Work Text:
The room smells like varnish. Freshly renovated, new desk, new seats, new periwinkle carpet.
Many of his colleagues often bemoaned a lack of funds, a lack of office space, but Gilbert has little to complain about. His own overlooks the courtyard (a mediocre view, sure, he didn’t relish the idea of catching freshmen rutting all over each other on university benches, but the foliage turned orange in the autumn, and caught snow gracefully in the winter), is the largest in the social sciences’ department, and is exactly a ninety second walk from the nearest coffee machine.
And that was what those sleepless nights in pursuit of academia had meant, right?
His name on a shiny golden plaque?
Gilbert always hated semester beginnings. There were always introductions to be had, icebreakers that Gilbert had little interest in stretching a fake smile for. And god, did he hate asking ‘how was your summer’ questions.
Before him, another professor had on the blackboard written: HISTORY ENJOYS DISCREDITING ARBITRARILY CHOSEN SYMBOLS – ARTHUR ROSENBURG
Gilbert nearly blanches. What the fuck does that even mean.
“Someone please wipe that off,” he commands absently.
Four students stand up and bicker over the duster, before one manages to yank it free, beaming, assuming this means she has won some unnamed points from Gilbert.
Maybe she does. Gilbert likes to know that his reputation precedes him. His research list is prolific, some fifty papers, a handful of pop history books that had made it onto the New Yorker’s MUST READ section, museum consultations, archeological site write ups.
So Gilbert is slightly put off by the young blonde man sitting at the back, typing furiously into his MacbookAir with a look of constipation.
“I realize,” Gilbert drawls, and the room belongs to him, he is the oracle of Delphimore than anything else, he needs to be looked at, “that this is an introductory class, but I want you to take this seriously. Without it, moving forward with history in any capacity is a faux pax. I am going to show you how to analyze primary sources and need you to treat it like math. We can only operate with objectivity.”
Then the show really begins. It is a type of dance. Gilbert moves his hands a lot as he speaks, and their eyes are on him, their moldable, twenty something minds wrenched into something different. He pauses, doesn’t give his voice too freely, allows them to answer in their shy, awe-struck, uncertain voices, gives them encouraging smiles when they get it right.
They cycle through. Stalin’s letters, diary entry about the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a painting of king Henry the 8th, political cartoon of Gandhi, photography of pre-massacre Tianemin square. Varied but popular. Plenty to have opinions on, even for those with a surface level understanding. So many things to consider; time, verbiage, context, cultural norms, intended audience. The significance of a cameraman, of the type of pen used, of the artists’ political background.
“Even a deliberately falsified primary source can be useful,” Gilbert tells them somberly, “you always need to ask; who are they trying to lie to, and why.”
The boy in the back, black t-shirt, has not looked up from his laptop once. A twitch of irritation. Gilbert can’t stand not being looked at.
“You,” Gilbert asks, bright smile, “with the macbook open. Anything to add to Pluatarch’s the Virtue of Alexander?”
He, unnamed student, suddenly sat ramrod straight, just a hint of panic around the eyes, “Well, actually…”
“Go on,” Gilbert’s voice is cooly cheerful.
Lips set in a straight line, “I don’t think objectivity is possible here. Even when you try to remove the biases within the primary source. When there are so few sources and they all had motive to say the same things, you can’t know what to remove, what is true. It’s like trying to solve an equation with insufficient information. It’s sort of like an asymptote, when a line- or I guess, a curve in this case, can never meet a point no matter how hard it tries. It can only attempt to be infinitely close.”
Gilbert draws a red line through one assignment, then another, then another, his eyes glazed over, bored, restless, until he’s gone through the whole pile without reading anything.
Ivan’s message flashes on his phone: working late today. Please don’t make fish again for dinner ^J^
Gilbert puts all the assignments through the paper shredder. He’ll make some excuse about spilled coffee and give everyone a conciliatory ‘A’.
Home alone. Dual income with no children, meaning extra money for a downpayment and vacations that neither of them ever take. Dual income from tenured positions at a pretty prestigious university, at that.
Sometimes, Gilbert can’t believe all that he has; two story, four bedrooms even though only one of them ever gets used. A kitchen that can talk in a scarily human voice that makes Gilbert secretly fear for the future. One day he will take a screwdriver and stab its CPU to bits, ides of March style, even though it is something Ivan had spent a long time programing.
He texts Liz, and she sends back: ‘are you really spending Friday night alone, lol. Loser. When did u turn 50?’
‘At least I haven’t spent the last two years of Fridays trying and failing to pick up Straight Women.’
‘It only fails 40% of the time asshole!!!!’
Gilbert then sends her a barrage of quips. One tick. The message remains swimming in the ether, the space between his phone and hers. No wifi. Probably busy between some fashion diva’s legs in some basement apartment. Promiscuous since the divorce.
Gilbert had expected that after Rod had left, Eliza would be banging on his door 24/7, demanding attention but only the opposite became true. She expanded, became less and less available, always with a new friend, trying new clubs, new coffee shops, even though all coffee tasted the same what the fuck was the point, who could actually taste the difference?
Gilbert checks his phone for the twelfth time since his last message, sighs, and makes fish anyways.
