The police station could look a little livelier, Norway thought to himself as he and Iceland sat in between the desks of their escorts. Norway didn't know this, but Iceland was thinking the exact same thing. Jeff and Jones were bent over their desks, working on what they said were three cases, including a murder that needed a search warrant to proceed, the paperwork for their previous case as they waited for a friend of theirs in the building to approach them with the results of searching for the vehicle Denmark had been taken in.
Jones suddenly spun away from his desk to face Jeff, his arms crossed. "Finally got the judge to approve of that search warrant Detective Danger needed," he stated with a very proud look on his face. His nose was stuck up in the air as he held his head high, his brown eyes glinting playfully.
"Jones, it's not 'Detective Danger,' it's Detective Derek."
"Aw, but it's so much more fun to call him 'Detective Danger,' Jeff!" Jones then punched Jeff's arm repeatedly, but Norway and Iceland noticed that the punches were gentle and only joking.
"Jones, unless you want me to incorrectly file our previous case, I'd suggest you stop moving my arm."
Jones pouted, retreating to his own desk. "You're no fun, Jeff."
Jeff gasped loudly with an over exaggerated flair. "Me? Not fun? I'll just let you know that I find that statement to be highly insulting."
"But it is true."
Jeff turned around in his chair and slapped Jones but the Personifications noticed that it was gentle once again, more of a tap than a slap, in all reality.
The captain of their precinct turned around the corner at that moment, and in the blink of an eye both Jeff and Jones were back to working.
Jeff's phone began to ring and Jones quickly rolled over to pick up. "Detectives Jeff and Jones here." He rested his elbow on Jeff's desk casually as he listened to the person on the other side of the call. Jones' wavy dark hair hung in awkward angles over his face; the sudden movements of living in the moment had adjusted the strands into random and unintended places. Jeff sent Jones a dark look and scooted away from his partner as he continued to type away on the keyboard. Jones nodded every now and then as he listened and grinned when the conversation was over. "Thank you very much," he said and hung up.
"Good news! They found the car Denmark was taken in."
"What's the bad news?" Iceland interjected suddenly, his abrupt, unexpected and soft voice causing the other three to jump.
"The bad news is that the kidnappers dumped the car in a junkyard and took the liberty of scheduling it to be crushed soon for us."
Jeff grabbed his coat and slung it over his shoulder. "Our previous case can wait, let's get that car before it's unrecognizable."
Jones jumped out of his chair and began walking off. He stopped halfway down the hallway he turned around in a fashion Iceland's mind related to Johnny Depp's characters. "You two coming or not?"
Norway and Iceland practically bolted out of their seats and joined Jeff and Jones at their sides. "Thought you'd never ask," Iceland said, which led to a scolding look from Norway.
"We will gladly accompany you, is what I believe my little brother meant to say," Norway said, continuing his scolding attitude towards Iceland.
"Stop calling me that," Iceland responded, and Norway raised his eyebrows.
"I'll consider it the day you cave in and refer to me as big brother."
Iceland glared at his older brother, but Norway's eyes were unblinking and as unreadable as ever. Jones smiled at the actions, holding back laughter.
Soon the four of them were in Jeff's car and driving to the junkyard the car was in. They went in and were looking for the vehicle when Jeff got a call. Jones picked up Jeff's phone once again; Jeff was driving after all, and after only a few sentences into the conversation he slapped his hand on his thigh.
"Aw you're kidding, please tell me you're kidding..." Jones muttered, groaning. "Jeff, pick up the pace. There's been an update, the crushing of that car has been rescheduled to occur any minute now."
Jeff swore heavily and gave the engine more gas. Norway looked up and saw security cameras, two of them, but one looked far newer and different than the other.
"They knew we'd be here, they can see us. We'd better hurry up, find the car and get out of here."
That was when they finally laid their eyes on the car. Sighing, Jeff and Jones got out of the car, Jeff jogging ahead to check out the scene. "There's someone still inside!" He began running towards the car, but the process of crushing the car had already been put in motion. Norway left the car and stood next to Jones, staring at the car.
All the color in the Norwegian's face drained in a second. He knew who was in the car by the outline. Hair that stuck up and spiked that way was impossible to forget. Denmark was inside the car.
"N-Nor... Norway! Run! Get away! Take Ice and get out of―" Denmark's voice screeched, and with that the entire car was crushed, blood painting the windshield a sickeningly dark shade of red.
Norway jogged up to what was left of the car, his breathing rate accelerating. His mind was in immediate denial; he couldn't believe what he had just seen, nor did he want to believe it. Norway tugged on the door with his entire body weight, and it fell off with a loud cha-ker-chunk. He tried to reach Denmark's corpse, but it was beyond his reach. He could see the head shape of the man, however, and the shade of blonde on the corpses' head convinced Norway that this was reality, not just some nightmare he could wake up from and escape.
