Broken Glass
It was cold, and rainy. What a waste of a Swedish summer day. They were too few and too short to be spent bundled up in a slicker. And, quite frankly, Berwald was rather certain he wasn't going to be turning any heads dressed up like the Gordon Fisherman. But, also quite frankly, the utilitarian Swede was more concerned with function than fashion… as per usual.
No, what had him a little addled and frustrated was that today was supposed to be a very special day. Today was supposed to begin with breakfast and coffee at an outdoor café, move on to window shopping through Stockholm, light lunch of something they could eat in the Volvo on the drive over to the amusement park, then a candle lit dinner and finally culminating in a hotel room with (hopefully) his arms wrapped tightly around the one special person who this one special day was going to be all about.
It just felt like he couldn't get anything right sometimes. This pained feeling, though, he hid from his special someone and would crush it down even further; the café was in view now. He marched over quickly, and sure enough Tino wasn't seated in their planned table. A momentary lapse of panic pierced Berwald's heart. What if he'd been upset about the rain and just went home and at the Swede's own apartment would be a message on his machine calling the whole day off!
The panic though ebbed when he heard a faint tinking sound and looked a few feet to his left. Beside the café where they had planned to meet was a McDonalds, and Tino was sitting there smiling at him from behind the glass window; smiling and dry and there and looking happy to be. He'd simply changed the venue and sat in a place where he could catch Berwald's attention. At what must have been apparent confusion on the Swede's face the Finn breathed on the glass and scribbled with his finger one big, backwards "?" and looked at his boyfriend quizzically.
Berwald released a small smile and approached, using his own gloved finger to write (this time in the correct order for Tino to be reading) "Here."
Tino breathed back and wrote a more legible, (but his G was still backwards) "Hungry?"
"Ja."
The Finn only replied with a smile and, with one more breath, he drew a heart on the window and waved Berwald to come inside. God if he wasn't just sickly sweet.
Berwald wasn't particularly fond of McDonald's food, it was greasy and probably had 18 different cancer causing carcinogens hiding inside its chicken nuggets, but, hell, if Tino had the courage to brave a Bacon Egg McMuffin, well, he would too. As he entered he spied the smaller man sipping his coffee at the other end of the restaurant and he quickly shuffled over to crawl out of his coat and drape it over the back of his chair.
"Sorry for the change, Bear." The Finn used his nick name. "I didn't wanna get soaked."
"Well, you are sugar. You'll melt." The Swede softly retorted.
"I ordered breakfast and a coffee for you, black, right?" He smiled, and his assumption was confirmed with a nod. Conversation was halted as they ate their greasy, diet destroying food together. Tino spent the time staring aptly out the window as the water droplets on it refracted the lights from street lamps and shop windows into a rainbow cascade of a thousand colors as a woman at an adjacent table was playing 'Walking on Broken Glass' on her phone and he was quietly humming along; Berwald spent the time staring aptly at Tino, as in this way his prying gaze wouldn't be noticed.
He took sharp notice as Tino's shirt collar drooped just far enough to reveal the thin, often hidden scar on the young man's collar bone. Just seeing it reminded Berwald of year old rage; the taste of embitterment, the smell of clinical clean, and the sting in his eyes from the painfully loud pattern of a hospital gown. Of the pearly skin now before him when it was painted purple and brown with blotches and bruises, of one beautiful eye swollen shut. Of tubes and wires and monitors and the ceaseless, infernal beeping and whirring of machinery.
It was as though time slowed down as Berwald was wrenched back one year and reborn into the quite, awkward, young man who had been painfully infatuated with the young and breathtaking college student who had just moved into the apartment down the hall from his. It'd been like a sign from someone above (and yes, he meant his Super Intendment Elizabeta who lived in the apartment above his.) But at the time luck had been far from his side, his object of affection was spoken for; in a relationship with a burly, smiling Russian. Publicly? They looked like any cute couple to anyone not paying heart-achingly close, love sick attention. But Berwald was different. He noticed little things. The way Tino moved the fraction of an inch, as though to flinch, if Ivan moved too quickly near him. He noticed Tino only wore long pants and sweaters, even on hot days. And the worst was when he'd hear sounds from the apartment all the way in his own. Didn't anyone else hear them? Why didn't anyone else bother to leave their little world to check? Berwald wasn't about to let it go that easily. He would knock on Tino's door and ask him if all was alright. Typically the smaller would flinch at his approach as well, but would simply stutter out something about dropping something heavy. He didn't buy it for a minute, but Tino aggressively seemed to be defensive about the entire matter. Berwald was forced, time and time again, to return to his own apartment… feeling like he was walking on broken glass.
As the weeks progressed it'd hurt more and more; what he was allowing to happen to the person he cared so deeply about, just two doors down. He would forever hate himself for allowing it to escalate to the point it did… to the point where he'd run out his own door to find his Tino being forcefully dragged out the door of his apartment but the Russian.
