Northern Waters

Damnit. Damn everything. And damn him.

“Lukas! Lukas!”

He was turned away, but he didn’t need to see him. He knew that wild, fire-blond hair that flowed in a free mess as Mathias bounded up behind him. Lukas tensed, waiting for the moment his heavy arm was going to sling itself around his neck.

Just before he reached him, however, there was a sudden, soft knock at the door. Mathias whirled around and leapt towards the door.

“I got it!” he shouted excitedly.

Sometimes he reminded Lukas of a dog. Lukas turned around to watch him unlock it, and then the door swung open widely.

They both gasped audibly.

“Tino?” Mathias gawked at him.

True enough, Tino’s tiny figure stood in the doorway, bundled up in a large jacket and grinning happily.

“Hi,” he beamed, waving a little.

“Tino!” he shouted and scooped the small Fin up in a giant hug, his injured arm still held closer to his body. “There you are!”

Lukas stood up and walked over to them, arching his eyebrow a little.

“Here I am!” Tino cooed happily in Mathias’ arms, wobbling when he was set down.

He grinned at Lukas, and he couldn’t help but smile back. That little guy was just so damned cute; no wonder Berwald liked him so much.

He cleared his throat and looked up. There was a shiny, black car that was parked on the road in front of their house.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

“Oh, them?” Tino said, turning and waving at the people in the car. “Those are my cousins. They drove me here.”

Lukas arched his eyebrow a bit higher, but they all stood together in the doorway while the car flipped around and drove away without incident. As soon as they were gone, Mathias yanked them all back inside before anything else could happen and slammed the door. Then he turned on Tino and grasped his face in both of his hands, wincing as he fought the sling his left arm was supposed to remain in.

“Are you alright?” he was nearly screaming in his face. “Are you hurt? What did they do?”

Tino shut his eyes and smiled; it was a defense mechanism. “Everything’s alright, I’m fine. There was just some family business they needed me for, but it’s fine now.”

Lukas liked the Fin too, but that was too strange to ignore.

“And, I suppose they’re the ones that came and got you?” he asked, his arms still folded.

Both of them looked at him, and then Mathias released his face, and stepped back a little, stopping beside Lukas. The feeling of Mathias getting serious was similar to the feeling of dousing a very hot fire.

Tino quickly became flustered and waved his hands in front of him, still smiling, but in a frantic way. “They had contacted me at Ber’s house, sort of, but they got here sooner than I had expected and I didn’t have time to explain. I sent a letter,”

Lukas nodded. “We got the letter. It didn’t say much,”

He laughed nervously. “I had to write it in a hurry, but it’s all done now, I won’t need to go back,”

Mathias looked at Lukas with a strangely lost-dog-like look as he silently stared at the Fin, and then he sighed and nodded as his brow creased.

“I believe you.” he said with a short breath, and then added. “So calm down.”

“What do we do now?” Mathias asked, beginning to recover from his seriousness as he slung a heavy, non-injured arm around Lukas.

Lukas, who had let his defenses fall, was caught off guard and his body was heavily dragged into Mathias’ side. He frowned into his shirt, and then pushed away and headed for the bedrooms.

“We should get back to Ber. He’ll want to hear the good news.” he said shortly.

Tino let out a small squeak of terror and Mathias just laughed. Lukas didn’t laugh though. It hurt him, with how much he cared for Berwald, that it had to be little Tino. For the sake of all that was holy, the kid couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as him without acting like he was a lamb in the presence of a wolf. Berwald was no wolf. Well, not really. He was just shy. Lukas had known the bastard since he had moved there, and thus knew Berwald better than anyone in the group, and in a sad way, anyone in the world. He had seen how badly hurt Berwald had been that Tino had been taken.

Now, he just wanted to bring him back, even if he didn’t think it was exactly a good idea to let Berwald think that Tino could ever feel the same way. No one that good should be allowed to hurt so much. Plus, though he didn’t want to admit it any longer, it hurt him to see Berwald hurt.