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Ludwig is golden in the sunlight. It’s like it seeps through his skin, penetrating it and illuminating him from underneath. It’s like when you shine a flashlight into your mouth or through your hand so you can try to see the bones underneath. It’s a lot more delicate than that, though, Jerma swears. Ludwig is delicate. He’s broad and he’s thick and he’s plush and he’s pretty and he’s delicate all at the same time.
It makes him feel insane. It makes him feel insane. Jerma wants to bury his face under a pillow and scream because he’s thinking about the sunlight that splays across Ludwig’s round, pink cheek and how it kisses the tip of his nose—yes, kisses—and how it spreads across his bare chest and stops at the sheets tangled around his midsection. Jerma is thinking about the pinkness of Ludwig’s skin instead of how to get the fuck out of here and how he can’t because this is his apartment and he can’t just leave and he feels battered and bruised. He feels like he got baked into a cake. There’s some culture that bakes coins into cakes for Christmas dinner. He could’ve been that coin.
That is if he were lucky. He’s not. It’s actually the polar opposite.
But that’s not really fair. Calling himself unlucky does Ludwig a massive disservice and it’s not fair. Jerma is lucky, immensely so, lucky all over to have been chosen, adored by Ludwig, offered color and light so it could seep into him too. Lucky lucky lucky. Lucky to be in the right place at the right time on the right couch and the right bed and in the right hands. Lucky to be loved.
Which it is. Right? No. Jerma is neither sixteen years old nor a woman and he can’t let himself be so fucking stupid that it means anything like being loved. Jerma is appreciated at best. He’s loved in a sense that Ludwig cares about him, in a familial sense, in a kind, caring, respectful, generous sense, and all that is clear. Jerma is lucky to be appreciated.
Jerma is also a human person and thinking of it as being ‘appreciated’ sounds weird and pathetic and clinical and uncomfortable, like he’s just somebody’s prize rabbit on a breeding farm. ‘Loved’ is much too intense and much too delusional. He doesn’t even think he’d want that to be real. That’s too much. That’s crazy. He would be crazy. Admired, maybe, he can say.
Or wanted. Being wanted is good. It’s a broad, general term and it applies here. It means a lot of different things and Jerma thinks it means being wanted as a person and a friend and a companion and a partner. However brief it is. Jerma was here, Jerma was there, and he’s still here. Maybe Jerma really is just lucky to be here. Which is such a mundane sentence that it’s really not worth thinking at all, but it means more and more the longer he thinks about it.
He tries not to. He tries to close his eyes. They wrench open again and Ludwig hasn’t moved, still snoozing away, his lips parted and sugary pink.
They tasted like red wine. Red wine and garlic. It sounds more romantic than it was; red wine was just what Jerma happened to have and there was a lot of garlic in the pasta sauce. Then they didn’t taste like anything and it was all skin and it was wet and it was warm. It was sticky-hot, kind of humid, skin clinging to skin when it got a chance.
It was supposed to be different. Going back to the clinical aspect, it was different by definition, and it was. Not in a way that Jerma feels like working through the kinetics of, but. In a way. But the whole point is that it wasn’t different enough. It was whole.
None of it felt weird. That’s the worst part. It felt so not-weird that Jerma is horribly, unbelievably stressed out. It would be one thing if he’d woken up this morning and he was able to laugh and shake his head and punch Ludwig in the shoulder and talk about how drunk they got and how crazy that was and how they should probably not mention this again, all because it was weird and uncomfortable. But it’s not. It’s not and that sucks.
Jerma feels so utterly, disgustingly human. None of it was weird and he needs it to be, because if it was, he wouldn’t be feeling like this. He wouldn’t want to settle back down and tuck himself back into Ludwig and press hands into his skin just to touch him again and do so many other disgusting things that shouldn’t see the light of day. It’s embarrassing. It’s so, so embarrassing.
This isn’t the kind of person that Jerma is. He never would have thought to do this. Maybe this is the true midlife crisis and he’s old enough for it to feel legitimate because why else would he have done any of this? Why in a thousand long, long years?
It’s because of Ludwig. That’s the most obvious culprit. The big freak with a big smile and big hands. He talks big and he laughs big and he does big things, even if the things are actually small in retrospect, but everything to Jerma. He’s so fucking charming it’s going to hurt somebody someday. His teeth are a weapon and his mouth is a weapon and his body is a weapon and he shoots to kill. Something about the energy that hovers around him, a glow that he emits, something irrationally powerful—it chokes others in its field. Jerma was just much too close.
Maybe Jerma had asked for a kiss. Maybe he had. But it was only because it was always intended to call Ludwig’s bluff. He’s so fucking snarky and smug and quick and Jerma had had enough liquid courage to test him. It wasn’t a big deal and Jerma hadn’t meant for it to be a big deal but it did sort of end up that way. Through no fault of his own. These things just happen.
