Chapter Text
Golden.
Engie’s hair was golden.
They were the only words Ludwig’s brain could produce, caught like a mote of dust in sunlight through a window, staring at his friend glowing in the bright light of the dawn as though he’d only just learned to see.
There were four empty cups of what had been coffee scattered around the work surface Engie had been using; a flat piece of board laid on two empty oil drums and another smaller one upturned for a stool. There were at least four different documents in different levels of legibility laid out in front of him, some of it scrawled in the barely legible hand Ludwig used when it was 2am and he’d just had a fresh cup of coffee and a thought, some of it in Engie’s all-caps sensible print. Engie himself still looked tired even though he was asleep, helmet and goggles discarded and flesh arm propped up haphazardly as a pillow.
But none of that mattered. Because in the sunlight bursting through the window, striking into the lab at just the right angle to illuminate Engie’s head, his hair was golden.
His face was still and relaxed in sleep, the perpetual crease in his brow smoothed out and expression neutral and innocent, which plucked at Ludwig’s heart like a claw on a harp string - but more importantly, the sunlight was lancing through the window in such a way that it caught gently on the tips of the stubble on Engie’s head, igniting it in a way Ludwig hadn’t seen before.
It wasn’t brown, or gray, or even black, like he’d thought.
No, it was gold, like a boy in a fairytale, like the touch of King Midas; like a prince from a faraway land, come to rescue Ludwig from his solitude.
How was it that such a small and insignificant detail could light him up like this, could physically destroy him and throw him out to sea only to draw him back to shore like a lighthouse? How could such a thing catch him so mesmerised that everything important narrowed down to only this, narrowed down to only the gentle in and out of Engie’s breath, to the tiniest little hum that was emanating from him as though it were the mildest possible snore.
Narrowed down to Ludwig’s heart beating in his chest, aching to be poured out like so much water onto parched earth, hoping against hope that flowers would bloom.
And in return, narrowing down to the ring on Engie’s left hand, and to the knowledge that when Engie, when Dell thought of home he thought of someone soft and light and feminine, someone who laughed like tinkling wind chimes and smiled with joy and not teeth. Someone who was everything that Ludwig was not and could never be.
Ludwig felt like his heart was collapsing in on itself and reigniting all at once, a stupid and unscientific feeling that he’d always pushed away that was now threatening to consume him. Because it felt wonderful to love like this; to love unselfishly, knowing that he would do anything to ensure Dell’s happiness and yet knowing too that Dell’s happiness would cost him everything. It felt like a fair price, even though it was one that Dell would never ask of him; and of course, that was why he was willing to pay it.
Engie shifted in his sleep and Ludwig smiled softly, thoughts too big for the room and heart too big for his chest. Moments like these would never be enough. But like crumbs from a great feast that Ludwig would never be invited to eat at, he had to make do.
So he loved in silence, helplessly watching the sun rise over the man he loved more than life itself, bewitched by his golden soul.