Chapter Text
“LUKAS! What am I going to do? It was HORRIBLE!”
There was silence on the other line for a moment before Lukas let out a breath and continued, calm and measured. “I figured it might be a bad idea to introduce you two. I'm sorry if he came across as frightening, but he’s actually a very nice person… he’s just not good with words.”
“No, it wasn’t him, it was ME.” He paused, forcing himself to continue. “I told him the Beer Hat story.”
There was more silence, but Tino could just feel him silently snickering through the phone. “Not exactly a first date story, but it’s good for a laugh.”
“I was drunk out of my mind… I feel like I should call and apologize, but I'm just so embarrassed. He paid for the meal and everything.”
“If you like, I can talk to him.”
“No, no, I don’t want to know. He was really great, I just ruin every good thing that comes my way.”
“What exactly did you say, Tino,” Lukas snorted.
“Well after my fifth glass of wine I started talking about…” there was a crash from down stairs and a thousand horrible possibilities rushed through his head. “Lukas, can I call you back? I think my booking manager’s fighting with one of my tour guides again. I have to keep them from destroying the shop again. Say hi to Emil for me.”
“Okay. See you around Tino.” Click.
He let out a long sigh then pushed his office chair back and stood, scanning over the photos of his family the last time they visited his grandparents in Finland, and decorations purchased from various travels that plastered the walls among the lights and lanterns in every color imaginable. There was another sound from the shop, this time accompanied by what sounded like Feliciano screaming. Hmm… they didn’t usually drag him into their fights, and Elizabeta was pretty good at keeping the casualties low.
Then again, Gilbert would gladly use you as a human shield.
And Alfred would try to break it up and “Be the hero,” as he would put it.
“Too many big personalities,” he sighed to himself, “it’s a wonder no one’s already wound up injured or dead.”
He pushed the beaded curtain out of his way and half jumped, half stomped down the stairs, just to give them fair warning that he was on his way down. That was usually enough to scare them into submission.
Heaven help the sucker who caused him trouble on an already terrible day.
He reached the landing and froze. Something didn’t seem right. It was quiet now. Elizabeta and Gilbert hadn’t been this silent since he hired them, and Alfred’s obnoxious laugh wasn’t ringing through the air.
His next steps were cautious. Perhaps it was best to stay calm. There might be an important guest here, or worst-case scenario, the cops. It was neither.
He reached the bottom step to see his secretary, Bella, huddled under her desk, eyes wide with terror. Past that, the staff – both Vargas brothers, Elizabeta, Alfred, and Torris – were sitting on the ground, hands on their heads, while a man in a white mask had his foot on Gilbert’s back, and a gun trained on his head.
“I'm going to say this one more time!” he growled. “If someone doesn't tell me where Bella is in the next ten seconds, I'm gonna blow him to pieces!”
Tino cast a look at her and she shook her head then mouthed “please,” tears streaming down her cheeks, leaving long streaks of makeup.
Of course, handing her over had never even crossed his mind.
“One… Two…”
He grabbed the discarded broom leaning to the left of the doorframe and charged, ducking under the other desk and swinging at him from a decent distance.
But he saw it coming.
The shot rang in his ears a moment before everything cut to black, and he’d never be sure what happened in those split seconds that stretched on into hours, but everything slowed, and, instead of flashes of his parents and siblings, the images of last night’s oh-so-awkward dinner burst into his mind.
And then it was just darkness and a stray scream that sounded remarkably like Bella.
*--------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
“So, um, what do you do?” Tino laughed, trying to keep the butterflies in his stomach at bay. From their table, he could see the moon, a huge orange crescent, hanging low in the sky as wisps of gray clouds drifted across it, casting shadows down over their dinner as the barely visible stars fought back the light pollution.
“Us'd to be M'rk'ting m'n'ger for Ikea’s Am'ric'n d'v'sion,” he grunted, picking at his chicken Marsala. "N'w I h've my own accounting b'ss'ness."
“Oh wow, that’s crazy! I buy Ikea furniture for my office all the time. And accounting sounds so... fun. I run a tourism company…” he looked angry… really angry. “We do local tours, and water sports lessons, and we drum up business to some of the local attractions.” He finished his second glass of wine, because that look on his date’s face was starting to make him nervous. “It’s pretty cool actually… and um, our office is also a gift shop… and everyone who works there is really friendly. We’re like a big family. I mean sometimes Elizabeth and Gilbert fight, but it’s usually pretty peaceful.” Oh no, he was rambling. He refilled his glass and chugged it.
“Sounds l'ke f'n,” Berwald replied. Why was he glaring like that?
“Yeah… I could get you a free appointment if you like.” Silence. He finished his glass and poured another. The bottle was almost empty now. “Anything you like… jet skiing, and parasailing… and boating… and… um…” he sipped (gulped) his drink.
“I’ll g've it a try sometime.” Why did he sound so monotone. Was he just pitying him? And what was with that look of contempt? Gah… he needed another drink.
And then…
“Burrrrrwald,” he purred as they left the restaurant together. Was he leaning on Berwald’s arm? And he hadn’t been pushed off? Huh, that was a good sign.
“Tino, I’ll dr've ya home.”
“You’re so nice Berwald… you don’t have to.”
“Yer drunk. Can't let you go al'ne.” The moon was hanging higher in the sky now, dark clouds wrapped around it.
