chapter four

(tino)

The sudden vibration of his mobile phone woke Tino up from his deep, warm sleep. His phone was buzzing on his bedside table, shaking, the screen glowing with bright white, casting dark shadows on the walls. Sleepily, he grabbed for it, and answered.

"Hello…?"

"Tino?" It was Berwald's voice, lower than usual and rough with what sounded perilously close to fear. "Tino, y'alrigh'?"

"Of course…" The Finn sat up sleepily, stifling a yawn. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Think there's someone comin' f'you."

Tino's blood ran cold, and his eyes snapped open, every nerve in his body suddenly awake.

"What do you mean, coming for me? This is a horrible joke if it is one, Berwald!" But Berwald wasn't the sort to play cruel tricks like this, in the middle of the night, and he sounded genuinely worried!

"Not a joke –" Berwald's voice muffled, and faintly, Tino could hear panting, as if his friend (because he really didn't know what to describe Berwald as) had just been running for his life, " – swear, jus' call th'police, or check, please – Tino, please- "

"Calm down," Tino tried to soothe him, though he was on edge himself. "Did you have a nightmare? I know they can seem really realistic, but you just need to remember that –"

"A vision – please –" the voice from the phone actually cracked, and Tino knew that Berwald was genuinely scared, for whatever reason! What did he mean by 'a vision'? Why was he so sure they were coming for Tino, not Berwald himself? Why was he having 'visions' at all? But there was no time to ponder the endless possibilities!

"Okay, I'm going to call my father," Tino stepped out of his bedroom, bare feet careful on the floorboards, cradling the phone to his ear. "He has a rifle under his bed, you know."

Berwald didn't reply, but the faint sound of his breathing was confirmation that he was still there.

"Isa? Äiti?" He heard his parents stir, a faint mumble from his light-sleeping father. "Isa, I think I heard something…" Obviously he couldn't say that Berwald had phoned him and told him that someone was coming for them because he had seen it in a vision.

First, there was only the sound of Tino's father sitting up in bed. Then, quiet but pronounced, came the sound of footsteps from downstairs.

"Isa – " Tino's whisper was significantly more terrified now, " – there's someone in our house."

The moment Tino saw Berwald the next morning, he launched at the Swede, tackling him in a strong hug and talking too fast for Berwald to even try to understand most of what he was saying. People stared, but Tino didn't care!

When he pulled back, he took both of Berwald's hands firmly. "You need to explain. Explain everything." He had so many questions, and the middle of their form room wasn't the best place.

"Uh…" Berwald looked lost for words and quite uncomfortable, but the Finn was not going to let this go.

"Come on, we need to go somewhere more private."

"Bu' registration –"

"They can handle us being gone for ten minutes!" Not listening to his attempts to argue, Tino dragged Berwald from the room and into one of the now-deserted cloakrooms where a few naïve people hung their coats. "Look, I'll explain what happened after I hung up last night, and you need to tell me why you called and how you knew something was going to happen. Okay?"

He saw a flicker of indecision, and even something like fear on Berwald's face, but then came a reluctant nod.

"Well, I heard footsteps. It was pretty scary, actually." Chuckling, Tino rubbed the back of his neck. "My father got his gun and went downstairs, and then we heard him shouting, but when he came back up, he said that nobody was there. Just that the window was broken. I think whoever it was ran off when they saw my dad because he's pretty terrifying with his gun, even if he's only as tall as me!" He tried to bring some humour into it, just to cheer Berwald up a little – he looked miserable, not to mention tired.

"Now, what happened on your side?"

When Berwald didn't answer, Tino's face hardened, and he looked properly serious, almost angry. "If you don't tell me, I'm going to have to believe you were part of it."

"What?"

"What other conclusion could I come to? Give me reason to believe that you weren't in on this, in some twisted way!" His tone turned almost desperate. He didn't want Berwald to be the bad guy in this; he liked Berwald! (Maybe a little too much.)

The Swedish boy sighed deeply, closing his eyes. "You'll think I'm crazy."

"Better than thinking that you're bad," Tino assured him, reaching out for that ever-present and reassuring pat on the arm. "And how crazy can it be, really?"

"So… when you have those attacks, when you collapse, you have visions?" Tino clarified, shocked. Out of anything, he had not expected this. "Visions of people being killed?"

Berwald nodded, head bowed. They had gone from standing to sitting, Berwald with his back against the wall and Tino cross-legged opposite him.

"Usually tha's all I can tell. This one was different… clearer."

"But nobody got killed this time! How did you know it was coming to my house?"

Berwald could only shrug, though his expression was slightly pained. "It was all there. Saw y'house, jus' knew… it was y'family."

"Have you ever had this before? You said it only started a few months ago… when I arrived in town." Suddenly Tino's heart dropped. "Do I have something to do with this?"

"Can't be possible." And Berwald seemed so deadly certain that Tino just nodded faintly.

"Has this sort of thing ever happened before?" If it had, it would be a little easier to gauge the cause, right? Unfortunately Berwald shook his head.

"Unless… somethin' like it happened once. Bu' it was sorta different…"

"How so?" Tino asked eagerly, sitting forward. Not that he was revelling in Berwald having attacks, but he really needed to find out the cause of this, to help Berwald and understand why this was happening to him.

"It was three years ago." Swallowing, Berwald ducked his head again, and suddenly Tino sensed that it was something important, more important than he had previously thought. "Day m'father died."

There was a quiet beat of silence between them.

"What happened?" This time, Tino's voice was softer.

"Was an icy day. 'E slipped, an' fell at the train station. In front of a train." The town was so small that everyone knew - Sven Oxenstierna, a teacher at the local college, had died when a train had crushed him. Berwald had never needed to say it because everyone in his class knew.

"Oh, Sve…" Tino reached for his hand, squeezing it and trying to offer comfort. "I'm sorry…"

"Blood all over the tracks." He took a deep breath, a faint shudder in it, before letting it out in a sigh. "Tha' was the last time it happened. Nothin' since then."

Again, silence fell, and Tino wanted nothing more than to pull Berwald into his arms and really comfort him, but… it didn't feel like the right moment. Berwald was too isolated, even though Tino was right there with him.

"We need to do something," the Finn finally said. "These visions are taking their toll, I mean, you look sick! We're all worried about you. And you can't just ignore them! You need to go to the doctor."

"But –"

"Berwald." Tino's voice was steely. "Go to the doctor. I'll come with you, if you want, but please, get this looked at."

After a brief pause, Berwald nodded, and mumbled something to himself.

"What's that?"

"I said," and Berwald smiled the smallest hint of a smile, "can' disagree, or you'll slam me int'the side'f the ice rink."

Tino burst out laughing. "You bet I will!"

A/N: This chapter frustrates me because the pace is weird. Leave a review with your thoughts!