The next time, he- Ludwig, Gilbert had looked his name up in the student database which was totally not weird and stalkery behavior- shuts his laptop the second Gilbert walks into the room, a dusting of pink on his cheeks. Lesson learnt, Gilbert thought smugly. He took pride in when his punishments worked.
Back to Alexander, because Gilbert was nothing if not thematic. More Plutarch, because who could do history without Plutarch, even if the guy was on the list of top ten most libelous orators. The class erupted into laughter, the lava making Gil feel warm.
Ludwig’s mouth twitched only slightly, a barely there smile.
“I think handing Alexander so many adjectives on a platter is a little generous considering what his dad did,” Ludwig mumbled eventually, a voice painfully uneven, as if he wasn’t quite convinced of his own words. But he’d spoken on his own, Gilbert hadn’t even had to call him out and maybe this was what those movies about teachers and inspirations had always meant.
“Maybe,” Gilbert snorted, “I think he could, technically, be called what your generation has dubbed a ‘Nepo Baby’.” Another eruption. Peels of mirth, and Ludwig was smiling properly now.
Gilbert continues, “ And I think that term is light. Philip II was the hegemon of the League of Corinth. Philip II’s father on the other hand-”
Gilbert doomscrolls through his phone. Instagram since he can’t truly stomach Tiktok. Three coffee cups down and maybe four would be overkill. Assignments all marked; he is waiting for Ivan to be done so that they can walk home together, so Gil can badger him into taking Gil on a date.
Ivan texts: work might take longer than usual :(
Gilbert texts back: kill yourself.
A man makes a thirty second sensationalist video on a pyramid in Egypt and Gilbert can’t help himself from commenting. You are like Fox News but for history. In a few hours, his phone will be full of notifications, people with anime profile pictures calling him various slurs.
In the courtyard, a boy shoves another boy against the pillar and kisses him for the fiftieth time. They’ve been at it for an hour, and didn’t people usually get cyanotic by now? In the dark, their silhouettes are less clear, but Gil can still make out the thrumb of hips, and if he stares for long enough he can spy the delicate snaking of tongue between them, sloppy and wet.
Gilbert looks away. He’ll wait another hour.
In the Pizza parlor, Gilbert catches glimpse of Ludwig outside the window pane, layered in several sweaters, pink from the cold, laughing with his friends. The expression was strange on someone so usually stoic. It is three am, and the group looks aggressively young, aggressively alive, passing inside jokes between their lips, ready for anything, for clubs or for fights with strangers. They still had the energy to go on for a few more hours, to catch the first few strands of sun at the beach. Young. Free.
Gilbert’s muscles ache.
“You’re naked.”
Gilbert is.
It’s seven am and Gilbert has been up since five. An old routine, he used to be irritated that Ivan wouldn’t roll out of bed at the exact moment he did, that their waking moments weren’t totally in sync. That Ivan would rather spend a paltry twenty minutes doing everything- rubbing the sand out of his eyes, drinking his coffee, eating his obscenely burnt eggs, changing- instead of vibrating with borderline tachycardia like Gilbert does.
If Gilbert is tortured, Ivan should be too. What is marriage otherwise.
“It’s my house.”
Gilbert used to be naked often. With the clothes off, his body was a tantalizing offer. The flat of his stomach, his lithe, muscled shoulders, the width of his hips. They’d fucked over every surface, Gilbert used to go to work limping, Ivan’s colleagues used to gawk at the marks on his neck, his arms, his face. Red lines that healed in a day, badges of honour for their esoteric and violent sex life, their youth. Older professors had probably masturbated to the idea of them, after the requisite tuting.
A handful of times, they’d fucked in the car on the way to work, the dusty pale blue of dawn fading as they got later and later with every thrust.
Ivan’s eyes, now, glaze over in boredom, like Gilbert is an expensive piece of porcelain that is no longer shiny. That Ivan regrets buying.
“Our house,” Ivan corrects.
Gilbert gets up. “I’ll put on some clothes.”
Gilbert is only in the gay bar because Eliza claimed she needed a wingman.
After, like, ten minutes, Gilbert quickly realizes that this is not true, that Eliza has disappeared into the bathroom with a Taiwanese woman with long, silky black hair and a sleeve tattoo and is probably eating pussy as Gilbert sits alone at a table with a solitary can of Bud Light.
He doesn’t even like Bud Light, but he feels like spending twenty dollars on some vodka with apple juice would be a scam. Frugality that lingered long after the days where he lived off a shitty PhD stipend and ramen noodles.
And there is, a few steps away. This close and Gilbert can measure his jawline, the strong nose, the tone of his muscles. Ivan was a big, broad bear of a man, but Ludwig’s masculinity is a youthful stir of power. The kind you witnessed on jocks in Disney movies.
“Strange,” Gilbert says, moving to him, “With how you reacted to my descriptions of Alexander and Hephestean I was almost certain you were a homophobe. And a republican.”
Ludwig scrunches his nose, a cute, embarrassed gesture that Gilbert will file away in his head for later. For reasons.
“I don’t do well with romantic descriptors of any kind, I’m afraid. Straight or gay.”
“An equal opportunity offender,” Gil hummed.
“Yes. Such an offender that I had to drop out of my literature class when they started doing Lady Chatterly’s Lovers.”
