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Chapter Text

Feliks boredly gazed out of the rain-muddied window of the run-down bus he was sitting in. He watched the outside world with discontent, along with also a pinch of disconnect. Although the bus was slow, because of the bad weather and his disability to concentrate all the naked trees and dead bushed mushed together like unbaked dough. He barely believed he was there, as he listened to the regular beating of the rain, and felt the cold creep into the badly made bus. It was as if for a faint moment he could even feel the raindrops flowing down on his cheek, and he actually had to check whether it was just his depraved mind playing tricks on him, or he actually started crying.

Normally, he would have had a book with him. He was quite the diligent student, spending most of his days in the school library – mostly to avoid going home to do physical work like tending the animals and such – because he was one of the lucky few who did get to go to school, and get his finals, and even had a chance to go to university. He thanked his lazy ass for wasting that much sleep over age-old, yellowed and smelly books, making his eyes hurt and fingers burnt with the wax of the candle he used for lighting. He was also thankful for the fact that he was almost allergic to going the fuck home and help, because he was accepted into the Polish-French major he dreamed of all his life.

Although, it was met with even more disapproval on his parents’ part, quite obviously. As they liked to put it, all he could do is smoke and read, and still waste his golden brain on becoming a literature teacher no one asked for. Especially not a French one. Russian? It would have been maybe acceptable. But French? Really?

Part of it was the hope that one day, he could cool Truman’s eggs too . And on that exact day he could travel from Kraków to Paris, no matter if he had to do it by foot hungry and freezing. And then, he could see more of the world than the monotone and grey streets of Bucharest, or the gloomy, mourning mountains of the Tatry.

It would have been great, if he could have done it with a scholarship, like many of his peers, who wanted to break out of their miserable lives of rationing even toilet paper and their sweet cigarettes, and go the Leningrad or Moscow. But to be frank, he had enough of seeing the same suffering everywhere, his only enjoyment being to listen to the Free Europe radio every few months at his uncles. Because at this point, what really was the difference between Warsaw and Prague? Or Kraków and Sofia?

He could temporarily escape this painful realism with reading about the sinfully lustful escapades of Madame Bovary , or the ambitious love of Julien Sorel , or tragic void of philosophy Camus brought onto paper, but it wasn’t enough. It never was. Because once even War and Peace ended, from where he became inspired to learn French , and he had to wake up to the sound of the bells tolling at six in the morning. And all that to realize that he barely slept an hour. This cycle was tiring.

And now, he couldn’t help but feel an immaculate despair at the thought that even that was ripped away from him. From his beloved books to his Kino cassettes, his own comfortable bed and even his parents, whom he argued a lot with, but still loved them.

It was just him with a pack of Mocne and a box of matches in his pockets and a backpack of his outmost necessities and papers.

Yeah, if he just wasn’t that dumb and rather went to a medical major, he could have been stationed at a military hospital instead of taking part of regular conscription, but he hadn’t thought about that in time. He tried calming himself with the fact that at the very least could get a driver’s license if not anything else out of this stupid shit, but he still felt himself uneasy. And at least he is going to finish this sooner than most would.

It was going to be just a year. A year during which the lucky ass girls from his class would already have completed their first years, while he was wasting his time away doing what? Shooting at targets like madman preparing for a non-existent war against the declining west or whatever.

For one, Feliks had every reason to hate both on Yankees and Moskals, but if he engaged in the first one, he would be a mere pawn, and he was in a tad too much of a disillusionment to siding with them too. Sadly though, he was no Napoleon to make his dear country rise again from the ruins the oh-so-great powers of the world left it in, so the best he could do now was to advocate for peace. And real peace could never be brought through military interventions and peace bombings.

He wanted to travel, to learn about just everything and anything left in this world for him to find, and with that knowledge maybe one day, he even could give back his due to the earth.

It was a sad dream crushed by the abruptly stopping bus, signalling that he finally arrived to the barracks. He sat at the back, not wanting to make any acquaintances just yet. He was too mentally and emotionally exhausted to deal with anyone. It wasn’t as if most of them were doing that. Some of them were familiar, he spotted at least three of his classmates, and a few others from his school, but most were a shroud of mystery.

Feliks even sat alone, which was fair, since it usually was that way. One of his colleagues said that he looked unapproachable and intimidating because of his unusually bright blond hair and green eyes. Probably didn’t help that he kept it as long as the girls in his class; most men had either longer or shorter hair, but never in the middle like Feliks did it.

He initially liked that he looked outstanding, because it made his ego giddy, but now it was nothing more than a nuisance. He just wanted to blend in and get over this year as fast as he could. Like he could have control over the time.

He grabbed his backpack, and at last made his way down from the bus. He glanced back one last time at the old driver, who already lit up a cigarette, not even caring to go outside, which inspired Feliks to do the same. It’s going to be a long day.

This was his first time riding a bus, but sure as hell hoped that his second will be soon.

The bell tolled for six, when he usually woke up. With a sigh, he crushed his cigarette under his leather boots, and braced himself for the long bureaucratic process awaiting him. It sucked to be one of the only ones whose parents haven’t came with him, but he was a big boy now, and they couldn’t miss a day from work, even if it was for their son.

He took the green little booklet out of his pocket, and opened it at his face. He looked so stupid on the picture, that he had to let a bitter laugh escape from his mouth. He won’t be seeing this for a while again, huh. He just hoped his military ID card would have a more advantageable picture of him. He folded again his ID card, brushing his thumb against the crownless eagle on the front.

Maybe one day, he would have it’s crown back, and that day, Feliks would be sending a post card of the Eiffel Tower for his parents.

*

Of course, he was not as lucky to get to be a border guard, because the government despised intellectuals. He had a friend from Czechoslovakia called Jakub, who he met a few years ago when travelling there with his family, with whom they managed to keep in touch with. Anyways, he always said to Feliks to pray to get to be a border guard, because they did nothing compared to those in the People’s army, and they got to be playing cards and drinking cheep ass vodka all day, which sounded promising to Feliks.

It cogged his romantic brain a bit, to be looked away far from everyone, in a not properly registered barrack where even the hands of the government barely reached. He dreamt of the great stories Jakub told him, which usually ended with both of them crying from laughing. At least he could use them up to entertain the girls who managed to beat him in his education. It sounded almost fun compared to serving in the People’s army.

And they had the audacity to station him at Koszalin, which made his blood boil even more. Really, he got that everyone was purposefully stationed far away from their home. And he even understood why they hated university students like him, sure. But from Kraków to Koszalin? That was like half a day on train, on the other side of goddamn Poland! At first, he was convinced that it was some kind of mistake, and he asked the apathetic old woman at the table to repeat what she said twice, thinking that he might just have misheard it. Or that her eyes wandered a line lower, to the other fellow’s station.

But it wasn’t a misspeak, nor his ears failing him; he was to be transported to Koszalin in half an hour by train. It was already half past eight at that point, and he haven’t had as much as a piece of bread in his system, yet he felt as the pain from his stomach didn’t come from the fact that he was hungry, but because he needed to throw up.

This was unfair.

Why couldn’t he get sent to Wrocław or Lublin? He tried listening to what other’s got, and yet every single one of them was stationed closer. Not once did he hear a city so far away, not even from his classmates about whom he knew would go to university too, which was just simply too despairing.

Feliks usually wasn’t that easily broken, and tried to act positively despite everything, but right now he felt as if he could cry. He quickly turned on his heels to try to leave the building for another cigarette, but he was just as quickly stopped by the guards at the door.

Right. He didn’t even have his ID anymore.

*

“Comrade Łukasiewicz! Hey!” Feliks was stopped dead in his tracks while he gloomily made his way onto the next hours long slumping this time on the train. Ah, he could identify that voice everywhere, even if hot lead was poured into his ears. Maybe, just maybe this wouldn’t be so unbearable after all.

He was looking around to find an empty seat for himself, further away from everywhere to rant in his journal like he always did when he was pissed of about something, when he heard that familiar scratchy voice hit his ears. There was only one person who undoubtedly smoked more than him, the master of ruining his vocal cords; Tolys Laurinaitis.

With a smile, he turned to the brunette while lifting his cap slightly to greet his long ago seen best friend.

“My pleasure colleague.” he sat down beside him, as Tolys tossed his bag down to the floor in front of his legs to make place for him.

Tolys hadn’t aged a second since the last time they met. They used to be the inseparable just a few years ago, really. Almost like they came in pair. Wherever Feliks went, Tolys was right beside him, almost like a shadow. While most people would deem it annoying or creepy, Feliks actually relished in him. It was him who felt embarrassed if anything, that it was always him turning to rely on Tolys, asking for either advice, or trusting him to help with consolidation when he got into fights. He was dependent on him since almost as long as he remembered.

That’s why it hit the hardest when Tolys had to move away. His father was an influential figure in the Party, with his grandfather being a famed war veteran, so it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise but Feliks was officially shattered that time, when he got the news. It was like his other half was ripped from him, and he wasn’t even exaggerating. Everyone know that they were Feliks and Tolys and that was just a fact.

So, of course he was flabbergasted to say the least to see him here again.

“Where?” asked Tolys, who was unbelievably casual compared to Feliks. As if he wasn’t even surprised.

“To the final station. Suck’s ass for me.”

“Hm. Shame, I’ll get off at Szczecin. I’ve been travelling for a while so I deserve it though.”

“How… I mean, fuck.” Feliks had to laugh a bit kinda painfully, while burying his face into his hands. “Tolys I—"

“Don’t say anything. That’s the past now, yes?” Tolys put a finger on his mouth to hush him. Ah, he may haven’t changed from an outer perspective, but he was different. The person Feliks knew wouldn’t do something like this. He would have let Feliks do as he pleased in the past.

But guess they had to grow up eventually.

“So, you still hadn’t given up on university Łukasiewicz?”

“Ah, no. No, next year I’m going to go, Laurinaitis. And I’m guessing you’re joining the Party now? I mean, you quite enjoyed being a part of ZSMP.” just as that, the conversation bitterly faded into the background just like the trees outside the window. It started raining again. It was almost as if the nature was weeping with Feliks.

He seriously started considering which was the worst of all, that he is ripped away from everything he used to know, or that what he used to know the best completely disappeared? He desperately wanted to excuse himself from this pitiful play date, because it seemed that even his shirt got tighter during the time he listened to him talking.

Feliks could feel sweat run down from his temple, trying to keep his calm so that the brunette wouldn’t notice his inner turmoil. He shouldn’t because it was all dumb.

People change all the time, don’t they? Even Feliks changed somewhat. He managed to exist without his shadow, learn to stand up for himself, and work his way up to become the first person in his family to access college education. He could become the first one with a degree, no matter how useless it was in their eyes.

He was not the arrogant little brat he used to be, who only cared about slacking off, going to the disco and smoking. And because he wasn’t a little kid, he would have to get used to being addressed formally and being called on his surname. For someone as respected as Tolys was, it would be immodest and even uncomfortable to address him informally especially since they weren’t classmates anymore. They were at best acquaintances.

The hardest to understand for him was though, why he didn’t even bother writing him sometimes. Sure, they left each other in quite a difficult place but Tolys wouldn’t have wanted to severe all they had. That was not Tolys.

He felt the glow of anger in his chest warmly rising.

Tolys Laurinaitis killed himself three years ago.

*

He mostly spent the rest of the way sleeping to not notice the gaping void in his stomach. It was a flimsy attempt, but he hadn’t really packed any food because he didn’t think that the way would be this long. And well, he wanted to save the most money he could to more dire times.

This was another good memo Jakub gave; smokers had an extra break.

It was still quite funny how one of the selling points of socialism was being all anti-war. He certainly didn’t feel all pacifist now, as he grumpily made his way down the train, finally stretching his limbs. He wasn’t a tall one, and he remembered both Jakub and Tolys frequently making fun of him because of it. Your ego should be only as tall as you are.

As annoying it was, no matter how much he prayed for a growth spurt – he still firmly believed that he’ll have it one day – he hadn’t grown a centimetre since he hit 170 in grade seven. That was the first and last time he was ever considered tall. Being someone who cared about appearances, this was a hard pill to swallow all his life.

Well, at least his height wasn’t included in the ID card. He just has to make sure he shaved before the photo was made, because it was one of his gravest mistakes last time that he believed that moustache looked good on him.

Maybe if he was a brunette, but that blonde dogshit on his face just simply looked ridiculous. At that time he was so proud of it, that he even sent a copy of the picture to his cousins, Hedvika and Erzsi. It isn’t a surprise that both girls still hold that monstrosity against him.

Looking back, he only did that trying to rub of the label of girlishness off of him. Both of his cousins were older than him, so when he was little, they just have happened to be in the phase when they liked playing dressing up and pampering him. That’s the reason why he had girlish hair all his life, to fit with the skirt they dressed him up in. It was a bit humiliating to think of that when he was a teenager, so he tried suppressing even the sheer existence of the memory with well, pretending to be someone who he very clearly wasn’t.

He liked looking pretty and all, it shouldn’t be a sin. And he couldn’t keep up with the standards he set before himself. It’s not that his peers particularly bother him because of it, so all this fuss was for nothing really. Just his stupid brain being stupid meaninglessly.

That being said, he still rather wore skirts than a uniform, girly or not. As he said, he hated pretending to be someone he is not. A mere brute soldier is far from what he wanted to be.

It wasn’t even as if he despised each and every person who grabbed a gun; he just didn’t like the purpose it served. He would be one of the first to stand up for his country if he had to, but this way he was only helping those whom his homeland needed protection from. Self-sabotage was idiotic. It made him feel disgusting.

Alas, he had no other choice. Well, he technically had, but that was an even worse alternative.

Feliks was anything but excited about the next long bureaucratic procedure at the barracks. He bit his lips hard at the thought of the fact that these were his last few hours being de facto free before the next two months only after which he was let on his first leave. But even when he had that freedom, would it be worth anything? Almost all of that would be spent with traveling if he wanted to go back home to Kraków, so it was even pointless to think about that. His best idea was to go into the city itself to stock up on cigs, and that was it.

This was all so utterly hopeless, but this time he didn’t even want to cry, just laugh about how harrowingly shitty his life had to be.

*

While marching on foot to the outer part of the city where the actual barracks were, he kinda befriended a guy named Tomasz. He was from Malonowo and unlike him, he studied at a vocational school. Feliks almost snorted when he said the name of the village; that’s the exact reason why it was so ridiculous that he was sent from that far away.

Anyways, he was entertaining and chattered on his own. Usually, it was Feliks in that role, but right now he was way too tired to play the goodie two shoes. It felt nice to listen once in a while, especially being as lost as he was.

Because Feliks felt lost, not the usual apt person he was. He knew from a young age that this was inevitable, but he didn’t think that it’s going to be this torturous.

Primarily, he missed any kind of intellectual stimulation. He wrote little somethings in his journal on the way, but it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy his knowledge-craving brain. Everything was bland like a wasteland. It wasn’t even the fault of Tomasz, it’s not as if he looked down on workers, but it was natural that they weren’t interested in the same things. Feliks doubted that any other university student would take him seriously anyway.

Ah, he forgot to bring back to the library that Shelley book he was lent. Now that was some serious issue. He got into conflict with the local librarian quite a few times because of missed deadlines and all. He was a bit absent minded about dates and stuff. He just hoped he won’t forget that when they had the first chance to write something back home. He had to tell his mother to bring it back in his name.

They started playing a guess game with the black-haired man with next to him. It seemed that it wasn’t only him who could only think about food right now, because all that was behind the veil of questions were pierogi and kompot. Feliks could kill right now for even just a spoonful of his grandma’s sweet delicacy, which always gave him comfort even in the most desperate times.

Feliks always had a sweet mouth, he swore he could live only off of kompot for half a year at least. Right now though, even liquorice would do it, just to make the bitter feeling of hunger disappear from his tongue.

*

At the end, they got dinner despite the predictions of the two newmade friends. It wasn’t a lot, but everything was better than nothing at that point, so they hadn’t even left a crumple of bread on their plates.

After they got their uniforms bidding goodbye to their civil clothes they quickly and surprisingly quietly ended the day with showering and brushing teeth. Afterall, it was far into the night by the time they even arrived, so it would have been kinda ridiculous to start into anything.

Feliks was far from happy when he saw the things that couldn’t be called beds they had to sleep on, but he was too tired to complain, so he just sucked all his frustrations up. Tomasz, who Feliks couldn’t decide whether actually liked him, or just stuck with him, because he was talking the whole way to him and it would feel improper not to, but chose the bed next to him.

The blonde couldn’t be bothered to look around in great detail, or analyse every face, so without even glancing to the boys climbing up to the beds over them, or those occupying the other neighbouring complex, Feliks just straight up fell into his pillow. He had enough of the day, and even if he just slept through most of it, he didn’t want to spend his night doing anything else either. Somehow, traveling was more tiring than he would have imagined.

Sure, he have travelled abroad before, but he just couldn’t feel tired when he was that excited about seeing something other than his homeland. Absently though, he still felt the obligation to pray, so he started murmuring something, as he did every night. He didn’t know why he prayed exactly, but it calmed him down even if he wasn’t in such a large pile of shit like right now, so he did it anyway. It wasn’t that deep for him.

He began his mornings the same way, as he did now too, though more grumpily than ever. A great part of his grumpiness stemmed from the fact that he did not, in fact want to cut his hair, so he had to tie it back into a tight lower bun like women had to, which he hated doing. He thought that his face looked stupid without hair hanging on its sides, but if that was the only way he could keep it long then so be it; he wasn’t about to ruin his fabulous hair.

The day was bland to say the least, and that was the greatest artistic euphemism Feliks heard in a while. Besides bland, the other adjective that fit even more to describe his initial experience was harsh. And merciless. And tiring.

And the word hate also made its way to his mind, faster than everything.

Obviously, Feliks wasn’t a fit person, despite the very seriously taken PE lessons in school. He didn’t care for sports, because he simply found them boring. A waste of time if he had to be honest, because his job was to be smart, not sportsy, and just by the amount of tobacco he consumed he clearly didn’t give a shit about his health either. So, they were pointless in his eyes, and now he was kinda doomed. Partly because it hurt his ego that he wasn’t the best in something, and partly because they really hated university kids.

He had to stomach most of the shouting that day, which would have been more bearable if it wasn’t just about humiliating him. Yeah, he was shitty at sports, but that didn’t mean he had to be treated like a parasite. And he wouldn’t call it “constructive criticism” that he was called a faggot know-it-all at least twenty-three times during the day from his instructors. Clearly, it didn’t help him doing push ups better at all.

If anything, it made Feliks not even want to try. If they were going to treat him like an animal, then they were nothing better – that was the true equality. So, Feliks didn’t give a shit honestly. He wasn’t the one who took insults to the heart, and he sure as hell couldn’t let himself break down to make things hundred times worse. He wasn’t that determined to fight for respect, but he knew that strategically, that would be the best thing. Maybe tomorrow.

He noticed though that there was another man who got not as much, but still a notable amount of shouting at, which kinda intrigued him. It wasn’t as if he was as trashy as Feliks was, quite the opposite to be exact. He didn’t even seem to break a sweat doing everything nearly perfectly, yet they were still abusing him. If Feliks had to guess, it was because he was an albino.

Again, there was no great meaning behind all of it. He was just an easy target in that aspect.

Though, the bullying might have worked a bit better than with Feliks, because it seemed he worked even harder – if that was possible just going by how well he did everything. The blonde one wasn’t that dense not to notice that he was probably some professional or at least has been doing sport since his childhood.

Of course, almost everyone got their fair share of verbal abuse, but Feliks was attentive, and he had no better thing to do than observe and learn. It was kinda fun, making up his theories about everyone. About which kind of school they went to if they did, about the meaning behind their triggers, about their fitness; so just about everything he could read off of a day of training together.

Tomasz tried his best to encourage Feliks, which was sweet to be honest. Even though the blonde was adamant about not caring about the insults, it felt great that someone cared about his feelings. The man, who was slightly taller than Feliks was on the upper average part of the spectrum. He must have taken up some sport as a hobby, but he wasn’t that crazy good at for example running.

And running was well, he knew what his nightmares would be about in the following weeks. It felt like the worst eight kilometres of his entire life, and he seriously started praying to get TBC or something and die instead. Even that albino guy seemed like he was about to throw up, which was a big word to Feliks.

So naturally, after a shitty day like this, he expected to finally fall into his iron bed again, but even that sweet comfort was taken away from him when he was instructed to take on the first shift of night patrol. He contemplated even more seriously to steal the very gun he started learning to shoot with, making himself the target this time. And he turned out to be quite the natural shooter; he managed to hit the bullseye seven times out of ten.

At least, no one could bother him about his hair if none of his superiors would see him, so without a second thought he let it out the exact moment his instructor left him on his post on the far left side of the barracks.

He tiredly opened his pack of cigarettes as the reward at the end of the day. Maybe doing the immediate shift was better than being the replacement at dawn, despite how sleepy he felt. Feliks couldn’t even find the strength to think about anything, so he just absently watched the dense smoke leaving his nostrils, and let the nicotine flow comfortably through his veins. It was so peaceful like this.

Though, it would have been better if stars would glow on the sky, but it was just as empty as his head and heart. The only source of light was his petroleum lantern and the red little dot at the end of the stick hanging out of his mouth. He put his cap down into his lap as he sat there, searching for the non-existent intruders or enemies or whatever. At least it wasn’t raining anymore like yesterday, and the air was still quite fresh, the gentle breeze calming his nerves.

“Is it really the best idea to smoke when you could barely run a kilometre without coughing your lungs out?” called out the unfamiliar raspy voice behind his back and Feliks, scared shitless, started coughing like crazy from the smoke trapped in his throat. He quickly tried to recover though, binding his hair and putting on his cap in the fracture of a second, while standing up and saluting, thinking it was one of his superiors sent to check up on him.

“I, Feliks Łukasiewicz report that no enemy is in sight, Comra – ah, it’s just you.” he started his sentence nearly shouting in intimidation, but it quickly faltered when he finally registered who was in front of him. It was just that albino guy. Now that he thinks about it, Comrade Bratkowski mentioned something about reinforcement coming in a minute, but it was quite foggy despite happening around three minutes ago.

He let out a breath, and undid his hair again, but not letting his guard down enough to take even that stupid cap off. Luckily, his instincts were right about not throwing his cig away, so he continued munching on it while sitting back to his original place.

“Cut me some slack. It’s not just you who had a shit day.”

He heard a sigh beside him, then the familiar sound of match crackling against its box.

“Don’t doubt it.”

After some time of silence setting in, the albino broke it again, but this time not managing to startle Feliks.

“You know, I don’t get why are you here. You know that you could have just refused to bear arms? Why the struggle when you can’t even do a proper push up?” he spoke a bit funnily, but Feliks accredited it to his hypothesis that he was from some rural area.

“Ah, not this again. You know, I don’t want to live here. I’ve been dreaming of moving to France since forever, and I’m actually seeing a possibility that this’ll all be over, and I can do that. I just feel it in the air, that something’s about to change. Money is the simplest answer.” the nameless other had the audacity to snort at that, which made Feliks feel quite pissed. He really had enough of people for today.

“Sure, if that was even possible, everyone would want to have some eastern no name kid, when westerners have enough of fugitives anyway.”

“I don’t care about the riches. I just like France and admire Napoleon. I want to learn more about it than what university can teach.”

“Really? I mean, you would defect your homeland for that reason?”

“It’s not defecting. I don’t get why would learning about others be bad. Shouldn’t be that the point of the International? Oh, wait, would it be better if I said I wanna learn about the glorious French revolution instead?” mocked him Feliks, realising he may have said incriminating stuff to some dumb ass commie.

“No, it wouldn’t. That’d be still defecting. You are born to a certain place to do everything in your might to help it flourish. You are bound to it forever, to give back everything it gave you. It’d be simple treason if you willingly move away.”

“Now, that’s stupid for multiple reasons. Why is it that out of the reach that your gained knowledge elsewhere can benefit your original birthplace? Even if it sounds stupid to the erhm… lesser educated populus, it still does. And I mean no offence. And by your logic, shouldn’t you also be refusing to bear arms? I mean, you most likely aren’t from around here either. And like, your theory has millions of other loopholes. Like, for example, what if the border moves away? You wouldn’t be serving your country anymore, just a foreign state if you refuse to move away.”

“I didn’t mean country to begin with. I meant your birthplace. My family lived as long as forever in Szczecin, and we refused to leave it, no matter what happened. I have respect for that city, so I’m not leaving either. Conscription is actually useful compared to what, reading some books. Even if not in a militaristic sense, but you at least gain a certain physic you need for every day life. And the other difference between you and me Comrade…” Again with Szczecin? What was with that city?

“Łukasiewicz, Feliks.” helped him out the blonde.

“Yes, Comrade Łukasiewicz, that I’m planning to go back as soon as I can, whereas I can tell you never would want to do so. You think that the soulless luxuries of the west are inherently better, because the reality is coated prettier there.”

“I’m not that materialistic, beg your pardon. This isn’t even a political sentence or whatever. Couldn’t care less about monkey men doing their monkey dance if I had to be honest, just leave me the fuck alone to exercise my basic human rights. You know, that’s the problem with indoctrination. You twist every word of mine to fit an agenda you can oppose to, not realising that I have no agenda to begin with.”

