Firstly, thank you all so much for reviewing. I don't deserve you guys. Really, I'm so sorry for my lateness. And to top things off, this chapter is about the most unrealistically eventful day ever. Fucking EVERYTHING happens in one day. Gah. Try to enjoy. -- It was the muffin that tipped him off.
Muffins were a perfect food, in their own way. Particularly when warmed, served with a pat of butter and on a nice little china plate. However, Berwald had always held a full-price subscription towards the belief that things that were too good to be true always were. And muffins would always bear with them the connotation that behind the rounded top and melted blueberries was some news that required a bit of buttering up before consuming. Berwald wasn’t easily buttered. Unless it came to Tino. Then, he would just unfurl and allow the knife to do its work.
Tino knew this. And Tino used it to his every advantage. It was how they’d wound up moving into the ugliest townhouse on this side of mortality. Because Tino considered himself the Noah of ugly things, their home his ark. Berwald could only feel blessed that there wasn’t two of everything. One golden aardvark clock was more than enough.
But Berwald was nothing if not a man of unerring patience, and he could deal with his fiancé’s little quirks. The ear-shaped candle holders and salmon pink vanity? Copacetic. Lardy flatbread? Just keep water handy.
Inviting his completely idiotic and quite possibly deranged brother to his wedding?
There’s the line. The crooked line shaped like a drunken smirk.
“S’that’s what the muffin was for.”
“It was that or an iron suppository. You’re stubborn.” Tino himself had foregone the muffin in favour of leftover pulla. The one thing he made that didn’t taste like death’s rotten hand. “Besides, he was nice. Brash. But nice. Seemed really happy for us, anyway.”
“I’ll take th’ s’pposit’ry.”
“I’m being serious.” Tino furrowed his brow in a demonstration of just how serious he was. “Berwald, I’m actually imploring here. Every freaking twig on my family tree is trotting down from Lapland for this and you can’t be bothered to invite your brother. My cousin Toris is coming and I haven’t seen him since diapers, for crying out loud. Who do you know?”
Hesitation had never incriminated Berwald so much. Hesitation meant thinking meant uncertainty meant he had invited absolutely nobody. When Tino had been in a flurry of calligraphy and colour schemes, he had dutifully provided coffee and licked envelopes. He had been perfectly content then, would be perfectly content now if Tino would only drop this silliness.
“Yer the only fam’ly I need.” Berwald finally stated. The day he had asked Tino to marry him had been a day he had visualized since he’d learned the word prick and just how frequently it cropped up in his family tree. It was the day that Berwald had become fully emancipated from the godawful Oxenstierna regime and all that came with it. No more flagrant lies, grumbled through his teeth in his father’s defense. No more accompanying him to benefits and charities, postured and presented as the great family jewel.
Nobody in their right mind would refer to Mathias as a jewel. But oh that Berwald was the perfect evening accessory, went with every outfit at every occasion. Just keep that homosexuality thing on the hush, we cannot risk any demographic.
The moment of emancipation had not come with a George Michael track and sparkling chorus dancers, but a cold December night, on his balcony, with Tino’s smile and his own nervous heartbeat. So beyond perfection that Berwald often felt that he just needed to step back and relish in the memory. Imagining it closed off with red velvet guards, because something so flawless couldn’t risk the smudging of hindsight or cynicism. He’d shed his old skin, shirked all the bullshit and lies and abandonment for sweet, smart, honest, beautiful Tino.
Untitled, Part 4/? A
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It was the muffin that tipped him off.
Muffins were a perfect food, in their own way. Particularly when warmed, served with a pat of butter and on a nice little china plate. However, Berwald had always held a full-price subscription towards the belief that things that were too good to be true always were. And muffins would always bear with them the connotation that behind the rounded top and melted blueberries was some news that required a bit of buttering up before consuming.
Berwald wasn’t easily buttered. Unless it came to Tino. Then, he would just unfurl and allow the knife to do its work.
Tino knew this. And Tino used it to his every advantage. It was how they’d wound up moving into the ugliest townhouse on this side of mortality. Because Tino considered himself the Noah of ugly things, their home his ark. Berwald could only feel blessed that there wasn’t two of everything. One golden aardvark clock was more than enough.
But Berwald was nothing if not a man of unerring patience, and he could deal with his fiancé’s little quirks. The ear-shaped candle holders and salmon pink vanity? Copacetic. Lardy flatbread? Just keep water handy.
Inviting his completely idiotic and quite possibly deranged brother to his wedding?
There’s the line. The crooked line shaped like a drunken smirk.
“S’that’s what the muffin was for.”
“It was that or an iron suppository. You’re stubborn.” Tino himself had foregone the muffin in favour of leftover pulla. The one thing he made that didn’t taste like death’s rotten hand. “Besides, he was nice. Brash. But nice. Seemed really happy for us, anyway.”
“I’ll take th’ s’pposit’ry.”
“I’m being serious.” Tino furrowed his brow in a demonstration of just how serious he was. “Berwald, I’m actually imploring here. Every freaking twig on my family tree is trotting down from Lapland for this and you can’t be bothered to invite your brother. My cousin Toris is coming and I haven’t seen him since diapers, for crying out loud. Who do you know?”
Hesitation had never incriminated Berwald so much. Hesitation meant thinking meant uncertainty meant he had invited absolutely nobody. When Tino had been in a flurry of calligraphy and colour schemes, he had dutifully provided coffee and licked envelopes. He had been perfectly content then, would be perfectly content now if Tino would only drop this silliness.
“Yer the only fam’ly I need.” Berwald finally stated. The day he had asked Tino to marry him had been a day he had visualized since he’d learned the word prick and just how frequently it cropped up in his family tree. It was the day that Berwald had become fully emancipated from the godawful Oxenstierna regime and all that came with it. No more flagrant lies, grumbled through his teeth in his father’s defense. No more accompanying him to benefits and charities, postured and presented as the great family jewel.
Nobody in their right mind would refer to Mathias as a jewel. But oh that Berwald was the perfect evening accessory, went with every outfit at every occasion. Just keep that homosexuality thing on the hush, we cannot risk any demographic.
The moment of emancipation had not come with a George Michael track and sparkling chorus dancers, but a cold December night, on his balcony, with Tino’s smile and his own nervous heartbeat. So beyond perfection that Berwald often felt that he just needed to step back and relish in the memory. Imagining it closed off with red velvet guards, because something so flawless couldn’t risk the smudging of hindsight or cynicism. He’d shed his old skin, shirked all the bullshit and lies and abandonment for sweet, smart, honest, beautiful Tino.
Why would he need anybody else at their wedding?