“I think you’re going to hate the ‘Epoch of Weimar Berlin’ seminar. The beginnings of uncensored sex. Straight or gay.”
Ludwig snorted, “I’ll consider it exposure therapy.”
“And what about this place? This also exposure therapy?” Gilbert raised an eyebrow. On the right, there was a couple that was rutting against each other so hard through their jeans that they’d probably end up staining them with cum in the next minute. The lowlights, flashes of pink and blue and purple and yellow, exposing certain body parts and faces and hiding the rest in darkness. Near there bar there was a golden strip of lamp light, and so Ludwig’s face was softly illuminated, the disco glare catching on his side, highlighting his nose, his shoulder.
“Actually I’m here to make sure my friends don’t go home with the next Jeffrey Dahmer, but I think I’m already failing on that front. No idea where Feli is. Also I’m the designated driver, so.”
“You don’t drink?”
“I do, aggressively. I love drinking. But I hate the kind of sloppy drunk I get when guys I like are around- I’m already embarrassingly sober,” Ludwig mutters, hands squeezing down on his glass. Must’ve been some kind of punch, “I like to think I’m mitigating damage.”
Gilbert thinks of Ivan, of empty vodka bottles. When they’d been younger, it’d been cute, a cliche. The necessity of alcohol to lubricate any and all social interaction. Gilbert used to sit in Ivan’s lap and sip from the same glass, clumsy makeouts. Now they were terminally on opposite sides of the same couch.
“Professor,” Ludwig says. The first time he’d ever put out that word, the label lingering, highlighting the difference between them, the social structure, a line in a guideline book somewhere at university: any inappropriate relationship between faculty and students is an abuse of power and will require disciplinary action. “Would you like to go for, like, lunch with me tomorrow?
Gilbert fell in love stupidly fast.
His relationships started like a whirlwind and ended just as quickly, the sudden drop off a cliff, suspended in air for that quick moment before plunging down to his doom.
He’d been too loud, too annoying, too much all at once. Did terrible things for attention, left his lovers looking at him with a question in their eyes: why did you do that? Who are you? Why are we dating?
Seventeen with Eliza, and he’d felt solid, felt like she could handle him, but one time she’d come home and said I’m tired of fighting, normal people don’t argue like this every night, we don’t even have any plates left to break.
Eighteen, Arthur, a two month stint that ended over Kafka, even though Gilbert had sent him a long, warbling, drunk apologetic text the next day that he forever regretted, promising to concede on all fronts if they could go back?
Eighteen, again, Toris. This one had lasted a solid two years, an almost happily ever after, before Toris had packed his bags with a somber melancholy. Gilbert had gotten drunk, cheating accusations, because wasn’t your boyfriend supposed to be your best friend and why the fuck did Toris text Feliks more than he texted Gil and why are you taking your luggage out, asshole, put that back down.
‘I’m in love with you,” Toris had told him, folding a T-shirt into crisp lines, “But you also make me feel so sad all the time.”
And since then, Gilbert had aquised less. He never wanted to be the pathetic one in a relationship again. The loneliness in him was a monster, a wide, open jaw that sucked everything inside him, but his pride, now, was the bigger Godzilla.
Ivan had been the pathetic one, so stupidly in love with Gil that he had found Gil’s antics amusing, the weird and unsettling comments about others, the foot in mouth narcissism, the password thing. Ivan had never even given Gilbert a reason to be jealous. There had been no one else. Ivan had just been as isolated as Gil.
Until now.
Eliza calls the next afternoon, her voice crackling with sleep at the bottom of her throat, “I think she’s the one.”
“A girl you fingered in a gay bar bathroom ten minutes after you’ve met cannot be the one,” he explains to her patiently, “you’re turning me into Elsa from Frozen. You know the scene where-”
“Gil,” she laughs, all the way from some stranger’s bedroom. Long black hair, tattoed arm wrapped around Eliza’s naked waist probably, “You’ve never even known what love is.”
Turkish restaurant, outskirts of town, Ludwig had sent him the pin. No Instagram page to browse.
Gilbert appreciates the discrecion. He already feels weird and predatory, doesn’t want other people to look him up and down, wondering why exactly he’s at a table, talking to a man that’s at least ten years his junior. Maybe more.
Oh god.
It’s the kind of place where the paint is peeling off the walls, where cats are allowed inside even though that is almost most certainly a health code violation of some sort. Toxoplasmosis or something. Rest in peace, pregnant ladies.
Ludwig is petting one as Gil walks in, though Gil notes Ludwig both washes his hands and sanitizes afterwards.
The menu was printed in 2004, scratch marks, pencil scribbles, some words barely visible. Haven’t increased their prices since, would probably alienate their core customers if they did.
“Sorry,” Ludwig’s shoulders are tensed, apologetic, tight smile, noticing Gil staring, “just paid off my textbooks. Couldn’t really afford anything fancy. But the food is good, I promise. Just don’t ask for the spicy sauce.”
The rules in this scenario. Men versus women, older versus younger, the one who did the asking and the other that agreed. Did that make this a date.
“No, I love a good shawarma,” a lie, grumbled out. Gilbert had never had Turkish food in his life. But he’d rather do that than admit culinary ineptitude, “I prefer this, actually. A lot of places now don’t even list their prices. Especially for their wine menu. Pisses me off, because if you’re going to rob me blind at least have the audacity to do it to my face, y’know?”