“And that’s the problem with smarty types, they analyse you to shreds from first impression, making an unbreakable law about you, and try to explain you to yourself without having a single clue about reality.”

“Aha, I haven’t heard that one yet. You aren’t as stupid as I thought you are Comrade…” he turned towards his speaking partner as he sensed a moment of hesitation. A little breath caught up in his throat.

“Beilschmidt. Gilbert Beilschmidt.” Now, that certainly was entertaining. Feliks couldn’t even keep himself from smirking at him jeeringly. So that’s why he got similar treatment to him, not solely because of his albinism.

“So that’s how it is. A German preaching me about patriotism. Isn’t that a bit laughable? I mean, I noticed that you spoke weirdly, but God… give me a minute this is pure comedy.” he actually started snickering, and sensing the growing discomfort of the other he just continued to do it even more arrogantly. “So what, you aren’t even calling Szczecin Stettin anymore? Tell me, how much dick your parents sucked that you weren’t deported and kept your name even? Good traditions continued in the family, I see.” his green eyes glowed with venom, smirking at the ashamed man beside him, who was taken aback by the sudden hostility.

“You are a dick. I can’t even speak fucking German.” he gritted those words through his teeth similarly antagonistically. So, that was his sore point.

“But you are, and I don’t need to hear anything else.”

“Jeez, I – you don’t even know me.”

“Yeah, and you don’t know me either, but you still judged me. Am I suddenly the bad one for doing the same? How is that any better than insulting me that I’m a traitor and a stupid know-it-all just because I have a different idea what I want to do with my life?”

They were hostilely starting into each other’s eyes, as if they wanted to kill the other. Though, not a lot held them back at the moment other than the fact that neither of them wanted to get ostracized further for bad behaviour.

It was a shame, because this Beilschmidt guy had quite pretty eyes. They almost seemed red, though on the fainter end; he imagined he couldn’t see that good. Weird thing he was even drafted. But nonetheless, they were interesting. Feliks could very happily spend hours analysing them, because he’d never seen anything like them before. They were special in a good way. Shame that their owner was such an asshole.

It was Beilschmidt who admitted defeat first in their silent battle, and he turned away lighting another cigarette.

“Fine. I am sorry. But we might as well get along, cuz you are stuck with me until the end of the month.”

At that, Feliks sighed, cursing his wonderful luck that he couldn’t even relax in these hours from now on. Most likely.

“Guess sorry too. But I’m taking a compensation.” with that, he simply took the cigarette out of Beilschmidt’s mouth, claiming it as his own. “Popularne? Really? And I am the one ruining my lungs?”

Beilschmidt didn’t even look mad at the thievery, just surprised, before quickly putting back that annoyed façade of his.

“Exactly! And I volunteer to save you from a gruesome death. Sharing is caring anyway.” he reclaimed his cigarette victoriously, but the Polish man wasn’t about to give up the fight that easily.

“Nah, everything that saves me from the eight kilometres!”

And so, they eventually agreed to actually sharing – not as if they haven’t been doing that anyways – so they took turns at taking drags, and for scientific reasons, even Feliks agreed to collectivize one of his. Cuz like, sharing with someone made it naturally better or something. They were just being good socialists.

By the time they were changed, both of them could barely keep their eyes open. At one point they agreed to be taking turns of fifteen minute naps, so while one of them begrudgingly counted the seconds, the other snored on their shoulders as a pillow. That was far from quality sleep though, so they were still like dead man walking to the sleeping area. Depending on perspective if it was deus or diabolus ex machina, but turns out Beilschmidt was the one sleeping on Feliks’ left side, so they crawled their last painful steps together to their respective beds, collapsing on there the very minute.

Feliks didn’t have any energy for his nightly overthinking, and processing, so he left that though to the next day. As he thought hours before, he had enough of human interaction for today. And he rather didn’t think about this little charade camaraderie with Gil- Beilschmidt for now.

Chapter Text

Feliks awoke drenched with sweat, panting franticly with his eyes watering up.

It started again.

He’d been having dreams of this goddamn story about him in the eighties going through all that shit. At this point, he knew that story by heart. Just a few days ago he saw the ending for the God knows how many times, and now it started again. He felt as if crying still, no matter if the text was already burnt into his head. That there were no more surprises. That every twist was second nature now.

He couldn’t even cry at the same heart-wrenching film for twice, because all impact was taken away in his opinion with knowing the line of fate. It became boring. Cliché. Yet, this felt real every time. As if it actually happened to him, which was dumb, because he goddamn well knew that he was born long after the red star fell from the sky. Even conscription was abolished two years after he was born . They couldn’t be memories.

Tolys always said that he just had a vivid imagination, which was true. The Lithuanian boy was his best friend for like as long as he had a Discord profile. At first, they only just played cs:go together without talking about anything else really, but soon they found themselves simply afking from the game, and talk until either of them fell asleep. It started out as just simple English practise for Feliks, but now neither of them wanted anything but to hear the other’s voice for at least an hour a day.

Yeah, they tried dating for a while, but both of them decided that long-distance relationship sucked ass and broke off for the better. Feliks was a bit warry at first of Tolys, but as they began video chatting with camera, his worries melted away that he was about the same age as him, not a groomer. And he was his only online friend who he had as a Facebook friend which was a big thing to him.

At least they managed to meet a singular time, because luckily Tolys’ parents were enough kulaks to let their son travel to Poland as his eighteenth birthday gift. But hey, Feliks worked at every summer since he turned sixteen; maybe he could return the favour either this or the next year, if he manages to save up enough money.

Anyway, Tolys was the only person who ever heard about his dreams. Feliks tried to dismiss them at first just as the slightly older boy did, so he hadn’t told about it neither his parents nor his dearest cousins, who he usually trusted more than everything.

It wasn’t as if they were interacting that regularly nowadays though. He remembered when he was smaller, they used to came to every celebration dinner, or even just sometimes randomly at the weekends. These kinds of meetings faded out, with only maybe Erzsi showing up once in a while. Of course, he understood that Hedvika was in a difficult place, since she had her own family now, and moved to Slovakia where her husband, Jakub is from. She couldn’t just travel here on a whim anymore.

And Erzsi was off at university in Warsaw, so she only travelled home twice a month, which either coincided with celebrations or not. It was up for luck.

Though, Feliks couldn’t say he hadn’t missed them like hell. Anyways, he kept to himself mostly in his family, although in the “real world” he had much bigger mouth. Except that well, yeah, some things did happen he was not proud of.

He shouldn’t have been ashamed, since it was not his fault really, because he was only just defending himself, but he was still kicked out of school. But did he really have another choice when teachers didn’t give a shit about other kids bullying him? There was only that much of abuse a person could tolerate before snapping.

Feliks didn’t want to be in a high school anyway, but his parents were disgusted by even the thought of sending him to a technical school – which he very much wanted. He wanted a simple profession, beside which he had enough time to write his fanfictions. That’s all he ever yearned for, to express himself.

The blonde boy of course wouldn’t want to bet on his luck whether he could make ends meet with art, because he eventually wanted a family and all, and this would have been the best compromise to him. He sure as hell didn’t want to be a doctor or an engineer, no matter how much his parents’ pushed him.

But of course, it was never his call to make, which drove him simply crazy. Tolys was a lucky bastard that his parents supported him, which made Feliks guiltily envious multiple times, even if Tolys never bragged about it. This was just unfair.

On another note, he’d been thinking about Tolys’ suggestion for a while. That he should write down his dreams, and make a story out of it, because that maybe would help him deal with them. At first he laughed at the idea, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the concept. Whatever that’d get him over them.

He just wasn’t sure how to go about it. One thing he refused to mention even to Tolys, that all characters from his dreams had names, and they were eerily the same as his own family members’, and well, Tolys’ own. Hedvika, Erzsi, Jakub, Tolys and even the neighbour boy Tomasz… it felt weirdly intime. If he thought about it logically, it may have been his subconscious using up the people he already knew, slightly distorting what he knew about them, but it was creepy nonetheless.

Feliks had no idea if it was a good idea to stay true to their original names or not. And there was another problem; he never seemed to remember the name or face of the other main character beside him. He knew everything from front to back, he remembered his lines, but when he awoke there was just a black spot substituting his face. It was infuriating to say the least.

Maybe he could just change the names to characters from that game he finished playing yesterday. Call it a cold war au or whatever. Actually, that wasn’t that bad of an idea. This way, he could send it to Tolys to proofread it without being awkward that he saw his own name in it.

Because yeah, it was always Tolys proofreading for him for which he was more thankful than anything because he, for the love of his life could never do it. Back then, when he didn’t think Tolys would be interested in his writings at all, he remembered that being the most painful process of the whole thing, and the text was still full typos and grammatically clunky structures despite all his efforts. It was kinda ridiculous, that he managed to read War and Peace under two days, but proofreading ten pages took him around three hours at least.

The other thing he was more allergic than proofreading was actually finishing his works instead of constantly starting new ones but that was whatever. It’s not like his works were that popular to begin with, that anyone asked for a closure.

Feliks sighed a bit before dressing up and preparing to go to his new school. He’d been at home for the last week, because it wasn’t easy to find a school willing to accept him in the middle of November. It’s not like he particularly had to hurry, because it was still only six o’clock, and the school wasn’t located far from his home, but he wanted some fresh air and a walk before actually showing up.

He hated being thrown into new environments. They made him feel uneasy despite everything. And he kinda feared how things would turn out for him there. He already imagined that it would end in the same way, despite the director swearing that they had serious anti-bullying campaigns and retorsions against anyone who tried ruining another one’s life.

It was all a bull of crap in Feliks’ eyes, but he rather didn’t comment.

So, he quietly left his home into the dark. It was weird how some weeks ago it was still light around the same time. But anyways, he liked the dark, even if there were unfortunately no stars on this early morning’s sky. Well, he knew that they were technically there, just couldn’t be seen but anyways. It was still more mundane that way.

As he walked, he took a pack of Marlboro Red out of his pocket and lit a cig with his cheap lighter. He could have always counted on Tomasz to buy him cigs when he hadn’t hit the legal age, but yet he was kinda glad that there were no barriers between him and his good old Marlboros, even if he knew he should stop. But well, he’d been on them since what, nineth grade, so it’s not like he could stop now. He never particularly cared about his health anyway.

Eh, well he knew that was the wrong mentality and all, and the Feliks from few years ago would slap him hard because of this but let him be sad and edgy once in a while. He doesn’t have a lot of time left until graduation and his matura exams anymore, and then, he wouldn’t have time slumping anymore.

He couldn’t stay the same forever, could he? One day, even he would accept himself the way he is, right?

*

Feliks felt himself weirdly intimidated standing in front of the whole class after his head teacher motioned him to introduce himself. He felt himself as animal on the market, with eyes prying into him and boredly analysing him, while a few of the more disinterested kids at the back didn’t stop their own conversations. Feliks didn’t get why he was that worked up at all. It was going to be like in his last school, kids were the same everywhere.

He said the basic stuff, his name, that he was from here Kraków, and that he liked playing video games. It was more than enough to share.

His teacher nodded to an empty space next to a fair haired girl with blue eyes, who looked just as disinterested as most, while absently scribbling something on her hand. The teacher called her Natallia, noted Feliks as he made his way there. The teacher would have continued on saying her Sermon on the Mount about being kind and helpful towards Feliks and blah blah blah, had it not been for the shameful knocking on the door, with a white haired boy rushing into the room, his unnaturally pale face reddened from running. Now that Feliks noticed, there was one more seat left empty in the classroom right beside him.

The desks were organized into neat lines with around half a metre between each one. He sat in the second to last row in the middle, on the left side of the table. Said Natallia sat on the right side of the table on his left, making her his semi-neighbour and he assumed that the albino kid was his proper bench mate.

“Miss Teacher, sorry that I’m late I –“ he would have started his explanations, but the teacher quickly dismissed him, which made Feliks assume this was a regular occurrence. The albino kid had a victorious expression on his face knowing that he didn’t get into trouble, which quickly formed into a questioning one as soon as he noticed Feliks, looking back at the teacher who started shaking her head at that.

“Gilbert, you know I told you about a new pupil joining us this Monday. He’s Feliks.” at that he scratched the back of his head, searching diligently in the ocean of his memories until it seemed realisation hit him finally. He looked kinda theatrical and goofy, Feliks could tell that he was the class clown architype. This Gilbert either will take over his parents’ company one day, or go to military school, he could imagine no in-between.

After he also found his place, Feliks blocked out the sound of whatever the teacher was preaching about, because Gilbert started bothering him the very minute his ass hit that goddamn chair.

“So what were you called again?”

“Feliks.”

“Aha, and why the sudden change of schools?”

“I was kicked out.”

“You got caught doing drugs or smoking in the bathroom?”

“No, I broke my classmate’s nose.” At that, Gilbert could barely suppress his snicker. Why was that out of the question that Feliks was tougher than he seemed?

“You? Barely could imagine you lifting up two kilos.” He stopped the interrogation abruptly, when one of his presumably friends whisper shouted him something.

Feliks elbowed on the desk, leaning his head into left hand, while his leg corresponding leg subconsciously started bouncing. It was sometimes like this, his limbs moving on their own accord, which he only ever noticed when someone pointed it out. He could never fathom why that would bother any of them, but anyways. Sometimes people very indecipherable to even him, who always proud of his observational skills.

He stared out of his head, thinking still about the same thing as before; his dream. The moment he first saw Gilbert he felt a strange feeling of déjà vu, as if he saw him before. He was sure they haven't met since well, he would surely remember if he met an albino. It would be obviously hard to forget, since it's not an everyday occurrence you met someone with a rare condition like this. They haven't met, but he was familiar. So, an obvious deduction was, that he saw him in one of his dreams. That however also failed Feliks, since again, he wouldn't be hard to remember because of his eccentric appearance.

Ah, maybe he saw him once on insta or something. That has to be it.

"Could you stop that?" Gritted Gilbert through his teeth annoyed.

"What?" Feliks genuinely didn't understand what could bother him.

"Your leg. It's annoying." Feliks dramatically sighed at that and concentrated on his legs to stick it to the ground.

Feliks was bored as hell. Homerooms were a torture all his life, as he was irritated as hell by doing nothing. He glanced at the girl on his other side, admiring the detailed drawing full of flowers and leaves creeping up her lover arm. Yeah, he wasn’t the only one bored. Sucks that he never had a talent for drawing even if he tried it in the past.

Like, he was a fanfiction writer. Of course he tried doing fanart too. If he could, he’d dedicate his whole life to his favourite fandoms bringing light to his grim life. Eh, maybe if one day he’d have enough courage, he’d move to Lithuania to Tolys, and they could try again.

It’d be a little weird after everything, but who could really blame Feliks? It was a big thing for him that he confided his sexuality to someone, after every hurtful minute it caused him. He trusted Tolys alone, and he didn’t think he wanted to tell anyone else ever, even if it meant him being miserable for the rest of his life. It was all too complicated.

Alas, he wasn’t really in love with Tolys anymore. It was more like a certain kind of fascination. Or obsession if he had to be honest. Limerence. Tolys was his first and best friend, and he was kinda afraid that they’d be drifting apart one day. Or well, outright terrified if he had to be honest.

"Your hand. It's not any less silent." Said after a few minutes Gilbert, still as annoyed as ever. Feliks didn’t even get why he cared, as he was mostly talking to their other classmates, but whatever.

It was just his luck that he managed to get the most annoying guy as his desk mate ever. In his previous school he sat alone, which was perfect for him, even if it was kind of symbolic of how ostracized he was. At least no one would bother him about anything. It’s not as if he hated everyone from his old class, but most were dicks. Maybe it was just him not trying enough to fit in.

But no, he remembered that for example Iryna liked him. They started off a bit rough, but buried the hatchet eventually. It never bothered her when he was bouncing his leg or something, and he really appreciated not being called a retard once in a while.

“Can’t you stay put for a second?”

“Then stop breathing, cuz it annoys me Mr Deviated Septum.”

“You little-“

“Am I the one who started?” Gilbert glared at him menacingly as he said that, fist visibly tightening on the table.

“Now I see what you play onto. Wanna see if you can fix my nose too? Cuz I don’t think that’s a good idea bitch.” Feliks glared back now, while he started counting in himself to calm his nerves.

He’s not gonna provoke you. He’s not gonna provoke you.

“Die you little brat.”

Gilbert dared to sneer at that. “What, are you scared now that someone in your league challenges you?”

He’s not gonna provoke you.

Feliks turned away and pretended simply that Gilbert wasn’t there. If he doesn’t acknowledge him, he’ll leave him eventually. That’s what both Iryna and Tolys said when he was bullied at least.

Not that it worked.

And Gilbert was adamant about continuing to fuck with him, even if he already had the last word. Maybe he realized that Feliks was the victorious one by not sinking to his level, and that bothered him so much. Anyway, it was infuriating.

First, he pretended to accidentally kick into Feliks leg, so Feliks stomped on Gilberts’ foot in return. He wasn’t about to let himself be treated like a subhuman anymore, because he learned that he wasn’t. Feliks was worthy of peace and respect like others!

Initially, Gilbert was surprised that he really fought back. He most likely thought that Feliks lied about his reason of being kicked out, but then he noticed some borderline sadistic shine in his eyes that exact moment.

Ah, now he thought that he found some worthy opponent? Some fight buddy or whatever? That Feliks was some kind of challenge to him?

It was stupid. And Feliks knew very well that he shouldn’t play into it, but if that was what he had to do to prove his worth, then so be it.

So, they started kicking and trampling each other like some kindergarteners who were arguing about a toy. If he had been an outside spectator, he would have laughed at the spectacle they made. Though, he knew he had to be discreet. Any kind of bad behaviour and he would have to bid goodbye to this school too, and his parents would – understandably – kill him.

He can’t fuck up his last chance.

*

Otherwise, his day was unremarkably bland. He didn’t have any other lessons with Gilbert that day except his first foreign language, but that wasn’t that much of a fiasco as homeroom.

To begin the tale, he liked to think that their so called language improvement plan with Tolys wasn’t in vain, because English became actually easy for him throughout the years. Even if well, Tolys was far from native in English too, and sometimes they had to resort to the age old method of making each other understand what they mean. Repeating the same few words louder and more aggressive as long as they figure out what they meant. Thanks to this, Feliks was very proud that he developed a quite small, but still existing dictionary in his head in Lithuanian, mostly consisting of swear words.

At this point, if he was completely unashamed, he could basically call himself a polyglot, since he also spoke German – his second foreign language – and some Ukrainian and Russian he picked up during his long history of playing cs:go.

And his grand knowledge of languages came handy once in a while, especially when your annoying German schoolmate tried mocking you on his own language thinking you wouldn’t understand it. Which, by the way was absolutely the most pathetic way of fucking with people. If someone wants to insult him, then have enough courage to say it so that he surely can understand that.

So, the situation was the following.

If there was one weakness of Feliks, that was pronunciation, and he royally fucked up when trying to say “mischievous” – which by the way he only could write down as well as “acquaintance”, Gilbert started spewing some nonsense about Feliks to one of his friends in German. It was purposefully very loud, so that Feliks would know it’s about him, he just didn’t count the fact in that Feliks understood every word of it. His German teacher would be proud.

So, because the albino sat a row behind him, diagonally to the left, Feliks figured out he could write a message in a similar kind way to Gilbert, also in German and he’d make a paper plane out of it.

Besides his glorious language skills, he also profoundly studied the art of making paper planes during biology lessons back in the day. He quickly wrote down his piece of mind, folded the plane with militaristic precision, and when his teacher turned his back, he aimed it right into Gilberts face, and it landed there with same amount of precision. Feliks liked to think he also was a natural at aiming and shooting thanks to the amount of FPS he played.

He smirked at Gilberts’ flabbergasted face, which blushed in embarrassment that Feliks outmatched him in his plan, which the blonde even smugger. Now that was why one simply shouldn’t mess with Feliks Łukasiewicz.

As childish as this whole ordeal was of course. In retrospect yes, they were kinda like kindergarteners.

*

After school Feliks didn’t want to go home just yet, even if he wanted to speak to Tolys already. His appetite wasn’t that good recently, and he couldn’t stand the tension inside the walls of his home, so he usually went to the nearby playground to clear his head and get some writing done.

Because he was the luckiest person alive, the cable of his headphones broke a few days ago, and he still hasn’t brought a replacement, so it’s going to be a bit lame without music. He technically had another head set at home, but for some fucking reason it didn’t end with a jack cable but an USB-A one, so he couldn’t use that either, which sucked ass.

Rather than pissing himself off any more than he already had, he lit a cigarette, and began his way to the park instead, trying to focus on more important stuff. As usual, he couldn’t really give a fuck about homework, so he had the whole afternoon to himself until of course he couldn’t call Tolys up. He was more serious about his studies than Feliks and was more often than not only available at around eight or nine, but by then Feliks would have gone home anyway.

It was a bit cheesy, but he liked writing his stories more on paper than on his phone. For him, words flew more easily that way, and his attention was less likely to be dragged away by just about anything. Like sometimes his brain just short circuited, and he had to check what kind of things were on the upper panel on his phone or had the urge to go to his gallery and watch old pictures again aimlessly. But that was just another kind of impulsion of his he couldn’t control.

Anyways, writing on paper was more convenient to him, although he despised the digitalising process. He tried doing it through text to speech, but he got easily annoyed by it constantly mishearing his words, so he resorted to just copying it. That served at least as some kind of crappy initial proof reading, but he heavily doubted it made Tolys’ work any easier. If anything, there were probably more typos than misspellings in the original manuscript. Though, it didn’t mean that he was that great at writing correctly even on paper.

Despite everything, it still was the thing he enjoyed doing the most, so he accepted the lesser pleasant things coming with it. Nothing could be perfect anyways.

At this time the playground was usually dead, since kids either were still in the kindergarten, or they just arrived home, so he had the whole place to himself. He preferred sitting on the swings rather than a bench, the gentle rocking relaxing him, and helping himself to get focused.

He always had a petite frame, so he didn’t need to worry about not fitting in, or alternatively getting stuck between the rusty chains. Fortunately it didn’t rain yesterday, so the swings were dry and ready for their occupiers. Feliks leaned against one of the chains on his side, while taking out his thick, mouse-chewed notebook, which saw better times back in its days on a LIDL shelf. It wasn’t that he was particularly careless with his stuff, it’s just that his stuff always decided to somewhat go kaputt, or at the very least become unsightly to look at. That’s why he wasn’t to be trusted to be lent a book.

Feliks started writing instinctively. He got in a trans and didn’t even notice how much his fingers and lower arm hurt from him pushing that bloody pen to the paper with full force, just when he stopped for a short creative pause. This usually meant staring out of his head with no thoughts until something hit in again and he could continue writing.

Either that, or he gathered inspiration through a cigarette which was well – it was what it was. If he had the chance to reincarnate after his demise, he sure as hell would stay clean from the stuff, he swore to himself.

Now, he followed the aforementioned strategy, while drumming with his free hand, tainted with blue ink from him playing with his pen all day. Or to be frank, he didn’t know the reason why his hands got immediately inky if he picked up a pen. It was as if ink just spawned on it. Sometimes even on his face even though he distinctively remembered not going close to his face with a pen anytime during the day.

“So that’s why you were that smelly during the whole day.” And ta-da, this is how you ruin one’s afternoon. He didn’t even look up at the familiar voice, because he didn’t want to see the stupid and arrogant face of that dick any more than he was already forced to.

“Yeah, so what about leaving me alone?”

“Nah, I’m bored. And you pissed me off at school with your misery fucked face. Wanna fight it out now?” Gilbert said as he sat down on the other swing next to him. Great, so he didn’t plan to leave.

“No. I’m smoking. I was just about to calm down when you decided to heighten my blood pressure again. Xanax wouldn’t be enough to calm me down, not to mention a fight.” and just to demonstrate how much he didn’t care, he took a long drag of his cig.

“You’re no fun. You haven’t had a real good fight if you underestimate it this much.”

“Do you have some kink of seeing other people being beat up or…?”

“At least I’m not fapping at my Polish homework.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Nah, ya know. Can’t get it hard if I haven’t beaten up someone.” Well, who could blame Feliks - blessed with notorious anger issues as of lately - that he had enough already? This guy just decided to pick on him for no apparent reason other than to be a pain in the ass, and as he swore before, Feliks wouldn’t let himself be the victim ever again.

So, as any mature just turned adults would do, he dropped his cig, put his notebook and pen back into his bag, and instead of leaving him the fuck alone, he lunged at Gilbert to beat him up. After an initial surprise Gilbert’s eyes glinted again with the same strange sadistic glow like back in homeroom class, and Feliks could swear he saw him genuinely smiling for a split of a second before it was replaced with an arrogant smirk. They hit each other with no mercy, brawling in the sand like a fight for dominance or life or whatever.

God, it’s going to be a hell of a job until Feliks manages to clean all stubborn sand particles out of his hair and clothes after this.

Gilbert was a tougher opponent than what Feliks expected. Now he knew that under his baggy, old-school grungy clothes hid some serious lean muscle built thoroughly. Feliks wasn’t that bad off himself, though mostly relying on speed and the element of surprise, along with his analytical abilities. Even if by sheer strength the German boy would overpower him easily, he was kinda predictable after a while. Though, the more prolonged this fight would go on, the more advantage did the albino have without a doubt. Maybe it was stupid of Feliks to entertain him, and willingly walk into his trap, but he was still a man of impulses and shitty decisions at the end of the day.