“You’re the greatest. Hey… you wanna…” he hiccupped, “you wanna here a fun story from my work?”
Berwald didn’t reply, he just opened the door of his car and ushered Tino in.
“So, sometimes I give tours when… when Alfred or Gilly (he runs a secret bar in the back of my shop, but shhh, he doesn’t know I know)… or Felik… Feliks… has the day off. Feliks is our most popular employee…” he started laughing as Berwald started the car. “But… ha… it’s a trap, if you know what I mean…”
“…No. Not really.”
“Anyway, I was giving this tour, around Hetalia City, in one of our busses, and this guy with one of those beer hats stands up and starts yelling at me that I was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. And I was like, ‘sir, you're an idiot, because I'm not a girl, and you can't drink on these tours. So he gets embarrassed, and starts yelling, and throws his beer can at me.”
“Wh't did you do?”
“I tell my driver to pull over, and tell him to get off the bus. So he follows me off and tries to grab my boob, but I don’t have boobs cuz… cuz I'm not a chick. So he gets upset and tries to run away… and at this point, I'm sooo mad… so I grab a flower pot off a storefront and volt it at him… and I mean… I mean this thing got some air. Caught him right in the head. BOOM!” Berwald swerved a little at the sudden outburst.
“Easy,” he grumbled.
“Soorrrryyyy,” Tino giggled, tracing a finger up Berwald’s bicep. You’ve got great muscles, ya know that?”
“So wh't happ'ned to the man?”
“Oh yeah… so anyway, his left beer can exploded. There was fizz everywhere. And this crowd starts gathering, and children were pointing, and then the police were called. They didn’t actually arrest me, I mean, my driver was about to claim it was him instead, but it all turned out okay, because we had so many witnesses. I had to pay for the flowerpot though.”
Berwald was silent for a moment, so he decided, against his better judgment, to go on. “And now, he’s a registered sex offender. Pretty neat, huh?”
*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
When the darkness cleared and Tino’s ears stopped ringing, less than five seconds had passed, and the situation hadn’t gotten any better.
“Seven… eight…” he flipped off the safety on the gun. “Nine…”
“Hello friend.”
Until that moment, Tino had forgotten about Ivan.
The teenage assistant manager-in-training was standing behind the masked man, a hand on each shoulder and an eerie smile plastered on his face.
For a few seconds, the criminal didn’t know what to do. “Hey, what do you…” Ivan grabbed the hand he was holding the gun in.
“Maybe you don’t know,” he began in a way so cheerful, it was surreal. “Guns and other weapons can really hurt people. You shouldn’t just wave them around like that. And you keep asking for Bella, but it seems to me that you just want to hurt her, and we can't have that, da?”
“Hey! Let go…”
“Nyiet. You see, Mister intruder, if you hurt any of my friends here, and you already knocked down the manager, I’d have to take you into the back and pull out each one of your teeth in a very painful way until only your bloody gums are left, and then I’ll make a nice necklace out of those teeth and give it to my sister as you cry yourself unconscious because of the pain…”
The man had fear etched in his eyes, and Tino took the distraction (mostly so he wouldn’t have to listen to Ivan’s rather unnervingly calm description of punishment) and grabbed the fallen broom, knocking his feet out from under him. In the half second that followed, the only thing Tino would recall was a flash of white hair, Elizabeta’s battle cry, and Alfred laughing as all three lunged for him.
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
“Eh, Bella, calm down, that bastard’s getting what he deserved,” Lovino said as Tino handed her a cup of water.
He was answered by a choking wail as she fought to wipe away the tears.
“Ve, it’s okay Bella,” Feliciano cooed, “Bella, you're crushing my hand.”
“He knows my big brother… what if something happened to him?” she sobbed without releasing Feliciano.
“That shady bastard causes you too much grief anyways,” Lovino snorted.
Tino winced as her sobbing got a little louder. If only Lovino could have a little more tact. “Torris, can you take her home. Make sure her brothers are there, and make sure they know what’s happened.” There was a series of thumps and a muffled yell from the back room. “But tell them the intruder got away. Bella, what’s his name?”
She dabbed her eyes with a paper towel and sniffled. “Sadik Adnan I think.”
“Okay, Torris, like I said, just tell him he got away.” There was another crash from the back room. “And nobody breath a word about it to anyone, got it?”
“Maybe we should call the police?” Torris gulped.
“Hey idiot, you know those drug runners control the police, right?” Lovino scowled. He’ll be out in a day and then they’ll be knocking on our door.”
“He’s right, so for now, until I figure out what to do, just be quiet.”
“That’s okay,” Ivan began, “because if anyone tries to break into our shop again they will be very sorry because I will…” the front door opened with the chime of a bell and Tino grabbed his arm to silence him.
“H'llo,” Berwald nodded as he strolled in.
Tino glanced at Torris and he rushed to help Bella up.
“Is th's a good t'me?”
His question was answered by another crash from the back.
“Um… oh, yeah, totally. We are um… we were dealing with a stray cat that found its way in and scared my secretary. She’s very jumpy. So, are you here for… uh… that free tour or activity I promised you?”
“No, not really.” And after a pause. “I w'nted to ask you to go out w'th me again on Fr'day, but I d'dn’t have your n'mber.”