeps over him; he spends more time at home, closing himself off from everyone, pushing himself angrily to move his heavy limbs off the sofa and never quite managing it. His body locks up without movement, the muscles of his back and sides feeling like one big mass which he carries around like a rucksack.
He twitches with irritation at the slightest noise; he can't think straight; he switches his phone to silent and the whole time he's furious with himself, for giving into this again.
Eventually, when he's too tired to continue berating himself, he lets himself drop.
This time, as the corner of September turns and the winds get biting, Norway spends two full days in bed. It had been creeping up for a while, and as usual he'd pushed himself too hard, refusing to admit what was happening. He'd hardly left the house the week previously, pushing himself to walk far enough to get food which was still in the fridge, uneaten. He worked from his sofa, under a blanket, not bothering to change out of his pyjamas. Every conversation felt like having his skin scraped raw. The corners of his mouth split, bled, healed, and split again.
When the wave finally broke across him, he emailed his boss to say he needed some time off, then turned off his laptop and stashed it in a chest under a pile of blankets. He weaved upstairs, fingers against the wall to steady himself, and fell into bed where he stayed for the weekend.
He wakes intermittently: makes his way to the bathroom or loosens his shirt which has got tangled around his neck again. He's sweating and freezing cold and burning up all at the same time. The scars on his legs where buboes once swelled itch faintly and the fear this engenders sends him back to his darkened room.
Norway's dreams are of home invasions; fire; screaming. It is the end of the world and he is watching people die, one by one, a parade of corpses he's helpless to stop; he has no mouth, no tongue, no eyes. Thunder sounds and blood runs from his ears. His body is covered in pustules, all of his skin a single open wound. He is burning; he is tearing handfuls of rotten whale from a carcass, chewing it desperately, his stomach empty; he is watching skeletons join hands and dance around a towering inferno.
When he wakes, in a bundle of damp sheets, he squints at the clock by his bed. It's 3pm, and Norway takes a moment to catch up with himself.
He still feels exhausted, his body a leaden lump under the covers, but that bone-deep fatigue which made it hard for him to even raise his hand is relieved, a little. There's a glass of water on his table he doesn't remember getting; he reaches for it and takes a grateful drink.
The curtains are closed tightly, and the room smells heavily of his night sweats, and a hint of vomit - he doesn't remember throwing up but that's not unusual. He feels uncomfortable, which is a good thing; it means he's finally feeling motivated enough to get out of bed. At least these days he has the luxury of being able to bathe on his own. That wasn't always the case. He turns to slip his legs out of bed, then a wave of dizziness hits him and he has to pause.
"Norge?" Denmark's voice at the half-open door is unexpected, although not so unusual that it makes Norway startle. Denmark comes in, chewing on his bottom lip, carrying a bundle of something which he puts down on the bed. "You wanna get up?"
Norway shakes his head, fighting back the nausea which always comes with the dizziness. Denmark comes to his side of the bed and steadies him with one hand on his shoulder.
"You're soaked again," he says, and Norway flushes - again? - but doesn't have the strength to argue as Denmark spreads a towel over the wet sheets and pulls his shirt over his head. He's been here so many times, on the receiving end of this gentle care which most people would never believe Denmark is capable of giving. It doesn't feel as devastatingly humiliating as it used to, but it still burns. All this time, all the fighting, and he still finds himself depending on Denmark for the simplest things.
Denmark helps him into a fresh shirt, helps him lie down, helps him with his glass of water. His expression once would have been victorious; now it's only concerned, even tender. Somehow this is even harder to look at, because Norway can't be resentful, and yet he still is.
"Think you're up to eating something?"
"When did you get here?" Norway says, ignoring Denmark's question.
Denmark looks both sheepish, and slightly insulted. "Saturday afternoon. Your boss told me you'd emailed him, so - I know this time of year can be hard for you. Thought I'd just come over, y'know, make sure you're okay."
Norway should say something like, "thank you," or, "that's good of you." Instead he says, "I would have been fine." He's avoiding looking Denmark in the face and they both know exactly why that is.
"I know," Denmark says. "I know, you can look after yourself. But you don't have to, y'know?"
Norway wants, and has always wanted, to look after himself, his independence forming an essential cornerstone of his being. Right now he can't, and he wishes someone else would, but it can't be Denmark, but it could also only be Denmark, there's no one else he would allow to see him in this state. Doing it alone is the only option available to him. He doesn't say any of this; he doesn't really even think it consciously.
"I'll bring ya some soup," Denmark says, after a tense silence in which he nibbles on his thumbnail and Norway stares down at his own lap.
He feels childish, helpless, like Iceland after an eruption, except Iceland is his younger brother, and it is Norway's responsibility to look after him, although he could never really do that properly either.
He is no one's younger brother: he is an adult, responsible for himself, and failing once again at being so.
The shame heats his cheeks and when Denmark returns with his soup, Norway has sunk into a gloomy silence, which even the curtains and window being thrown open does nothing to shift.
After he eats half the bowl, and pushes the tray away, Denmark stands over him like he's finally going to leave. Instead he places the tray on Norway's dresser and pulls up a chair to the side of the bed. Norway looks away, shuts his eyes. A warm hand on his cheek turns his face back. Denmark's always had such warm hands, compared to his dry, cold ones.
"I know you don't like this," Denmark begins, and then says firmly, "Nor, look at me."
He does, as he always has, as he always will.
"I know you don't like this," Denmark repeats. "I don't like seeing you like this. But this is what we do for each other - it's what you do for Ice, and for me, when we need it. I don't care about your pride as much as I care about not letting you fester in bed, starving and being sick on yourself. You can disagree with me on that, if you like."
It's a typical Denmark speech: full of bravado, slightly patronising, intent on putting Norway back in his place. Norway can hear the emotions running under the surface though. It reminds him of when he finally woke up after those years of the first sickness: the way Denmark had held his hand and sobbed, "I thought I'd lost you."
Denmark spent the next five hundred or so years doing everything in his power not to lose Norway again. Throughout all the pain that caused, that one desire remained constant for him. He's made some sort of peace with not getting his wish and that's what's allowed them to continue as friends. Even so, the fear remains.
Norway pulls Denmark's hand off his face and holds it in his lap, rubbing his thumb around the big blunt knuckles.
"Let me help you," Denmark says, plaintively. "Not because I don't think you can do it. Just because it'll be easier with two of us."
It's the same line Denmark's been using on him for centuries, and it still works. They are similar in this way: the one desire they have is something that will never be granted. Norway will never belong to Denmark, but he will never belong to himself completely either.