“Wine menu,” Ludwig mouths out, like its a foreign word.
Gilbert winces. The gap between them widening. People in their mid thirties generally could afford more than microwave pizza and Dr Pepper, yes.
But then Gilbert speaks, because he’s nervous and the ramble is a long list of complaints. The psychology department’s head is a cunt that is trying to secretly recreate the Harvard Prison Experiment. One of his colleagues kept sending him ominous, threatening emails over his last book’s assessment of Reagan’s presidency. The new book was in its process, the best thing he’d ever written, Gil promised, though he only had a brief outline. The hard deadline was next year, so Gilbert had time. He worked his best when he was stressed out and the clock was hard ticking like a wire-bomb. Manic obsessions, hyperfixations, glued to his desk, didn’t even pee for sixteen hours once.
As the last words leave his mouth, Gilbert realizes that the gap between them has gotten impossibly small.
And that he probably, maybe over shared.
Ludwig is looking at him, expressionless. Slightly adoring, maybe, around the eyes and mouth. Maybe. Maybe.
“Sorry, too much?”
“No,” Ludwig responds quickly, the only word he’s said since Gilbert had began, colour rising to his cheeks in an instant, the chair squeaking slightly from the shift in weight, “I really, really like hearing you talk. You’re really good at talking- or lecturing, I guess- and I hate when other people, Romano specifically, interrupt you to say their own, far less knowledgeable piece. I’d deck him if I could, honestly.”
Gilbert’s eyes glimmer at the mention of violence, “and here I thought you didn’t even like history.”
The chair squeaks again, Ludwig moving back, less passionate, the stoic expression returning. Fuck this guy was hard to read. Would be amazing in a courtroom, “It’s not my favourite subject. I’m not great at reading into things. I’m getting a degree in math. Math makes sense to me.”
Same as my husband, Gilbert wanted to point out, but didn’t. It hung in the air, unsaid. Ludwig had no idea.
“It’s like trying to break the universe down into numbers, things with weight and definiable meanings. And even the theory part of it feels conceivable to me, something I can explain with a pen, paper and calculator. I spent so much time on it as a kid, trying to compensate because other people weren’t something I could understand. And maybe if I’d spent less time on it, and did more normal things, I’d have gotten, I dunno, a girlfriend or something but.”
“But it worked out, didn’t it? Especially with your preferences.”
Ludwig nodded, his expression still unreadable, “The gayness probably added to my adolescent confusion, yes. And I wouldn’t have changed it. Math is important to me. I’m working at a research center right now as an intern. Quantex?”
Ivan’s company. But Gilbert let that lay in the air as well, unspoken. A censor.
“I’m surprised, honestly,” Gilbert stole a fry from Ludwig’s plate and Ludwig pushed it towards him in response, inviting him to take more, “Especially with your physique. You’re kind of like Chris Evans but more model esque. Your generation has seen MCU movies, right?”
“My generation,” Ludwig muttered, shaking his head with a snort, a smirk, “you’re not that much older than me, Professor Schmidt. Though I did not, in fact, watch Engdame.”
Professor Schmidt. The first name erased. Turning him into something distinguished, professional, highly regarded, instead of the nerd who talked about Napolean too much. And it sent a shiver down Gilbert’s spine. Right to his groin.
“So that response in that first class was…”
“Me bullshitting yes. Apologies.” Though Ludwig sounded far from apologetic, “I didn’t know anything about Alexander at the time but I did read up after. Three books in fact. One hundred and thirty two pages in four days.
Gilbert’s stomach stirred, “Just for me?” Meant as a joke, a cheeky grin.
But Ludwig said seriously, “Yes.”
They hadn’t kissed. Hadn’t had sex even though they’d both gotten hard from that conversation alone. Plausible deniability. Teachers had lunch with students in the cafeteria all the time. Gil could’ve been giving him career advice, if anyone asked. He waits a week. No one asks.
“I met one of your students. He’s interning for you. Kind of a genius, honestly,” Gilbert told Ivan as he clicked through different Netflix shows at light-speed. Nothing interesting. Gilbert lingered over the new Alexander documentary, the scene with two dirt-caked men kissing, wrestling, a sword landing somewhere in the sand. Was probably going to be some milque toast pseudo history bullshit, Gil could tell from the small excerpt, but even so…
“Yeah?” Ivan is on his laptop. Doesn’t even look up.
Ivan isn’t cheating. If he was, Gilbert could throw a tantrum, could break all his things, could burn his shirts and send his sisters all of the phone evidence. Including the nudes.
If he was, this would’ve been easier.
I made Focaccia for you. Ludwig’s text reads, I’ve been thinking about you since we last met. Would you like to meet after class?
‘using punctuation in a text is insane’ Gilbert texts back.
Ludwig kisses him first.
In an alleyway behind the school, too close for comfort. The fact that Ludwig kisses first is important, makes Gil feel like less of a predator for thinking about it. The painful scrunch of bricks against Gilbert’s back, and Ludwig’s chest and his shoulders are so broad from rugby, from the gym, so different from Ivan’s, Gilbert can barely grasp at them.
