Thicker than Water
The argument had been muffled by the hut-door for some time yet. “Slipp på meg!” The door was wrenched open with an emotive shriek, carrying through the air with the sharpness of a mother eagle’s call at seeing a predator inspecting her nest. “La gå!” Struggling, grunting, fumbling.
“Siguard, stop det! Du kan ikke gøre det! Kom tilbage her!” Danish and Norwegian, close enough linguistically where they could speak in their native tongues without much trouble. They weren’t really thinking properly right now. Not enough to remember to speak in English. It didn’t matter anyway. Things still looked bad.
Mathias had his arms clamped roughly around Siguard’s torso, one arm under and the other arm over the writhing Norwegian’s shoulders, trying to get him back into their hut and out of the open where the others could see. Siguard was struggling, wriggling, clawing to break free. It looked worse than any lover’s tift they’d ever had. The Dane was screaming commands for Siguard to calm down, to stop his fighting, that he couldn’t and that he needed to think before he leapt into anything. Did they switch bodies!? Since when was Mathias some voice of reason and Siguard ready to go claw a pair of eyes out?
It was sad, and shameful, but Mathias eventually managed to get his hands on his lover in such a way that he had him contained, he couldn’t break out of the hold, only tire the fight out of himself enough to stop struggling. Then the sobbing started. What had happened to Siguard’s perfectly manicured persona of apathy? What could have broken his beautiful painless mask? He slupped boneless in Mathias’ arms as he cried and let the Dane try to sooth him with kisses to his neck (the only part he could reach properly, as he was behind Siguard) and mumble words in Danish to him, the slight rocking of his own body shifting Siguard’s. What the hell had happened behind the doors of that hut that the others hadn’t seen to cause the normally eerily calm Norwegian to come flying for death out of that door with an ashen faced Dane having to half-nelson him into submission?
“We’ll fix it.” Mads soothed. “We’ll fix it, but not that way. Can’t do it that way.”
Siguard twisted to push his face into Mathias’ neck. He couldn’t speak, though it was obvious he wanted to contest the Dane’s ruling.
“We’ll fix it. Okay? He’s my family now too, ja? And I don’t let anyone fuck with my family. We’ll get him, but we need a plan. We can’t just run in there without one. We’ll go, and we’ll go together. But we got to tell Berwald and Tino why we’re going in case something bad happens like I get arrested for giving that bitch a reason to have a nose-job.” He soothed, kissing the still flowing tear streaks down his lover’s face. The sobbing had stopped. All that was left was the flow of tears.
***
Tino hadn’t known what the hell was going on when he’d seen his two friends come bursting through their hut. At first he had assumed it was some lover’s quarrel, the two certainly did that enough, but never had Siguard been so violent to get away from Mads, neither Mads so firm about not letting it happen. At first Tino worried that Berwald was going to have to go bust Mads in the he head for something, but as the scene played out in front of him the knowledge dawned on Tino that this wasn’t something Mads had done. Mads was keeping Siguard from doing something in anger and rage. There was only one thing that could drive Siguard this berserk. “Something’s wrong with Erik.” Tino breathed, looking to Berwald with horror painted on his face. “Something really bad’s happened. Come on.” He clutched his boyfriend’s arm sleeve and made to drag him over. Not that Berwald was ever unwilling to involve himself to help, no, it was simply that the Swede looked to be as positively stunned and shell shocked by what they had just seen as Tino was.
***
“Tino,” Mads sighed, as though the sight of him was one for sore and weary eyes. “Take Siguard back inside and sit him down. He needs a minute to breathe without a thousand prying eyes on him.” After all, there were troll spirits in the forest, and they were now congregating to the sound of the distress. More curiosity than anything else. Tino obeyed and helped in pulling Siguard off of Mathias and guiding the Norwegian back into the hut, a fresh batch of sobs prepared to tumble out as the door closed behind them. Mads didn’t breathe until that gate was shut. He exhaled noisily from his perch on the ground and, as sign of frustration, scratched at his hair, looked up towards the heavens as though to ask some kind of existential question of an unheeding sky-daddy before looking at Berwald. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” He leveled, firmly. “But there is someone who did and we have to go… I mean. Siguard and me, we-… we have to cut our vacation with you guys short. I-I’m sorry. But, it’s urgent family problems in Norway and- just Jesus fucking Christ. How can things be so bad just when everything is starting to be good?” He groaned, pulling his knees up and resting his forehead on them, not about to cry, but certainly trying to fend off the Viking war-drum pounding in his skull. Oh wait, that was blood. “We, um, we didn’t check the mail before we left, remember? Siguard just kind of grabbed it out of the box and stuffed it in his book. Then we kind of forgot about it because we’ve had so much to occupy our minds with on this trip and, well, it looked like it was going to rain today and Siguard got his book and the mail fell out and… and there was a letter snail mailed from… from his brother. Apparently the horror stories aren’t just about step-moms. He wrote about some pretty… bad shit… his mother’s been up to. I mean, she’s not beating or bad-touching him-” there had been a momentary look of horror on the face of the Swede, “but one of the things is that she locks him in his room all night and she controls his food. The kid’s not allowed to eat unless she feeds him and then she controls what it is and the portion. His clothes are too big now. He sent the frikkin’ letter from the public post box near his school because she’s taken his phone and there’s no internet on any device he has access to and his school computers are, of course, lock out email websites and stuff like that. Common school computer policy. He is constantly being watched. It was going to be a freakin’ James Bond to even get that letter to the post box. We… we have to go to Oslo. Siguard is preparing to commit matricide even if he has to walk to Oslo from here. We have to see what we can do to get Erik out of there. Berwald he damn near begged Siguard to help get him out.” The Dane rubbed at his forehead and scratched at his beard. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to worry you guys. But why the fuck does this happen to them over and over and over?” The Dane looked so aged right now. So weary. It was obvious that he just wanted to fix whatever was wrong to give his family a good life.
***
*Slipp på meg: Let go of me.
La gå: Let go!
Stop det! Du kan ikke gøre det! Kom tilbage her!: Stop it! You can't do that! Come back here!