Author Note: This story takes place in a medical office. Sweden (Berwald) was a doctor in a trauma ward and now works in prosthetics (helping people with missing limbs). Trigger warnings may apply. Some of the Hetalian cast may be physically altered in order to fit the setting (this includes anything from age to physical appearance re: having suffered past trauma). Please see my profile for a list of characters and their role in my mediverse.
OCs will only be included as filler characters. Any likeness to a real person is not intended (except in the case of Mr. Daniels who is based off my own father).
Pairings: Sweden x Finland.
I hope you enjoy this little tale I've dreamed up.
Apple
The realization that Tino was in love with Berwald hit him like an anvil out of thin air.
Tino entered Berwald's office after a brief tap-tap on the door frame as he did every morning. Berwald hunched over his desk, tinkering with what looked to be an elbow and forearm atop a mountain of paperwork. Grinning, Tino slid the stack of papers he was holding in front of the man, blonde head still bowed down in concentration, large hands fiddling with a screwdriver.
"Here's the imaging reports you had requested last night," he waited until he was sure the blue eyes behind glasses saw where he was putting the papers before he let go, fully aware they would soon be lost in the mess of the desk, as did any paperwork when Berwald was tinkering. "And your coffee!" he held out the cup of steaming liquid and waited for the other man to look up.
With a sigh, Berwald put down his screwdriver and (?arm) whatever he was working on, eyes flickering upwards to look at Tino.
Cerulean met with lavender and Tino's heart suddenly decided to stop working properly.
"Thank you, T'no," Berwald muttered, his fingertips briefly brushing against Tino's as he took the cup from his hands. Tino gasped and stumbled backwards when the cup was safely in the hands of his boss. Berwald arched a brow at him in wonder, but said nothing.
Tino had worked with Berwald for several years now. Previously, Tino had been the receptionist in the Pediatric Ward of a major hospital, and Berwald – Doctor B. Oxenstierna – was one of the doctors in the trauma ward of the same hospital. While they worked in different units and on different floors, there were a handful of times when they had professionally crossed paths. One day, very suddenly, Berwald had appeared in front of Tino's desk, scowling down at him, and he said, "s'place is no good. I'm leavin', you should, too." Tino gaped at him, "you've nice penm'nship. You should work for me."
Nice Penmanship?!
That was hardly a reason to leave a steady job; but, the hospital politics were sometimes a bit much and so, for some reason, Tino decided to quit and follow the strange, quiet doctor (and quickly wondered if he had made a terrible mistake).
Berwald, Dr. O, opened his own private prosthesis and rehabilitation practice and Tino was his assistant.
The first year was rough, and on more than one occasion Tino considered going back to the hospital and begging for his old job back. Berwald was not the most social person and he struggled to perform consults with new patients (though, several patients from his years as a doctor in the trauma ward had followed Berwald to his new clinic). He was much more interested in tinkering with prosthetic limbs and figuring out ways to help people than to actually be with the people. So, he eventually asked (convinced?) others to join his clinic: the young Dr. Eduard VonBock and Dr. Raivis Galante worked part-time at the clinic and at local hospitals.
Tino, and his lovely penmanship, directly assisted Dr. O. Eventually, Tino fell into the role of Berwald's voice when speaking with clients, Tino himself usually conducted any new patient interviews in Berwald's schedule, while the doctor only sat in, a silent observer with his notepad.
Tino runs the office.
Which Berwald happily allows him, giving him more time to shut himself away in his office and design custom limbs for his patients.
Over time, Tino grew to know Berwald better than anyone else – although, this was not hard to do, the man was one of few words and fewer expressions. Tino had spare keys to his car, his house, his office. Tino knew the code to the safe behind the painting of stormy waves crashing around a lighthouse on a hill. Tino told Berwald when he had to be at work, and Tino told Berwald when it was best for him to go home and get some sleep.
It was a running joke in the office that the only way the two could get any closer would be if they were married. And so Tino was affectionately (annoyingly) referred to as Dr. O's wife (where this title originated it is not clear, though Eduard swears he heard Dr. O himself say it first).
As a dutiful partner, Tino brings any required paperwork: results, correspondence, charts, and a coffee to Dr. O every morning without fail, almost since they first opened the clinic.
The ritual is uneventful, familiar, and yet, this morning, everything changed.
Berwald's eyes were solidly fixed on Tino's as he stumbled back, grabbing the chair in front of the desk for momentary support. He regained his balance and clutched at his chest, his face hot as a blush bloomed in his cheeks.
Berwald only grunted, his expression unchanged. Tino knew the subtleties of his boss' face and immediately recognized the unspoken question that seemed to float in the air between them, 'what?'
"I'm alright," Tino choked out, "just…" startled by your eyes? He looked at them every day, like an ocean early in the morning behind the lenses of wire-rimmed glasses. And yet they startled Tino this morning. He was equally startled by noticing how long Berwald's – Dr. O's – blonde eyelashes really were, and how he would look up through them when Tino offered him his morning coffee. Blonde eyebrows slowly knit together and Dr. O's scowl deepened.
Tino waved at the air, brushing away the 'what' that still seemed to hang there. "I'm fine!" With that, he spun on his heel and marched for the door, for safety.
He could feel Dr. O's cold stare on his back as he slid out of the office and shut the door behind him with a quiet click.
Tino stood for a moment, back against the door, waiting for his heart rate to return to a normal rhythm and for the butterflies that were abruptly having a fit in the pit of his stomach to calm.
The unspoken 'what' seemed to have trailed after him into the hall, and he waved at the air again, hoping to dismiss it. One glance from the man he'd known for the last several years, his boss, did not just make him weak in the knees. There is no 'what' to answer to!
