Love Is Watching Someone Die || Norway x Reader

You deeply breathed in.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, yet you couldn't fathom why, it felt incredibly wrong. Then you heard strange voices nearby, though it was as if they were speaking through thickly-layered cotton. You could not make out a single word of theirs, even if you strained to do as such. Giving up after a while, you finally noticed you felt oddly cold — as if your veins had been drained of their precious crimson liquid. You knew this couldn't be true, though.

You tried to move — to open your eyes — but your body wouldn't obey you. You were starting to get nervous and yet the accompanying sound of a beating heart did not echo along the confines of your mind. What next came to your momentarily irrational mind was that you were blind, paralyzed and going deaf. Had you been kidnapped and used as a human test subject, thought dead?

Your breathing then quickened, and you could only draw to the conclusion that your heart was silently following suit. The perpetual numbness that had taken over your sense of touch was ruptured with an uncomfortable prickling, as if thousands upon thousands of needles were sadistically teasing every inch of your skin, without however piercing it. Such troubling sensation agonizingly crescendoed, only to vanish after a few mere seconds.

The delicately chilly touch of satin seemed to next envelop your whole being, soft and fluffy. Were you lying down? most likely. A soft, unknown fabric was wrapped tighter around your torso, only to loosen below your waist, stopping at your knees. Were you wearing a dress? What kind of test subject would be surrounded by such fabrics?

Just what what going on?!

A sweet, fruity smell fluttered to your nostrils, reminding you immediately of your sense of smell. It was pleasant — familiar even — which helped calm your erratic breathing. Then, two slender fingers delicately slid your eyelids open. You blinked a few times as the blurry mess before you started to slowly sharpen. The same gloved hand, you imagined, took your own hand with immense finesse, helping you sit up as you tried to process what had just taken place in your mind.

Instinctively, you gazed first down at yourself, confirming that you were indeed wearing a gorgeous, expensive-looking dress. Before you took in the dark, fancy room in which you currently found yourself, your gaze froze upon the sight of your bed.

"Is that a... coffin?” you whispered to yourself, your thoughts halting to a stop.

"Indeed, love."

You were started by a voice to your left, and you turned your head to look at whom it belonged, wary, frightened, but also curious. It was a blonde man with ridiculously thick eyebrows — so ridiculous that he practically seemed like a caricature brought to life. Reminded you of Thranduil's from The Hobbit... His thin lips were shaped into an elegant, polite smile, though his green eyes seemed too old for his young-looking body. They reflected the weariness of his tortured soul — wait, what were you thinking about, that's way too freaky.

"Who are you...?" you managed to ask, your voice a little raspy from disuse. You had tilted your head to the side, wondering if he was a friend or a foe.

He chuckled, though you did not see what was so amusing about your question. "You have just woken up from death's embrace, and yet you wonder who I am, instead of where you are?" he answered to your obvious confusion, skillful dodging your question in its entirety. “That’s a first…” he mumbled to himself, seeming highly amused. His British accent made him seem poised, though you remembered that most movies’ antagonists have such a accent — wait, what did he say!?

“…woken up from death’s embrace?” you quavered, eyes wide with incredulity as two of your fingers flew to you still jugular artery. Your voice sounded raw and strained. “H-How…?” you stammered, at a loss of words, barely managing to think straight anymore. How was oxygen transported throughout your body, nourishing your cells — you were breathing, after all. How could your brain function properly? How—?

“The Academy will answer all your questions shortly,” the Brit informed you, cutting short your dangerous train of thought. “Do keep a level head.” He then proceeded in heading out the room, before turning back at you. Though he was not looking at you — rather, above your head. “Excellent work as always, Lukas.”

Lukas?

You turned your head around, only to see such fellow behind you. Only then did you remember the hand that still held yours. It had seemed so… right…? that you had completely forgotten about it. Had your heart still been beating, your cheeks would have gained much colour. You quickly slipped your hand out of his delicate grasp, thought you could not see his reaction under the navy blue hood of his long, elegant cloak.

“Hello…?” you softly greeted, hesitant. You were quite sure he was the one that had woken you, though you could not grasp why.

“It was my final test,” he asserted in a velvety, albeit monotone voice, instead of returning the greeting.

