#are you guys sick of seeing my boy nøkk yet. i hope not!

[perilegs]

lay all your blood on me ty again @kuuttituutti for making the thumbnail!

[nordics-out-for-harambe]

Anon requested more Nøkken!Norway, but with him sick because of pollution. I hope that you like this as much as the other one! Thanks for the request! (By the way, I’m pretty sure that the singular form of nøkken is nøkk. I searched and searched, that was the best conclusion I could draw from what I read) I hope that you like it!

True to his word, Mathias returned to the lake. He visited on a near-daily basis to sit at the water’s edge and talk. While Lukas had been tempted to pull the Dane in, he had resolved to accept that he was not really harmful. Besides, it was entertaining to listen to the man’s stories – no matter how annoying he was or how much he tried to flirt with him.

“Hej, Bright Eyes! Where are you?” Mathias had left Norway to visit his family in Denmark for a few weeks, so he had had to postpone his visits with his friend. Now that he was back, however, he couldn’t find Lukas.

“Lukas, come out buddy!” As he peered deeper into the water, he realized how dark and murky it seemed. Usually, even at night, he could see at least a few fish. An empty bottle floated past, a Norwegian beer logo just barely visible. “Mathias?!” An unfamiliar voice called out weakly from a nearby rock.

“Who’s there?” Mathias squinted and tried to see the pale figure. “Lukas?” The figure coughed and swam closer, revealing himself to the man. “Not quite, you’re Mathias, right?” Mathias knelt down to be more level with the pale, blonde boy. “Yeah, and what’s your name? I haven’t seen you around here.”

“I’ve been here, just not out. Y’know, underwater?” Mathias grinned with realization. “You’re Lukas’s little brother, Emil! Aw, you’re so cute!” The young teenager pouted, indigo eyes flaring with indignation. “I’m not cute! Anyway, that’s not important right now. Lukas is-“ He suddenly burst into a coughing fit, wheezing in between barks.

“Whoa, whoa! Take it easy! Here,” Mathias slapped the other’s back, trying to help alleviate the symptoms. When he could finally breathe, Emil tried to talk again, “Lukas…is…sick” he croaked. Mathias paled. “Sick? What do you mean? Where, where is he?!” Emil pointed to a cave on the other side of the lake, his breath still short. “Can you swim there? I’m going to walk around and I’ll meet you.” With that, Mathias ran to the nearby bridge. While running across, he barely registered the piles of floating trash underneath him.

The lake’s water ran into the cave through a small stream. Following the stream, Mathias found a small pool deep within the cave. Mathias slowly scanned with his flashlight, eyes adjusting to the dark interior. “Lukas!!!” There at the water’s edge lay the nøkk, his upper body collapsed on the bank.

“Lukas, talk to me!” Mathias picked him up and laid him on his lap, frantically searching for any indication of life. The nøkk’s usually pale skin had adapted a deathly pallor. Dark circles ringed his tightly clenched eyes, pain apparent on his face. Mathias only knew that he was alive when he laid a trembling hand to the creature’s neck to find a faint heartbeat.

“How long has he been like this?” Emil surfaced nearby and sighed softly. “He got really bad yesterday. We were both feeling a little off before, but you know Lukas. He insisted on taking care of me. When he came in a few days ago to check on me, he collapsed. I made him stay in here while I hunted and all that. It hasn’t gotten any better.” Emil began to hack again, but tried to contain the worst of the fit. “H-he said…it’s the water…”

Mathias stroked Lukas’s hair. “Can you guys be out of the water?” Lukas breathed slowly. “Yes, for a while. Maybe…a few weeks at most. But…we can’t leave it for too long.” Mathias bit his lip. “What happens if you’re out too long?”

“We can breathe oxygen fine and we even have legs…we just get depressed.” Emil turned hollow violet eyes upwards. “When I say depressed…I mean it. We need water. It’s like you and the sun. You need to be near some of it to be happy. You can survive without it, but you can’t really live. Without our lake…” Emil couldn’t look at Mathias anymore, tears falling into the pool below him.

“Alright, my house is just a mile from here. Do you think you can walk there with me?” Emil drug himself to lay on the bank by his brother, refusing to look at Mathias. “I..I can try. I haven’t walked before… Lukas does all the hunting…I’ve never been out of the lake.” Mathias stood, hoisting Lukas over his shoulder and securely holding him in place. Sure enough, he did have legs. “Here, I’ll help you along. You can lean on me.”

Emil pulled himself so that he was sitting on his knees, eyes wary and lip quivering. “…We’ll come back, right?” Mathias took the smaller nøkk’s hand, determination in his smile. “As long as I’m Mathias Köhler, you both will be back in this lake.”

For three days, Emil barely moved from his vigil beside his brother.  To help the young nøkk, Mathias had introduced him to indoor plumbing. The bathtub in particular piqued the boy’s interest. From that day on, Mathias could find him basking in the overflowing tub with an almost tranquil expression on his face. Sometimes he would simply run his hands under the running tap water in the sink. He would remain like that for hours, eyes distant and clouded.

Luckily for Mathias, the brothers ate fish as well as humans. Even more advantageous was the fact that Mathias could fish. He would leave at dawn and not return until dusk – covered in grime but always with a smile on his face. He brought Emil pollock, cod, whiting, and anything else that he could catch. The two always made sure to put some of the fish in the freezer for Lukas. “He’ll want some when he wakes up” The two would then look into each other’s eyes and know that they shared the same fear, yet neither dared to phrase it.