He couldn’t register pain though from the adrenaline, but this fight awoke such a strange sensation in his stomach that he never felt before, and he couldn’t even really put it anywhere. It’s almost as if—

Feliks ended up on top of Gilbert, sitting on his lap and keeping his hands pinned down while raising his free fist in front of his face, debating if he would actually hit him or not. He already won after all, and everything after that would be… disgraceful, tainting his victory.

Gilberts’ mouth was slightly agape, both of them panting like they just ran a marathon, sweaty and the pain began slowly to hit in.

Feliks was sure both of them would have bruises for at least two weeks.

“Are you satisfied now Beilschmidt?” asked Feliks through two ragged breaths. He managed to find out his surname after he was given a name list by his headteacher, so that he’d have easier time memorizing them.

“You are… you aren’t as weak as I imagined you to be.” Gilbert’s delicate pale skin was almost on fire from exhaustion, and well something other.

It slowly dawned on him that they were in kind of an awkward position even for two – from Gilbert’s perspective – straight guys. And that Gilbert’s lap turned weirdly less comfortable to sit at.

It was fucked up. This guy really had some fighting kink.

He didn’t know if Gilbert knew he noticed, but he sure as hell used out the momentary surprise of Feliks to break free from his grasp and turn on their position so that the blonde man was the one at the bottom instead.

“Yeah, now I am.”

But Feliks was way too childish for that, and kicked Gilbert’s chest with his knees to make him stumble backwards onto one of the poles keeping the swings there. The Polish one crawled closer, and with his whole forearm, he held Gilbert’s neck against the uncomfortable wood behind, practically chocking him while pinning him down.

“But I won’t let you have the last word again. I warn you; leave me the fuck alone, or next time I’m bringing my pocket knife into our game.” hissed Feliks, hoping that his message finally got across. Of course, it was no more than a bluff, though he wanted to say something that’d make him seem more intimidating.

“Fine. I leave you alone for today. But I’m not done with you, remember.” with all his strength, Gilbert pried Feliks’ arm off of him knocking back him this time around, and he stood up to make his way wherever.

Feliks didn’t know anymore. Just didn’t. It was just too much for him for the first day. Fuck getting the chapter down, he had to talk to Tolys.

*

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this was not flirting.” Feliks was about to bash his head into his computer table.

After that charade, still in shock and whatever, his brain overloading with the amount of information and little details he noticed during the encounter, he couldn’t wait till eight o’clock. He called Tolys up on his own instead of waiting for him to call, while he religiously started copying his manuscript into a word document. It was unusual for him to initiate the conversation, usually reserved for emergencies and whatever, so it wasn’t a surprise Tolys threw everything away and picked it up almost immediately.

Feliks was clenching into his Polandball plushie, because yes, he grew up on that shit and that was his comfort item. His parents still couldn’t understand to this day why he had a plush of the Monaco or Indonesia flag in his room.

He switched between trying to type and trying to suffocate himself in the plush every three minutes, because third time was the charm.

He thought genuinely that his one-year-older friend would have much more experience and insight to the world than Feliks did, so he’d surely have some good advice to him, but he’d been only trying to convince him in the last half an hour that Beilschmidt had a crush on him.

Feliks considered rage quitting from the call and just booting up Resident Evil to start massacring zombies.

“But Feliks listen, you know that they say that if a boy starts to pull a girl’s hair that means –“

“Yeah, I know and I think that’s utter sexist bullshit. And I’m not even a girl.”

“Same thing because he was clearly turned on by you. Even Eduard thinks so, right Eduard?!” he shouted into the background only for a muffled ‘What are you even talking about?’ resounding to his roommate. “See, he agrees.”

“Tolys, I know you just want to cheer me up that this isn’t serious and it isn’t going to be like the last time, but I don’t need pity. And you are very shitty at being funny, I hope you know that.” the brunette on the other side of the line audibly sighed at that.

“But I’m serious.” he said in a tone much more fitting to him; calm, composed and slightly hesitant.

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.” it was a simple sentence Tolys used to hear so frequently, that even his stomach tightened at that.

“Don’t skip. It’s your second day. I wish I could help more, and I’m obviously not in a place to order you around right now but I believe this would be for the best. As you said, don’t show weakness. You’re only letting him win if you skip.”

“It’s just… Hell, I don’t know. Everything’s just repeating, again and again and it’s making me crazy. Even my nightmares returned and – I guess I’m just tired.” he stared down at his red-purple arm sorrowfully. “Wish I could drop everything and move in with you.”

“Feliks, I –“

“I know, I know, long distance isn’t your thing and it was a long time ago and we agreed not to speak about it and-“

“No Feliks, you don’t understand I-“ but he cut into his words again, as if he didn’t want to hear the whole thing ever.

“I really do, and I’m patient and if you ever just-“

“I’m seeing someone Feliks.”

Oh.

“I just wanted to clarify that, despite us not being together anymore. I wanted to be transparent, you know. And I really hope that this won’t be affecting what I have with you, because you are my best friend and-“

But this time Feliks really didn’t let him finish, as he cut the line between them.

This was childish.

It was childish that he was petrified in front of his screen, staring at their last massages like an empty doll. And it also wasn’t a proof of his maturity that he refused every single call Tolys made no matter on what device or application. He didn’t need to hear anymore. Tolys just didn’t need him anymore.

If he had a boyfriend, then he didn’t want to steal their time away at nights, the only free periods of Tolys to chat with anyone. He was a busy person, and it would make a toll on him if he had to take care of Feliks too.

Even now, he should have just sucked it up and act normal in front of him, because he wouldn’t have to worry about him now. Like he was just some stupid kid made out of porcelain, who was triggered by anything to take up the knife.

Although, he was just doing that, wasn’t he? They were only friends, so Tolys wasn’t obliged to dedicate his whole life to him. He wasn’t even obliged to tell Feliks he was dating someone.

But it just hurt so much.

He felt a single drop of tear running down from his face. And a second one. And a third one. And before he even noticed it, he was uncontrollably crying, while clinging to that stupid plush he brought years ago.

Heh, at least he could spend all his money on cigarettes without feeling guilty about not saving up for plane tickets.

Feliks just didn’t get it. What did he do wrong? No, like he wasn’t even romantically interested anymore, was he?

He didn’t even feel the same burn in his chest that he did before when talking to Tolys, nor those butterflies everyone talked about. They died years ago. So he just couldn’t comprehend why was is so hurtful, and why couldn’t he just make himself to pick up that goddamn phone and calm him that he wasn’t about to harm himself or anything.

After some time, he even began to feel angry at Tolys. Like, he just ranted him for this long how much he wanted to give up, and hated school and Gilbert and anything, and he seriously thought it was a good idea to drop that bomb on him? He could have waited until things calmed down a bit, or at least Feliks wasn’t on the edge of a mental breakdown already.

The hell with him not wanting to change their relationship. This was a gentle way of saying fuck off. Not even his parents could bear him after all these years, so why did he expect some random guy on the internet to do so?

He was stupid. Stupidly naïve to believe everything Tolys has ever said.

Feliks just didn’t want tomorrow to come.

*

The next day already started like Hell. His eyes were hurting from the crying and a lack of sleep, he was exhausted and his whole body was sore from that fight. He positively didn’t have enough energy to deal with Gilbert today.

After hours of weeping yesterday, he decided that it’d be better to try and finish the typing in, as at least it made him feel a sense of security, and he had something to methodically do, shutting his brain for a while in focus. Of course, he couldn’t give a fuck about proof reading, and having lost the one who did that for him, he just posted it as it was, raw and unedited.

That was how he felt himself anyway.

He initially wanted to check on the time only, but the email notification on his phone was kinda intriguing. Feliks didn’t usually get those, but his eyes perked up a little at the fact that someone cared about what he wrote.

It was a bit embarrassing even to himself, that he craved any kind of interaction so much, like it was his fuel to stay alive, and where is entire worth laid in. He quickly tried subduing his hopefulness, not wanting to raise any false joy if it was just some Pinterest notification about one of his pins getting removed. It usually was the case, and it felt like the removed pin just got stabbed into his heart.

Feliks opened his mails with a bit dropped expression now, but it immediately lit back as he saw that notification did in fact come from the app he’d been using to share his works. The comment came from a user previously unknown by him, so he obviously wanted to investigate their profile. They had a dumb meme as their picture, and no introduction was written in their bio, since they weren’t writers themselves. Feliks noted that some of the works displayed on their profile were enjoyed by him too, and that they were in quite a few fandoms Feliks was in too. Most of them were written in English, but he saw a few in Polish and German too, which didn’t surprise him really, since he also wrote his fics in Polish.

Maybe it was a bit weird that he stalked through his readers’ profiles but whatever. He usually just hoped to find some good recommendations to read, and it usually worked.

Anyways, they were quite cute in the comment, prizing him for the good set up and everything, and it made Feliks feel so giddy inside, that he burst out smiling. For a moment, he even forgot about Tolys and everything, as he obsessively reread it multiple times, like a mantra to encourage him to stand up and go to school. At least, some people still appreciated him, which calmed him down that he wasn’t completely worthless.

Sometimes he cursed his parents that they didn’t believe in psychologists as he realised how stupid and petty that sounded. He hated to be a cry-baby like that.

He thought over a few times how he would thank them, promising to be quick with the next chapter, and then he was brought back to reality again unfortunately.

Staring a bit longer at his phone, he opened Messenger with shaking fingers to see the dozens of unanswered calls and messages flooding it from Tolys, spamming from the moment he hung up to three at morning. Guilt crawled through his insides as he opened the chat and quickly sent a text saying sorry and trying to calm him down that he did nothing stupid.

That’s what the worst part of being hypersensitive was. Or at least hypersensitive towards Tolys. Feliks always found apologising hard, even if he knew how arrogant that was. He didn’t like to admit that he was wrong at anything, because then people wouldn’t have a reason to like him if he wasn’t as perfect as he could get.

God, this sucked ass.

*

School was bearable that day, since he didn’t have a single class with Gilbert. And maths was fun, because solving different logical issues made his brain locked in, trying to outbest everyone in how fast and well he could solve it. This was one of his favourite kinds of ego boosts, and it made him feel proud that he was good in a subject most would deem difficult.

It was a bit funny, that he was way better in sciences than humanities all his life. As much as he liked writing, he was bad at grammars, and hated reading classical literature, not to mention memorizing dates and such in history. Despite his gloating about foreign languages, he didn’t well better than average in them, and literary analysis was his nightmare. That’s why he doubted himself that much in writing anyway, because he thought that he was merely faulty by design in that area.

Maybe he only liked writing because it was therapeutic to him. He liked having some characters to relate to both when making and reading fanfictions. Old, boring and most of the times annoyingly sexist books didn’t offer the same comfort and frankly, it almost made him feel like he was normal too when he could see gay relationships being completely normalized and accepted. That it wasn’t a taboo, like he always used to think of them when he was younger and only understood that there was something wrong in his head.

Maybe there still was, but not in the matters of his sexuality.

But that was a huge topic he was even scared to think about. It made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable when he was doing as much as thinking about his feelings, because he used to think that it wasn’t a necessity to do that to begin with.

Because he hadn’t dreamt yesterday, he wasn’t sitting on a swing today continuing his work but lying in one of the cold tunnels of the jungle gym on the playground. Despite being not particularly tall, he still barely fit into the well - fun-sized component, but it made him feel comfortable to be hidden away from society. It was comforting that no one would ever think of looking for him there. It was almost as if he could disappear, melting into red plastic and not a single soul would notice it.

He sometimes wished.

Feliks simply slapped himself to snap out of it. The best would be to go home already.

He started crawling of the tube before he was abruptly stopped by the sound of an acoustic guitar’s strings being caressed all too gently. The playing was timid, but precise and sounded almost like a mother’s warm embrace. Feliks decided that he was too intrigued by the person of the guitarist to not glance at them, so as carefully and silently as he could, he wriggled out to the farther side of the tunnel.

Then he heard that he started singing along. Ah, he knew that song.

“Umówiłem się z nią na dziewiątą… ” His aunt told a story about that a while ago, how they pranked the SB with it while she was a student back in the days. It was honestly a heartwarming thing to hear, and he fondly remembered hence, so he didn’t even try to hide the little smile making it’s way on his face.

He tried peaking out behind his cover, hoping that whoever the musician was, he wouldn’t notice Feliks being all weird about it. The moment he saw him though, he almost did a back flip from the jungle gym.

Of course it was that stupid Beilschmidt.

The blonde had to scoff at that, no longer caring to hide his identity. He jumped down to the sand, and took the opposite road to home, so that they don’t have to cross paths. Naturally, the albino became alert at the sudden noise and he undoubtedly noticed Feliks, as he stopped playing abruptly.

His ego was hurt by the thought that he initially wanted to go to the guy and compliment him, because he had a beautiful, soothing voice with a talent for playing. It was not his fault that he was allergic to that stupid Beilschmidt, but his own!

Now he was kicking rocks under his feet while frowning, too mad to even light a cig. The Polish boy was enjoying his Beilschmidt-less day very much until this very fucking moment he managed to fuck it up by existing. That playground was Feliks’ place, he went there every day since sixth grade, not that stupid albino’s! Why did he suddenly felt the need to intrude him there anyways? Was it his petty way of revenge after yesterday’s fight, or what?

Feliks went home sooner than he usually did, and without having eaten a dinner he went to sleep. He was a bit annoyed with himself that he let himself get worked up even at the sight of the red eyed, and that he hadn’t gotten even a word down onto the paper that day. Before he went to sleep though, he quickly sent a message to Tolys that he was tired and wasn’t up for talking today, which he only accepted a bit warily. Feliks didn’t need his pity.

He smiled a bit though when the brunette sent a picture of his house rat, who Feliks adored to hell and back, and he could always make him smile even in his worst moments. Tolys was adorably dorky how much he liked rats, especially his own, when he was usually very bad at showing affection to others because well, he was the most socially awkward and dense person Feliks met.

The Polish one was at least able to make friends relatively easy. Like with that Natallia girl, who ended up being his actual desk mate during physics. And well, he got himself acquainted with a few others too, and he dared to say he was almost generally liked.

Except amongst Gilbert and his circle of charm, but he didn’t give a fuck about them anyways. He hated their guts too.

When he was finished murmuring his usual last prayer, he finally managed to fall asleep easier than yesterday, tired from yesterday’s lack of sleep, and the hunger creeping up in his stomach.

Chapter Text

Feliks couldn’t have said that things became easier during next few days, nor even after that. If anything, because of the constant exhaustion and further straining his muscles couldn’t even regenerate, and he felt himself worse day by day. That was visible on his performance, which wasn’t good to begin with. The result was of course even worsening mental abuse, and there was a point that even he started feeling himself bad, who had like the sturdiest faces ever.

That’s why it was handy when one had a good friend in the medical field. Now, he really regrets not paying for a fake medical record of insanity or anything, because this was ridiculous. Feliks never felt like giving up before this much, but he also knew that he couldn’t let this ruin his goddamn life he worked so hard for.

“Say, you already know my goal, but what do you want to be?” asked the blonde while they were walking around the property with his forced mate. They haven’t been talking much, mostly just kicking stones while they made their rounds. If Feliks had been alone or with anyone else, he wouldn’t have probably listened that actually walking around would be better for his health than sitting. Initially, he wouldn’t want to deter from his plan to not move even a fingertip if he wasn’t forced to – and duty or not, he didn’t give a fuck.

But well, Beilschmidt explained the importance of proper cool down after intense physical training, and the such and he managed to convince him to walk instead. In the beginning, he found it too hurtful to actually go through with it, but he wasn’t about to show weakness in front of him, so he just bit his lip and took another and another step forward.

“I’ll be a fire fighter, so I’m staying longer than you will. I was talked out of actually staying in the military because of my mother. Can’t leave her alone.”

“Eh? For real?” Feliks was actually surprised at that, cause he seemed like the guy who’d rather do something more militaristic than actual useful and respectable stuff.

“Not my dream job, but yeah. Better than being stuck in a factory.” it was something both could agree with, but Feliks wouldn’t want to force the conversation further with useless words.

“I used to have a brother.” said Beilschmidt out of the blue after they turned left at end of walking through the right wing’s front. “He’s a year younger than me. We went to Hungary when I was around six, and he disappeared there with our father. I didn’t get for a long time what happened, but now I think I understand it.”

“Escaped to the west?” asked Feliks, following the simple reasoning. That was a thing with Germans, as he heard. Pay down the guards and leave through Austria.

“Most likely. He never liked me because of my condition, sure but I don’t know why he left my mother too. She was the most heartbroken about Ludwig. I mean, I missed him too, but I was too young to understand that I’ll never see him again. Officially, he wandered too deep into the Plattensee, my father tried to save him, and both of them drowned. Their corpses were lost to the water.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry about that. I mean, I of course can’t understand that, but that’s rough.” Feliks didn’t understand the sudden honesty, but it was better than silence. He didn’t particularly dislike the guy if he wasn’t being an ass, after all. Beilschmidt still a bit obnoxious voice with a certain edge of it, but he noticed some gentleness slipping in through the rough exterior.

“Hm. Put a stamp on my life definitely. Doesn’t really bother me anymore though. I’m actually happy for my brother, wherever he may or may not be. I’d like to imagine he has a better life than me anyways. You know, have a fiancé, go to school and such.”

“Aren’t you like, anti-studying though?” asked the blonde in confusion, thinking back at their first encounter.

“Studying is a privilege for kulaks, but at least you won’t get handicapped after years of painfully straining work. I wish him a comfortable life, not the kind I have to lead.”

“Studying isn’t that easy either, I mean, you can go mad by all this bureaucratic bullshit easily. And even if not that, then from the stress. Mental fatigue is underestimated, and you would never know about it unless you tried to memorise that many stupid cases and idiotic spellings. Like shit, I couldn’t do this again if I had another life.” Beilschmidt snickered at that, though not antagonistically but almost amused.

“Even if I was born in different conditions, I wouldn’t choose it. Not my style.”

“Then what is comrade?”

“I’d still like to join the military. I like discipline and it feels as if I do something important for my home. If that wouldn’t work, then music. I do like singing I guess.” he blushed a little at the end of his sentence, and now it was Feliks who was entertained. Well, he already knew what his goal for the night was.

“Big difference between the too. Would you like, play military marches, or what?”

“Nah. I play the guitar. Just regular songs, you know? I’m not like a state propaganda loudspeaker.” he was blushing even brighter at this point, probably regretting that he couldn’t just shut his mouth up. It was unusual. Usually, when they talked during night patrols, he mostly just gloated about himself, but he was weirdly sentimental today.

Feliks tried to think about it logically. Maybe it was his birthday. No, that’d be stupid. He appears to be the type of person who’d mention it to every leaf of grass. It was a regular November day, not any state holiday or – Ah. How could be he so forgetful? It was All Souls’ Day.

The blonde connected the dots in his head afterwards with the things he mentioned before, and he came to a simple deduction; in his head, both his brother and father were dead. And maybe they really were, if they didn’t manage to escape the border, but he wouldn’t know anyway. It was a little cruel if Feliks thought about it, that they weren’t even let out for this occasion.

“Sing me something then musician boy. The song you like the most.” smirked at the taller playfully Feliks. They were around halfway, at the back of the building complex.

“Absolutely not.” snapped back immediately.

“Only for meee.” he dragged the end of the word out, mocking a cutesy pleading tone he used when he was a kid, that never failed him to get one more candy from his grandma. He even started fluttering his dense eyelashes and leaned a bit forward into Beilschmidt’s private sphere.

“No.” He grumpily looked away, refusing to abide Feliks’ unmatched charm, but he still wasn’t about to give up. The green-eyed pouted, but quickly figured out his next strategy; attacking his pride.

“You aren’t a singer, but a big fat liar! Come on, show me how you charm your girls, because it definitely isn’t your face doing the work.”

“I don’t even – wait you little shit, what is it about my face?!”

“Boring. Just do what I told you.”

“I’m not going to.”

“Coward.”

“Łukasiewicz.”

“Scaredy pussy.”

“I still-“

“Ugly lying bastard.” Beilschmidt slapped himself on his face, sighing dramatically while accepting his doom. Feliks smiled at that victoriously. He always got what he wanted.

“Fine, but only this once and never again.” the other giddily started nodding, while the albino awkwardly coughed a bit. Then, he almost silently started singing, and it felt as if it was the gentlest thing he ever heard. Feliks was completely mesmerized by his voice, like it was a choir of angels singing the Hosannah in the highest; hopeful and kind, desperate but masking it with smile. And he knew exactly what he meant with that song.

“Umówiłem się z nią na dziewiątą…” Feliks knew it all too well.

He stopped from embarrassment at about half of the first refrain, his face competing with the redness of his eyes. It was funny that such an innocent thing would be that awkward for him, and Feliks relished in seeing his composure slip. He had a talent of knowing which buttons to push, and it made him feel proud. Or at least he deserved the title of being the most annoying person on planet earth.

"Why stopping? Go on birdie, sing to your hearts content, like die Jungfrau Lorelei, die dort oben sitzt und kämmt ihr gold’nes Haar." Nagged him Feliks dramatically mocking a singalong, but there was a layer of honesty in his words. Beilschmidt had a pleasant voice, and it was a shame that he wasted it.

"Too much of good causes harm too. This was more than enough comrade."

"Sure, comrade." He accented the name mockingly, and Gilbert very well knew what Feliks meant with that. Guess it wasn't really a surprise anymore though. Most people listened to their stomachs, even if their head was replaced by the loudspeaker of the TV.

They continued the way in a somewhat better mood, and Feliks was glad for the already dulling pain in every joint of his. Maybe that was the little humanity in the inhumanity.

Feliks almost considered opening up about Tolys. They keyword was almost. He didn't want to lay himself out completely before a stranger with whom mind you, he barely got along. They had their better moments, sure. What was the guarantee though, that he won't turn inside out the next day? Snitching was the easiest way to raise up nowadays, and Feliks didn't want to risk it even more. It was enough that he talked about his naive dreams.

And if Beilschmidt wasn't a snitch, then there were still bugs all around the place probably. The albino wasn't sound in his head either if he was that trusting. Anyways, it fit him. And Feliks imagined that he knew exactly what he could get himself into if he wasn't careful, so it wasn't his call to make. Though, he heavily doubted prison would be worse than this. At least, they wouldn't have to do anything but mysteriously die one day by "heart failure".

“You know, you aren’t that annoying when you act normally.” said Feliks, while lighting his daily dose of nicotine source. Now, only just about a few minutes were left of the way, which made Feliks both disappointed and glad. Glad that he could finally sit down, but disappointed that the pleasant conversation would end. Of course, their days weren’t about friendship and rainbows, so he couldn’t have a good conversation like this in a while.

If he was completely honest, he would have said that he wanted to get know Beilschmidt better too. Now, as the nigh of their shift came by, he was a bit sour about having that door closed in front of him again. And Feliks was notoriously, and horribly bored with his days, so the albino man could be his replacement for crosswords, if not anything else.

“Don’t get used to this shorty.” smirked obnoxiously the other. Mhm, yeah it was weird anyway that they got along despite everything.

“What happened with the formality Beilschmidt? And who the fuck are you calling shorty, when you are far from tall yourself?!” Not this again, not another person picking on his height.

“Welp, you definitely are a pesky one, Liliputaner, but I can’t take you seriously if you try to play though while pouting.”

That made Feliks even more annoyed, and he grabbed the hem of the taller one’s uniform, pulling him down to his level with a swift motion, and held his fist up threateningly. “Really? Then I’m gonna show your place stupid Yahoo !”

With that, Feliks swinged his fist with full strength, but his failure was in vain as Beilschmidt caught it with ease to save his face – literally. Feliks wasn’t that eager to give up though, and he tried pushing the other’s hand away to loosen his grip, but the man proved to be stronger than him, which was fair enough. The blonde knew that realistically, he had no chance against him, and he didn’t seriously want to hurt him with kicking into his sensitive areas.

Rather, another gentler plan formed in his head, and he used the force of surprise to achieve it. He abruptly pulled him by his clothes even further down, while raising his knee up, and the impact was enough to make Gilbert loosen his grip. And because was Feliks a piece of shit too, he slapped the fair-haired man’s face too as a mean of revenge, than took a step backward to let him stumble forward helplessly, which was kinda funny to watch if he had to be honest.

“Oh, I’m so gonna kill you goddamn bloody monster.” hissed Beilschmidt, as he managed to regain his composure, though he hadn’t tried attacking again, admitting his defeat. So, he wasn’t that much of a brute despite everything.

“Ran out of literature references, I see?” sneered the other one with a mischievous glint in his eye.

“I’m not a nerd like you, Łukasiewicz.” scoffed Beilschmidt, while beginning to walk through the last steps of their patrol route.

“Sure.” Feliks friendlily bumped into his shoulder, which made the other smile a bit too, but not enough to seem all that genuine. Well, whatever. At least this day wasn’t that unbearable overall, and it made Feliks feel content a bit.