“You smell like a bakery,” Gilbert heaves, when Ludwig finally detached himself from Gil’s lips. Gil’s lungs are bursting from a lack of oxygen. Fuck athletes and superior hemolgobin capacities.
“Sorry,” Ludwig responds with a mild irritation in his voice, an irritation that makes Gil’s intestines twist in arousal, “next time I won’t bake you a really nice olive oil bread.”
“Yeah, don’t,” Gilbert bites his lip, they’re both too rough with each other, yanks him in for another kiss, this is all too perfect, a laugh caught in both of their throats, “or I might fall in love with you and that’d end badly for both of us.”
He sits closer to the window now, has Ludwig’s class schedule memorised. Looks for when he’s supposed to be traversing the courtyard. Back straight, long strides, always going somewhere, always busy. The broad shoulders Gilbert had grabbed
His phone flutters Thinking of you.
Prove it
Two minutes pass and Gilbert frowns, Ludwig’s not supposed to be having class right now. And then it comes: big, hard, veiny cock. Maroon bedsheet in the backround. Pink at the tip, swollen with precum.
Gilbert’s breath hitches.
They haven’t had sex in two whole months so when Ivan reaches across a few minutes after they’ve turned the lights off, Gilbert’s eyes widen. Wonders if Ivan can smell some sort of pheromone on him. Horniness vibrating off his body.
Ludwig and him haven’t even had sex yet, Gilbert thinks, panicking as Ivan’s fingers massage his hip.
Gilbert makes a low, practiced noise at the bottom of his throat and Ivan rolls on top of him in the dark. Penis rubbing at Gil’s inner thighs, sticky, Ivan’s weight on him, not bothering to distribute it.
Ivan smears his lips sleepily against the back of Gil’s neck, “hey.”
“Hey,” Gil responds. Blinking at the black in front of him. Vague shape of the headboard. Cock hard, but his mind wandering to the photo in his phone. Of that earnestly hopeful look on Ludwig’s face when he’d handed him the bread basket. Should invite him into his office afterhours, no cameras around to catch him. The sexiness of a risky situation, even though they definitely wouldn’t be caught, who fucked around the staff offices at eleven pm anyways. The hard oakdesk.
The things they could do on Gilbert’s desk.
Ivan’s cock is still damp, smearing him. Gilbert moves his hips back on instinct, thinking of the desk, the desk, and already Ivan has cum without even entering him properly and he has rolled off and Gilbert is left feeling cold and alone.
“Eliza.”
“Gilbert, it is three am,” though she sounds perfectly awake. He can hear humming in the background, TV and someone else’s voice, slightly accented, asking who it was. No club music.
“How did you decide your marriage was over?”
“Lien,” a name not meant for his ears, a mumble, a giggle, a kiss, the sound of a door closing. Gilbert is hiding on the couch curled in fetal position. “It just was. It’s the kind of thing you just know.”
Gilbert closes his eyes, darkness dancing on the inside, “Thanks for the in depth explanation.”
“... You know, before I used to think that all marriages were doomed to fail. That even if people didn’t divorce, the love would run out. There’s only so much you can know about someone before you begin to hate them. But you know how my parents were,” Eliza coughs.
“But that sounds so lonely,” Gilbert says desperately.
“Yeah, it does.”
Ivan leaves for a conference, mentions it only a few hours in advanced and suddenly luggage is zipped and Gilbert is watching the grey car reverse out of the driveway and into the abyss of the horizon.
Gilbert takes a moment, moving around the house, absorbing the silence, turning over photos of Ivan.
The portrait of their wedding goes into their garage. It’d been a messy, tumultuous day. The chairs had all been the wrong shade of lavender, hadn’t matched Ivan’s tie, and Gilbert had a mini break down over the wedding cake being only fourteen inches across instead of the requested sixteen.
All of this is sacrilegious.
Gil knows Ivan could forgive his previous transgressions, but this? This is the equivalent of pissing at their altar.
Still, Gilbert calls Ludwig.
They don’t even make it to the bedroom.
Hands scrabbling. Knees hitting the tile. A flash of a future addiction; something Gilbert knows he won’t be able to ever live without now. The reason he’d never done anything more than a bit of weed even at his most experimental. Obsessive personalities.
“Wait,” Ludwig is biting so hard he’ll break skin soon, a breathy laugh, “Wait, fuck, condom. Condom in my jeans pocket.”
“Don’t need it. ‘M clean. Aren’t you?” Gilbert thumbs Lud’s ass even so, can feel the rumple of plastic in his pocket. A shit-eating grin, “Came here with expectations, huh?”
“F-fuck,” a rut against Gil’s hip, a grumble, sweaty already, “It’s about the p-principle.”
Gilbert gives in. It’s hard not to when the alternative is no sex. Ludwig pins him down and touches him until Gilbert is tender with it all.
“We didn’t even close the door all the way,” Ludwig points out, pushing a hand into Gil’s pants.
“You didn’t,” Gilbert huffs, and then oh. Oh.
Ludwig pulls off Gil’s precum stained underwear and stuffs it right into Gil’s mouth. Says sadistically, a chuckle, “Don’t want your neighbors to hear you, do we?”
