What are you doing here?

[oxenstierna_b]

WHO: Berwald & Marcello
WHEN: May 27th, late morning
WHERE: The flower & giftshop Mimosa
WHAT: Berwald finds Marcello.

Comments

[ketchupkaper]

Marcello leaned away a bit when Berwald got closer. It wasn't that his face scared him (anymore) but his expression of concern made the younger man nervous. He could feel his stomach twist from the guilt. Here Berwald was, showing him complete caring and sincerity, and Marcello didn't feel worthy of that. Not after this whole mess of screwing him over financially by wrecking their business right under the Swede's nose. It didn't really right. He didn't deserve to be cared about.

"U-um.." Marcello stammered for a moment, trying very hard to think through his throbbing headache the dawn had brought with it. "I'm fine, honestly! I just.. I was hiking and I um.. I fell down the size of a mountain." He laughed nervously, inching away and urging his body to stand. "My face must look pretty dumb right about now, huh?"

He grabbed his bag and inched past the Swede to escape the enclosure of the back counter. "I'll feel better once I had a shower and everything." He forced a smile as he wandered closer to the door that led to the stairs of the building. "Oh, did I tell you that the bathroom upstairs is pretty much done? Yep, I've been busy up there."

He was so busy smiling he didn't notice how disoriented he was or that sunflowers display he was heading toward on his way, and sent them and himself toppling over with a crash.

"O-ow.."

[oxenstierna_b]

The blatantly obvious lie, if possible, just made Berwald more worried.
He grabbed Marcello's shoulders, steadying him and almost unconciously using the same careful grip he had currently conditioned himself to touch Sindre with due to the burns. In Marcello's case, he didn't even know where and how badly he might be hurt... Berwald forcibly stopped his thoughts that were trying to come up with scenarios that were each worse than the one before, and lead Marcello to one of the ornamental wooden chairs he'd made himself, scattered here and there around the store. This one was placed next to display of some sort of flowering vine.

He made Marcello sit down on it, disregarding any feeble denials that he didn't need it. Then Berwald placed a heavy hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eyes, deadly serious.

"Please," he said tersely "'f something's wrong ya need t' tell me, 'k?" And he could see something was wrong, he just didn't know what.