*

One of the only useful things offered by the military was getting their driver’s licence, which was pretty handy when one didn’t have the means to pay for it. Almost the exam was more expensive that buying a vehicle, so it definitely was advantageous for most, including Feliks. As soon as he could, he signed him for the course, which of course he knew came later with further transport duties, but that was okay for him. At least he could get out of this place even for a short time.

He had been dreaming of getting his own Maluch , driving just about everywhere and anywhere without borders, and exploring what he hadn’t seen before. It was just a must have for a curious spirit like his, and he was even more eager to make the old days of going by foot everywhere disappear.

Of course, he still was relatively lucky to be born in a city, opposed to for example Jakub. He told Feliks, that since he grew up in a thousand-soul village in the middle of nowhere, he used walk around four hours after the bus dropped him off in bigger town to get to his technical school every single day, then back. Yeah, compared to him, Feliks could barely complain, but he definitely respected the Slovak man for doing that only to access better education.

But well, the state of the public transport was perfectly described by that anecdote, because he experienced something similar when he used to go to see his grandparents, who also lived in the countryside, working at the local kolkhoz. Since Feliks was Feliks, he naturally hated the hour-long walks, and his parents where usually not with him to bring him by car. They had to work, and it was difficult enough to find free time for such “self-centred” things, when most of his time was eaten away in his youth by activities at his pioneer team, or doing compulsory idle jobs with his classmates.

Now though, he was very glad to start his driving lessons, even if he hated every single instructor of his, and he excepted to be humiliated even there. Of course, it’s not like he hadn’t driven his uncle’s old Lada before, but he wouldn’t consider that proper teaching really. Although, he had so much fun then, that he already fell in love with the whole thing, so he wasn’t about to get discouraged by some miserable old man, whose only enjoyment was to scream at them.

He was glad that he wouldn’t be completely alone, because Tomasz also signed up with him. Most of them did anyways, but he noticed that Beilschmidt wasn’t there on the name list, probably because of what Feliks noticed before. He must have had a pretty bad sight.

Though, he absolutely didn’t get how he had gotten medical leave from the army, because many young men got away with way less. Maybe it was because of his desire to join the catastrophe prevention. But that didn’t make sense anyway that he forced something that he wasn’t fit for. Or he simply refused to go to a doctor, because he was emotionally sensitive about his condition. It was a likely case, seeing that it was the weak point of his psyche, and he probably got enough shit about it already. Maybe it wasn’t curable, so this was his way of sucking it up.

Whatever it was, Feliks was unexplainably disappointed. It’s not as if they’d be having lessons together, and he didn’t even like the guy, so he didn’t know why he cared anyway. Surely, this would be a bit obsessive if Feliks was just gloomy about his lack of competition. And very weird.

Well, if not anything else, at least he could gloat about his achievements to him. There was still two weeks left from their patrols together, and since he wasn't that bad at driving, he imagined he could even have his licence by then.

So well, this was his only other enjoyment in his days except from sleeping. Normally he'd count eating too, but the food was shit if he had to be honest, especially for his picky posh mouth. Even potato felt disgusting, as if it was already chewed on by a horde of pigs, then vomited back up, shat on by a crow and poured down with taste bud numbing absinthe, then served with an expression full of hatred. A bland mash up of different leftovers with used by dates long faded on their containers, expected to be fulfilling after hours long of excruciating training.

Fuck that, he wasn’t even that picky, that shit was just unbearable. The best ones were those without a taste, because they were the easiest to swallow. He had to eat the others too though. It felt like a different kind of torture putting all that shit down on his throat without chewing – if he did than his gag reflex would have been triggered much more likely. It was better keeping it in his mouth for the least amount of time. Feliks felt like a farm animal there and there, equally as disgusting as the pigs this shit was thrown up by.

Slowly, even the memories of proper food started fading away in his head, and he was almost saddened by that. Of course, this was a bit childish, but he’d be maybe less snappy if he had a good night’s sleep sometimes. The iron bed was not fit for that though, making him even the more miserable. The only good thing about sleep was though, that it was like the premier of death. He couldn’t think or feel anything, and it was just so fucking perfect.

Slowly, he realized that it wouldn’t be that bad to just drop dead one day. He tried shaking himself out of this misery, but he found it futile. It was weird. He never particularly craved for death before, because he had a goal he wanted to accomplish. It wasn’t even craving now, just more like a passive thought. An option. Something he used to joke about in his head, but it became much more frequent and normal to do so as the time went by. He noticed it with others too, that they casually mentioned it. Left bits and pieces revealing their true intentions with a coat of sarcasm.

Eerie it was. Something that shouldn’t be normalized at all, and it made Feliks’ stomach churn a bit.

What have happened with him? With all of them?

*

Today was Sunday, and Feliks was so glad for it already, as it was the only bearable day of the week of continuous agony. It was the most beautiful part of their little carmen perpetuum , whose unwilling singers they were.

Back in his old life, he always went to church on Sundays. Luckily, his parents weren’t members of the party, and although he wasn’t raised with particular religious faith, he still found himself there. Despite everything, Feliks never really wanted to even try to question the existence of a higher deity. If religion was the opium of the poor, he was glad to take it. Comrade Marx would have had no problem with him, if a word even mattered which he wrote down.

Now, he did not have that option, instead he was sitting on the floor of the main halls in the eastern wing, and scrubbing the dirty, old tiles with a ragged cloth. Honestly, this whole cleaning was just a charade, because no amount of effort could have made the floor cleaner with an already dirty wash cloth, but he rather didn’t question it. He just played pretend for a few hours, because it was still better than training, obviously.

It seemed that the instructors liked putting the two black sheep together, because Gilbert was cleaning the windows next to him, and unlike Marek or Piotr, he had the decency to not wear his muddy boots and was just in socks. Actually, he didn’t seem to mind not wearing his full uniform at all. He wasn’t wearing the jacket nor the shirt but was flexing his muscular arms in only a greyish tank top, probably not seeing water too often.

Since Feliks cared about his appearance a lot, he naturally was a very hygienic person too, hating to be smelling sweaty, but that was something he gradually had to get used too. The awful sweat stench around all their dormitory crept into his nose bringing a painful aftertaste in his mouth. It was something hard to stomach to be frank, but all realistically, he knew he was probably not smelling any better than them. And it was nobody’s fault that they hadn’t found the ice-cold showers particularly inviting when they were dead tired.

Though, seeing him like that made Feliks a bit self-conscious. The albino man looked objectively attractive and healthy, while he looked as he felt; like shit from day one. Feliks turned to hate looking in the mirror. He had a tired, weary face with bags under the eyes, the cutesy puffiness from his cheeks, which made him look youthful and doll-like disappearing from the abundance of training and the lack of proper food. He couldn’t properly shave often, so stubble had a constant presence on his face. Feliks still wasn’t developing any visible muscles, and in reverse to his face, his body started to become more bloated and puffier from the inflammation in his muscles. He wasn’t a particularly pretty sight anymore, more like a disproportionate mess.

And it icked him very much that he found himself ugly. This was even worse than his moustache back in the day.

So, because of his self-consciousness and the fact that it was fucking November, and mind you, there was next to no heating in the building, he still wore his long sleeved dark grey shirt with his jacket loosely hanging off of him unbuttoned. He didn’t want to get it even dirtier, but he was freezing his ass of, particularly because he was sitting relatively still besides the monotone rubbing done by his arms.

Beilschmidt was either very egoistic about his looks, or he had the lack of ability of feeling cold.

They hadn’t been really talking other than playing twenty questions about like an hour before when they were still scrubbing the front main hall. After a while, even that got too boring to continue, and they both rather got drowned in their own thoughts. Sometimes, Gilbert started humming the tune of some songs Feliks couldn’t identify, deducing that most likely they were some German folk songs. He doubted they were western songs, because it was hardly worth for him risking all because of it. Especially since he felt that responsible for his mother.

Feliks kinda pitied the fact that he couldn’t for the love of his life sing. He did folk dance for a while, and he learnt a lot of songs, and it wasn’t uncommon that they sang with the pioneer group, but he knew well that he couldn’t sing properly. Seemed like a good way to spend boring hours though, but he didn’t mind just listening to Beilschmidt. Since again, he had a soothing voice.

“Ah, I’m so fucking bored. Let me have a break.” around half an hour later, Feliks had finally enough, and he unashamedly just laid back onto the floor, not minding the subtle wetness seeping through his clothes.

Gilbert sighed at that, dropping his own holey washcloth, and sitting beside him. It was well past into the afternoon, the last rays of sunshine hitting the windows in their orange glory. The day was still far from over, at least for them.

“And now aren’t you bored? You’re doing the same thing as if you were cleaning.”

“But I’m sick of it. It’s like the hall never ends, just constantly expands farther as I try to get closer to the end. I just can’t do it any longer, otherwise I think I’d go crazy.” Feliks dramatically put his arm on his eyes, shielding it from the straggling yellowish light of the old bulb on the ceiling. And well, the whole of reality.

“All hard work leads to profit, but mere talk leads to poverty.” said the albino as though he was trying to make himself believe that, not the other man.

“Then explain to me, what is the point of working hard for something I despise the very existence of? Something that’s against all humanity, fed by sole megalomania of a few rich people, who hide in their atom bunkers.”

“I’m outta good sounding false inspirational quotes. That should be your job to spout them.”

“I refuse to say anything I don’t believe in. Smoke and mirrors are for those who don’t seem to possess a perception of reality.” the taller boy hummed at that lowly, sensing that words were useless at that point. All the complaining was just poetic, without any possible meaning.

“You know, it’s so weird that you sometimes talk in all those baroque sentences, like you aren’t just another peasant kid like me. I get that you wanna act all smarty like, but you don’t have to force yourself to sound something different from what you are. It’s just making you sound ridiculous.” Feliks let out a dry laugh at that, knowing exactly that he had some truth in his words.

“It’s not even intentional most of the times. I don’t know. Guess I like to make people believe I’m smarter than I actually am.” told Feliks after a bit of pondering.

“Not saying that you’re dumb. More like pretentious to be frank.”

“Good analysis, that’s my whole point.” his voice turned bitter, frowning at the conclusion. Surely, this had to be an exaggeration, right?

“Now, don’t take me that seriously anyway.”

“But you are right, as much as I hate it to admit. Not to say that you’re that much better than me but whatever. Admitting mistakes shouldn’t be that hard.”

“And what’s your observation about me then, you great philosopher?”

“You keep highlighting how simple minded and anti-intellectual you are who doesn’t really value learning, but you are in fact well read. Like, you just quoted from the Bible, but this wasn’t the first I noticed it. You are quite pretentious too.” Feliks lifted his arm from his face to see the other’s reaction, who turned his lips into a bittersweet melancholic smile.

“My mother initially wanted me to become a lawyer. When I was a young boy anyway, back then when I still had a father. She wasn’t about to let go of her delusions for a long while even after that though, until I straight up refused to go to a high school. She made me read all these books I never cared about, but never taught me any German, which I was always quite mad about.”

“But why though?” Feliks didn’t understand that at all. He had the privilege to be supported and still refused it, when Feliks would die for having such parents.

“I need to make money fast. It’s bad enough that I can’t support her now. You know, studying is an investment, even if it’s free. You can’t work that much while keeping up with grades. I always worked and never gave a shit about studying. It’s a delusion that I would have even got into university, not to mention basically taking on the role of my father.”

Feliks didn’t know what to say at that. Guess he’d been living in his head since he was born. If he had to be honest, he probably wouldn’t do a sacrifice like that for his parents. It could be that he was selfish, or that it was just some teenage rage, but living to serve others was out of the question for him. He wanted to live for himself, and that shouldn’t be that bad. Like honestly, he could still fulfil his kinda-duties while not giving up on what he always desired. It would be more like slavery than life for him otherwise.

But now, Beilschmidt made a little bit more sense than before. This explained well his choice of profession too. Though, it was a bit paradoxical how he was that arrogant while also sacrificing his life too.

He still was a bit of a mystery, huh?

“Say, would you still like to learn German though, if you’d have the chance?”

“This isn’t even a question.” He smirked at him slightly, playful glow in his eyes. “Though, I doubt I’d be good in it.” humoured himself a bit. “Could barely learn a few sentences in Russian either, and it’s like, supposed to be similar to Polish.”

“You should still try though one day.” Feliks looked at him deep in the eye, while sitting up in front of him.

Beilschmidt had this amused expression on his face, although Feliks couldn’t quite decipher what he meant by it. It was rather close to unreadable if he had to be honest, and it made the blonde feel a bit uneasy at that. He never could not read others well.

“You know Łukasiewicz, how about having some fun and leave this deep talk behind?” his smile turned more sinister, a nefarious plan quickly forming in his head. Ah well, whatever.

“If you mean what I think—”

“Hell fucking sure I do.” he smirked with a devil’s grin, walking back to his jacket left on the other end of the hallway, and pulling out a silver flask, most likely filled with good strong vodka. “Only the best Żubrówka I could get from one of the prisoner guys.”

At that, Feliks had to start grinning wide as their motherland too. It’d been a long time since he could drink a bit of soul-strengthener, since he rather didn’t try with his older bunch of comrades, who already could have their first leaves. Not his fault they weren’t too sympathetic, and he wasn’t that desperate for alcohol, as long as he still had cigarettes.

But well, he certainly wasn’t about to refuse numbing his brain and body for a while. Sounded better than continuing doing nothing.

The both of them sat down closer to the wall, leaning their backs against the cold surface with depressing, hospital white colour. Beilschmidt popped the bottle open eagerly, though without particular hurry or worry about getting caught drinking on duty. Not even a soul cared about them doing their job as long as they didn’t stir trouble or got in the way.

“To a merry life!” started Gilbert the toast.

“And to a quick death!” finished the shorter boy with a mischievous giggle.

As Gilbert took the first sip, his face frowned at the bitter herbal taste, and the burning feeling crawling down his throat, bit his smile never faltered as he gave the flask to his comrade.

Feliks was way too eager to finally have some fun, and he might have took too much of it all at once, but he didn't care how his eyes started to tear a bit up at the medicine like taste. It's not like he disliked it, but he personally never was fond it, since it reminded him of the amount of medicine syrups his mother made him eat in his childhood. He should have been thankful that he got access to any kind of medical care even if wasn't working many times, and it was way better than a syringe in his butt, but it still left a lasting impression.

Anyway, they started passing the bottle taking turns faster than they should have been doing them. They didn't have time to let the alcohol settle, wanting to feel dizzy as fast as they could. Feliks should have known better, but alas the stuff barely started to kick in when they were done with the bottle, and were just slowly beginning to drip into a drunken haze.

Feliks felt like throwing up because his stomach was emptily waiting for food, with stomach acid having nothing do for a while, and suddenly it was just engulfed with the similarly acidic drink. This was certainly a stupid idea, he just now realised, but he couldn't undrink it now, and it's not like it bothered him that much.

Rather, he was giggling like crazy when Gilbert began trying to prove that he was completely sober, while Feliks was humouring him at that.

Yeah, both of them would be completely drunk in a few.

*

The reality met the expectations quite fast. They no longer were sitting on the floor of the dirty east wing, but sneaked out to the outside aera, pretending to start rounds early if anyone asked. Both of their faces were flushed red from the substance in their bodies, no longer remembering how to walk straight. Neither of them could keep their toothy grin off their face, seeming proud of themselves that they hadn't got caught.

"Say, Beilschmidt, do you do this with others as well?" Feliks was genuinely interested whether it was his first time to get alcohol, but sure as hell hoped that it wouldn't be the last. This time, they didn't argue about anything, getting along perfectly, unlike them on other days. It was almost as if they were proper friends going to a night's out. Not well, whatever they were.

"Nah, don't be jealous." He put right arm around the blonde's shoulder weirdly endearingly, but Feliks wasn't himself in the clearest state of mind to comment about it. Actually, it felt good, as any touch would if someone was drunk and touch starved.

And Feliks craved for it so much. He never was used to receiving physical touch, other than from Tolys. But since he isn't in the picture, not anything but mere handshakes were what he got. And after being exposed to something this good for so long, the depravation felt simply horrible. He wanted to be hugged, and caressed and pampered sometimes, or even be at the giving end. Anything just to feel someone.

And Beilschmidt was warm. Feliks felt cold despite buttoning his jacket up, and the albino, who was walking with undone jacket, emitted comfortable heat from himself. It just made him feel cozy and warm at his heart, and he wanted to snuggle closer to him.

Yeah, Feliks was a touchy drunk. But he was also as much unashamed as touchy, and he couldn't think straight that much so he did step closer to the taller man, walking so close now that his left arm brushed into the albino's side. Most likely, the white haired hadn't even noticed it, or he was too gone to care, cause he didn't mention it to him. And if he still didn't want to take his arm away, it was just a positive for Feliks.

"I've been wondering Łukasiewicz, do like singing too?" The question surprised him. Gilbert had been going on about one of their instructors and how unfair he was to him, but Feliks hadn't been really paying attention. He quickly slipped into a swamp of thoughts, that was just the usual for him, not that he wanted to be rude or anything.

"Couldn't hit a note right if my life was on the line."

"Didn't ask if you were an opera singer."

"Mhm. Don't mind it."

"I wanna hear it too."

“Absolutely not, and the argument is over.”

“Please Łukasiewicz, were best buddies, or not?” Gilbert leaned closer to the shorter man, almost as if hugging him, which would have made Feliks get taken aback any other time, but again, he was too drunk.

“Go to hell. We aren’t even on first name basis.” dismissed him Feliks while crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Then Feliks, pleeeease.” his words slurred anyway, but now he was starting to mimic how Feliks pleaded him before. God, he was still infuriating when not his usual sober self.

Feliks shook his head, sighing at his pleas. It was weird hearing his own name again, as most much preferred to call him by his surname. This was fair, since none of them were really friends. Now since for a while only his parents did that, which was kinda sad. He liked his name, liked to be their little Feniks despite everything.

“No and the end. But like, I’m freezing like hell. What about we go for a run?” Feliks was completely serious, but the albino burst out laughing at that.

“Like- you, you who can barely run a kilometre, you want to run? Is the Apocalypse already coming?” the green-eyed thought that this was not fair at all, grumpy that the other didn’t want to partake in his brilliant idea.

“I can run a kilometre just fine, I only have problem with running seven more of them.” he pouted, while the other continued laughing, as if he was the joke of the century. Then the taller put his free hand into Feliks’ golden hair, and ruffled it almost too gently, like he was patting something precious.

“Whatever you say Feliks.” the shorter one’s heart fluttered at that. Gilbert took his time removing his hand from the other’s hair, brushing along the let-out locks twirling in the gentle wind, as he lowered it. Feliks just now noticed how close the two of them stood, and all of that was weirdly intimate and making his stupid brain go woozier than the what the vodka achieved.

As his eyes locked with the taller’s, he felt completely captivated. Gilbert’s hands were still in his hair right next to his cheek, and his mouth became slightly parted as he stared at Feliks. Feliks began to feel the air getting hotter, his heart starting to race, and he legs felt like jelly. He felt intimidated, but at the same time not, wanted something happen, but didn’t know what, and it was just all so confusing.

Beilschmidt was the first to notice himself, and with an awkward cough, he stepped away from him, releasing him from his touch completely. This was embarrassing, to say the least. But Feliks was unashamed, and he didn’t care about what will happen tomorrow at all and certainly didn’t want to miss his only chance to get what he oh so desired for.

He boldly stepped closer to the taller, and slammed himself into his chest, hugging the man as tight as he could. The red eyed was most certainly taken aback at that, and he didn’t understand why Feliks did that just out of the blue, and it felt weird, because both of them were men and shit but-

But eventually he slowly raised his arms around Feliks’ lower back to reciprocate the hug. And Feliks was goddamn happy that someone finally held him, like Tolys used to when he was sad, and didn’t just push him away saying he was acting weird.

Feliks carefully leant his head on the other’s shoulder, breathing in his smell of sweat and cigarette smoke, which would have been disgusting any other time, but now it was all he wanted ever to smell. And Beilschmidt was so warm, that he wasn’t even freezing that much anymore, which made him want to bury himself even deeper into the other man. God he would so much regret this tomorrow.

Although the albino seemed to be enjoying himself too. His grip around Feliks tightened, and as it seemed even he started to get himself lost to the comfortable sensitization. This was just the both of them needed. A little bit of comfort and warmth in the doorstep of the winter.

“Let’s not talk about this ever again.” muttered Feliks, while snuggling even closer to Gilbert.

Chapter Text

“Ehm, so that’s what it’s like. It’s not the most ideal, but I guess it was better than with like, you and all.” said Feliks to Iryna, who invited him to catch up at a confectionery. Or to check up on him, if he was right about her true intentions.

The girl was absolutely the sweetest person Feliks had ever known, despite his favouritism for Tolys. She always wore the kindest of smiles on her face even when things got rough for her and did her best to help everyone in need. She was their class secretary since forever, even if he knew that she didn’t particularly enjoy going to the boring meetings and all. Though, she was like the embodiment of selflessness that she did it anyways.

The Ukrainian blonde was stirring her tea comfortably, dripping it full with sugar – she somehow had an even sweeter tooth than Feliks – and waiting for it to cool down. Her hair was slightly shorter than his, but the tone matched up perfectly with Feliks’, so they often got questioned whether they were cousins or something. Now thinking about it, Iryna could pass more as a cousin than any of his actual ones, as both girls were brunettes.

As usually, she was in a comfortable Addidas track suit, never really caring about dressing up or something. She rather chose comfort, and she was very pretty either way.

Because of the cold outside, they were sitting in the inner aera, as especially Feliks was particularly sensitive to the weather. Iryna didn’t seem to mind it as much, not even wearing an overcoat yet. Though, she didn’t mind either having some liquid warming her up a bit more, excitedly waiting for the chocolate-mint flavoured tea to cool down a bit.

Feliks regretted experimenting whether he could drink it or not about five minutes ago, when he completely burnt his bloody tongue. So, more patiently, he was waiting for Iryna to be the test subject. Normally, he much preferred over sweetened energy drinks, but the blue eyed girl never approved of that habit of his, so it wasn’t surprising they were drinking something much healthier.

Which was well, completely hypocritical because she smoked a pack of cigs per day, but Feliks didn’t try arguing with her. It was more comfortable to have a place to sit down anyway, because the librarian at their local library was always mad at them that they were speaking loudly. And that they only went there to talk, but never to borrow a book.

So, although he was your typical poor student, he didn’t mind spending now some złoty on the place. He’d been venting for as long as they were there basically, while the older girl just nodded along, or shook her head sometimes signalling that she listened, but didn’t interrupt. That’s what he loved in her, she never was impatient and let people say whatever they felt the need to.

“I see. You know, it’s like, plausible what Tolys said, but I don’t think that should be an excuse that this Gilbert acts like he could do whatever he wants. I’m sure you’d have given the chance to get along if he wasn’t being a dick right from the start.”

“Right? This shouldn’t be even a question. He deserved that I beat him up.”

“I wouldn’t go that far per se, but you have every right to defend yourself. What you did, didn’t fall under that category, so I don’t agree with what you did at all, but maybe this would get him the message that he shouldn’t mess with you. After all, the last thing I advised didn’t work obviously.”

"You know that it's not your fault, right?" Asked the boy after blowing his tea to help it become drinkable.

"I know, but I should have done more to protect you." Her voice turned almost ashamed at that.

"I'm actually glad you didn't. Wouldn't want you to get caught up by all this shit, you know? I can defend myself perfectly well anyways. I'm not the one in hospital." His lips turned into a shit eating malicious grin, as if assuring Iryna that he would repeat it if he had to.

"Right, and you plan to hide away your bruises until graduation? What about PE?"

"You speak as if this would be permanent. And we settled this outside of school at least. Cause I consider this settled by the way. And he wasn't in school today." Her expression turned alert at that, almost as if panicking and she leant closer to him, grabbing his hands tightly which laid peacefully on the table before.

"Feliks. What if he had to go to hospital too? What his parents went to the cops and you'd be arrested from repeated bodily harm and-"

"He won't. His ego is too big for that, I can assure you. There were no witnesses anyway."

"But you are an easy target. A repeated offender doesn't look good in the eyes of the law."

"Iryna. There was no police involved last time either."

"That doesn't matter. Does this guy know about why you were kicked out?"

"I mean yeah but-" at that, she dramatically slapped her face.

"Oh my God, why did you tell him? He can use that against you."

"Again, I refuse to believe that. He has like the biggest ego, and he wouldn't want to look like a weakling in front of his friends. And snitches are weaklings. It'd look bad on him if everyone knew a girly little boy like me could beat the shit out of him."

Her eyes turned sharp, analysing every bit of Feliks' neutral, unmoving face. He was unnaturally serious too, not wearing his usual sassy and uncaring expression. Almost like she tested him whether his confidence was genuine. Her grip turned tighter too, but Feliks withstood it perfectly, not wincing at all at the pain.

And the girl was stronger than she initially seemed. She did karate since she was a kid, so naturally she built up her muscles throughout the years of hard training. It wasn't just her strength too, her nails also uncomfortably dug into his skin, but he knew better than to react. This was a trial whether she'd let him do his own thing or continue arguing further.

Eventually, her expression softened, and she let him go, but the uneasiness never disappeared from her glaze. The Ukrainian started sipping her tea in an effort to calm herself down, but it didn't seem to be doing it's job.