Gilbert’s too far gone to realize that hey that actually is a real fucking concern, that Yao is a nosy bitch and gets coffee at the same place that Ivan does. None of that matters, none of it, because Ludwig’s thick fingers are already probing that soft, vulnerable area between his cock and his hole, and then, then he finds it, presses in and Gilbert never stood a chance.
Ludwig does a lot of laundry.
Has to, since everytime he changes, their clothes just end up dirty again within the next hour. They can’t keep their hands off each other, like a cliche. Better to stay naked.
Gilbert sits on the drier, swinging his legs as he watches Ludwig neurotically measure the detergent using a weighing scale. Getting frustrated every time the number on the scale changes a little too much.
“You actually are insane,” Gilbert laughs.
“I hate that this brand isn’t specific with its ingredients,” Ludwig’s jaw twitches, like he’s about to go to war with the cartoon pillow on the box, “Federal trade commission will be hearing about this.”
“Insufferable,” Gilbert says gleefully, pulling Ludwig to him, and he is going to fuck Ludwig ontop of the machine, bend him over right there and it is all too perfect.
If Ivan calls, Gilbert hits reject. Busy now, talk later.
They go to the beach one day, spend the next figuring out handcuffs. Later never arrives.
When their classes together end, Gil feels strange, like he is falling into the abyss. He hadn’t realized it would end so soon, but here it is, a final grade, a farewell class. Instead of buying them all pizza, he orders a bunch of stuffed croissants by a deluxe bakery because Ludwig likes those. Even though he’d never treated his class before because he prefers to be a distant god, someone to worship and fear, not a buddy teacher you could exchange social media with.
Ludwig holds his cardboard box in his lap, vaguely confused, lingering long after everyone else has left. Blue ribbon because Ludwig’s favourite color was blue.
“You need to take more of my classes,” Gilbert says. No, commands. Orders.
A sweep of further skepticism across Ludwig’s face. His voice quiet, comforting, “We don’t need a class to meet. We can keep seeing each other outside of university, just as we were doing before. It’ll make us more legitimate, too. We can lie and say we began after this class ended. So no one will worry about..”
“About what?” Gilbert’s voice is high, croaky. He hates it. He’d promised himself, never again. Not since Toris.
“...Nothing.” Ludwig shifts, “But my schedule is pretty full, class-wise. I don’t have many electives.”
“Then clear your schedule.”
“Gilbert…” said like a scolding. Like Gilbert is an unreasonable child. Gilbert prefers Professor Schmidt, the safety and power that comes with his title. The fucking pity in Ludwig’s eyes.
“I need to see you once a week in my classes,” Gilbert’s voice was low with threat, “or we’re over.”
Between them is a wide, empty gap of communication that makes Gilbert frantic. He is so used to living permanently with the person he is in love with, to have a chance, that transient moment between packing their bags and the door shutting behind them, a space for Gilbert’s words.
No calls, no texts, no arriving at his office with apologies and pleas and Gilbert is furious.
Monday morning, flowers are delivered to him with a note that reads ‘I’m so in love with you.’ and Gilbert spends the next two hours blissful until he gets a message from Ivan asking if the gift had been received.
Tuesday, Ivan takes him out on a date. Apologies for leaving so abruptly, in that awkward, adorable way Ivan does, heart on his sleeve, unsure.
Gilbert doesn’t hear.
The monster in him is screaming.
Wednesday, he sees the used condom, tied off at one end, in the guest bathroom trash can. He leaves it there.
University is a temporal place. Every year a few hundred new fresh faces are ushered in with the promise of an education, of parties, of becoming. You get a shiny new diploma at the end with your name on it and all you need to do is pay us a few hundred thousand dollars.
But everyone except the staff leaves at some point, this place of metamorphosis, which is why students are so unafraid to take risks in the suspension of time between true adulthood and adolescence.
The university is the cocoon, and one day Ludwig will rip it open with his bare hands, damp new wings drying in the vast new air. And Gilbert will be left behind to die on the leaf.
Thursday afternoon and Ludwig is there, a hard look on his face that makes Gilbert feel unmoored. Back of his class, not raising his hand even once.
Scripts from Nero’s political opponents flash on screen. He’d destroyed it all with his own hands. Pushed his wife down the stairs and had Sporus castrated. Made Sporus wear the clothes of his dead wife. Then he played the fiddle as Rome burnt.
“Like most ancient history, the lines between truth and propaganda get blurry…” Gilbert trailed off, gazing at Ludwig. It was impossible to be a good orator when your own personal narrative was going to shit.
Ludwig leaves before Gilbert can speak to him.
Thursday evening and Gilbert finally breaks, his soul spilling onto the floor like a fragile egg.
“You didn’t even say goodbye,” Gilbert says like an accusation, trying to rein in the desperation of his voice.
“Sorry. I’m having exams. Probably flunked the one I had on Monday since I didn’t study. And my laptop broke so I’ve essentially been sleeping at the library and living off black coffee while finishing final assignments…”
“You should’ve told me. I could’ve bought you a new one.”
“No, you couldn’t have,” his voice exhausted, terse.
“I’ll do it right now,” Gilbert goes hastily to his desktop, opening up amazon, looking for the most expensive peace-offering he could give, “What brand do you want?”