At that moment, Norway realized that Denmark would never be there to comfort him when his dreams turned dark, he would never wake up to see Denmark's sleeping face next to him, he would never be able to fall asleep in Denmark's arms again. It crushed Norway's heart in a fashion similar to what the car that was in front of him had experienced.
"Can we get this car to expand at all?" Norway asked, grief causing his voice to crack.
Jeff came up and placed his hand carefully on Norway's shoulder. "We'll do our best," he said, his voice soft and sympathetic.
Soon there was a small team of people working to repair the car enough to drag the corpse out. Iceland got out of Jeff's car and stood by the door, his hand over his mouth in obvious horror, his face deathly pale. Norway stood as close to the destroyed car as was allowed, watching carefully. Suddenly, the crew revealed a bloody arm and leg, which was attached to a bloody body, and soon the corpse was fully revealed. Norway choked at all the blood ― he may have been a Viking in his youth, but the sight disturbed him and make his stomach do back flips. The car had snapped Denmark's neck, which was obvious from the unnatural angle his head was tilted. He came close to the corpse and rested his eyes on Denmark's face.
Only, as Norway came close to the body, he noticed something particular. After shutting the clouded, light blue eyes, he stood up and turned around. He was glad that while the death was not pretty, considering that more things had been snapped than his neck, that the man in front of him had died quickly.
Jogging over to Jeff, he told the officer of his finding. "That's not Denmark."
"I'm sorry, what?" Jeff exclaimed, pulling back.
"The man in that car, he's not Denmark."
"Are you sure? He could have been mangled beyond recognition in that car."
Norway nodded, "I'm sure. The body on that carrier is not Denmark. Yes, Denmark has a few tattoos, but he doesn't have them on his arms, and his tattoos are not skulls and fire." Norway went back and told this to Iceland, whose face remained a sickish, pale green color, but was obviously relieved at the news. Jeff and Jones talked with the crew for a while, then proceeded to drive Norway and Iceland back to the precinct.
"From what we're gathering, the man that was killed in the car was the getaway driver. The other kidnappers must have been the ones who tied him in there and gagged him, and a speaker was found with a recording of Denmark talking to make it sound like him triggered by an untraceable signal. They had a camera that self destructed as soon as it was moved to tell when we came for the car." Jones's voice boomed out to the other officers in the room as he informed them of the updates on the case. "We looked at the original security camera, and it showed evidence of being vandalized, seeing that all the recordings from the past week had been removed. Our team is currently trying to identify any source of DNA that could be pulled from the camera. The license plate was removed, but after tracing the car's design we were able to determine that it was reported stolen a few weeks ago. In fact, we have a video of the car being stolen from a nearby gas station's camera, but all of the people seen in the video have shown up dead, or are, naturally, missing, and also identify to five different names across the globe."
Norway and Iceland had moved into the waiting room, helping themselves to some of the precinct's weak coffee. Jeff joined them while Jones rattled on about the case and more of the little details, explaining that these people definitely know what they're doing, which would make them difficult to corner. Despite how hushed Jones tried to say that, Norway and Iceland, with ever-listening ears heard it anyway.
"Would the two of you like to leave? I can take you back to my home, I'm done with my shift." Norway and Iceland exchanged glances. There was a silent, untranslatable conversation bouncing between their expressions for the blink of an eye, something that happened quite often around the brothers.
"Yeah, we might as well go so we don't end up wasting time," Iceland stood up, Norway following shortly after.
As they began walking to the elevator, Jeff leaned closer to Norway. "It was very brave of you to have stood and waited for the body to be recovered."
Norway knitted his eyebrows together, "it wasn't brave, it was denial. I just couldn't believe it, and so in my mind I convinced myself to believe that it was someone else, or it hadn't happened."
"It might have been denial, but it was admirable. I never would have been able to do what you did today."
Norway sighed; the way Jeff tried to read him annoyed Norway, but he also found comfort in the knowledge that someone cared enough to try and peer over the emotional wall the Norwegian had only built higher over time.
"I've never been one to get disturbed by such things. Please understand this, Jeff. I might consider you a friend, but in all honesty, you barely know me at all." Norway sent a small smile to Jeff before getting into the elevator with Iceland. Jeff followed shortly after, and there was complete silence in the elevator, save for the clicks and the clanks of moving gears and belts.
In a matter of minutes the three of them were Jeff's car yet again, zooming off to Detective Geoffrey's home.