At that Feliks repeated her motions, hoping his own cooled down enough too. He wanted to avoid burning his tongue again, but he also felt awkward doing nothing.

He relaxed a bit as the sweet liquid hit his mouth. Feliks always liked tea more than coffee, though he rarely ever drank it. He was just way too impatient to wait for it to cool down, but if he went away to do something else during waiting, then the tea would remain in the kitchen forgotten until hours. It was rather embarrassing, but sadly nothing could be done against that. His mind just wandered easier than most.

"Anyways, did you at least manage to make any friends?" Asked Iryna, trying to avert the attention from the touchy topic.

"Hm, I guess so? There is this Natallia girl I kinda like. We sit next to each other in a few classes."

"Natallia? As in Natallia Alyakseyewna Arlovskaya?" Asked she back more eagerly, her formerly dull blue eyes lighting up.

"Yeah, do you know her?"

"Of course! Natashenyka is my sweetest little cousin! Ah, she's just a year younger than me, and doesn't like it when I baby her, but anyways. She's just the cutest little girl in our family, although she rarely shows her sweet side. And isn't she so smart too? She wants to be a physicist one day I think, and work at the nuclear research facility. She was incredible since her childhood and ah, I'm rambling, sorry." She giggled awkwardly, feeling suddenly self-conscious and all. A gentle smile was plastered at Feliks' face too - it was sweet that she cared so much about her family.

Feliks could never tell this about himself. He was kinda indifferent all his life if not rather antagonistic. Though it wasn't solely his fault, it was just an unfortunate clash of personalities rather. Or the stars were in a wrong position at his birth. Whatever, but they just couldn't get along with his parents.

And he just couldn't ignore the disgusted way they glanced at him. Like they wanted to throw apples at him.

"Don't worry. It's just well, she must be rather shy." Humoured Feliks, while she let out a motherly smile.

"Yeah, she is. She doesn't like letting people close to her, just like you." At that his eyes opened wide with confusion.

"I mean, there is a great difference between us I think." Iryna tilted her head sideways, glancing at him curiously.

"Hm, I wonder. If we talk about face value then yes, you are. But inside, there isn't much difference. Neither of you like to face reality, and you think putting a mask on yourselves would solve everything. Guess I can understand that of course, both of you had it rough. In the long run though, will it really be okay?"

Feliks gripped his mug tight, fingers burning from the heat of the surface. The innocent little green mug didn't mean to hurt him, but it still felt so painful. At the same time though, he couldn't get himself to care.

Most people underestimated the power of emotional intelligence. Iryna got him right to the tee, as much as he hated admitting it. Tolys wasn't like her in comparison. He told the Lithuanian boy everything because he trusted him, but he never would have figured out this much on his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, but Feliks intentionally or not, was hard to read. Iryna had a certain talent for taking apart and seeing through everyone since forever. It may have been because she was a social butterfly, and she was that attentive towards others, but Feliks never managed to crack her secret.

And he didn’t consider himself bad at analysing people, but that was rather observation followed by logical deductions, while she inductively gathered information to finally solve the complex identity of a person.

That’s why Feliks liked group work with her in the team. They did the same thing, yet in complete opposite way and it managed to make a whole well.

But in times like these, he simply despised her abilities, because he didn’t like to be her test subject. First of all, the attention drawn at him made him feel uneasy, and he hated stripping his barriers away from others. He didn’t want others to ask, and he refused to tell. Feliks liked the image he built up in front of others; defiant, sassy and strong. He wanted to be that, but at the same time he knew he wasn’t that perfect.

It's just that it hurt more than anything to acknowledge that.

“Iryna, you know that I’m still not gay, right?” correcting that, lying felt even worse, especially how easy it became at a point. Almost as if he wanted to believe it himself, which was the truth.

Of course, he left out of his tale conveniently that fiasco with Tolys. It would be even too embarrassing to tell it if he wasn’t in an everlasting battle with his sexuality, but he wasn’t just about to come out to her in any way. He never wanted to do that again.

And eventually, maybe he’ll get used to lying. It becomes a second nature as he finds a girl, marries her, and then morphs into the couch with beer in his hand in front of the telly showing football match after football match.

Because what else could he do now than to continue denying and saying that Ivan lied about him, and he was straight plainly and simply.

“Right.” she said that dryly, and he fully knew that she didn’t believe him no matter how convincing he sounded. “But just so that you know, I wouldn’t mind it if you were.”

“Right indeed.” Feliks stared into the cup of dark brown liquid, staring at his reflection with complete disgust.

*

As he finally reached home, he straight up fell into the bed. He’d been growing more tired as of recently, but he couldn’t even fathom why. He didn’t even have strength to go eat dinner, but he wasn’t hungry anyway from the tea filling his stomach up completely.

At times like this, he usually just hid under the covers and either tried to sleep, or read some fanfic to not just dwell in complete misery.

He knew that he should learn instead. It was his final goddamn year, but he couldn’t find the strength to care, and even if he tried his hardest at home and practised, he couldn’t achieve better than average. The times when he used to bring home spotless school records with only paying attention in class were long over, and now, he just couldn’t find it in him to sit down and learn. Feliks never learnt to learn, and now he doubted he could compensate for that.

It was easier to let it go.

And again, he didn’t want to go to university and dedicate his life to something he didn’t even want to study, and most likely outright hated. It was like intentional self-sabotage.

If he doesn’t have a choice but go to university, then he’ll make himself fail to not get accepted into it. This was way more childish than actually talking with his parents that this was his own fate to decide on, but at least it wasn’t a pointless struggle. Actions always mattered more than mere words.

It’s not like anyone would understand that though. Not Iryna, and not Tolys.

Feliks coddled up himself under the warmth of the blanket and brought out his phone from his pocket. He was not surprised that there were no notifications from his social medias, but even his hollow chest tightened a bit at that. Logically, he had just been out with one of his few friends, Tolys was going to talk with him later, Natallia was an asocial and distant kind of asshole, and Tomasz was working usually in the afternoon to support his family.

But it would feel great if one day, he could have some text waiting for him when he got home. An evidence that someone cared about him enough to send a message, and that there was someone who wanted to share with him anything casually. One of his hands began to grip his beloved plushie tight. Poor Polandball got all his abuse when he was angry, but luckily it didn’t actually feel pain and didn’t want to leave him despite everything.

Just as he was about to put his device back away, a little sound of a buzz filled his silent room with expectant hopes. He got an email notification about a comment from the same person on the second chapter. He dreamt last night, and he quicky forged it into a chapter as he woke up in the dawn, and couldn’t go back to sleep, and he also had a free period today. Without any malice, the reader must have had the same amount of social life as him.

That was fair though. Feliks was writing about a niche ship in a niche video game fandom, and they were willing to go through Feliks’ grammar error ridden lousy little fanfic in a hyper speed. It didn’t make him less happy though, actually on the contrary, since he never got that much traction. This almost made him believe that he was a good writer.

Anyways, they were really cute about their message this time too. They asked about the characters more in detail, and slowly, they kinda got into a conversation which made Feliks’ heart race. Nobody was that interested in his works like ever, and they were saying all these kind things to him, and Feliks was just so happy for once.

He was finally noticed by someone, and he wasn’t deemed worthless. Like he was an actual writer who was taken seriously by his fan. His singular, but loyal fan.

And they were fun to talk too anyways, not just because of the ego boost their comments gave. They were observant, probably rereading a few stuff multiple times, and raised interesting points about their theories of the backstories of the characters, and the speculation about future chapters.

At first, Feliks wrote completely formal messages, but in the end, they started using kaomojis and the such which made Feliks feel as if he was a fourteen-year-old girl rather than a grown ass man – as grown as an eighteen-year-old can be anyways. He obviously had no idea who he was talking to, which was okay initially, since he talked to a lot of people during playing online games, and he was on a lot of Discord servers. But then like, it made him feel weird that he didn’t actually know about their age or gender on anything, making him feel self-conscious. At least on voice chat he could guess roughly both of those, even if someone was lying about their age, which was sadly all too common on the Internet. Those people always had some kind of mystery erased by those simple two facts.

This anonymity made him feel unusual discomfort, as if this wasn’t just a normal interaction between two people, regardless of anything. But then if it was a completely normal conversation, Feliks would feel even guiltier about obsessing over them, so he very much wanted to know the person behind the profile.

And who knows? Maybe they are fun to get along with in other topics too. Like, that's how he got to know Tolys too. Dumb kids spending too much time on a shitty game, and they are friends to this day.

Of course, not every online friend of Feliks was a success story, most fading off after a few weeks of the "pink cloud" of friendship when they constantly chatted, and one day it was as if they were erased for an eternity. Completely cut off from the Internet, like they never even existed. Never online ever again.

It made him wonder if they simply just got bored or something bigger was in the background. His mind naturally started making excuses, because the fact didn't seem too attractive in his eyes that they simply had enough of him. And he was a writer no matter how mediocre, so he started making up all these stories from the little information he knew about them. As if people's fate was some kind of puzzle for his own entertainment.

His eyes hovered over the direct message part of the site, already at the stranger's profile, who followed him in after the first comment they wrote. He wanted to say something, but didn't know what.

The thing is, they may have gotten along in the comments, but that didn't make them friends. Maybe they didn't want to establish further companionship with him, which was fine and again, Feliks didn't want to look creepy. It was almost worrying that he sank that low to be this desperate for a friend, that his dignity was on the line. Actually a lot would have been solved if that stranger had written a bio.

Feliks took that seriously, spending unnecessarily long time formulating it and to find the right maybe a bit cringey quote to complement it. And well, it fucking included "M18". Obviously not in a reddit format because he didn't want to look even more lifeless but whatever. He didn't just care about his real-life appearance, but the digital too.

Of course, he got that when someone is not over the legal age they rather hid it away for various reasons and he could understand that. But if he was talking to someone much younger it didn't matter how innocent, the mere thought made him feel uncomfortable. And yeah, nobody was posting their IDs with their claims, but Feliks unfortunately gave people the benefit of the doubt.

He very well knew that he was probably overthinking it. Even when he commented as his younger self, he never checked like the age of the authors or anything, or those whom he played together with. He was just unnecessarily nervous about a completely normal thing. And it wasn't like he had bad intentions towards anyone, he just wanted to chat with someone.

Still, he rather exited the site and threw his phone to his night table. He was stupid about this, wasn't he? Feliks cursed his head for making even the simplest thing so complicated. He rather just slept than to continue thinking about useless things. But well, he couldn't say he wasn't happy for the fact still that he reached someone.

*

The next day Gilbert was in fact in school, and the very moment he saw him his gaze morphed into one of disgust. Feliks only responded with pure apathy, and he was in fact glad that his prediction became the reality. The albino left him alone, probably understanding the consequences if he dares to do it otherwise.

Feliks was proud that he finally won. It never was him who laughed at the end, and now he was giggling like crazy with Schadenfreude. He finally showed that he couldn't be played with like a puppet, and it made him feel more than powerful.

But well, he noticed that he actually found the day kinda dull too. He tried speaking with Natallia but she was a though nut to crack, and it seemed she wasn't that interested in having someone to talk to during school than him.

The silence bothered Feliks very much, and his mouth was sometimes like a waterfall, it couldn't seem to stop at all. He'd been content if Tolys was at least willing to chat with him, but he was the perfect student who refused to do such a thing during school.

It was actually funny that this was the same man who'd swear like a sailor over some petty little video games. Like, Feliks could barely imagine him somehow liking all this gorey stuff and shooting people online. Feliks imagined model students to like, study as their hobby, or like watch TV. Most of them seemed understandably boring in his eyes. He couldn't imagine that some managed to have a life while dedicating all their time to studying. It seemed as a paradox.

Tolys said he was just being arrogant, and some truth may have been among his words. He admitted himself that he was arrogant, and that was okay. Though, he felt conflicted a bit at that too, cause deep inside he knew he didn't even like himself that much. It was a weird duality he rather ignored than to actually think about the cause and causation.

That being said, he would have considered this a relatively peaceful day, hadn't it been for the German lesson. Again, a fucking foreign language lesson had to fuck his day up. Like okay, last time in English he defended himself perfectly too, but anyway. This time was different.

Their teacher regularly made them do pair speaking exercises which were usually fine. He sat between to lads, Marek and Piotr who were like quite average guys. Marek was shitty in German, so they only talked with one-word long sentences if at all – Feliks didn’t really care though, since he never liked Marek and it’s not like he took the exercises too seriously at all. Piotr was more unremarkable, he talked as much as he had to, but conversation between them still felt rigid and forced. It was bound to be anyways, and again, Feliks wasn’t that keen on trying.

This time though, he decided to shake things up a bit, ever the more lively and vibrant the entrant teacher was, and he decided to pair them up with the help of a random name generator. Feliks had to roll his eyes at the effort, because not many of them took this class even seriously, but it seemed their teacher tried everything. And well, switching up partners more often was an advantageous thing if you really wanted to learn a language.

Now, worse was than simple regular old speaking practise, when the pair exercise turned out to be a little project, which varied from making mock interviews which could be done in a single lesson, or to write little novels over the course of multiple hours, or even at home. At least, that’s what Regina, the girl sitting in front of him told. To Feliks, it sounded like an absolute nightmare, since he hated doing any team work, because it was either him doing all the work, or his ideas being completely disregarded. But he sincerely hoped that the teacher wouldn’t make his final year even worse by assigning him stupid homework like this.

Of course though, this universe seemed to have something against Feliks as he got paired up with Gilbert, and they got a stupid project task. They were assigned to read the book Krabat on Monday, which of course Feliks absolutely did not read, and he also didn’t bother to look for a summary, and he imagined Gilbert was no different. One part of the task required an essay of different set questions, and the other involved doing something creative whether it was a drawing, comic or little story inspired by the original.

Feliks hated even the concept of the exercise not to mention doing it with Beilschmidt, who by the way Feliks didn’t even understand why was here because he clearly was German going by his name. It’s not fair that he already spoke the language – because honestly, one could hear the difference in pronunciation of a native speaker and a foreigner trying and failing even as someone who doesn’t speak German. If it was up to Feliks, he for sure wouldn’t let him have it this easy, and rather would have forced him to take up Spanish or Russian or something.

As the teacher motioned them to stand up and find their partners to start the project, everyone started doing exactly that with more or less anticipation while Feliks remained seated with arms crossed in front of his chest and waited for the other. When he didn’t seem to come though, he turned backwards to glance at the albino, who was doing the same thing. Waiting and staring venomously, as if he wanted to kill him.

Yeah, this was going to be a long fucking forty-five minutes. The hostile staring contest was only broken by the voice of their teacher asking if everything was okay, and that they should start moving too. This time though, Gilbert didn’t relent and it was Feliks who had to do the hard job to stand up and do the five steps until he reached the table.

He sat down next to the taller one still grumpily, not showing any kind of compliance to talk. The other ignored him as much as he did, and now it turned rather awkward that everyone was doing their job more or less and talking about the project and only they were sitting in complete and utter silence.

What Feliks didn’t want to though, is their teacher noticing their reluctance and start nagging them again to do their job and talk. And well, if he’s gonna fail high school, then it’d be awkward if it’s because one of the few subjects he did well enough in. But well, he hadn’t read that bloody book. Maybe their silence only occurred, because Gilbert didn’t do it either, which was like, even more embarrassing. Feliks didn’t want to do this whole shit at home alone for multiple reasons.

First off, he had better things to do. Second off, it’s one thing that he was on conversational level in German, but he absolutely had no idea how its stupid ass grammar worked with its system of exceptions from the exceptions. And this time around, he couldn’t even blame it on his maybe underlying dyslexia that he didn’t know how words were supposed to end, he just couldn’t remember the different cases and conjugations even if his life depended on it, not to mention the even stupider Präteritum tenses in which the text was supposed to be written.

Another thing about Feliks was though, that he could be the most stubborn person ever, and if he did the favour of sitting here, then it had to be Gilbert who breaks the silence now. Just to be fair and square anyways. It would have hurt Feliks’ ego to be the first one to let in again, and his ego was big as the sun as everyone knew it.

“If you’re not gonna stop being annoying, at least do something useful.” The red eyed said, as he kicked into Feliks’ leg which was formerly uncontrollably bouncing. He had the strong urge to kick back, but he knew he only had that privilege after school.

“It’s not like you’re helping at all. I haven’t even read this stupid book.”

At that, it seemed as if Gilbert’s eye started ticking, like he was angry at him. Which was like, not understandable at all, since half of the class probably haven’t read it either. Maybe he did take his grades seriously despite being a so-called cool kid. Well, if he wanted to go to university unlike Feliks, most likely he should be. But oh well, that wasn’t Feliks’ fault or responsibility.

“You seriously don’t expect me to do this whole thing for you.” it was not even a rather poetic question but a straight up statement.

“Nah, but it’s not like I’ll do the whole thing either. If you care about your grades that much, then go for it or whatever but don’t expect me to help with the essay.” Gilbert glared at him at that hostilely.

“Mind you, I didn’t plan to let you touch the essay anyway. Heard enough about your grammar skills during presentation.” Ouch. Feliks knew that this was true, but that didn’t mean he liked to hear it back from someone he hated.

“Great. Conversation’s over then, control freak.” hissed Feliks, who wanted to go back to sit in silence.

“No, it’s not. Read the fucking book, and draw something about it, I don’t care what as long as you spend more than five minutes with it.” Despite that being already Feliks’ original plan he hated to be told what to do, and he just had to argue for the sake of arguing. Yeah, he knew why people deemed him annoying, but he liked to have his fun.

“And say, what if I don’t? I don’t get why you care this much anyway.” smirked Feliks at him obnoxiously, but it seemed that it wasn’t enough to rile him just yet. But well, since he was Feliks Łukasiewicz, he wouldn’t want to bring shame to his name. He’ll go as far as he had to.

“I’ll knock your teeth out.” gritted Gilbert his teeth, gripping into a pencil with full strength with one hand. Feliks leaned a little bit closer, intentionally uncomfortably close to the other boy, which made the taller clench his jaw and tighten his whole body to restrict his impulses.

“Yeah, cause it worked perfectly well the last time too.” sneered sarcastically Feliks, his voice lowered so that only Gilbert could hear it. The other’s corpse pale face turned slightly pinkish and the pencil snapped in his hand.

Feliks had a talent for riling up people.

“I went easy on you, stupid fag. Next time, I won’t be this merciful, so don’t get too full of yourself.” Feliks honestly had to laugh at that. It wasn’t even a dry or forced one, he genuinely was amused by him.

“Ah, yes, I’m the one who’s blushing right now too. Afraid of other boys getting too close to you, Beilschmidt?” Feliks made a point of leaning even closer, while the other instinctively jerked away. “I think fag could describe someone else better than me. Someone who gets hard at other boys beating the shit out of him.”

The pencil broke into two pieces. Feliks hit the nail on its head. Well, if he was going to play dirty and be a dick unnecessarily, then Feliks might as well do so too.

“You little–“ Feliks put a finger in front of his mouth jeeringly. Gilbert’s face was burning up as red as his eyes were, completely flustered by the revelation. Well, if they weren’t in a classroom with a teacher present, the blonde was sure the white haired just straight up would have started punching him. And again, in sheer physical strength unfortunately, he had no chance against him. But Feliks was smart, and he knew that he shouldn’t go that far if his safety wasn’t assured.

“Just joking. I’ll do my part in the project. Shame for your pencil though, pastel blue’s a cute colour.” Though, both of them knew from Feliks’ piercing eyes that he was lying. But that was his only goal, to mess with him, raise his blood pressure a bit, and he was more than entertained by that already. It’s not like Feliks was that much of a dick to blackmail him with something like this, even if he deserved it. But a little scaring never hurt.

Maybe in another would he’d be ashamed of himself for being such an asshole. Iryna was right about him all along. He wasn’t that better than Beilschmidt himself.

Feliks leaned away from him, leaving him room to breathe finally and Gilbert looked visibly more relieved than before. Though, he looked as confused as ever, not understanding Feliks’ intentions at all. In all honesty, Feliks didn’t understand them either.

He didn’t even really think that Beilschmidt was gay at all. That was just the first thing that got into his mind to use as a retorsion against him. He didn’t care at all if he was, and probably the albino didn’t really think about it either. It’s just that that was the first insult that came to his mind too. An insult all too easy to use against Feliks, who looked girly and soft all his life. An insult he had no idea how hard hit Feliks.

And mind you, Feliks wasn’t easily insulted by anything, just this one little word that’d been making his life a living hell since the last few years until he finally snapped. He wanted Gilbert to experience the same pain and despair he caused him by calling him that again. The blonde just couldn’t feel guilty at all.

“Meet me at the playground after school. Don’t run away now.” muttered him Beilschmidt with venom, and the Polish boy had to smile at that back full with honey laced hatred.

*

This time, he sat at the swing with a cheap replacement earphone blasting Kawałek Kulki at full volume until the new headphone he ordered arrives. He missed having something to listen to, and he just couldn’t take it any longer. Music was like smoking for him. He could technically live without them if he really had to, but it would be like the most painful loss in his life. Maybe it was a bit worrying that he thought about smoking the same way but whatever now.

Today, just to not always smoke the same shit, he rolled himself from Camel Yellow. That was his go-to rolling tobacco, and he usually much preferred rolling over smoking packs, because of it’s more favourable price product ratio. Afterall, he was just a broke student living off of his parent’s money, price was important too.

It was well into November now, the weather chillier than he initially expected the afternoon to be. He was only wearing a light leather jacket over his dark green flannel, meaning he didn’t have that much protection against the cool wind. Feliks very much minded cold actually, but always hated wearing big and puffy jackets, because he thought he looked dumb in them. His mother made him wear things like that until he was in like nineth grade, and now he much rather just be freezing than to wear something he hates. But well, a better cold tolerance would have been handy for that.

And more practical clothes than for example fingerless leather gloves. He thought they looked cool and edgy, perfectly fitting his style, but his fingers were freezing off as he was clutching into that poor sloppy cigarette. He tried to generate some warmth with his lighter – which was green by the way, and most could tell Feliks really liked things that colour, matching his eye – but it seemed to be pointless. The little orange spot was way too feeble to melt out his poor fingers.

He really hoped Gilbert hurried the fuck up, because he much rather went home to slump in his very warm and comfortable bed than sit out there in the cold. He was always told not to sit on cold surfaces otherwise he’d get an UTI, but at this point he couldn’t even believe that it was true. Maybe because thank God, he wasn’t a woman, but whatever. Apparently men can get it too, but he started doubting that it had something to do with sitting on a cold swing. He should have gotten one a long time ago if that was the case, no matter what they taught at school.

Maybe he’d even make a hot chocolate. It’d been a while when he last drank it, despite liking all kinds of sweets and delicacies. Yeah, a hot choco would definitely be nicer than sitting here any longer, lighting cigarette after cigarette to pass time.

Gilbert mentioned that he was smelly because of it. Initially, he very much cared about that and made a point of always wearing and reapplying parfum to cover it alongside with deodorant. After a while though, all his clothes were permanently soaked with the awful smell, and it became pointless to even try. It was imbedded from head to toe, from every single hair to the newest sock of his. He hated it but also knew it was nothing but a bit unconventional. If he wouldn’t stop for his health, he definitely wouldn’t because of this.

From the distance, he could take out the frame of somebody pointedly walking in his direction. Feliks was actually surprised how glad he was to see him, because he very much wanted to go home by now. His lips turned into an ill-intended smile as soon as he emerged from the fog hugging around the playground and stopped walking exactly in front of Feliks.

His face was stone cold, just as rigid and cold like the air around them. Compared to him, his clothes fit the weather even less, as the boy only had a zipper hoodie loose hanging on him. As intimidating as he wanted to seem, Feliks felt anything but scared. He knew he could defend himself, and he knew that Gilbert understood that well. He didn’t understand though why he wanted to waste his time again.

Last time, his face held some playfulness while he annoyed him until Feliks agreed into the fight, but this time it was complete blankness. Any resemblance of sympathy or comradery were wiped off that ghostly pale face of his, that may have been there before. Like he wasn’t even staring at a human, but a mere parasite. Feliks couldn’t say he was offended by it though; he hated the taller boy as much in reverse. Some people were just bound to not get along.

Maybe the way how familiar Beilschmidt seemed at first was just his instincts telling him to be warry of him. But well, they didn’t have a choice than to tolerate each other until the end of the year, as they couldn’t switch places with anyone in homeroom. But that was like, one singular class a week, so that was whatever to bear. And if sometimes they needed to relieve some stress, then so be it.

Feliks threw away the cigarette in his hand, unplugging his ears to place back both his phone and earphones into his backpack for safety reason and stood up as well. He may have been shorter, but that didn’t made him any less threatening in Gilbert’s eyes. They were equals to each other, and both hated equally the other.

“So, are you gonna talk, or you dragged me here to stare at my pretty face?” asked Feliks with a façade of indifference, but inside he was tense and alert. He didn’t look away from Gilbert’s eyes, but he was listening for even the quietest of movements to react in time if he wanted to make this physical, which he probably did.

“Kill yourself.” again, Feliks had to laugh how petty that was. This was getting all the more entertaining to him.