“I don’t want you to buy me anything,” A sigh, sympathy flooding Ludwig’s voice, “I’m sorry, I’ve been treating you badly. Can we have a real conversation on Wednesday? In person? That’s when my last major exam is.”
“Okay,” heart thumping loud, nervous. His palms are sweaty against the wireless mouse, “I’ll still buy you the laptop though.”
“Please don’t. I can manage with the library computers until I get my next paycheck.”
“Ludwig-”
“I need to study. Bye.”
Gilbert had clicked the buy button anyways.
His thoughts flop between sympathy and rage. There’d been a time, once, where he’d been in Ludwig’s position, three hours of sleep and then class and assignments. And history had been a relatively lax subject.
But Ludwig could’ve texted, could’ve said hello or goodbye as he’d brushed against Gilbert in the hallways. Three seconds of communication weren’t going to make him fail his exams, and even if they did, isn’t Gil more important than those exams?
Ivan buys him more flowers now, takes him out to dinner. Actually comments as they watch Netflix. Gilbert barely listens.
Eliza calls to say that she is moving in with Lien, that things are going well.
“Do you think Sporus loved Nero?” Gilbert murmurs into the phone, “like even a little? Even though he must have hated him?”
“You’re always so late,” Gilbert is sipping on his chardonnay, ten pages into the latest Noam Chomsky book, even though the words are swimming like ants, a kaleidoscope of black dots that never line up the way they need to.
“I’m sorry,” Ivan’s eyes prick up with tears and Gilbert doesn’t even know why he is doing this, he doesn’t even care if Ivan is late anymore, prefers it even.
If Noam Chomsky can’t distract him, then Ivan has no hope.
Gilbert downs the rest of the bottle, “I’m going to sleep in the guest room tonight.”
Gilbert is a weird, cruel, vindictive person. Considers going to every Instagram photo on Ludwig’s account and leaving a mean comment. Red looks terrible on you. The 40s called and they want their hairstyle back.
Gilbert has been through a number of break ups but this, this has hollowed him out, left him dazed and unsure. Ludwig had attended his class, so didn’t that imply a type of forgiveness? It would’ve been easier that way, Gilbert would hold no power over him anymore, and yet even though he’d been stony faced, Ludwig had sat in that classroom. His name registered for the Nero class, Gilbert had double checked.
Ludwig Schmidt, twenty-four years old, theoretical mathematics major. The teacher he has most often is Ivan, the irony. Does Ludwig sit in front, taken notes diligently. Would he write Ivan a sentimental e-mail after graduating, saying that Ivan had changed his life? E-mails that Gilbert received often, an ode to his gilded status.
Friday, Saturday, Sunday fly by.
Monday, Ludwig bumps into him in a corridor. Ludwig nods at him politely, apologizes for the contact. Gilbert still has bruises on his hips from their week together, his throat constricting. It is impossible to reach out here with all these prying eyes.
He thinks of other things he could buy Ludwig. A car. Expensive, name brand protein powder. A new automatic laundry machine because Ludwig had been so enamoured by Gil’s that Gilbert was almost certain Ludwig would stick his dick in it when Gilbert wasn’t looking and Gilbert has always been a little crazy, but getting jealous of inanimate objects was a whole other level.
Tuesday, his organs hurt. So anxious he forgets to drink water for a whole twenty four hours and now he is painfully aware of the flesh of his kidneys.
Wednesday, the same Turkish diner. Same menu, same cat, same paint flaking off the walls.
Ludwig looks harried, the same total exhaustion birthing mothers have post delivery. Maybe a first draft of a thesis, Gilbert thinks, if theoretical maths has that.
“I got the laptop I told you not to buy,” Ludwig clutches his glass close to his chest, fingers straining around the plastic, “I want you to take it back for a refund.”
“You didn’t tell me what brand to buy, so I just got the most expensive one,” Gilbert takes a french fry off Ludwig’s plate, just for the safety of knowing he can. He doesn’t even eat it. Just places it on his own plate, limp potato, “we can get it changed to Apple or Samsung- does Samsung even make laptops?”
Ludwig shook his head, frustrated, “Can’t you see how weird this is? That I come to your house, fuck you a few times and then I get a laptop that costs a thousand dollars?”
“It isn’t weird.” Gilbert murmurs defensively, looking at the lines in the wood of the table. Did some toddler make these? “Boyfriends buy each other things all the time.”
“But we aren’t boyfriends. Everytime I asked you about a label, you changed the subject,” Ludwig pointed out, his voice cold, lawyer like, making Gilbert feel like he is in a courtroom rather than a cozy immigrant restaurant.
When Gilbert says nothing, has no defense, Ludwig continues, his voice softer.
“I loved you. I really did. Even despite your tendencies. Or maybe because of them, I don’t know. You’re narcissistic, terrible with deadlines and hyperfixations. You’ve got the palette of a picky child. Sometimes you’re so in love with your own voice you don’t let others get a word in edgewise. Once, when I had left you alone to write your book, I came back six hours later to find you in the exact same position, you hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Hadn’t left the room to even go to the bathroom. You’re blase about sunscreen and then throw childish tantrums when you get a sunburn. You’re so,” Ludwig ran his hands through his hair, eyes wide with the absurdity of the situation, “You’re infuriating, and I’m in love with you. And it isn’t fair. You do all these absurdly big leaps of kindness that I never asked for- but you never do anything that I do want.”
