Tino awoke to an odd sensation. There was a smell of food and the sound of cutlery hitting ceramics. It took a while for him to realise that he was actually hungry. It made for a pleasant change.

He slowly opened his eyes and was startled by the change in his surroundings. Essentially the furniture was the same, but there was colour to it, and the paintings on the wall wasn't of a mediocre flower-filled field, but of a circus with annoyingly bright and clashing colours.

"Yer 'wake?"

Tino looked towards the opposite side of the room. A bespectacled teen with sandy blond hair sat in a wheelchair. Tino squinted. His sight was blurry, and he couldn't make out any details. Now that he was regaining some strength and his ability to move, this scared him the most. The boy's accent, however, clearly labeled him as Swedish.

After a while he realised he'd been staring (even though he didn't actually see much) and hadn't answered the question. But since it was obvious that he was awake, answering now felt stupid. The silence between them grew.

Finally, the other boy said: "If y' want to eat something, y' press th'button on th'control. They said they'd keep it warm for y'."

Tino nodded slowly, and looked around for the remote. He hadn't used it before; nurses had been running in and out of his room all the time regardless to measure his blood sugar, so he'd just had to ask them for whatever he needed whenever they came along. It lay on the drawer/bedside table-on-wheels next to him. Tino untangled his legs from the covers and reached out for it.

Or rather, he tried to. He couldn't seem to muster enough strength to hold out his hand that far, and it made him sick.

Wrong choice of words, he thought sullenly and tried again.

Berwald watched the other boy try to reach the remote with obvious difficulties, the boy's eyes threatening to glaze over with tears of frustration. After the third attempt Berwald lay down his fork and turned his wheelchair around to call for the nurse with his own remote. He pretended not to notice as the other boy glared at him, face slightly less white with embarrassment.

Soon a nurse entered the room.

"Do you need anything, Mr Oxenstierna?" She asked with a cheery voice.

Berwald shook his head. "He woke up."

The nurse spun around and smiled at the boy, who was no longer glaring.

"It seems he did!" she chirped, "Would you like something to eat, Mr..." She frowned. "I'm sorry, I can't seem to remember your name."

"It's Tino Väinamöinen." The voice was weak and a bit hoarse. A Finn. Berwald felt a bit of hope, it wasn't entirely impossible that - Tino? - spoke Swedish.

The nurse smiled again. Tino gave a shade of a smile back, though it seemed to be more of a polite reflex than anything else.

"Well, Mr Väinamöinen, would you like to have your dinner?"

"Yes, please."

The nurse nodded, informing Tino that the doctor would come by, and left the two boys alone with their silence.

"Good evening, Mr Väinamöinen." Doctor Engels came into the room, followed by a nurse carrying a tray with Tino's dinner. After folding up a table over the bed so that Tino wouldn't have to move out of the bed to eat, she took Berwald's tray and left quietly.

"Kuka sinä olet?" Doctor Engels smiled as Tino's eyes widened in surprise.

"You speak Finnish?"

"Not really. I used to treat a Finnish patient."

"Your pronunciation is really good."

Doctor Engels laughed. "Kiitos. She used to lecture me very sternly. So much, in fact, that I never had the time to learn anything more than that."

Tino smiled. From Berwald's point of view it looked like a real one.

The doctor's eyes wandered to the intravenous.

"Tell us if it get's uncomfortable, all right? We can always try and put it in the other arm, if it gets in the way too much the way it is now. God knows I would have preferred to have it in my left arm."

Tino looked down to the package of tissue and tape that covered the crook of his arm and nodded.

"How much have they told you?"

Tino's face lost the smile.

"Umm..." Berwald only just had the time to look away before the Finn glanced in his direction. He pretended to be very interested in the book he held, despite not having read a single word since the Tino had moved in sometime after lunch.

"I didn't understand much, the nurse kept speaking in German..." Doctor Engels frowned, but did not interrupt. "But I gathered that I have diabetes, it's the kind that requires me to take insulin for the rest of my life, it's not my fault, the reason it affects people is virtually unknown, it's not my fault, Finland has the highest percentage of youths affected in the world, oh, and above all: it's not my fault."

Berwald fought a smile off his face. Tino seemed fairly calm in spite of his new condition, and also surprisingly talkative.

Doctor Engels smiled understandingly.

"It gets tiring to hear that all the time, doesn't it? You'll have to get used to questions, especially now in the beginning people will want to ask you a lot of questions, but it will mostly be the same ones all over again." Tino made a face and Engels laughed. "Within the week, hopefully, the dietician, diabetes nurse and psychologist will start coming to teach you all you need to know. When your blood sugar levels are more stable and we can take away the intravenous insulin we'll teach you how to use insulin pens. It will all seem very much at first, but you'll see that you'll be a pro in no-time." The doctor quickly glanced at his watch. "If you have any questions, write them down and I'll try to answer them next time. For now, enjoy your dinner."

"I will," Tino said. The doctor nodded to Berwald and left.

Tino picked up the fork. His hand was shaking, and the smile quickly vanished from his face. Berwald continued to pretend to read while observing his new roommate. It seemed Tino was putting on a brave face in front of everyone else, even though he was very tired. After a while the fork was discarded, much of the food still untouched. It wasn't until the violet eyes locked onto Berwald's own that he realised he was no longer pretending to read.

"What?" It was probably meant to sound defiant, but the Finn only sounded tired.

"Do you speak Swedish?" Berwald asked after but a moment's hesitation.

Tino was silent for a while.

"No."

And with that, the violet eyes were averted, their owner turning over on his side, shifting his arm to keep the tubes from twisting around him, and fell asleep again.

Thank you so much those of you who sent in reviews! :D

I'm not quite sure yet how to continue this, I almost never plan a story from beginning to end before I write it... ^-^; But since I'm fuelled by supportive reviews, I guess this might go a long way~ The other Nordics should show up in the next one. :3