“Yeah okay, sure, but couldn’t you have told that at school though?” Feliks started walking around the other boy jeeringly, as if he was a wolf cornering his prey, dancing around the soon to be demise of it. Beilschmidt still hadn’t moved an inch as Feliks continued messing with his brain. “Hm, maybe you do like me then. Funny, isn’t it? Poor fag falling in love with a straight man. I wonder what you like more, me getting the beating, or you receiving it. You look like a complete masochist though.”

The other still stayed silent though his fists clenched hard. Maybe he took it too far. He looked as if he would cry if he were alone.

Yeah, Feliks knew he was a disgusting person for sure now. Getting bullied relentlessly might as well have managed to fuck his head up, although he wasn’t trying to make excuses. It didn’t matter anyway if he was a decent person or not when he died.

“Now say, if you’re done with this stupid confession of yours, can we already go home? Think I wasted more than enough time on you.” He stopped walking around when he finished his third circle around the man, and leaned closer again, to provoke him further. Maybe it was Feliks who was the true masochist of them. Like he intentionally searched for trouble.

“Don’t you think you’re kinda hypocritical?” this time, Gilbert was the one who started smirking at him, and Feliks began to frown. “Your name sounded familiar from to start so I asked around, and what a coincidence! My brother happened to be one of your old underclassmen.”

At that, realisation hit Feliks. Yeah of course, Beilschmidt, that’s why Gilbert must have been that familiar! Ludwig Beilschmidt was another unremarkable student he barely remembered from his old school, and it’s not like they ever talked about anything. Nonetheless, their classrooms were next to each other’s, and Feliks’ name wasn’t exactly an underground topic at the school. More like the public punching bag, after he was outed in front of everyone. It wasn’t even as if he was the only gay person at school, of course he wasn’t, but everyone was more lenient with lesbians.

It was actually quite disgusting, but since lesbians were a victims of objectification and sexualisation, nobody was that vocal about bullying, not even teachers. Well, probably straight up bullying would be worse anyways. But boys coming out was way more unheard of, that’s why Feliks became the talk of the school so fast.

Still though, he didn’t except a random fucking underclassman remembering his name. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone out with such a bang. At first, he was obviously proud of himself at that achievement of his, but now he almost regretted it.

“Hm, yeah people talked stuff about me back then, didn’t they? You don’t know the full story whatsoever, and neither did your brother. That was the stuff of my class and nobody else.”

Don’t show fear and he’ll buy your shit. Don’t show fear. Don’t show fear. Don’t show—

“You stopped jerking your hand. You’re lying.” smirked Gilbert even wider that he managed to outsmart him. Fuck Feliks’ stupid ticks.

Now, Feliks’ fight of flight response kicked it, as it usually did when his school years were even mentioned, because of the panic building up inside him. He knew he couldn’t bear that any longer once again. He had to show him that he couldn’t mess with him. He just had to.

And to do that faster than to have a breakdown.

But it seemed Beilschmidt expected him very well to attack, because he managed to stop his fist just before it collided with his face. Unlike Feliks, who wore thin old sneakers, Gilbert was wearing thick and heavy boots, so of course it hurt very fucking much that he stomped onto his feet with all his body weight, which was at least twice as heavy as the underweight Feliks’.

Though, he wasn’t about to be taken aback by the pain, and he knew his best chance against Gilbert was if he could somehow get behind his back and start choking him the way he really could break his neck. With his free hand that wasn’t gripped by Gilbert, he quickly grabbed his hair and pulled his head down to surprise him but it still wasn’t enough to make his grip looser. Because he would even do a favour to the world if he made Gilbert infertile, he mercilessly kneed into where it really hurt, which seemed enough at first to make him take a step aback, but he still didn’t have time to slip behind him, because he had to dodge a very angry albino’s fist.

Well, if he was angry before, he was furious now. He was throwing punch after punch which became ever the harder to dodge since Feliks got tired fast after the initial energy rush because quite honestly, he didn’t eat enough to be fit for longer physical activities.

The Polish boy had to think even faster than before to come up with a solution but the best thing he could figure out was circumstantial at best, unachievable at it’s worst. But well, he was always a devout believer, and he hoped that God wouldn’t leave him in the lurch now too, so he braced himself and did what he planned.

As Gilbert started to lift his leg to kick into him, he grabbed it and pulled it forward, so that the taller one lost all his balance and fell down to the ground. Feliks didn’t hesitate to stomp on his hands which were visibly hurtful to him. Afterwards, to make sure that he wouldn’t stand up, he wasn’t so lenient like before, and sat down onto Gilbert again – this time upper than his abdomen – and started just senselessly beating him as if there was no tomorrow.

Logically, he knew he couldn’t hit as hard as the other did, and it probably didn’t even hurt as much, but it was like his brain was clouded over with something and he just couldn’t stop.

The whole setting was eerily similar to how it went down with Ivan too, and for a second he saw Gilbert’s reddish eyes morph into the purplish orbs of the Russian man, and it was like a new strength possessed Feliks. The thing was, he mostly was punching the taller one’s chest up until now, as if knowing what would come after his started hitting his face.

Blood, their classmates screaming, and the teachers rushing to pry Feliks off of him. And then the roll of the film snapped.

Feliks was snapped out of it too as he glanced down on his gloved hands, frantically searching for the red substance on them fearing the worse. His heart raced wildly, nearly tearing out of his chest, and his breathing got more frequent with every second as if he was still continuing to fight.

But he couldn’t do this anymore.

He rolled down from Gilbert, collapsing onto the ground, and he tried to make himself calm down and clean his head from his stupid memories. It seems, that much was for playing tough. He couldn’t help it, but he started feeling nauseous as soon as he thought about Ivan, the mastermind behind all of it.

It was because of him he was bullied for all those years, and it was because of him he got kicked out. And that stupid monster parading himself around like a human got off relatively easy still, while still haunting him. Feliks fantasized sometimes still about killing him and giving him back all the hurt he caused, when he was still too much of a weakling to protect himself.

God, if he could just go back in time and start defending himself sooner—

“Aggressive little scum.”

“You are the one to talk? You got what you wanted, now be gone.” hissed back Feliks, looking at the sky clouded by an army of grey soldiers marching to flood the earthly realm.

“Be done with the project by next Wednesday, otherwise I really won’t hold myself back.” threatened the albino as he stood up while trying to avoid wincing from the pain.

“Why don’t you simply admit that this is your all? Hurts to see that a girly little twink like me is stronger than you?” Feliks also started to sit up, but seems that was a bad idea, since Beilschmidt just straight up kicked into his stomach, which well, hurt as hell, probably way more than his punches hurt Gilbert. Still, Feliks laughed through the pain, because it was still better than crying. And as much as he wanted to, even from the memory of Ivan, he couldn’t show any more weakness in front of the fair haired boy.

Feliks would have happily continued provoking him, if Gilbert hadn’t turned on his heels and hurried away. He honestly didn’t know which was more fucked up, that he didn’t mind being beaten if he could get on Beilschmidt’s nerves and hit his ego stronger than all of his punches together, or that he said all that awful borderline homophobic stuff to him. Almost as if Ivan was there lingering on his shoulders and whispering those words to him.

He didn’t want that to be his real self. But if he just looked back on the past week, was he any different from those who bullied him?

Ah, he may as well get Tolys now that he tried distancing himself from him.

*

After about ten cigarettes, an hour of pacing around and hitting random objects on the playground, Feliks went home emotionally and physically completely exhausted. He didn’t cry because he couldn’t have got himself to, no matter how much he wanted and needed that, even if he spent another hour just staring out of his head having slidden down onto the floor of the shower cabin.

Feliks understood less and less what was wrong with him. Like yes, he knew from a long time that something was not okay, but this became alarming at a sudden rate. And now, he didn’t even want to tell it Tolys, not to mention Iryna, who’d probably beat him up herself if she got to know that he got into another fight. And no, unlike what Beilschmidt said, these fights weren’t good to let out any kind of frustration, they made him even more frustrated.

He heavily contemplated whether he should start the German project stuff or not. Rather the question was if he would do it, or not. He didn’t want to get into another fight, but again he despised doing what others told and he wanted to rebut the albino just for the sake of it. If he hadn’t been a dick about it, he might have even decided in favour of starting it, but well.

Gilbert was the one who told him to kill himself, so he didn’t need him. If Feliks dies, he could do the project alone. This logic justified him rather booting up his computer to start playing some game, and all the while he checked his phone to see if there were any notifications.

To his surprise, this time there was. And he was just so fucking happy when he saw that it came from the site he uses again. This time, it was not a mere comment though, it was a bloody direct message from his sole reader!

Feliks was so happy that quickly stood up from his desk, and laid down to the bed, attention completely caught by the little screen of his phone.

He got so excited that he completely forgot about his former anxious worries and happily read the message over and over again.

“Hey! I hope I’m not bothering you, but your bio said your dms are open to talk.”

And Feliks was just gleaming with happiness that they also wanted to talk, even if Feliks was probably too mentally ill himself to play the good therapist right now.

Chapter Text

“Do your worst Feliks.”

“Oh, I’m not about hold back, comrade.” said Feliks with a slight smirk, as he lunged at the taller man, despite his horrible hangover. Well, who is a soldier at night, should know how to fight during daytime too.

Though Feliks insisted about forgetting about last night, something undeniably changed between them, and now he couldn’t even mind that really. For example, Gilbert smiled at him casually, as if they were friends, and Feliks began to think that they really were that. Friends.

The blonde never really expected to have someone as close to him as Tolys was. Well, more accurately Gilbert wasn’t that close yet, but it seemed that he well and truly enjoyed his company, if he wasn’t giving him a cold shoulder despite the scene he made yesterday. And Feliks only prayed that this isn’t just out of sole and cruel pity, but actual care he craved for.

Somehow those red eyes managed to look kind despite looking initially devilish. They weren’t just showing some hollow and fleeting interest, but something more deep-rooted. Like a desire to be next to him and get to know him better and from one perspective, Feliks was happier than ever, but from another confused, and borderline scared. Because despite everything, he didn’t know he should act in front of him, or what response does he expect from him. After all, Feliks wasn’t used to being all buddy-buddy with a lot of people, and he didn’t know what he wanted from him and what stepped over the unknown boundary.

People were confusing to the Polish man, no matter how-well read he was. Actually, the more he read, especially poems from the such like Rimbaud or Verlaine, the less he understood humans at all. This was only when he realised that people were too complex beings, more grey than black or white, and it wasn’t necessarily good. Like, he much rather could just outright hate someone, believing they are just mere monsters, with no good in their hearts, but he simply couldn’t.

For quite a while since he got into the military, Instructor Braginsky was that person he grew to want to despise. He was a high ranking officer originally member of the soviet Red Army, now stationed at this barrack of the People’s army. He was their cruel and bitchy major general, a relatively young man in his mid-thirties to early forties, who already had a developing neck hump from the number of medals of honour pinned to his chest. Feliks highly doubted that he was a commander at the time of their Great Patriotic War, that is if the Russkis haven’t found the philosopher’s stone, or they finally have done enough human experiments to develop the essence of eternal life. The Polish man couldn’t even fathom where he got all that glittery stuff, especially since he didn’t even seem to have outer injuries.

Or well, maybe he did since his neck was constantly covered up. Either that, or some prostitute got rough on him, because Feliks was more than sure that that’s how all these renowned generals spent their free time, which they had a lot of. While of course, fighting an imaginary war, protecting them from all secret fascist societies and bringing onto them a wonderful, foodless world, while building ICBMs to save them from the evil imperialists. Because nukes were way more important than food, and dumb peasant boys like him could never understand the intrigues of democracy and true support of peace.

Honestly, if Feliks wasn’t actively suffering because of the Cold War, he would have called this just a mere game of two giant monkeys. This wasn’t about communism and capitalism or whatever, but a competition of how long their dicks were, while millions had to die as their heroes.

How was it again?

“If they insist, these cannibals on making heroes of us, they will soon know that our bullets are for our own generals.”

Feliks wished that it was that way. He didn’t want to kill innocent people.

Anyways, so he was convinced that Comrade Braginsky was the devil reincarnated until just recently. During one of his routine check-ups, -which weren’t officially that, but everyone knew the reason why he extensively inspected everything and everyone in the building - and everything was going well and dandy. For once Feliks could wear his clean, formal uniform to give the major general the “honour he deserved”, who finally left the cave called his room, and the presumably mountains of paperwork there. Everything was normal that day, until he was ordered to take the trash out that had been rotting in the kitchen for weeks. Because of the lack of alternative, they had no choice but to leave the sacks full of rubbish at the back of the building until someone would take it away at the end of the month from those who had licences to dispose of it properly.

Well, that was a completely normal task too, but what he didn’t expect at all was to see the older man kneeling on the ground, trying to aid a bird with broken wings suffering. That didn’t mean Feliks suddenly liked him and all, forgiving all the corrupt and stupid shit he did, but well, if someone was trying to help the helpless, they must have had some humanity in them, right? It was a small albeit impactful moment in Feliks’ eyes, that he just couldn’t ignore even if he wanted.

Comrade Braginsky could have been a human, like all the soldiers, because even he had the sleeping apprehension what it meant to be a human in his head, and Feliks wanted to believe that it wasn’t hopeless that it awakens one day. Just like he wanted to believe in Tolys too. Because deep inside, they had to know that this was wrong, right? Behind all brainwashing and propaganda imbedded into them, no matter what nation one belonged to, everyone must have had some kind of moral in them.

But well, Feliks knew better than to hold his hopes up. Naivety only brought curse on his head, so he understood that it would have been better to lock it tight up in his chest. But, if no one else would be a human in the inhumanity, didn’t that mean that he should stand up then?

That being said, he still didn’t like Comrade Braginsky, and neither did he like the fact that he couldn’t tear apart Gilbert analytically. Not knowing things pissed him off usually, especially if he got obsessed with a topic, and right now he quite literally didn’t have anything better to do.

And for his own sake, he really should rather stop having moral dilemmas on persons, and thinking about such useless things, when he rather should worry about not getting mange and lice into his hair, when he already heard some boys talking about how they constantly had to scratch themselves.

It wasn’t as if he never got any lice, actually it was quite common in his school, and the only thing he could do against it was to wash his hair on a daily basis. It was the absolute worst nightmare to bear, but he still hadn’t allowed ever to have his hair beautiful hair cut that he was so proud of. And well, he knew it too, that thorough hygiene practise wasn’t really available for him here, so he became quite paranoid. Well, at least he wanted to avoid it for one or two more months, until he can get out for his first leave.

But anyways, it wasn’t like there were any epidemics yet in the walls of the barracks, so he couldn’t complain.

And he had a relatively good day up until now. They were doing fist fight practise in pairs, and he had the fortune to be paired up with Gilbert. This time, he actually didn’t mind doing some training, because this was for once a good way of blowing some stress off. And who didn’t like a good sparring anyway? This was the best bonding activity one could hope for.

As Tomasz had pointed out, he was unusually positive today, despite his head still hurting quite a bit. He wasn’t used to drinking large amounts of alcohol, and honestly he didn’t want to get used to it, because never in his life would he have enough money to fuel two addictions. That, and he didn’t want to get a beer belly at the age of thirty. Despite everything, Feliks still considered himself quite a responsible person.

But in spite of all this, he still couldn’t compare to Gilbert in terms of having a good mood. He was practically gleaming with anticipation at their fight, as if this was all he ever dreamed of. Well, this was in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the first day of their fate being intervened, Feliks awaited to finally hitting him as a comeback of their first meeting. He wasn’t actually angry anymore, but that didn’t mean he forgot what happened. And since he was given a shit treatment since he was here, he had more than enough frustration building up inside of him.

So, he gladly started attacking, although he knew he had practically no chance of winning. Well, a draw would still sit better with him than an utter defeat, so he gave in his all, which he normally didn’t do. He didn’t want to disappoint him after all.

The fight was short lived though. Despite his efforts at dodging, the albino man still managed to overpower him easily, and Feliks started to assume that he didn’t even do football or the like as a sport, but some martial art. Logically, he shouldn’t have defeated him that easily, because Feliks took a pride in his planning skills, but now the fight was over before he even could begin planning. Like it was just a game of chess, and Gilbert already had a well-established blueprint to victory against the laymen.

Though, Feliks noted that he hadn’t hit particularly hard, just the necessary amount until he subdued him onto the ground, holding tightly but not uncomfortably his wrists behind his back. Still, he couldn’t understand how he lost that easily, when he was so sure that he could at least tire him out if nothing else.

Hm, he even managed to be annoying now.

“I thought you wouldn’t hold back?” smirked a bit jokingly the taller one.

“You don’t deserve me at my best if you don’t show me what you got either.” he pulled his brain, while preparing for a counterstrike. If he could just move his hand enough to grab Gilberts’ wrists as a crutch, then be fast enough to stand up and make him trip…

“I don’t want you to have it easy and just rest in the infantry for days.” Well, at least he was still his old, arrogant self no matter what happened.

“Really? You quite overestimate yourself. Ya know, the fight’s only over if I give up.” Smiled at him Feliks, while making a use of Gilbert lowering his guards, and he started executing his plan. Everything worked well and dandy for the first part, because he managed to break free from his constraints, but the momentum wasn’t enough to make him trip, so he had to be satisfied with throwing a punch at him. Feliks held his fists up defensively, one hand in front of his stomach and the other cowered the upper weak point, his head, while making sure to have a comfortable distance in between them.

This awakened an even bigger competitive monster inside of the fair-haired, the grin on his lips telling everything. He didn’t waste a single second and started attacking again, this time with a little more disorganisation, though no less anticipation. Feliks learnt from his former mistake, and now he knew he couldn’t rely on sole dodging, because it was all part of a plan on Gilbert’s side, so he started trying to counterattack when he could. This actually threw him a bit off, which was enough usually to make an escape route from his grasps.

“Now, that’s what I wanted to see.” said the red-eyed in between two breaths.

“Told you to not underestimate me.” because well, he initially started laughing at him when they got paired up, which was not fair at all. Feliks wasn’t some delicate flower who couldn’t even hurt a fly. Welp, yes, he didn’t want to hurt a fly, but if he had to, he’d do it.

Afterall, he wanted to survive, and live through all of this, no matter what he thought when he was at his lowest. And if one day, the kind and good great powers would really let their nukes loose, it’d be lame if he didn’t see the end of humanity and the destruction of everything unholy.

The spar continued for a good while after that, and he started minding it even less, like it was actually just a fun after-school activity and all. An innocent competition like a volleyball match at summer with his friends. And it seemed that the other enjoyed it as much as him, and genuinely not minding that Feliks wasn’t particularly strong or good at it.

He actually considered whether he liked this better, or shooting, which he had got progressively better at during the weeks. That was something he could easily out best Gilbert in, because of his shitty sight, but he found some pride in it, that he was amongst the best from the other newbies too.

On another though, yes. This was definitely better than shooting.

*

“Do you have a match? I left it in my bag.” asked Feliks while they were walking around yet again.

It was getting a bit repetitive that almost every day and night looked the same for him. A bit of an annoyance, but he also could at least find some kind of comfort in it. He kinda wished they would have met under different circumstances like in school or something. A bit more time with each other, where they didn’t have to hide in the blanket of the night, but could live their life free as a falcon.

He wondered what it would have been like then. Maybe these differences they had now would have been completely non-existent if they had grown up in the West, or well, after everything’s over. Of course, it was just a childish phantasmagory, but he liked to play with the thought.

But well, if it hadn’t been for conscription, they wouldn’t even have met probably. He would have moved west, not up north if he was free to do whatever he liked, because what would he even do in Szczecin?

No, Feliks liked to believe that everything happened for a reason in the world. They would have met anyways, he was sure. Just as he was sure that in another world Tolys wouldn’t have left him, and his parents would support him more to pursue his dreams. Because well, if he suffered through this once, what was the point if he had to do it again? It wouldn’t have made any sense, and saying God, who controlled their fate, would do something senselessly was mere blasphemy. In another world, he would get his happy ending.

“Hm, no I don’t have more, but I have an idea.” Gilbert stopped in his tracks and turned to Feliks. He nonchalantly stepped closer and leaned down to Feliks’ level, aiming his own cigarette in front of the blonde’s motioning to him to start breathing it in. At that, Feliks couldn’t help but blush slightly, and if he wasn’t gripping the filter with his teeth so hard, he would have dropped his cig from the surprise.

Of course, it shouldn’t have been that much of a deal, but he was still taken aback a bit. Technically, they shared more than enough cigs before, which some may have deemed much more intimate, but no, this topped that for Feliks. They were just too close, almost uncomfortably so, even if he usually loved physical contact, something felt a bit different this time around.

Gilbert didn’t act any different than how he usually did, so it shouldn’t have been a big deal. Neither should he act differently, because he had also no reason to. He was just drunk one night and asked an innocent thing. That’s it.

After a bit of trying, Gilbert managed to light it up, and Feliks was a bit relieved that he leaned away, though he didn’t understand why. Again, this was only weird if he made it out weird. But he couldn’t help but note also a sense of absence next to him. It was incomprehensible, and now he didn’t even want to understand it anymore.

“Thanks.”

“Sure. You know, you were better than I expected today.” smiled at him Gilbert more genuinely than ever. Most of the time, he just nagged him why he didn’t try his best at training, and how he couldn’t believe that he wasn’t able to do even simple tasks like push ups and the likes. That was so uncalled for, that Feliks would have happily slapped him, hadn’t he had more dignity.

“See, if I wanted, I totally could outrun you even at the eight kilometres.” it wouldn’t be like Feliks to take a compliment as it is, and Gilbert learnt it by now. It’s not like he was any different from him.

“Want a competition?” glanced at him the taller with childish comradery.

“Eh? Now you wanna run with me, but like you refused it yesterday?” crossed Feliks his arms in front of his chest with pretended disinterest. Of the fucking course he wants a competition.

“I hardly doubt you’d have gone far away before you threw up.”

“Nah, I totally was sober. Don’t you remember how perfect burpees I did too?” he himself giggled at that, because of the absurdity of that sentence. He wouldn’t have ever thought that he did those disgusting things voluntarily.

“Not even a pro athlete would do better.” Gilbert said sarcastically while rolling his eyes. Yeah, he tripped like twice during doing them, because by then the alcohol completely hit in. Another reason why he didn’t want to drink regularly; he didn’t want to make a fool of himself again.

“Anyways, race back to the main entrance? Looser gives five cigs to the winner.”

“You sure? That’s kind of generous knowing you’ll lose.” smirked the red eyed, and Feliks knew exactly that he just wanted to rile him up.

“I’m not about to let you win, that’s why I’m that generous.” shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly voice full of confidence.

“Aha, says so who—Wait! Come back you little shit, this isn’t fair!” but by the time he finished that, Feliks had already launched himself away and started sprinting as if he was chased by a murderer. Since Gilbert couldn’t take losing at all, he was quick to follow, and it wasn’t that big of a deal for him to catch up. Despite the initial advantage, Feliks couldn’t seem to run faster, but Gilbert somehow didn’t outrun him just yet.

That being said, the adrenalin and the want for victory was more motivating than he ever thought it would be. Maybe if they competed, he could even run down the compulsory distance without stopping.

Feliks didn’t even register how the outside aera blurred beside him, his focus only on getting to the finish first. His hearing dulled, and little black dots started appearing in the edge of his vision, while the carrot was swaying in front of him. He had to make it. This wasn’t even about the cigarettes, but his very precious pride.

And well, he had to admit that he had fun. So, all the while he had a determined smile on his face and if he didn’t know better, he would have started laughing too. Because he felt himself like the stupid little kid that died inside him yet again, free from the responsibilities from this world. Like, he was actually enjoying himself for the second time of the day, and it’d been a long time since he wasn’t sad at all for that long. No thoughts of suicide, or the want to escape from this reality, because he liked everything exactly how it was, and quite honestly, he didn’t want this to end at all.

He wanted to keep that carrot in front of him forever and even on, no matter if he was beaten by a stick from behind. But he just wanted to freeze this moment and never reach the finish. Was it really too much to ask?

In spite of that, he couldn’t let himself be defeated, so he tried keeping up with Gilbert and in the end, none of them could tell who the real winner was, since they arrived almost at the same time. Obviously, this was way more than Feliks was built to handle, so he collapsed then and there, merely laying on the ground, while Gilbert was still walking around to cool down. Always the one with proper training etiquette, wasn’t he?

“Fuck. I’m keeping my cigs.” and pride but Feliks only added that in his head. It was a bit ridiculous that this was the first thing he managed to get out after finally catching his breath, and the other started to giggle at that.

“Are you actually fit in hidden sight or what?” asked the taller, who was now leaning against a tree. Feliks thought it was intimidating at first that the place was in the middle of the forest, cut away by everything and the only way to society was led by a sole dirt path, which was scarred by truck traces. Now, he got used to love the forest and appreciate the isolation because despite being a city boy, his romantic heart was always captivated by the nature. Under any other circumstances, he would even like this place honestly.

“How do you know that I hadn’t lied about what I want to do with my life? I might as well be the next Olympic winner in our generation.”

“Now that’s a bit far, don’t you think?

“Dare to dream big I guess.”

Gilbert walked to the place where Feliks was lying, and he reached his hand to him, to help him get up. Feliks was still very much knocked out, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, but he accepted the hand with a smile on his lips.

