Tino sat up in his bed and searched the room thoroughly with his eyes. He always did this. His eyes looked at the curtains which failed to let the sunlight through, cascading golden light throughout his room. Then his eyes darted to his shelves. Every cup, trinket and knife was in the correct place. His guns were still mounted in the same positions as they were when Tino checked last night, ordered in a system of ascending weight. Now that he created the illusion he was checking the room in general, he looked at Berwald. One time Tino looked straight at Berwald, not knowing he was awake and who thus inquired about it, so Tino got into the habit of pretending to be looking around in general. The smaller man noted that this time the other man was completely lost in dream land. Content and relaxed at the other being unconscious, Tino smiled over at him and noticed how peaceful he looked. Tino bit his lip and wished Berwald would always look that peaceful, that harmless, and that innocent. He whispered delicately as to not wake up the Swede and ruin this perfect little moment in time.
"Sve, I know you can't hear me but I love you. I just can't say it when you're awake."
"Why?" He imagined Berwald's gruff voice replying in a blunt manner.
"I'm so anxious not to screw up. I'm so worried you will leave me."
Berwald's eyes slowly fought off sleep, opening and shutting clumsily like a letterbox in the wind. Tino halted his speech and continued to look around, pretending he had only just woke up. His books were still in alphabetical order by title, which drove Berwald crazy as he looked for authors, not titles. His clothes were still in rainbow order in the wardrobe, just as was Berwald's.
His head snapped to face Berwald when he felt the warmth of hand on his arm.
"Climb over me."
Tino almost choked on his own saliva. What kind of morning greeting was that? It sounded more like some grotesque retort Mathias would say.
Berwald shot Tino a look. Tino pulled his tongue out whilst his brain tried to decipher the code. Soon he realised that Berwald thought Tino was waiting to get out of bed but could not as he was in the way, thus telling Tino to climb over him. This realisation was confounded when Berwald then snuggled back into bed to continue dreaming.
The smaller decided that confessing to Berwald now was dangerous as Berwald was slipped into a world in between that of reality and that of sleep, thus could be easily awoken, so Tino attempted to climb over Berwald's legs in order to get downstairs and start breakfast. He shuffled over to Berwald's legs and hoisted one leg over timidly and then the other in the same fashion. He looked up and was sure he saw a flash of blue on that otherwise sleeping face.
Had Berwald been watching him?