It seemed as though your wonder was evident on your features. You shivered as the atmosphere grew palpably colder, though he helped you out of your… coffin. Everything was just so surreal, and you held onto your silent pulse as a lifeline in order to stay sane. The room you were in, though, reminded you of Professor X’s mansion. Maybe this was just a pizza-induced realistic dream…

However, it wasn’t.

“Final test for what?” you then risked, trying to catch a glimpse of Lukas’ eyes under his hood. By then, your voice had smoothed down considerably.

He didn’t answer, nor did he look you in the eye as he led you out of the room, though you could have sworn he had sorrowfully muttered under his breath something along the lines of “You have forgotten everything, haven’t you…”


——Prior Events——


As per usual, Lukas came back to see you. He was sitting by your bedside and had taken a hold of your hand, silent, his sharp features completely devoid of any trace of emotion. You did notice he was staying a bit longer with each visit. The immaculately white room was sickening, and your nose had since long ago gotten used to the harsh antiseptic scent. You held onto his hand as well, eyes closed.

This silence was comforting, to you. No words needed to be exchanged between the two of you, no waste of breath. His honesty you also rather liked. You were simply spending time together, calmly enjoying yourselves.

"Tomorrow."

One single word escaped his lips, echoing through the warm silence. Yet you knew exactly what was hiding behind this last promise. His velvety voice hadn't wavered — it had stayed as cool and composed as it always had been — though his grip on your hand slightly tightened.

You kept your eyes closed as you risked, "When?"

"Twenty-seven past five, in the morning," he solemnly specified, as you weakly turned your head to look at him. His eyes were tinged with clear sorrow, a rare, sad sight to behold.

You had known all along it would only end this way; you had been diagnosed with a terminal illness a long time ago. Though it had been discovered early, any attempts to rid you of it fell flat and failed. At first, you simply couldn't believe it. You were convinced for a time that health professionals were mistaking your file for someone else’s. Who could blame you; you were feeling perfectly fine! Though, after a while had come by, you simply came to terms with it.

You quit your advanced studies and focused on what you liked to do, before you decided to keep others in your same predicament company. You wound up spending lots of time at the hospital, playing with hospitalized kids and talking with the bedridden elderly. Because of your own condition, nurses and doctors let you help others take their minds off their own problems, which in turn helped you as well.

That was also where you met Lukas.

"Will you stay with me until then?" you asked, hope colouring your weary voice.

He simply nodded, thus sweet silence once again fell upon the two of you. He rubbed circles with his thumb on the back of your hand, before he gently rested his head against your shoulder, leaning out of his chair. You leant your own head against his and closed your eyes, peacefully.

It would have been a big fat lie to say you weren't scared. You were terrified. It wasn't because you accepted your cruel, premature fate that you weren't scared. However, you had Lukas. He had a completely different mentality than yours — than anyone else here — and he knew just the thing to help you calm down. He had told you about what happened after a Midguardian's death — to anyone’s death. People like him brought them to one of the other nine realms to start their lives over, without any memory of their former life, of course. It was a way to preserve the order between the realms.

Lukas was a Reaper, from Helheim.

His academy, the blandly-named Reaper Academy, needed to keep up with medical advancements in Midgard as well as any other realm. He was to explore a couple of prestigious hospitals and observe what was going on, in summary. His mission had no deadline, making him free to stay with you until you would just… go.

Your fright wasn’t with death anymore, though rather forgetting about him.

“I could turn you like me, skatten min,” the object of your thought suddenly spoke up, pulling you out of your sombre thoughts.

“What do you mean?” you innocently asked, slightly confused, since you did not follow his train of thought. “Like you… like Reaper you?”

Lukas hummed in acknowledgement, and you felt his head shift against your skin as he slightly nodded. “I have a few decades of study left, but our final test is a complex spell of our choosing.” He then straightened up, his ultramarine irises locked with yours. “I could bring you back as you are, as a Reaper,” he continued, before he gave you one of his incredibly rare lopsided small smiles. “Minus your illness.”

You didn’t have to think it over before you could give him his answer, though a terrifying question did cross your mind. “What would become of me before then?”

“Nothing” he frankly informed you, as he traced your delicate jaw with his index finger, his gaze following suit. “It would be as if you were sleeping, shrouded in darkness, until you would wake up once again by my hand.” His deep voice was even, as if he knew with your single question that you agreed to his plan.

Such doomed promise was sealed with the sweetest of kisses.