“But in no way, shape or form do I agree to walk around now, I very much hope you don’t mind it, otherwise you do the rounds alone.” continued Feliks with a certain bitchiness in his voice, that he knew would annoy him.

At that, Gilbert sighed with disappointment, who probably wanted to have more of his cool down initially, but opted for the company in the end, which made Feliks feel even more victorious. He only silently acknowledged that, since the other didn’t say a word also, and he didn’t yet feel like breaking the comfortable silence between them. Usually, the blonde liked to chatter just about anything and everything, but now, he was compelled to keep things this serene.

Maybe he could accept not annoying Beilschmidt once and just exist in his company.

*

Dear little cousin,

How have you been? I’m sincerely sorry I haven’t written sooner, but I barely have time to go and speak with auntie. Honestly, I’m kind of ashamed I only now know that you’d been drafted, but I hope my letter reaches you anyways.

It’s been a while since we last spoke, hadn’t it been? Recently I managed to get hold of Hedvika, who got engaged all the while, and she didn’t even send me a letter! It’s totally not fair, but I guess that made me realize neither I made an effort at keeping our relationship. Thinking back how much fun we all had when we were children, makes my heart clench in misery. I mean, I still don’t understand how it all happened, that one day we all just stopped talking and the like. It shouldn’t have been this way.

But now, enough of the moping. I mentioned Vika is to be married, and she asked me to ask you when you can leave for the weekend, because she doesn’t want you to be left out. I feel honoured that despite everything I’ll be her best woman, but it wouldn’t be the same without you. I haven’t met her spouse yet, but I hope he’s a great guy fit for our Vika. Only, I can’t help but wonder if it’s too fast. I remember she was always quite headstrong and rash, just like me, but anyways. Let’s hope for the best, because we can’t do anything more than that.

For me, there's been nothing much happening. The hospital is still the same old hospital, you know the gist of it. I don't want to waste any more ink for that, because I'm soon out of it. The only thing worth mentioning is, that a new nurse, Iryna joined us recently. Now, we're sharing a flat together next to the hospital and she's absolutely the cutest. Her sister is around you're age, I'm sure you'd get along with her too. I guess I bring her to the wedding, because I still don't have a fiancé. You know, both my mother and auntie has been nagging me because of it, but I only now started working! It'd be a bad omen if I left this soon and the likes. I'm actually enjoying life this way, like all my sufferings to study had been worth it, you know? Eh, I still don't understand why we had to study pathology since I'm mostly just registering vaccines and changing bed sheets, but anyways. I don't mind that I'm not a doctor or anything.

But enough about me, how have you been Feliks? I hope they're not too harsh on you, but I'm guessing you don't find the training too enjoyable. Hope for the best still though, since you're my favourite little brother I never had. Please, don't spare me the details, I want to know everything. If you want, then I can tell something to Vika too, that is if you don't want to or can't write more letters.

My sincere wishes,

Your Erzsi

*

My dearest Felix,

I hope you have a good day given the circumstances. I know it’s been a while since I’ve written you anything, but now at last, Eliška’s stupid sentimentalism got me, and well, I wanted to reach out to you. Don’t think to deep about it, even I can miss my little cousins sometimes.

I’m guessing Eliška already told you about my marriage and all, since she could never shut her mouth up. I mean, that’s not particularly a bad thing, cause at least I got to know all the juiciest rumours around the neighbourhood, but sometimes it can be a bit annoying that she’s got looser tongue than an elderly villager lady. Anyways, I still want to formerly invite you to my wedding, though the date depends on when you can get your free day.

I haven’t told this her, but you actually know my fiancé already. He asked me to keep it secret, but you know, some things run in the family. He’s Jakub, which name I hope really rings a bell to you, otherwise this is all kind of embarrassing. Anyways, he’s been thinking about having you as his best man, since he doesn’t have a lot of acquaintances around here. And like, to not show favouritism to Eliška or whatever. So, that’s why we’re adamant about you coming.

You can bring someone if you’d like. I don’t know if you have a girlfriend already or not, but you can bring one of your friends too, I don’t mind it. The more the merrier and such. And you surely won’t have this kind of good food for a while after that.

I spare you the details now, because we haven’t yet planned far away. The only thing sure, is that most of it would be held at our grandparent’s, and the neighbour girl’s, Regina’s house to have enough place for the guests. She’s quite cute to help us, isn’t she?

But you know, I’ll write you a follow up if we can get more concrete things. Although I’m waiting for mostly a practical response, do not leave out your part of the tale telling either. Despite what you may think, I still care about you and Eliška, you know? Sorry I’ve been kind of silent, but you two hadn’t written to me either, and it’s kinda sad. I understand you both have your works, and so do I, but we’re still a family. Though, guess it’s enough of complaining, cause I feel like that’s the only thing I do nowadays.

I’m waiting for your reply Felix, so hurry up.

With all my love,

Hedvika

*

Feliks was ecstatic to say the least, that he got not just one, but two letters from those he the least expected from. He was still waiting for his parents’, but it never seemed to arrive because of something, which he was more than disappointed by. Almost sad even, but then he reminded himself, that it shouldn’t surprise him by now. At least, his cousins still thought about him.

Now, the second round of emotions after the initial surprise was confusion mixed with being flabbergasted. Like, he couldn’t understand at all what Jakub was doing in Poland, and why or how was he marrying Hedvika, and he just needed to sit down for a minute until he comprehended it. This was just so weird, that one of his friends would marry into the family, and he didn’t know about it all.

Okay, of course he wasn’t the best at keeping touch with people, because he never really liked writing letters, despite his enjoyment of humanities and the such. It felt more awkward that he couldn’t see people’s honest first reaction at things he said or did, which made him feel uneasy. He could almost hear the girls saying that in their own voices, but their face remained blank and empty, and it was just weird.

Despite that, he wanted to write back as soon as he could to both of them from the sheer amount of happiness he felt. Because God, his dear cousin will get married, and he’s the best man of the groom, of course he was so glad for them.

Although, he couldn’t help but be reminded of their parents pushing him towards finding a girl and marrying soon too. That was an unfortunate thing lingering always at the back of his mind, as he just knew that that would be impossible. Simply, and merely, but he didn’t know how he wanted to put it to them. Obviously, he wouldn’t tell the truth, and he never planned to, but he had to give an explanation someday.

Now, at first he didn’t plan to take up on the offer that he could bring someone, but it seemed now much more attractive in his eyes. He planned to rekindle things with the girls, but obviously they wouldn’t be right beside him the whole night, and he had to try avoiding his parents as much he could during the wedding, to not bother him about hurrying with marriage too.

Because that was a constant topic since a while, even if he just turned eighteen, because he never even had someone that he fancied. No one except him anyways, but he’ll bring that to his grave. It wasn’t something they were willing to understand, not despite all his excuses about needing to keep his grades up and the likes. All the empty lies.

Yeah, that was probably a more sensible reason than the wrong position of the stars about why he never got along with his parents. It’s just that, there were a few things he’d rather delete from his mind for an eternity, and that part of him was the prime example of that. Feliks just hated that he couldn’t think about girls the way he did about men. It was unnatural and weird for him, something that made his stomach churn and want to throw up, and the fear if it ever got out felt paralysing. Because he knew that despite everything it was wrong. And he felt himself disgusting to sleep and shower and see other men, who didn’t know about his unnatural way of thinking, like he was some creep.

Partly, even he thought that this logic was ridiculous, but then his better judgment shushed that part just as fast as it came. It was like even he was afraid to accept himself, and outright refused to change that opinion, even if otherwise, he was quite a sound minded person.

And it usually wasn’t much of a deal, just when he got reminded by the fact that he did actually feel attracted by men. The worst of it was really, that he even started overanalysing and misunderstanding friendly gestures, and he was paranoid that they were onto him, wanting to catch him red handed, that he did have feelings towards men. While of course, he did feel guilty, that those people didn’t know that he was gay and they dared to act like that with him, whilst if they did know it, they’d avoid him as much as they could. Because it wasn’t even a question whether they’d be disgusted with him. He just knew for a fact that they would.

So again, he locked that thought process under a tight lock, because he didn’t want to feel all sad and whiny, when he should be filled with joy instead. Yeah, and he should start thinking about his other person.

Well, he did have a person in my mind for a flash the very minute he read those words, but he was a bit unsure whether it’d be a good idea. They weren’t even that much of friends, but he was a good company, and he was sure he wouldn’t feel awkward being put into a situation with full of strangers, exactly a wedding, where he knew neither the bride nor the groom. Hedvika was kind and all, but Feliks would feel himself awkward if he were to be put in a situation like this. Even going over to friends’ home when he was younger felt like an intrusion but this…

Though it’s going to be a big wedding anyway. He was sure he himself didn’t know half of the guests either, since he lost track of the names outside his next to immediate family. And Vika always liked a good blowout. Perhaps he was just a bit too socially awkward, and that was it.

Yet, he didn’t know how he’d bring it up to Gilbert. He was his best and only guess – since forgive him, but he felt even less comfortable about inviting Tomasz – and by his logic, it was for the better to bring him for albeit a bit selfish, but practical reasons.

He wasn’t sure if he’d even agree. This was a wound bleeding from various places, along with the whole planning of the wedding, and he didn’t even know the answer yet to the more pressing issue; when he’ll have his first leave. He didn’t want to keep the girls waiting, as both of them were a bit pesky and impatient, but it’d be lame to waste ink on a pointless letter, because he didn’t have a lot of it left, and he doubted too many of the others would be in possession of a new bottle. That was a bit harder to trade than cigarettes.

Alas, he had at least time to figure out how to invite Gilbert, and what to write to the girls, because he in an angle had so much to tell, yet also so little. He wanted to tell these things to everyone, yet no one, and once honesty hit in, he didn’t know when to stop. Maybe he really was just overthinking a lot of useless things, but that thought also didn’t help at all. It was just, a bit hard being honest to others when he couldn’t be genuine with himself either. Of course, he knew it was wrong, but quite frequently, it felt as if the truth picked his eyes more painfully than to care about fighting against it and he let those hurtful needles win.

Sometimes, it was better to just live with a sleeping mask made of iron on, letting the truth never disturb his sleepless slumber he never wanted to wake up from.

Chapter Text

Feliks has been living up in the clouds as of recently in spite of his shitty mental health. Almost like, fuck him, he didn’t have any problems to begin with. As if he was free from all the burden looming over his shoulder, previously following him like his shadow. He couldn’t even care about reality; not him getting more and more distanced from Tolys, not his parents screaming at him, and not his crushed dreams. He felt livelier than ever, and getting up was way less of a tiresome task than before.

And all because of xXGtheAwesomeXx, who had one of the cringiest usernames Feliks have ever seen online – and as someone chronically online he had seen his fair share of those – but a heart matching to it’s edginess. As he himself said, it was better to be cringe and free, which is one of the wisest things Feliks have heard. And yeah, that meant that he also got to know that he was talking with a man, and if it was the truth, he also was around the same age as Feliks.

Naturally, he was kinda suspicious at first at that, because of said cringy username which he didn’t want to believe that it was actively used by someone over the age of thirteen, but slowly he was convinced otherwise. As probably everyone would be after listening to hours of ranting about how he didn’t want to go to school, and how he’ll fail his last year, and he wouldn’t be accepted to university. Based on how frequent G’s rants were, he couldn’t be not telling the truth, it was just too raw and honest.

In addition, he was also the dorkiest, dumbest smart person Feliks had seen, and he now understood that yes, he completely unironically loved his username, and didn’t think anything of it. Compared to him, Feliks was still cursing himself that he embarrassed himself in front of thousands of people with his old LoL username, even if probably none of his online friends remembered the infamously bad “FelitheKiller”. No one except Tolys anyways. He couldn’t imagine what went down in his head when he chose that name, and how could he had been proud of himself for figuring that out.

Though he couldn’t help but think a bit fondly at the little Feliks who thought he was absolutely the coolest kid on the web. When things were a bit easier than now. Maybe having to face the reality on the Internet too, was a bit too much for his faint heart. He kinda envied G, that he could unapologetically stay himself despite his age and all. Feliks didn’t think though that he could do something like that. Again, he thought a bit much of outer appearances than he should have. Or could it be that he was the normal one? Well, depends on the perspective, but Feliks still though that he might be a bit too much.

Anyway, they were like texting non stop, just like he did before with Tolys. It was quite a while ago that Feliks skipped on sleep just to talk to someone, and he was basking in the nostalgic comfort it brought on him. It’s just like with playing video games, he was always reminded of his childhood when all he thought about was being immersed in the world of a game. Like all his problems magically disappeared. And it was like that with G too.

Of course, it was weird that he didn’t even know his name, but that gave also a certain mysterious charm to the whole thing. Feliks could have imagined him as anyone he wanted. He sometimes wondered though how he really looked like, but of course he didn’t want to seem creepy about it to ask for pictures.

From what he gathered, this G doesn’t really use other sites nor is much of a gamer. It was a little lame that he doesn’t have discord, and Feliks wasn’t ready to give real information about him out yet, – meaning his Facebook - so they had to keep chatting there on the fanfic site. He is a bit like Tolys, in the way at least that he was a straight A student, but he wasn’t that humble about it like the Lithuanian man. Or if he was humble, than it was because he was anxious about his tests.

Feliks almost wished he could be like him. Like, G only worried about his grades, and Feliks wished he could be in place. Like, he had his whole life collapsing, while he was just a bit whiny about his grades. A simple case of an overachiever. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? As he said, he wasn’t even abusing any substances. He would have been a model student with a bit better behaviour.

If Tolys would have heard him thinking that, he most likely would want to slap him. But it did seem childish for him, because he just couldn’t take school seriously at all. Especially that all the while G complained a lot about having to study. He didn’t has to, as it was his choice. Feliks just couldn’t fathom how came he complained this much, or how he could care about it at all.

Somehow though, both of their arrogance seemed to settle down when they were just chatting. That guy probably didn’t have a lot of friends, and neither did Felkis, so they kinda matched. Only two equally insufferable people can take up with each other’s rubbish. And it just made Feliks feel so giddy inside, that someone actually enjoyed his true self.

Like okay, he did have friends, but he knew he couldn’t act all cynical and sassy all the time, because that would make people turn away. It was bad enough that there was only this much he could do about being difficult and whiny, but if he was borderline rude, then he knew he would be even less liked than before.

The only exception before was Tolys, but right now, they haven’t been talking much. Maybe it was true that all online friends are bound to disappear and give up on you and the only two reason Feliks could explain this with was either Tolys’ new partner, or himself. Frankly, he didn’t know much about that man Tolys replaced him with, and neither did he want to know, but sure as hell blamed him for the fact that his Tolys was taken away from him. For the most part anyways.

The problem lay in the fact that he was painfully honest with Tolys, meaning he acted as casual with him as he could, and never cared about suppressing the less pretty sides and habits of him, which was now proven to be a grave mistake. Afterall, despite the obvious mastermind that his new little boyfriend was, Feliks also may have been at the wrong a bit. Because it’s true that it must be a bore to hear him bitching about his petty problems, while Tolys had enough on his plate already. It wasn’t fair that he forced him to listen and didn’t get it sooner that he should fuck off. Though, this all still left a bad taste in his mouth. He couldn’t have been that bad, or was he?

Ah, it doesn’t matter anymore. What’s done is done, and he royally fucked up their relationship. It wasn’t meant to be, it seems, no matter how hurtful it was for Feliks. He just had to let it go, like he let go of everything else too. The blonde just couldn’t understand why was that so hard.

But it didn’t seem like G minded it. Like, him as a whole. He was texting him from his own, and Feliks found himself expectant constantly for any messages, and when something happened with him, his first thought became to write it down for him. Their relationship was developing weirdly fast if he had to be honest, but Feliks was already far too deep in this shit than to care about it. He couldn’t really be stopped when he started obsessing over a person or anything really. His brain decided that for him, and he had no choice but to comply. And just maybe, he finally found the soulmate he yearned for.

Surprisingly, they got along in spite of not really having shared interests, expect the obvious love for the same fandom. Maybe it was again Feliks who was weird for not being really into humanities despite being a writer, but G was definitely a literature kid. He passingly mentioned a lot of references Feliks had to google to not look that dumb or uncultured but after a while he had to stop pretending that he understood them. Like that man was a spouting encyclopaedia.

But well, he supposes that’s what smart kids are like who care about their studies. Maybe Feliks would have been exactly like that if he gave a shit, but it’s not like it particularly bothered him either. It’s just that he naturally feels as if he’s constantly being in a competition with someone, and he has to prove himself. He didn’t like to be outbested, and frankly, he considered taking up some reading or whatever, but he just couldn’t find himself to sit down and concentrate that long. Films were kinda okay if he played something all the while, but a book was too much for his nerves to handle since he was a little child. Only fanfictions were okay. And that time he read War and Peace from sheer egoism.

That, and the guy apparently is doing football too while also attending music school, while Feliks mostly just mops in his bed all day. But he promised him jokingly once, that he’s going to see one of his concerts one day, when he can. Feliks genuinely didn’t get how someone could have the motivation to play multiple instruments, be a polyglot, do sport and keep perfect grades at the same time. It was almost as if he wasn’t even a real person that he could keep his sane while doing all of that.

He wondered though how much of it was genuine motivation coming from himself, and how much was just pressure, but that’s a touchy topic he had no right to ask about. Maybe one day. Or again, he was just being arrogant and jealous at other people for being naturally better than him. Envy was an evil little monster hiding deep in his heart, knowing very well that he did have the potential to be just like that.

It was too late to change a thing though, so whatever.

Feliks always lived as if the next day would be his last. If it wasn’t, even then, he probably didn’t have more than a few years left to live. He could already see the vision of his demise being clearer with each night spent in this earthly realm. It wasn’t like he could pinpoint his cause of death like he was fortune teller from Delphi, but he had this feeling of inevitable doom. That life was over when he truly became an adult after a few years of paying the bills and working. He just couldn’t imagine his life beyond maybe twenty-four. Even that seemed a lot, considering that time crawled slow and excruciating, without a pint of mercy in her. Well, not if he was talking to G.

He smiled bitterly at his phone one more time after publishing the new chapter of his story. Although, he knew it was kinda pointless, since G asked to have the chance to proofread it, and he already expressed his opinion about it.

Feliks couldn’t help but wonder why the mannerism of that man felt so familiar to him.

*

The Polish boy was in objective, utter and absolute agony on PE lesson.

Firstly, it was kinda embarrassing to change clothes in front of others when his body was still full of bruises from the encounters with Beilschmidt. At least, it comforted him a bit to see that he visibly felt equally awkward as him. Thankfully, the others didn’t ask, so he didn’t have to come up with a smart excuse, but Iryna was right. He can’t hide this for long, especially since in the early summer and spring he wouldn’t want to wear a sweater obviously. And if the boys wouldn’t ask, the teacher probably would, and he didn’t want to cause another scene, this time with him as the only one and complete victim.

That was just only the beginning though, since nothing came out of changing very obviously. No, the worst part was only jeering him from a distance with malicious eyes, as if it was watching for its pray, which this time Feliks was.

They were running two kilometres at the beginning of the class, and he got a glorious – and mind you, very gracious – mark two at that, barely passing the minimum. Of course, he was shitty at running, but the constant nausea made the ordeal a whole lot worse, and his head also hurt like hell all the while, as if it wanted to explode.

He didn’t want to tell the teacher, because he was mad at him from the start at results of his futile attempt. It wasn’t something he hadn’t experienced before, actually it was quite frequent, and he didn’t want to complain because of it. Feliks just couldn’t understand what was wrong with him, that even the girls seemed barely tired compared to him, and he was like suffering in all PE classes.

And it was even the more annoying that he almost failed not because of his lack of stamina, but because he could barely walk straight from his vision starting to blur together. He didn’t have any medical papers that would have proved his claims though, that he wasn’t just making shit up for pity. But okay, he could stomach a bad grade from PE. Feliks couldn’t give a fuck about PE, because it was absolutely the stupidest class ever, and he wanted to be left alone.

Everything would have been well and dandy, if their teacher wasn’t just a fucking freak who loved torturing them. When he announced that they are going to play dodgeball Feliks was close to fainting already before, but he actually started feeling himself worse by even the mention.

That could be written off as being dramatic, sure. For a while, it was okay too. He was in the same team as Natallia, which he was glad for, because he liked her, and she was great at aiming, just like him. Despite having a lack of stamina, dodgeball awoke the competitiveness inside him, and he gave in his all to dodge and aim. He took every fucking game seriously as if it was a question of life and death.

But Aleksandra, their team leader had absolutely no idea about relationships in the class, or she was just merely a dick, because she chose fucking Gilbert Beilschmidt to play with them. Feliks didn’t like that at all, not just because he specifically liked to compete against him, but he was also disgusted by the thought of working together with him. And sadly, this was a team game. This was like as bad as if they had to stand next to each other while playing Red Rover. He refused from conviction to cooperate with the other boy at all.

The only, very very slight positive in this was that Beilschmidt was a brute, and he threw the ball hard. With full force, to make it sting for a while at least, if not make it actively painful. Or well, Feliks had no idea if it was just when he was aiming at him, or with others too. Because Feliks sure as hell he did raise the force which he used when throwing the ball at him.

And now quite honestly, Feliks was the closest in his life ever to collapse simply. The nausea still didn’t stop, and his vision was not just blurry anymore, but black dots started appearing first in the outer area of his sight, then they slowly appeared in the centre too. It was like watching white noise on the TV. Feliks tried not to panic, while still trying his best to continue on with the game, but coordination proved to be the more and more difficult with every second that passed, and he found it hard to keep his eyes open for longer periods. Now, he definitely knew he had to sit down, but he couldn’t find the strength to call out to the teacher.

It happened under a mere second. Feliks just stumbled backward, bumped into some poor fellow who stood behind him, and his whole body went limp, while said stranger tried holding him up. It probably didn’t take a genius to figure out something was wrong with him, because the faint buzz of the outside world stopped almost immediately and turned dead silent as soon as he collapsed.

“What the fuck are you doing Łukasiewicz? Hey, can you hear me you bastard?” Ah, that was just his luck, but he didn’t have the strength to complain now, as he barely even felt as if he was there. Feliks did frequently feel lightheaded especially after moving a lot around, but this time it felt as everything was amplified ten times the usual dizziness. It was almost like when he used to have vertigo regularly when his sleeping schedule was especially unhealthy and quite as well non-existent.

He didn’t know if he was actually shaken a little, or it was just him imagining things, but he started shaking his head anyways, as if it would make things stop all at once. The only thing he achieved though, that the dizziness got even worse, so he stopped as fast as he started it.

Feliks registered some the voice of his teacher along side Gilbert’s, who sounded quite worked up, but the blonde couldn’t actually make sense of any words that were said. He was almost in a dreamy state, not really in touch with reality, or any part of his own body. He collapsed like the pretty doll he always wanted to be.

After their presumable little argument was over, the albino lifted him up a bit, while navigating his arm around his shoulders and grabbing onto his side to have a proper hold on him. Feliks couldn’t even find himself ashamed that he put all his weight on the other man, because he simply just couldn’t hold himself up.

The best would be, if they just left him the fuck to lie down, but no, of course not.

“Can you walk? Feliks, keep attention to me. Are you here?” the Polish man just absently nodded, very much hoping that was what he excepted from him, because his hearing still wasn’t the best. The other murmured something in a lower voice, probably cursing him and this whole thing, and began to drag him somewhere. Feliks’ vision was still blurry, his hanging hand on his side was shaking like crazy, and he felt as if he sweated out the whole Black Sea at least.

Feliks couldn’t keep his eyes open, otherwise he knew he’d just throw up, and no matter how much he hated Beilschmidt, it would be a dick move to vomit on him when he was – albeit reluctantly – but helping at him. Despite that, he tried to keep his chin up, ever the proud man he was. To be honest, he rather would have been left at the floor than to have Gilbert help him, but sadly alea iacta est. Now, he just had to somehow keep the remaining of his dignity.

If his legs wouldn’t be shaking this much, it’d be probably a lot easier to do that, because he could at least walk on his own, rather than having the taller one drag him. And the way they made was ridiculously long to what he may guess was the nurse’s office. He couldn’t tell where they were, but either he was slowing down Beilschmidt that much, or he’s bringing him somewhere else to kill him or something. Honestly, the second seemed even more believable considering he wasn’t that heavy, and the albino was just in fact strong.

Just when he was gathering strength to start complaining that the position he was in was uncomfortable, and that it was improper that his T-shirt rolled up that much, Gilbert slowly started pealing him off of him. Feliks turned confused at that, still not knowing where he was and wasn’t, until he leaned back against the cold wall behind him.

Ah, they were probably in the dressing room. Yeah, that made sense, since the nurse probably would have him take his sweater off to measure his blood pressure and whatever. If it was anyone else, he would have thanked them for being considerate about that. Beilschmidt though, he was just probably afraid that Feliks would snitch on him, that was all.

The blonde slowly tried to open his eyes to check if the black spots were still there in his vision. He was glad to find though, that he was able to see a lot clearer than before and the shaking his hand stopped somewhat. He just noticed how loud his own breathing was, as he desperately tried calming the panic he never even realised that took over him.