And happen they did. They happened all over the place. They happened on the couch and in the hallway and against the bedroom door and finally on the mattress. They happened because Jerma refused to let go and he felt like he was drowning and soaring all at once and he grabbed Ludwig’s shirt like a lifeline and said “Please”, broken and pleading and soft, truly awake for the first time in his life. They happened because he was weak and sad and couldn’t stomach the idea of being left alone and he broke the idea of maintaining distance in two. It was his fault, actually. In the end, it’s always his fault.
They can’t be friends anymore. Not after this. There’s no way. Things like girlfriends and commitment and shame and guilt don’t even matter, they’re secondary; the immediate is the inability to go back to the way things were all over a moment of weakness. Jerma can’t have the hoppy-skippy-jumpy feeling when Ludwig looks him in the face anymore and their awkward yet endless conversations will be finite because they’ll want to get away from each other.
Jerma, the freak that he is, has stolen that away from Ludwig. Just when he was starting to get used to the idea that Ludwig actually liked him. Even after two years, it still hasn’t set in and it’s not like this is going to help. It’s cloudy. It’s all cloudy and murky and mushy and he’s still trapped and he cannot leave and he’s going to sweat to death under the covers as Ludwig glows gold next to him.
Ludwig is always brighter than him. It doesn’t matter the setting.
Jerma only realizes how hard he’s looking when Ludwig’s eyelids finally start to flutter. Jerma feels his own breath catch as he shuts his eyes tight. He’s asleep. He’s asleep he’s sleepy he’s sleeping. Now Ludwig will have to go on a series of mental tangents about the nature of their relationship and it’ll put him through torture. See how he likes it.
“I know you’re awake.” Albeit the scariest thing in the world to hear, Ludwig’s voice is throaty and thick and it’s so endearing that Jerma’s chest seizes and seems to crush itself. “What’re you looking at me for?”
Jerma wrenches his eyes back open even though it’s the worst thing ever. It’s the worst thing ever and he’s prepared to die until it actually doesn’t seem that bad anymore: Ludwig is half-smiling like he couldn’t be happier to see him, the pinkness in him even more vivid now. He’s so colorful it burns.
“I wasn’t,” Jerma answers him, a kind of giddiness bubbling up in his throat. A bit of delayed panic. “Not—I wasn’t being that weird about it.”
“You can be weird about it.” Ludwig shuffles forward under the sheets and dips his head down, tucking it into Jerma’s neck. Jerma loses his breath as Ludwig’s arm slips around his side and lets his long, powerful fingers splay out. It’s so close. Nothing has ever been closer. Jerma gently places his hand on the back of Ludwig’s head, hair wispy and feathery under his fingers. He can’t calm down even though this is supposed to be an ultimate gesture of comfort.
“Please don’t kick me out,” Ludwig murmurs.
“Why would—? Kick you out? Why?”
“In case you thought it was weird.” Ludwig’s fingers press down firmly and indent themselves in Jerma’s skin. The security of it is borderline unfamiliar and if he thinks about it for too long, he’s going to be very, very upset. “I didn’t think it was weird.”
They’re not necessarily off the hook, but it does turn everything Jerma was just thinking about into little more than a dark, shuddering mass of hysteria that he kicks into a corner. He needs to relax. He really needs to fucking relax and he shouldn’t feel this much joy at once because he’ll regret it later. He has ruined his life and he’s not allowed to absolve himself of that guilt.
He’s not. He’s for sure not. But it doesn’t change the fact that his bones feel soft and chewy and his skin has managed to take on some of Ludwig’s golden qualities and he thinks he could live forever with his arms curled up around Ludwig’s head, his heart doing hummingbird loops. It won’t be okay, it can’t be, but he wants to believe that. Maybe he can for a couple of hours. Maybe he can afford that. Maybe it’ll be fine.
“You didn’t think it was weird, right?” Ludwig presses.
“No. No, no, it was… actually, you know something? I was freaking out because it wasn’t.”
“Oh, pog.” Jerma can feel Ludwig smile. “Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t. That’s cool. Not weird.” He kisses Jerma’s collarbone and it’s so cute and fluttery that Jerma very nearly starts to giggle. He can’t. He won’t let himself do that. “You’re the coolest. You’re hot, I feel, like, safe, and normal, and it’s good. It’s great.”
Jerma does break a little right then. He can’t help it. “You’re great.” He presses his lips against the top of Ludwig’s head and believes more and more in the ever-creeping delusion that it is okay. “God, you’re so great. You’re so great.”
“Can I fuck you again?” Ludwig asks, a little muffled, his voice pitching up like a child.
Jerma swallows and blinks against Ludwig’s hair. “Yeah,” he says. It comes out more matter-of-fact than he’d like. “Yeah, sure, I—yeah. We’re here, so.”
“Awesome.” Ludwig withdraws himself and tips his head up to kiss Jerma on the mouth instead, so easy you’d think he’d done this a million times already.
Almost like it’s okay after all. It can’t be. It’s not possible.
But maybe it is.