"Berwald!" The loud, blond male opened the door without knocking, startling the inhabitants of the room with the sharp hospital sanitizer smell. Sighing to himself, Sigurd followed.

"Mathias, this is a hospital, behave yourself."

Erik stepped in silently, nodding at Berwald, who was sitting at the table with his book. Berwald nodded back.

"Hi."

Mathias, completely without shame, threw his bag on Berwald's bed, and himself after it. "Seriously, Berry, this bed is golden! I'd never leave this place!"

Berwald grinned. "I could help you with that. Return the favour."

"Man, not cool!" Mathias protested, propping himself up on an elbow. "It wasn't my fault that you clumsily tripped on the skateboard I had strategically placed outside your room!"

Berwald snorted. "Right."

Erik, who had remained standing, nodded towards the opposite side of the room. "Who's he?"

Berwald looked over to the boy sleeping tangled in tubes. He had gotten a better complexion, and after some fussing care by a guilt-drenched mother he wasn't quite so thin and weak. He still refused to speak with Berwald, probably because he was the only one to see the full extent of the other's vulnerability. "His name is-"

"Tino Väinamöinen," Sigurd cut off. Berwald looked up at the Norwegian, surprised. The other two looked equally astounded. Mathias arched an eyebrow inquiringly.

"What?"

"Well go on. Do tell us how you know this," Mathias said in a voice drenched in implied meaning. Sigurd slapped him over the back of his head.

"We met and talked music. He's a nice guy. Keeps talking even though I don't." Erik sniggered to himself, saying something in Icelandic. Sigurd shot him a dirty look before returning to the subject. "Anyway, I bet he's been good company." He paused. "Despite his condition."

"Not really." Berwald said. "We haven't spoken much at all, really."

Now Sigurd was surprised. "Why not?"

"He isn't feeling well, obviously. And he doesn't speak Swedish either."

Sigurd stood silent for a while, before offering a thoughtful "Oh?"

When Tino woke up, he was hit with a sense of surreality. The room was empty – and compared with the earlier animation (Tino had initially pretended to be asleep, but had quickly panned out for real) it was eerily silent. And in a corner, sitting perfectly still, was Sigurd. They had spoken a few times and got along pretty well, but not on visit-at-the-hospital-scale, especially considering that Tino hadn't told him that he had collapsed.

"Hi..?"

"Don't worry, I was visiting Berwald. It's a small world."

"Oh. That explains it," Tino smiled tiredly.

Sigurd did not respond in kind (not that he ever did). Instead, he looked out the window.

"So… You don't speak Swedish?"

Tino's smile froze in place.

"I don't know you well enough for lectures." Sigurd cast a sideway glance at Tino. "But I do know Berwald. And I'd prefer it if you didn't lie to him." He looked down, fingering the cross he always wore in his hair. "He's a precious friend. I'd hate to see him hurt."

Hurt? How could a stranger in the opposite bed with whom you'd never even spoken hurt you? Tino opened his mouth to ask, but was interrupted by the door exploding open once again, and the silence was broken.

"Sigurd!" Mathias exclaimed. "You were here the whole time?"

"I told you, didn't I? You've got memory like a goldfish, Mathias."

"Liar," Erik coughed. Berwald looked over at Tino. The Finn looked like a deer caught in headlights. Did Sigurd say something to him? There was probably no use asking, though. If Sigurd wanted to say something, he said it. If he didn't, he didn't. And Tino didn't want to talk to him at all. It made him a little sad. He had promised Dr. Engels to try to get along with him, and it would relieve him of some boredom if he could speak to someone outside of visiting hours. Berwald wasn't allowed to contemplate this any longer, because Mathias had grown tired of being verbally abused by Sigurd and craved new distractions, and by the end (when nurses almost literally had to drag the noisy Dane out) he was exhausted. Though not as exhausted as Tino, he thought, as he noticed that the Finn was sleeping again. He might be doing physically better, but as Berwald studied him closer, he seemed more miserable than usual, even in his sleep, and he wished he could do something – even just the tiniest of things – to make him look a bit happier.

Erik watched Sigurd intently. The two were sitting opposite each other, next to the window, on a bus heading homewards through the city whose lights were slowly lighting up all over as the natural light gradually slipped down behind the horizon. They weren't brothers by blood, but in everything else, they were, and Erik could tell something bothered the other.

"What is it?"

"What is what?"

Erik frowned.

"Stop it, Sigurd. I can see it on your face. You're worried."

Sigurd cracked a small smile.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Like a giant billboard with neon pointers blinking hysterically."

Sigurd scoffed. "Now you're just being obnoxious."

Erik shrugged. "Maybe. But you're still worried about something."

Sigurd nodded. "Berwald."

"Of course." There was no judgement, no emotion behind the comment. It was an anticipated answer.

"…And Tino."

"Tino?" Erik shook his head. "I don't quite follow."

"You know how Berwald likes to help people, even if there's no profit in it himself."

"Yeah?"

"Tino might be turning into his next project."

"Ah."

"I'm not sure if Tino would like that. In fact, he'd probably reject it." Sigurd crossed his legs and sat up straight. "To begin with, Tino is Finnish, and Berwald is Swedish."

Erik nodded. Finnish-Swedish rivalry, sometimes animosity even, was legendary, although it often seemed to Erik as though it was mostly the Finns picking fights with the Swedes, while the Swedes still lived in some kind of bubble where 600+ years of shared history mattered little to nothing except for during hockey-season.

"And on top of that, Tino is now physically weak. So we've got physical weakness in addition to a minority complex, which makes him very unlikely to accept help." Sigurd raised his finger. "This, however, will make Berwald more determined to help him, because it's clear he needs it."

"And you think all the stress will make him snap."

"It might. Also – I have no real evidence for this though – I get the impression that his family isn't very well off, and that the father might be out of the picture."

"Berwald doesn't handle rejections that well." Erik said, in a way that made it partly a question.

"It's fine as long as he doesn't get too attached…" Sigurd smiled wryly. "Like with me. But I get the impression that it might be a bit different for Tino. Maybe because the weakness is more visible."

Erik thought it over. "Is there anything we could do, do you think?"

"…I hope there is," Sigurd said, pressing down the glaring STOP-button.

Is it..? Could it be..? IT'S AN UPDATE!

I'm sorry for disappearing. I'll try to be more responsible from now on.

I decided to stop truncating Berwald's words because it's a pain to type out and read. I don't think I'll go back and rewrite the other chapters, though, even though they need it. Quite badly. (The Tino, for example.) I'll just hope that during my absence my writing has become a little bit better, to make up for it all.

Most of all, I would like to thank all the reviewers. I have no idea where all those 12 reviews came from, and they're the greatest reason that I came back to this story despite having grown a little tired of SuFin. Still, I'm fond of the idea for this story, so hopefully I'll see it through to the end. :)