Scraps and Patches

Trigger warning for PTSD. Read note at the bottom if you make it through this crap. Best of luck.

-Waltz.

...

Most days, he sits. He sits with his back to the wall, eyes drifting closed, wasting. There isn't a point. He isn't anything anymore, perhaps he never was.

The same visions replay. Whether on the lines or the day the world ended, it still hurt. There was no point in trying, perhaps there never was.

He is only shaken from his stupor by the man Heracles or the cat called Cassiopeia asking for food while the Greek slept.

Heracles the philosopher was his only friend in the entire world now. The extent of their first conversation had been head inclinations. Heracles asking if he could sit in Berwald's corner too, away from the other refugees in the dome.

They don't speak much. They get by with gesticulations when Heracles realized how much Berwald did not want to talk about anything. They mind the other. Heracles left Berwald to his thoughts while playing with his cat, his way of ignoring the world around them.

Ignoring the sick and the dying, they were all dying- some just hadn't accepted it yet.

Berwald hadn't gone to a guard when he realized Heracles had the kitten smuggled in his bag, something that had been deemed illegal by the powers at be when taking in the refugees. There wasn't a point, it wouldn't help anyone. He later found Cassiopeia to be a pleasure. Cute and soft and loving. Or maybe she just loved the fact that he'd give her food. But the cat brought up the stream of memories he'd blocked before he was shaken from the stupor and forced to remember his life before the falling.

He'd been a soldier. Fresh out of school and no one to miss him he'd stood in the airport with a few others who were saying goodbye. Feeling the arms of a little girl around his neck before flip flopping back to her parents, already missing her father.

The world had shifted when those missions ended. Berwald was credited with saving two soldiers' lives while they were unconscious. He and Martinez had gone home at the same time, Berwald with honorable discharge for the injuries he'd received and Martinez in a box.

He went through the years of therapies as he was told, the different guilts never leaving him, even after Tino came into his life.

This way though, he could pretend.

He could pretend that Martinez made it home to Angeline and little Sophie and the packages he'd sent in his friend's stead for the girl were really from Martinez. He could pretend that he hadn't watched people die. He could pretend that it wasn't his fault. He could pretend he wasn't rewarded for being a tool. He could pretend the jeep never flipped after the nonexistent explosion. He could pretend that he wasn't damaged. He could pretend there weren't so many scars to trace. He could pretend he grew his hair out because he liked the style, not because it hid the grotesque marks that remained. He could pretend he was normal, that he could speak without fear of ridicule and annoyance. He could pretend that his face wasn't paralyzed. He could pretend he hadn't been alone. He could pretend the world wasn't crashing down on them. He could pretend that Tino had loved him.

The last lie was the most dangerous. Instead of Tino nervously laughing at his confession and replying

'Oh...You're my best friend, so of course I love you too. Come on, Hana won't walk herself!' before running off for the leash and leaving the heartbroken Berwald in the dining room, he reciprocated. The fantasies varied from innocently walking hand in hand with Hana afterwards to sweeping into a bedroom to consummate their love. He stopped them after he realized how much worse he felt afterwards. The truth was better. Tino avoiding him over the few weeks without outright telling the swede off or sending him away. Then the buildings started falling. A panic had set in the populace and Berwald hid inside of the house, quaking and praying and sobbing, the sounds played over like a recording while the world fell. Tino had found him cowering against a wall wrapped in a sheet and tried to draw him out of his hysteria. It had always struck him as a terrible irony- that Tino had romanticized Berwald being some big strong soldier, a hero against the bad guys. If anything, Berwald considered himself a bad guy, and someone terribly weak. Honestly, a grown man afraid of fireworks, it was laughable. Tino realized he couldn't bring Berwald out of his episode and left him to sit in the dark while he ran out to the store for supplies with Hana by his side.

Minutes had turned to hours. Berwald unfurled himself from his huddling on the floor and crawled through the house, too exhausted to stand. Tino wasn't back. He flipped to the news to see what damage had been done to the city. The most recent victim of the strange attacks was the entire shopping block that Tino had left for. Leveled. He saw the swarming crews digging through rubble. Nothing. He hadn't realized he had run the four miles until his feet bit into the rubble. Winded, he had climbed over a mound of cement and steel and called for Tino, screamed himself faint for hours before being pulled away and ordered home to prepare for evacuation.

Everyone had their bags filled with what they could carry and sent on buses. He'd found an abandoned stroller. And now they were here. Still dying. Still broken. Still alone.

Heracles returned from the rations line and set Berwald's share of the food at his side without a word and returned to stroking Cassiopeia silently. Berwald picked at the food, having not felt the need nor want to eat for many weeks with only the smidge of self-preservation left forcing him to eat something.

Days passed by in a haze and drifts unbroken until a new sound pierces through the cacophony of hopelessness. Berwald isn't sure why he looks up, why he cares when he's waiting to die. He knows Heracles would disapprove of his newfound nihilism, and he wants to laugh about how upset the head doctor would be if Berwald shared these thoughts, not to say if he knew the doctor was alive or not, much less if he had kept up his practice.

But he does, seeing a boy backing away from two grown men. One held a shitty pocket knife. Berwald looks over at the Greek and points at the industi-stroller.

Watch my stuff?

Heracles nodded absently, stroking the cat.

Berwald isn't sure why, but he stands and retrieves a screw driver from his packs before approaching the scuffle.

...

And that's chapter one. Yes. I know how much I suck at this, thank you for reading through that.

Explanations time: I was getting bitch slapped by life and I should not be allowed to write when I'm upset. Because then it turns into something like this.

Berwald is a veteran with PTSD. Oh, and "the world is ending." And I wanted to give a reason for the 'Berwald speak' thing "n' v'w'ls 'n'th' w'rds"/ no vowels in the words. Also, he doesn't chop up all the words. I pulled the following off a strip:

"E's right. Cuz o' you, we're in a lot o'trouble 'ere."

...

Okay, moving on.

Story will have unrequited sufin and I'm debating eventual suden just to give Berwald a happy ending with the world ending and all. Main group will have Berwald/Sweden, cousins Oskar/Ladonia (7-8... no laptop to recharge- but I have this headcannon equivalent) and Peter/Sealand (12. I wonder who's that kid about to get stabbed...hmm... Oh come on, like you couldn't see that a mile away.), Lukas/Norway, Emil/Iceland, and Matthias/Denmark.

Warnings: 'world end', blood, 'I can't get through a story without killing people', hysteria, mentions of cannibalism, violence, obviously PTSD to deal with. If you want to stick around, that'd be great. Don't bother flaming when this story was born from venting. Thanks.

Questions? Comments? Critiques? Concerns? Let me know.

-Waltz.