“I’m sorry,” Gilbert’s voice is small, shaky, picks at a thumb nail until it bleeds, and Gilbert can’t even feel the pain over his heart racing, “I can do better, I can change.”
“I saw your husband’s clothes that last day, when I was packing for the beach. I’m not stupid, Gilbert. Two parking spaces, two toothbrushes, two sets of each mug?” The sadness in Ludwig’s voice is unbearable.
“Ludwig, he isn’t important. I’d divorce him in a heartbeat.”
“But you lied to me,” Ludwig’s voice a furious hiss, the closest Ludwig had ever gotten to shouting at him, “You let me sleep on his side of the bed, completely unaware. And you don’t even- you don’t see that as wrong.”
“I’d never hurt you on purpose. It just didn’t seem important to me. It was irrelevant extra information. I didn’t want to ruin our weekend,” Gilbert tells him, and its true. That’d been the core of it. Ivan had been so out of orbit by then.
“But you did.”
“What do you want me to say, Ludwig.” A dry, shrill laugh. If this was going to be a break up, didn’t Gil deserve to say his piece, “Do you want me to get on my knees and grovel? Because I am willing to do that. But you have to admit you want that.”
“That isn’t...”
“Then what is this all for then. Why wait so long to tell me you noticed Ivan’s toothbrush. You understood what we were doing even back then. It’s like you said: you aren’t stupid. You were willing to transgress.”
Ludwig looks stricken, then annoyed, “You know what this is like? That day we met, when you asked me that question about Alexander that you knew I wouldn’t be able to answer. Which was an asshole move, even back then.”
“People shouldn’t come to class without doing the required reading.”
“K-keep licking,” Gilbert moans, his hand in Ludwig’s hair, yanking him close to Gil’s pelvis so that he doesn’t have much of a choice. Cruel. Mean.
The day Ludwig had brought the handcuffs to Gilbert’s house, he’d spent a good fifteen minutes explaining safewords, the traffic light system, how to choke someone without actually putting them in danger. Press from the sides, not the front. The new generation stuff.
All of that out the window now, because they are trying to kill each other.
Gilbert had smacked Ludwig, said coldly that Ludwig was just a spoilt child that wanted to eat his cake and have it too. And Ludwig had twisted Gilbert’s arm so hard behind his back that Gilbert had been certain it was going to break, had felt the joint come slightly undone. Ludwig had called Gilbert an unethical tyrant in his own classroom, said he wrote books for pseudo intellectuals that wanted to masturbate to how smart they were.
The next option had clearly been a hotel room.
“Your husband is going to see the charge on your joint bank account,” Ludwig hush whispered to him on their way to the room.
“I don’t fucking give a shit.”
Now they get to claw at each other with impunity.
Gilbert holds Ludwig’s face there, makes sure to cum inside his mouth, before shoving Ludwig away.
“You’re the worst person I’ve ever met,” Ludwig wipes at his lips with a grimace, undoing his tie. His voice clipped and commanding, “Get on the bed. I want to be on the top.”
“Who died and made you boss?” Gilbert sneers at him, and he’d take this violent thrumming of heat over the limp dick of evenings with Ivan any day. He’d take Ludwig without the violent thrumming, too, “You’ll have to fight me for it.”
So Ludwig does: Gilbert is pushed into the bed, face first, ass up, no lube, barely able to scrabble at the bedsheets when Ludwig thrusts into him.
They go three more rounds.
It still isn’t enough.
They lay in the bed in their own aftermath. Post nuclear war. Surrounded by sweat and semen.
“I got invited to this expedition to Egypt next month. Fully paid,” Gilbert gnaws on Ludwig’s shoulder, “get to fuck around in some new ruins. Possibly related to one of Alexander’s camps. Come with me?”
“You know I can’t,” Ludwig’s thumb traces Gil’s jawline, “Selfish prick.”
“Yeah,” Gilbert responds sadly, “I know.”
“I wasn’t really going to break up with you in the dinner. I just wanted you to feel hurt the way I hurt.”
“A power move.”
“I suppose.”
“Well, it was a really good one. Scared me shitless. I couldn’t sleep or eat for a week.”
“You’re like, really bad at taking care of yourself…” Ludwig snorts, “After fifty years one would assume you’d get better at it.”
“I’m not even fourty,” Gilbert points out, pinching Ludwig’s hip.
“Good to know that we don’t have a twenty year age gap between us.”
“I could technically still be your father though. If teen pregnancy had been involved.”
Ludwig lets out a laugh so booming it startles Gilbert slightly. It echoes on and on, Gil getting increasingly unnerved until he has to hit Ludwig with a pillow to get him to stop.
“No, it’s okay. You just say the weirdest things sometimes,” Ludwig shook his head in disbelief.
“When you get to my age, you stop worrying about being weird,” Gilbert lays his head back onto Ludwig’s chest again, sighing, “I can’t wait. I bet you’re going to be an insufferable math guy. The kind who goes ‘um ackshually’ everytime someone mentions decibel numbers.”
“I am that guy right now. Who knows what kind of horror I’ll be in twenty years.”
“I hope,” Gilbert’s voice wavers slightly, “I get to meet this horror.”
“You will. I promise.”