Finally, five days after leaving the lake, Lukas awoke. “E…Emil?” Beside him, Emil gasped. “Lukas...” He sobbed and clutched his brother, quickly soaking the blankets that they were wrapped in. “I thought that you were dead!” Lukas smiled faintly and wrapped his arms around him “Shh, it is alright. I am here now. Shh…”

A few moments later, the door swung open. “Emil! I brought some cod this time! Does Lukas-“ The fish fell on the table with a dull thud and Mathias ran to the bed. “Oh my God, LUKAS!” Now it was Mathias’s turn to sob as he collapsed on the floor beside the bed, clasping one of Lukas’s hands. “Oh my God, you’re here. You’re back! Oh my God…”

Lukas did NOT want to be cried over. “Mathias, I am fine. Let me sit up, I can do that much.” Mathias kissed Lukas’s palm (much to his outward disgust) and released his hand, a thousand-watt smile truly lighting his face for the first time in days. Lukas slowly sat up with Emil’s help, his head spinning. “Where are we?”

Mathias’s smile never wavered. “You and Emil were too sick to live in the lake, so I took you two to my house.” Before he could say another word, Lukas had gripped his throat with surprisingly strong hands. “You took us away from our lake?!?!?!” Mathias gargled, face turning violet.

Emil desperately pulled at Lukas’s hands. “Brother, it’s ok! He saved us! And he’s going to take us back, he swore!” Lukas paused in thought, loosening his grip. “You intend to take us back?” “Y-Yes!” the man choked out. “I’ve been cleaning the lake every day since I brought you two here! I couldn’t stand to see you two depressed, you need to be there!”

“You’ve been cleaning our lake?” Lukas fully released the man’s neck, eyes unreadable. “Yeah, I’m actually getting close to done. I think that it’ll be ready for you guys soon. The fish may still be sick…but I’ve been thinking that I can bring some healthy ones over from where I fish from. We actually have some cod and pollock in the fr-!” Mathias was cut off by a pair of arms clutching his shirt front.

“Thank you.” Mathias felt his shirt become soaked in a matter of seconds as the nøkk silently cried. He sat on the edge of the bed and cradled him, smiling fondly. “You’re welcome.”

A few weeks later, the nøkken and the man slowly made their way to the lake. Mathias was excitedly telling the two all that he had done to (in his words) “improve” the lake.

“I made sure to take out any fish that were swimming funny, those I just buried. If there are any that smell weird, don’t eat ‘em. Just gather them up and I’ll take care of them when I come by. You guys are really serious about your music, so I left some violin strings in the cave. You can’t miss ‘em, they’re right along the back wall. Oh! And I read somewhere that you guys don’t take well to silver, so I took the silver crosses that I found in the bottom of the lake. I figured that you guys would like to swim there again. Oh, and-“

They finally reached the lake. Emil and Lukas gasped, eyes becoming damp. “It…It is just like when we first came here…” The water was clear once again, the fish visible and swimming just under the surface. The empty cans and bottles were gone, replaced instead with floating baubles and bubbles. Lukas bent down and cautiously dipped his hand in the water. “It…it is beautiful.” Emil copied his movements, then dove into the lake. He stayed underneath for a while, surfacing again with a bubbling laugh. “Lukas, it’s better than ever!” He dove under again with another laugh, his eyes flashing with the excitement of a child on Christmas.

Lukas slowly eased his legs into the water, then a toothy grin spread across his face. He disappeared after his brother with a chortle. Mathias watched the two dancing underneath the surface, blinking a few times to get rid of the mist rising in his eyes.

Lukas returned minutes later to give Mathias an honest smile. “Thank you, thank you so much. We are both indebted to you.” “No, it was the right thing to do, you don’t owe me anything!” Lukas pulled himself out of the water and sat beside Mathias, eyes twinkling. “I owe you something.” The nøkk grinned lustfully and pulled on Mathias’s jacket. “Uh, Lukas?” “I have owed you this for a long time.” And with that, the water creature’s mouth was on his.

Moments later, Emil’s head appeared in the water nearby. “Ew, really you two? Warn me before you start making out.” Lukas broke from the kiss to half-heartedly glare at his brother. “Emil, stop being so dramatic.” Mathias’s usual grin had merged into a dopey counterpart of itself, his eyes clouded with love. “Lukas, c’mere,” he muttered with a giggle. He pulled the nøkk back for a second kiss, cheeks flushed. Lukas willingly gave into the kiss with a smile on his lips.

“I told you that I like your eyes.” “Mmm, and I told you that you were an idiot.” “Do you still mean it?” “…for loving a nøkk? Yes. For putting yourself in danger to take my brother and me to your home, then exhausting yourself by providing for us and restoring our lake?...yes.” Mathias sat back to protest, but Lukas tangled his hands in his hair. “Do I hold that against you? No. In fact,” he closed the distance between them and rested his cold forehead against Mathias’s warm skin. “I love you even more for all that you have done. You are the most valiant human that I have met in all my centuries of living.”

Emil smirked from below the couple. “Oh shut up and kiss him again, you’ve wanted to ever since you met him!” “Emil!!!” The nøkken dove under again, leaving Mathias to hoot with laughter.