Chapter Text
you were really into black metal. of course, people around you - mostly your dad - said it was weird or satanic, but you knew better. your interest was because you loved the raw energy of it, loved how fucking loud it was in your ears when you slipped your headphones in to exercise.
it was right now you were exercising, heavy music pumping through your headphones, a metal tape in your cassette. you were running around your house, getting your daily cardio in after waking up.
“mails here!” you heard your dad shout out the back door. “here’s your little, satanist magazine.. and a letter?” he said, setting your mail on the porch railing. you had no idea what the letter was, rushing up the steps for your magazine. you had heard about it from a friend, the magazine made by the drummer from the band emperor. you weren’t a diehard fan of them, but you didn’t care when he had shown you a clipping of them together from a magazine.
maybe it was embarrassing admitting that you had only started listening to a band because some of the members were hot.. but it wasn’t a lie.
you slipped your headphones off your head, resting them on your shoulders as you picked up your mail and went inside.
“honey? are you hungry?” your mom called as the screen door clicked shut behind you. mometarily forgetting about your mail, dropping it on the catch-all table as you beeline to the kitchen. your mom handed you a muffin, before you can ask, “i made your favorite,” she smiled, then cocked a brow at your mail.
“do you know a boy from norway?” she asked suspiciously. your head snapped up to look at her, your mouth full before you swallowed quickly to answer.
“what? that’s where my magazine is from, but i don’t know anyone there,” you say, taking another bite of your muffin, crumbs falling onto the counter. your mom shrugs, wrapping the muffins up in parchment paper as you finish yours off.
you grabbed your stuff, confused, and messily wiped crumbs from your mouth as you hurried up into your room. the door slammed behind you as you plopped down at your desk to look through your mail.
checking the name on the letter, you paled, excitement rising in you. yes, you had started listening to emperor because the drummer was hot, but you didn’t expect him to ship you a letter along with his magazine.
“no fucking way,” you mumbled as you tore open the magazine, your eyes raking over the name on the letter. you almost squealed with excitement as you reread it almost four times.
it was full of spelling errors and broken english, but it wasn’t hard for you to tell the general idea of his letter. he had thanked you for buying his little magazine, saying he didn’t recognize your country. he had many questions, about how you heard about the magazine, what bands you liked, what life was like for you, and etc. it was so sweet you couldn’t stop yourself from smiling at it.
you dropped the letter on your desk, and nearly scattered all your paper and pens on the ground opening a drawer on your desk. you pulled out the least crumpled piece for your letter. bonus points that it was your favorite color.
your handwriting looked like a mess, and was hard to read. you erased the first few lines quickly, then took a deep breath, before continuing to write down answers to his questions.
||
you spent nearly an hour on your letter, although you didn’t expect one back. you thought the bård faust writing to you deserved something interesting to recieve back.
you made sure to reply to his questions, and meticulously checked each answer over again to make sure it didn’t sound stupid or rushed. writing about your basic life was honestly the hardest part. yeah, you had a job, and you went out sometimes, but you didn’t really have any meaningful friends, which sucked as you were about to finish your senior year.
when you were maybe 14, you swore up and down you were gonna stay in contact with your best friend when she moved away. your parents had bought you a stationary box, full of envelopes and papers, a cute little stamp set, and some expensive pens. you obviously didn’t stay in contact with her, both typical immature 14 year olds, but it came in handy now. you grabbed in front the top of your wardrobe, wiping the dust off (directly into your face) and coughing as you brought it over to your desk. you hastily stuffed the letter in your envelope and scribbled his address on the paper before darting downstairs to mail it.
“wait.” your dad said, turning away from the TV as you raced past. “where are you going?” he said, spotting the letter.