Once sufficiently collected, he straightened his shirt, and marched to the front of the office to take his place at the reception desk. As he approached, the door jingled merrily and Dr. VonBock strolled in, closely followed by Dr. Galante.
"…You don't understand, Ed." Raivis was saying as they entered, "this guy ate 20 paperclips. There they all were, clear as day on the x-ray! Oh! Morning, Tino!"
"Good morning, Raivis, Eduard!" Tino replied merrily, happy for somebody else in the office to focus on. Eduard made his way towards the rehabilitation room, Raivis closely following, continuing his story about the paperclips.
The door chimed again and a man in his mid to late 50s with pepper-coloured hair and kind eyes walked in, smiling.
"Ah, Mr. Daniels!" Tino called
"No appointment today, Tino," he said warmly, approaching the desk before leaning on it, "I just need to order more stump socks, I wrecked one of mine while on holiday."
"Sorry to hear that!" Mr. Daniels was one of the regular customers at the clinic; he had lost one of his legs when he was a teenager in a farming accident. Dr. O met him at a winery one summer while on holiday. He had questioned him about his artificial leg and mentioned he might be able to help him with pain management with a new limb design he was working on. Mr. Daniels had been a customer ever since!
"How's the leg treating you?" Tino ask, gathering the appropriate paperwork.
"It's alright, been a bit sore the last couple days, but there's always good and bad days." he sighed sadly, but his smile remained. "Good morning, Berwald!"
Tino's heart suddenly stopped, his stomach dropping to his feet when he felt a large, warm hand clap down on to his shoulder. Mr. Daniels was smiling up at the person standing behind Tino, likely attached to the hand that was very gently squeezing Tino's shoulder. He heard the grunt of a reply. Tino looked back and Berwald was regarding Mr. Daniels with a passive expression, one side of his mouth upturned in a small (friendly) smile. His eyes flickered down to Tino's.
"H-he's just here to order more socks for his leg." Berwald – Dr. O, dammit – blinked slowly and Tino turned back to Mr. Daniels, "your leg is sore now, you say?" the hand on his shoulder squeezed again. "Dr. O will actually take a look at that leg, maybe there's something he can do for you." The hand left his shoulder and he knew Dr. O was heading to his examination room.
"Oh, it's no trouble!" Mr. Daniels started to protest, holding his hands up in defense.
"Nonsense, room one, you know where it is. I'll fill out the order forms for you and you can sign them on your way out." Mr. Daniels smiled in thanks and followed Dr. O to the exam room with a subtle limp in his step. Tino pretended to shuffle papers until he heard the exam room door snap shut.
After Mr. Daniels left, exiting the office while laughing at some joke shared between doctor and patient, Dr. O shut himself back in his office and the day fell into a regular rhythm.
Eduard saw his daily patients in the rehabilitation clinic (patients recovering from sport injuries to patients learning how to use new prosthetic limbs), and Raivis busied himself with paperwork, going over x-rays, and consulting with a new client in the afternoon. Dr. O only left his office to wander to the kitchen to make himself coffee before shutting himself away again.
Berwald had always known that a career in the medical profession would not be an easy one. For the most part, he could cope. But, for every patient he met, his heart would twist painfully in his chest for the suffering they likely had to endure in order to be seeing him. He worked hard to make sure his patients' lives would be as pain-free and comfortable as he could make it.
He sighed deeply and leaned back in his office chair, vision blurring with unshed tears. He would not cry, though, no matter how hard it was to work on the small arm in front of him. His battered emotions would nearly break him every time his patient was a child.
Children should not suffer the way adults do.
There was a light tap at the door, Berwald quickly wiped at the tears under his glasses before Tino's head popped in to view.
"Dr. O," he said softly, "it's getting late."
"You go," Berwald responded, "I need t' finish this." He gestured to the project on his desk. Tino's face contorted into a pursed-lip scowl, "I won't stay late." he hurriedly added. Tino nodded and raised a hand in goodbye before ducking out of the office.
He'd been off all day, his Tino.
He had not been oblivious to the way his cheeks had suddenly lit up in a deep blush first thing this morning, or how he jumped every time Berwald got near him throughout the day. He wondered what he had done to cause such strange behavior. Normally his wife was sunshiny and carefree – today he was tense and nervous.
This worried Berwald and simultaneously annoyed him. He pushed these thoughts from his head and bent over his project, returning to work.
He fell asleep at his desk.
"Doctor O!" Berwald nearly fell out of his chair when he was violently awoken with a start. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes, a painful kink knotted in the back of his neck. "Did you sleep here?!" Tino's face flushed red with what Berwald could only assume was anger. The small man slammed a to-go cup of coffee on the desk before crossing his arms across his chest, twisting his mouth into his most fierce scowl of disappointment.
Berwald had the decency to blush guiltily, ducking his head and rubbing the back of his neck.
"I couldn' leave before I finished," he said quietly, peeking up at Tino over the rims of his glasses. Tino looked visibly flustered for a moment, opening and closing his mouth like he was going to say something more, but was not quite able to. It was adorable.
Tino's eyes finally wandered down to the desk and what Berwald had been working on, widening a fraction.
"What is that?" he cried, pointing.
"'S an arm," Berwald said flatly.
"Yes, I can see it's an arm, Berwald," the blush on Tino's cheeks was spreading to his ears, and Berwald internally enjoyed the sound of his first name on the Finn's lips. "It's terribly small, isn't it?"
Berwald shook his head, silent for a minute, thinking over how to respond.
He settled for bluntly: "'S for a kid."
To be continued...