It's Embarrassing How Much I Love You

Once, Sarawat beat Tine so bad he needed facial reconstruction surgery.

Just once.

Just one time he lost all control and everything went too far and it didn't stop until Tine was unconscious and his friends had to pull him off and actually check his pulse because this time Sarawat might have gone all the way and wouldn't that be funny?

It was something about ... something he did? ... Or didn't do? Or, was it work related? Or was hr flirting again? That's all he can remember.

Frustrated and needing to vent, needing to break something. And, as always, Tine was the first to volunteer.

Hindsight is 20/20 and now, as he sees it, the fact that he cannot even remember what he was so angry about, maybe, just maybe it shouldn't have mattered in the slightest.

Maybe Tine didn't deserve what he did to him.

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This was not the first time Sarawat had used his boyfriend as a personal punching bag, not by a long shot. There are days when he returns to the flat and just has to destroy. And Tine, like the good dog he is, takes it without protest.

It isn't abuse if it's consensual, right?

Except it still kind of is when Sarawat cracks his ribs with a kick or knocks a few teeth out of place. They always take him to the same private doctor, who asks Tine the same questions once Sarawat is out of the room.

"Do you need me to call someone?"
"No."
"Tine, he's abusing you."

And it sounds so ridiculous that he can't help but burst out laughing.

"I know."
"Then why aren't you doing anything about it?!"

He gives the doctor a smug smile, which catches the man off guard and he quickly scribbles something on his clipboard.

Not Stockholm, something different. Something ... worse, somehow.

He likes it.

"You wouldn't get it." he mutters, suddenly annoyed.

Maybe Sarawat's mood swings are rubbing off on him. Maybe he's just tired of being the victim. Maybe it all changed when Sarawat slipped in the bathroom and hit his head on the tub.

There's blood on both of their hands, it's not like he doesn't hit back. Just not as hard. He doesn't want to break Sarawat. He is not as determined as Sarawat always is in breaking him.

Maybe ... maybe ... because before that incident, he never — never laid a finger on him. Now, he has a short-fuse and a hot temper.

Did the TBI cause his personality to change?

Google said yes.

Tine doesn't know what's going on in the other's head, and that scares him, even just a little bit. Because today he's lovely but tomorrow, he's the man he did not fall in love with.

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The first time it happened, they were fighting about something so ridiculous and Tine had honestly believed Sarawat when he said it was an accident.

Sarawat's hand had slammed backward across his face because they were both tired and bitching and Sarawat had said something so crazy that Tine thought he was kidding, so he laughed. Like he normally would.

Tine had lost his balance, felt stupid strewn across the floor, Sarawat's mortified face staring down at him in horror.

Sarawat had cried, honest to God cried fat, juicy tears, as he got ice for his jaw, apologising with such anguish that Tine's gut twisted as Sarawat held the ice to his face, and Tine had shook his head and brushed him off with laughter, because of course he hadn't meant it.