“just… mailing a letter to a friend, remember when i was 14-“ you said, managing to slip out the door before being required to finish your hasty sentence. your dad couldn’t be that mad, you were basically an adult now anyway.
you tried to keep that sort of thinking as you hopping on your very mature adult bike to go to the nearest post office.
|| (extremely inspo by worldofmadness credit to her)
bård was extremely intrigued when he saw your name on his magazine subscription list. he knew your country was definitely not norway, or any country near him. you had a beautiful name, it rolling off his tongue as he tried to ptonounce it.
sure, it was (most likely) illegal and a definite breach of privacy, but he was just so curious. and so he wrote down your address and name, and quickly penned out a letter. he didn’t expect a response, he didn’t even know who you were or id they’d ever deliver the letter to you, but he wanted to try.
he was almost nervous sending off the letter, because what if the person ordering was a 50 year old man? your name sounded feminine but still, he wasn’t really interested in talking to old men.
||
after mailing off your letter and returning home, all that was left to do was wait. you looked through the magazine a while, reading intently to try and absorb any details you could before giving up. you were so distracted by the fact he was even wrote to you, it was taking over your mind. you grabbed the letter from its spot on your desk and read through it again, then looked back at the magazine to find a picture of him. it was almost embarrassing how you blushed at a picture of him.
getting bored of looking at the same stuff over and over again, you paced. you had no idea why you were so nervous or even why you cared so much. but you did, and all you did was wait. and wait. and wait. wait.
work went by slower and slower every day. the same stuff day in and out, watching teenagers who thought they were hilarious come into your store and go straight to the back. the amount of times you had stopped them from hitting each other with comically large dildos deserved a raise. even though you’d never admit it, you did have to fight a grin some of the times. but then they left, and you were stuck dealing with waiting for that fucking letter you craved so bad.
it was after one of these days that your letter did arrive. after seven hours of customers.
“what do you recommend?” a man asked, coming up to the counter almost eagerly, a hungry look in his eye.
“what do you mean? like… toys?” you gestured to the back of the store, your face hardening as you could tell he was just trying to fuck around.
“yeah, i wanna know which ones to use on you tonight,” a smirk appeared as he leaned on the counter. “what’s your name?”
you wore a fucking name tag.
“oh, playing hard to get?” another smirk, and he slid a piece of crumpled paper across the counter, a few other numbers obviously crossed out.
you slid the paper back to him, your customer service smile faltering. “do you still want my recommendations?”
his expression faltered, clearly he wasn’t usd to being rejected. “fine, be a bitch, you’re ugly anyway,” he sneered, turning and stomping out of the store.
you sighed, resting your head on the counter and rubbing your temples. it was gonna be a long ass day.
||
you were tired when you got home, locking up your bike and coming inside with a sigh.
“another letter for you,” your mom said, sliding it across the counter and turning back to the stovetop. “dinners almost ready too, so don’t take too long.”
you barely caught the rest of her sentence. the moment she had pointed out your letter you snatched it, dashing upstairs to your room and slamming the door shut. you tore it open before you even sat at your desk and your eyes scanned the paper.
he had answered the questions you asked and more, explaining why he had even wrote a letter to you at all.
‘nobody outside of norway has ordered it, i just needed to know why you did.'
||
in the midst of writing a letter back, your mother called you from downstairs, your name bouncing off the staircase into your room as you sighed.
“dinners ready,” she called out, louder than she needed to as you slid into your seat at the table. your dad didn’t eat with you guys, he never really did. just took his food and sat in his office, or in front of the tv with a beer.
you thanked your mom for the food as you grabbed some spaghetti and shoveled your food into your mouth. you made short conversation with her in your haste to get back upstairs.
“you’re eating like an animal, why are you in so much hurry? is it that boy who’s been sending you letters?” her eyes narrowed, pointing her fork at you accusingly. “how did you meet this boy?”
“just someone from a magazine i'm on, nothing insane,” you rolled your eyes, standing up to take your plate to the sink.
“he could be 30 for all you know,” she scolded, getting up to follow you into the kitchen. “you need to be safe about these things--“
“jesus mom! even if he was 30, which he’s not, i’m eighteen! it wouldn’t even fucking matter!” you snapped, your voice raising as you dropped your dishes in the sink. you couldn’t well explain how you knew he wasn’t 30, as your parents were older and obviously didn’t understand your music tastes or the activities you were into.
the sound of your door slamming behind you snapped you out of the annoyed thoughts spinning around in your head. you plopped down into your chair and sighed as you continued to write. your chair creaked periodically as you wrote your letter back, leaving your number for him to call you back on as a little after note, hoping he would notice it. you were about to slip the letter in the envelope as you paused, eyes drifting up to the little polaroid camera sitting on the shelf above your desk.