"Not out here Ivan, no, let's go back insi-!" had been a plea broken by the harsh sound of flesh meeting flesh. It was the sound of Ivan's palm as it ripped through the air and pummeled Tino onto the floor of the hallway. Of course, this is when the neighbors decided they wanted to come out and inspect the noises. Berwald's heart ached for Tino as he watched the other curl up on the floor, protecting his head with his arms as the brute kicked at him, pulled him back up to his knees by his hair, and beat him back down to the floor. Berwald couldn't take it anymore! Not a second more!
He charged up behind the giant of a man, tackling the monster with as much strength as he could. It didn't bring him down, but served Tino the distraction needed. "RUN!" Berwald roared. "Run downstairs!" Tino had stayed frozen, staring at him for only a minute until the second order had jarred him awake. Berwald tried to hold the Russian, he really had, but in a heartbeat's time he'd felt an elbow make contact with his nose (shattering his glasses) and the brute was released and after Tino again, spitting out some curse at the smaller man in Russian. Berwald tried again, blind as he was, to recapture Ivan, but not in time to halt the violence. His heart was pierced with stabbing, glass-shard-esk pain as he grasped the Russian around the waist, causing him to jab out and for Tino to be shoved… careening down two flights of stairs.
He had counted himself so lucky that one neighbor (yes, Liz, that wonderful brave woman) had called for help. The authorities had been on their way all throughout the struggle and an ambulance had been right behind them. Ivan was carted away in handcuffs, Tino in a gurney. Berwald was permitted along for the ride so the paramedics could see to his obviously broken nose.
And then was the waiting game. Tino was going to be held there for a few days. He was so badly beaten, and had broken his shoulder and collarbone in the tumble down the stairs. Berwald visited him every day, and every day he brought more and more flowers. The first two days the doctors used drugs to keep him asleep. It was Berwald's prerogative to assist in making his hospital room as gentle and unthreatening for him as possible before the doctors woke him up. It was the most painful and pitiful thing he'd ever seen, and made all the more worse by the knowledge that he had been a part of the negligence that had allowed it to escalate to this point.
"Ivan could have killed you." He'd sighed to the sleeping figure, moving so far as to rest his head on the edge of the bed, and bold enough to place a kiss on the sleeping figure's finger tips. "I shouldn't have left you with him all those times. I knew better. I knew better." He moaned. He would never stop hating himself.
"It's… not your fault." Came a forced wheeze, forcing the Swede to return to his seated position and his socially acceptable level of conversational proximity. Tino'd been awake! The drugs had apparently ebbed enough for him to gain enough consciousness to croak a response, but still not open his eyes.
"What?" Berwald questioned.
"It wasn't your fault… I didn't want your help… I'm sorry. I wish I'd asked you for help a long time ago… Before it turned into this… and that." He croaked, finally opening his eyes and weakly motioning with his IV-tapped hand to Berwald's still swollen, but successfully reset nose.
"My ugly nose ain't nuthin'." Berwald choked back.
"It's a very handsome nose." Tino wheezed in reply. "Did you bring all the flowers?"
"… Ja…"
"… Thanks, they're pretty. I like yellow flowers, I forgot that I did. Can I inconvenience you one more time?"
"A-ah, sure, anything."
"Can you push the nurse call button for me? I'm hungry."
Berwald continued his visits every day, for the length of time he was allowed to stay. He didn't go to work for probably a week, but it didn't really matter… he'd had several years of vacation time piled up… it afforded him a month's worth a days to visit Tino and help get him home from the hospital. It had initially been a friendship; Berwald was someone Tino could trust in this time where he was now alone… feeling very weak both emotionally and physically. It wasn't until the end of the month had Tino finally come to understand that Berwald was so much more than just a good hearted neighbor, more than the best friend he didn't know to ask for…
And time sped back up and Berwald was yanked back into the happy present by the sound of Tino's laughter… a sound that had taken him months to hear even after starting their relationship. "And then Mads ate twelve pickled eggs and threw up all over my shoes!" He chortled, talking to a blue-shirt wearing, teenage employee with a stack of red trays balanced against his hip… oh, it was just Erik, the little brother of Tino's friend Siguard. He'd been completely zoned out during their conversation. The woman at the table beside them had gone on to play 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. Life was moving on, life was marching forward and progressing. The past was past. Peering over at Tino's smile he felt, just maybe, it was time to let the past and his guilt go. Maybe he could me more concerned with the bright future they had ahead of them. With a soft smile he reached forward and laced his fingers together with Tino's, momentarily interrupting him.
"What's this for?" Tino grinned at him, running a thumb over the back of his palm.
"Nuthin'," Berwald smiled right back. "Just love you is all." With his thumb he made the shape of a heart on the back of Tino's hand.
"Well, I love you too Bear. Come on, finish your sandwich, you promised we'd go window shopping."
"But it's raining…"
"I'm not made of sugar, I won't melt." Erik only rolled his eyes at the sickly sweetness of Tino's reply and returned to collecting trays.