And than his stomach grumbled, which was very embarrassing since Feliks couldn’t react fast enough to try to hold it back. Gilbert, who was pacing around the room nervously, probably fearing that Feliks would faint or something stopped abruptly, realisation hitting his face. With a scoff, he turned to his bag, searching for something in it, then threw it at Feliks, who somehow managed to catch it. After all, he was convinced that whatever happened with him before was just a moment of weakness, and now he’s fully cured and healthy and all.

He examined the little package of sandwich in front of him, and he got the memo that Beilschmidt wanted him to eat it, but he didn’t really want to. He wasn’t hungry after all, it’s just maybe that his blood sugar dropped for a minute or two. It was nothing special or out of the ordinary.

“Do you want me to feed you or what are waiting for?” asked the man with an edge in his voice that left no room for argument. Still it wouldn’t be like Feliks to give up so fast, no matter what happened.

“Hm, yeah pamper your helpless princess.” he let out a dry laugh victoriously, as he knew Beilschmidt was on the edge already.

“Shut the fuck up and eat it or—”

“Or what? Gonna prove me how stronger you are than poor old me, who can’t even see straight? Quite cool and admirable, if I had to say. Peak big brother role model.”

The albino started rubbing nose bridge in an attempt to calm down, while slowly trying to breathe in and out. It was almost a funny sight, had Feliks not been still in complete agony. Anyways, it was lame that as it seemed, he didn’t want to continue arguing with him.

“Listen, I don’t care about your anorexic freak ass at all, but if you pass out or something, it’s on me and not you. I did you a favour to not bring you to the nurse, now do me one in return and eat that goddamn sandwich.”

Feliks was a bit taken aback at that. Like sure, he may have skipped eating a few times a day, but he wasn’t doing it intentionally or because he had a problem with how he looked like. Afterall, he knew he was pretty. He’d been told that countless of times, and he wholeheartedly agreed with it. Sure, he was a bit slim for boys his age, but that was just the doing of his hormones, that’s all.

“I’m not-“

“Don’t even start it.” cut in this time the other while settling down next to him finally, sitting surprisingly close to Feliks. The blonde started at the food in his hands one more time, before deciding that just this time, he’ll eat it.

He took a small, cautious bite, but deciding that it tasted good, and maybe he really was a bit hungry, more eager ones followed it, one after the other and the sandwich was gone in a few seconds. For once, Feliks felt full, yet hungrier than ever at the same time, almost as if he was desperate for something more. All the while Beilschmidt popped open a can of Tiger beside him, then he nudged his shoulder, as if asking if he wants some, which Feliks gladly accepted.

They sat in silence for a while, Feliks trying to gather his thoughts. Obviously, this was one of his gravest fuck ups, and now he had to be sure to avoid this again, because now he felt as if he was indebted to Gilbert. Well, not as if, because he really owed him. He just hoped their teacher wouldn’t make too much of a fuss because of this, as Feliks didn’t want even more trouble with his parents.

“Fuck, I’m sorry. I pay you back, I swear.” pushed Feliks those words out as if it hurt him to even say them out loud. And it did in fact hurt his ego like hell.

“I don’t mind it. Just don’t repeat this again. I couldn’t bother you after all, if you just randomly drop dead because you don’t eat enough.” Feliks’ lips curled a bit upwards at that, almost invisibly. Yeah, he did like fucking with Gilbert too. He would kinda miss not having a nemesis. He took a gulp once again from the energy drink, while passing it back to him. Their fingers brushed for a mere second when Gilbert reached for it, and they flinched away as fast as they met with each other.

“Wanna skip the rest of the class? I must have a cig right now.” asked Feliks slowly turning his head toward the other, but made no move stand up. He tried blaming the fact that his body still felt sore and weak, but inside, he knew if he wanted to, he could have stood up with ease. Maybe he just didn’t want to break this rare moment of peace between them.

“Are you like, really this addicted? I don’t care what you do, but I’m not coming with you to smell stinky all day.” he also turned his head towards Feliks, and it only just then downed on him how close they were. And Gilbert had an objectively handsome face. He was a bit too pale, as if he was sick, but he made it up with his dark clothes, and the contrast managed to look more than decent. His eyes although a bit bleak but still looked like glowing compared to his fair complex. He was like a winter landscape with a bleeding animal in the centre, painting the snow red.

Okay maybe he wasn’t objectively handsome, but Feliks thought he was pretty anyway. And again, he couldn’t shake off the feeling of déjà vu when looking at him. How did his brother look like again?

“Hm, guess I can stay here too. I forgot my lighter at home anyways.” said Feliks that almost as a whisper, as if afraid that he’d ruin everything between them if he was a bit louder. Gilbert’s pupils dilated as if he was high or something, completely focused on Feliks, while Feliks imagined he mirror him exactly. Feliks swallowed slowly the built up saliva in his mouth, while trying to hold back his breathing. He didn’t understand why he did that, or what was wrong with him, but he felt his face getting hotter and all his muscles tensed up.

Feliks completely lost all control over his body, as he swore his hand started creeping on his own slowly towards Gilbert’s. Somehow, the other didn’t seem to mind when Feliks’ pinkie finger wrapped around his own, and neither did he seem to care about the fact that in a split of a second, all of their fingers intertwined firmly and desperately. His hand was sweaty and warm, probably nervous as fuck about this whole ordeal, just like Feliks was, but the blonde couldn’t even care if Gilbert’s nails dug into his skin painfully, because he only cared about the fact that he was there.

“I…I’ve been—” started Gilbert but he was cut short by the bells ringing and the door slamming open with it. At that, they jumped apart from each other, sincerely hoping no one has seen that little scene, and Gilbert quickly made his way back to his backpack.

Feliks closed his eyes again, and leaned against the wall, confused and disgusted with himself. Like, what the actual fuck was that? He clenched his fists hurtfully, cutting little red crescent moons around his palms.

*

Feliks didn’t frequently do weed, only when he was really stressed. It tasted better than cigarettes, the effect lasted longer, and he needed to have his mind clouded over by something. And, to see a wonder, Natallia actually asked him out when she saw him all frustrated in Polish class. She was casual about it, as if she wasn’t even afraid that he’d snitch on her. A simple question and simple answer.

So he called his father that he’s going to sleep over at one of his friends, who’ll help him with his German homework, just obviously didn’t mention that said friend was a girl, to not make him freak out. Or maybe he wouldn’t, unlike his mother. But anyways, Natallia did agree to share her notes about that stupid book and help to draw something with him. Just as Iryna said, maybe the Belarusian girl had actually a heart of gold. It’s just that she rarely if ever showed it.

They didn’t talk a lot, but Feliks preferred it that way because he thought his head was going to blow up any other way. Natallia was a fair bit shorter than him, and she looked kinda cute being wrapped up in a big scarf and a huge overcoat. Somehow, the sweet appearance went so against her whole person, that the contrast was almost morbid, but Feliks decided despite that, that he liked the girl.

It still baffled him that suddenly, she wanted to do drugs with him out of the blue. Maybe it was her way of offering some kind of therapy or comfort after the things in PE? Anyway, it was still kind of her, despite being a bit awkward that no words were said between them. It could be that she was waiting for him to be ready to talk. After all, prying was useless if he didn’t want to, and she seemed to do everything very purposefully, even if it didn’t make sense for him at first. That was just another way of thinking and living he could never understand and most likely never would.

They did exactly what they planned to. Her parents weren’t home, so they wouldn’t be caught in the act, or disturbed, which was just the perfect for Feliks, since he didn’t want to deal anymore with consequences. He much rather just stopped existing for a while until he can get his head straight.

She quietly showed him her notes, waited for him to read them, and then in similar fashion they started working. This meant more to Gilbert than money, he knew that. Originally, he didn’t plan to do it, just to mess with him, but Feliks had honour if nothing else. He wanted to pay back his due as soon as he could without any other useless complications. Natallia may have had a better life philosophy than him, that she freed herself from burdens like this.

Her room was anything but what he imagined, and honestly it was grotesquely cute and disturbing at the same time, just like her. The walls were painted baby pink, just like her bed sheets, and she had tons of cute plushies spread around the room. She had a vanity next to her closet, full with nail polishes and make up accessories on the desk. Various bows and head bands were hanging off the mirror, and her closet was also open, showing off her cutesy skirts and dresses. It was exactly how Feliks imagined a girl’s room would look like in the most stereotypical way.

Or it would have looked liked, hadn’t it been for the numerous militaria spread around the room. She had what looked like multiple types of uniforms mostly from the cold war, and the first world war era, the pink walls were tainted by various propaganda posters from different periods without any preference for ideologies. Probably only selected based on how cool they looked, since she also had a lot of war movie posters splattered up. She had a shelf full of guns and old swords, a gas mask was eerily laying on the ground, along with two haversacks. Over her bed, the white-red-white Belarusian flag was hung, and the cherry on the top was the accordion next to her bed.

Even she looked a bit embarrassed that she forgot about how nerdy she might have looked, but he quickly assured her that he didn’t mind it. It was a bit weird at first, but that was far from the first thought he had when he saw the room.

He felt almost concerned for her parents’ wallet, knowing very well how fucking expensive all these memorabilia were, especially if they were all genuine.

And honestly, it was cool that she was that passionate about something. She didn’t look like she cared about anything, but this clearly showed that even she had a dorky side to her, which made her look more human than before.

Though, he found it questionable why she still wanted to be a physicist if she was that obsessed with history and all. It was what he would call a missed potential.

But maybe, he would get the courage to ask her after a while. Not now, because he didn’t want to intrude or anything, making her more scared then encouraged to open up. Although, he definitely wanted to ask her to play the accordion. He just loved the sound of it, and he was sure she wouldn’t mind gloating about her stuff.

Though, he was even more eager about the other stuff. They were done quickly enough to still be sure that he’ll get a good grade on the illustration, and after that she urged him to go to the balcony, since she wouldn’t allow indoor smoking, which was more than fair given all that expensive reliques.

*

“Are you going to talk about it already?” asked Natallia a dew hours later. Or it wasn’t a few hours. It most likely wasn’t more than fifteen minutes or so, but it still felt as if it was to Feliks. They were lying on her bed next to each other, just listening to some quiet doomer playlist while staring out of their heads and enjoying their artificial euphoria. Somehow it didn’t feel awkward at all, despite what Feliks initially feared.

“I just forgot to eat breakfast and-“

“I’m not talking about that.” interrupted the long haired girl sternly and disapprovingly. She turned to her side, observing Feliks carefully, as if she wanted to get out the information she wanted just with her stern eyes. “Something bothers you. The whole day you looked as if you saw a ghost.”

“I don’t wanna think about that Natalka. Just – don’t.”

“You can’t keep on doing weed forever to run aways from your problems.”

“I thought it was you who offered it, and not the other way around.”

“That much is true. But you accepted. You must have a reason for that.”

“I hadn’t accepted a therapy session though.” he turned to face the girl, withstanding her gaze, which was far from intimidating with how red her eyes were. This was the longest conversation they ever held, which in retrospect made it seem even stupider that he accepted her offer.

“Consider this my due for helping.”

“You become insufferably chatty when high naturally, or is this specifically for me only?” she giggled a bit at that, which may or may not have been aided by the fact that even the blandest things seemed funny when on weed.

“But you do want to tell it, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” Feliks couldn’t bear facing her any longer, and he turned around yet again, this time to burry his face in the pink pillow under him. It seemed far more inviting than the interrogation of Natallia.

“Shut the fuck up.” it came out a bit harsher than intended, because he couldn’t really control himself under the influence. Still, the Belarusian girl didn’t seem to mind it at all, and instead, she just started patting his head, which was more than comforting.

“Your hair is very soft. I like it.”

“You’re really high as fuck Natalka.” he snorted with a muffled voice into the pillow, and she giggled at that again.

“I mean it though. My hair is bleached you know. Originally it’s more brownish than blonde, unlike the pretty clean blonde what Irynka has. And you know, it’s texture kinda is like a wig now, no matter how much I like it.” at that he perked his head up, turning to the girl again.

“No way, I thought it was natural.” he naturally became interested at that, and reached for her hair, to touch it himself if she was truthful. Which, she very much was as it turned out, but it still surprised him. Well, she must bleach it quite frequently, but he could tell that only by a single touch.

“I wish. I’m lucky that it hasn’t all fallen out yet.”

“It’s not that bad, I swear. I mean if you hadn’t mentioned it I really wouldn’t have noticed.”

“It’s interesting, isn’t it? Just how much we don’t know about others as long as they don’t tell.”

“I’m still not-“

“It’s okay. Wanna watch a film?” Feliks nodded, and so did they end up watching Valerie and her week of wonders, which was more then eerie at sober, and now outright frightening high. Despite him being taller, he was the one laying his head on her shoulder, while staring intently at the screen of her laptop sitting atop of her legs.

When they were at the scene where Valerie and Hedvika kissed, Natallia as if awoken by a shock, abruptly stopped the pirate website displaying the film. Feliks stared a bit further forwards, and only then did he understand the situation completely, and shook his head to snap out of the trance induced by the film. Probably being high was the only thing that caused him to not fidget and all. Initially, he always had more violent ticks then before, his limbs were just let loose, they jerked and twitched like there was no tomorrow, but then as if getting tired, it just calmed down and stopped. He was just mesmerized by the enhanced experience watching this film was.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when the girl was still just staring ahead of her. To be honest, Feliks couldn’t really focus on the plot itself nor the text being said, but he saw this film once or twice before. When they were younger, Hedvika had this obsession with Czechslovak new wave films, and if they watched something together along with Erzsi, it was mostly her choices, so he became familiar with the movement. Though, he was probably still a tad bit young then to understand them completely. He loved watching Krtek more.

Now, he probably would have understood more if he was paying attention. Maybe he could even understand why Natalka was that worked up about it. It wasn't even a scary scene or anything, actually one of the only few not disturbing ones in the story. It was an interesting choice anyways, because she recommended it. Well, if Vika was just a few years younger, they may as well could have gotten along watching weird films and such. Uncultured he may as be, but he didn't understand symbolism and such easily. He mostly took things at face value. It wasn't good or bad, just a fact about him. He supposes writing would be easier if he could think so artistically. But he enjoyed doing things this way, and it shouldn't be more complicated than that. It's not like he minded not being a professional.

"Can I...try something?" Asked Natalka with her usual stoic face, although there was some glint of uncertainty in her dilated eyes. It wasn't like with Beilschmidt. He didn't feel the same tension or passion in her blankly blue eyes, just plain curiosity. Touching her and being close to her didn't cause the same friction that was burning his skin a few hours before. It was comfortable, rather than unnerving.

Yeah, because he never liked girls the same way as boys, did he?

"Sure?" with a sudden wind of courage she leaned closer, and interlocked their lips for a passing second. Feliks was a bit taken aback, though wasn't nearly as surprise as he should have been probably. It could have been the weed, or could have been mere curiosity, but he kissed her again this time for a longer period.

It was bland and bleak like her eyes. This wasn't his first kiss, but it was very unlike what he shared with Tolys. That week what he spent in Poland with him was like being engulfed in a cloud of cotton candy. They were like hanging off of each other, constantly holding each other’s hands and kissing and all. And it felt better than anything to be loved and to love. But it wasn't like that with Natalka. They obviously weren't attracted to each other, rather just were feeling goddamn lonely and starved for some care.

It wasn't working though, and so the girl leaned away just as fast as she started the whole thing.

"I can't do this. This is isn't right." She leant back, burying her face in her hands. It wasn't that she was ashamed because the fact that it happened, but rather an acknowledgement that they simply weren't right for each other. And for the better or worse, Feliks had to agree.

"Yeah. I love you but it's..."

"Feliks I like a girl from our class."

"I think I might have a crush on a boy too." they stared at each other for a while after that, unsure what to do with their sudden realisations.

Like, what Feliks said was just a spurt of the moment. It didn't really mean anything other than a simple slip-up. Or maybe he just wanted to comfort Natalka or whatever that she wasn't alone. It was a little bit of a white lie from impulse, and that's all.

But then she started laughing. It was more genuine than what he ever heard from her; lively and free. So he followed her and started laughing simultaneously. This shouldn't be a big deal after all. It wasn't a big deal that they were gay.

"Come on, let's have a cig. This was too much stress for one day." Smiled at her Feliks, craving for something to fill his lungs again. She sat the laptop down compliantly, with a cheeky smile on her face. Feliks made it sure to crave it into his mind, because he was sure he rarely ever will see something like that ever again. He was glad to see another side of her finally, one that appeared as if she was a human.

And well, if tomorrow everything will return to how things have been before, he wouldn’t mind it really, because he at least he knew he was not alone. Not as much as he thought anyway.

But not exactly. Like, okay he wasn’t the only gay one, but unlike her, he wasn’t in love with anyone. And that was a mere and simple fact.

*

Homeroom was quiet, but not in a bad way. At least he hoped so.

Well, they were only sitting beside each other wordlessly and silently. When they saw each other again after that incident, they just stared at the other for a painfully long few seconds, but didn’t nod or anything. Then setting his bag down, Gilbert went on to talk with his own friends, and Feliks continued on lying on his table. Getting up after yesterday was tiresome, and this reminded him why he didn’t do weed regularly; it was still a pain in the ass to concentrate, more than on average.

Natalka didn’t look much better. She was absently drawing on her arm again and avoiding his gaze a bit. Maybe she was still ashamed about her secret coming to light, and it was understandable. Feliks tried searching for excuses himself, but it still didn’t calm him down completely.

Feliks tried writing a little something to calm his mind, but he couldn’t get himself to actually put out anything decent. He wasn’t a poetry type of guy, and only writing with the intention to express his emotions he didn’t even know himself, also stood far from him. He couldn’t express something he didn’t truly feel anyways. Because well, he didn’t know if he was feeling anything, or what it was. There was just this strange tightness in his chest and all. A tension that was tearing his poor heart apart.

When the teacher arrived, Gilbert sat down without paying any more attention at him than before. Feliks was still solemnly laying on the desk, his head fully buried in his arms, just like how he got used to bearing himself. Everything felt so loud but way too quiet at the same time. Their little bubble was wordless, while all of their classmates were chattering cheerfully amongst each other.

Feliks knew this shouldn’t have been different from any other day.

Suddenly, he felt an elbow uncomfortably digging into his side. Feliks looked up in very annoyed and tired way, not even trying to hide the hostility in his eyes. He didn’t want to talk at all, especially when Gilbert looked so pitifully at him. Not particularly empathetically, and quite emotionlessly, but Feliks still could see the sense of superiority hiding in that gaze. He thought Feliks was fucking pathetic, he was sure.

He didn’t speak immediately. They quite as well were trying to kill each other only with their gazes. That was part of the reason why Feliks hated to be short, he didn’t like the fact that Gilbert could look down on him – literally and figuratively. It wasn’t that visible when sitting, despite the fact that both of them kept their backs unnaturally straight for teenagers, disciplined as if they were in the military or something. Feliks clenched his fists as much that it was painful.

“Have you-“ started Gilbert flatly, in a moderately loud voice. He usually spoke louder than the average, making him sound obnoxious as a six-year-old, but right now this was the closest to a whisper that Feliks will probably ever hear from him.

“I’ve done it.” Of course, he was talking about that stupid German homework. Feliks still couldn’t get why he cared about that this much. Like, he put that awkward bit of memory behind and lowered himself down to Feliks only to ask him that. Feliks was surprised at first that what he wanted wasn’t just further being a dick to him, but a general question.

Have you done your homework?

He had never hated a question more than that. Okay, that was a bit of an exaggeration, but still. He didn’t like to be asked that, because he never did it. This was just a poetic question, only said out loud to try to humiliate him, but it never worked. It was just tiresome listening to that frequently. Why would he do his homework?

Ah, this was all getting too weary and boring.

“Meet me at the park this afternoon.”

Feliks stared at him for the second or two, trying to figure out the best response. He wanted to say no quite honestly. He was getting tired of doing exactly what Beilschmidt wanted, and he didn’t want to take another beating honestly. Every repeating cycle like this was just boring him to death. He hated all of it, and he just wanted to sleep right now already. They stayed up far too long last night with Natalka, chatting about little nothings. It was pleasant and comfortable, none of what he associated with Gilbert.

He wished they could love each other with her. It would be just so much easier than to bear this cross on his back. And he should feel more self-worth than to start to like the first person who turned the smallest bit of attention to him. It was not love, but a mere morbid intrusion in his head.

Now, he really wanted to break his nose too.

“Brace yourself Beilschmidt.” said Feliks with a venomous smirk, at which Gilbert looked as if he wanted to kill him. Yes, that’s what Feliks liked, the hatred not the uncertainty.

He couldn’t help but feel a bit ashamed though when he felt a stare boring through his head from his other side disapprovingly. She probably got the gist of their relationship already.

*

Feliks carefully finished wrapping the bandage around hurting left hand after he went home. He usually didn’t care about his injuries at all, but this time it fucking hurt for real, and he couldn’t ignore the pain anymore. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was fractured, because again, Beilschmidt was a lot stronger than him.

And he didn’t know why he came at all. This time, the albino got the upper hand, and he looked angrier than what Feliks had ever seen him. The blonde wanted to believe that this time he wasn’t a voluntary punching back of some other boy, but figures out, nothing changed. Only this time, he had the fact that it was consensual legitimised the pain in his eyes. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but there was nothing he could do against it. It seemed that at the end of the day, he really was addicted to misery.

He tried defending Beilschmidt in his head, thinking that he got the upper hand a few times, and that he finally had the chance against someone, but it was just a frail delusion. As it seems, Gilbert was just holding himself back before. Or maybe it was just his brain going off too much. Anyways, the reason didn’t matter, because the consequence was visible.

It hurt just so fucking much. The worst part was, that he couldn’t understand why he deserved this. Or why he wanted it anyways, because he was the one agreeing literally. He did nothing wrong, even did the stupid homework and stuff. At least, when Braginsky hurt him back then, he gave a very clear reason for doing it, and that was something he got used to accepting.

A sound of notification hit his ears.

His eyes immediately lit up, as he knew this was his newfound friend was probably behind the sound. It brought a bit of comfort to his turbulent heart, that he cared about him this much.

He grabbed his phone with his left hand, as if not even caring about the fact that he just whined about how much it hurt, because he was so delighted by the message.

God, he was pathetic, wasn’t he?

Chapter Text

Dear Erzsi and Vika,

Thank both of you for your letters, I'm glad to hear something from you. It's been quite a while, huh? Sorry I hadn't written sooner, but I sparsely find a free moment when I'm not too exhausted to write something.

You know, things are intense, but not as bad as you imagine it be. It's just that I'm not used to physical work, but I got better at that too. I've been blind not to notice the importance of military sooner. The food is good and I actually feel myself healthier since I'm here. I was able to make myself good comrades, so I don't have anything against the environment either. Discipline is probably what I most lack off though. So, we're working on that.

I was able to get my license just today, and it's only the end of the first month. Who knows how much will I improve on myself after the rest of the year? This time is just so full of opportunities.

You know, it's been a while since I've written anything, so I still have a lot of ink, but a part of it has been dried. I'd appreciate if either of you could send some, because I don't want to be a burden to ask from others. I'll ask my mother to send money for it to whoever of you brought it.

I'm glad to hear about you too. I mean, congratulations to you Vika for your marriage and thank you for that honour. You really deserved finally finding someone for yourself, and I’m glad that he’s a good man, fit for you, dearest. I’ll take up on your offer to have my best friend invited, if that’s okay with you. The first leave of ours will be in exactly a month of now.

And Erzsi, I’m glad you also found happiness in your work. I remember how hard the choice was for you to study to be a nurse, but I guess it all worked out in the end. I’m looking forward to meet that colleague of yours at the wedding,

And thanks for the both of you again that you reached out. Don’t worry about me though, I actually like my place here.

With my eternal love,
Feliks

*

“I declare a war on myself.” stated Feliks while leaning back onto the wall behind his back. His thoughts spun faster than a carousel, his legs long ago gave up the service, while he tried holding back the contents of his stomach, which became harder by the second.

They’ve been drinking again, this time not just with Gilbert, but a whole lot of them. Yeah, Feliks was never popular for being responsible and mature. His stomach hurt more than ever, because he didn’t eat more than dried bread and two spoons of whatever pottage or something like that was the lunch, and he was a bottle of vodka deep in already. Or around that amount. They were playing some drinking game Feliks forgot the rules of. They are just plainly drinking now on the upper floor in an unused room far away from the quarter of their superiors.

But Feliks was still laughing, while enjoying the cold and rigid wall behind him like it was the softest of blankets, only reserved for a king. He was heated by the alcohol so much, that he only was in a white undershirt and his pants, his jacket and overshirt long forgotten elsewhere. It’s going to be a pain in the ass finding it tomorrow.

“Dont’cha play a drama queen Feliks, the night is still early and we must celebrate.” slurred Gilbert beside him, while showing the cigarette which he’d previously been smoking into Feliks mouth, who gladly accepted it. It made his stomach hurt even more, but whatever.

“He’s right, Feliks, come and drink this, it’s our big day.” Tomasz didn’t even try standing up, but crawled for a while in his direction, then simply showed the bottle in his direction. A large grin was plastered on his face in all its red coloured glory, totally out of sobriety by now.

Maybe they went a bit far, considering it wasn’t that big of a deal that they got their licenses finally. But Feliks has been tempted by the sound of alcohol and anyways, this was actually his first free night in a month, because the patrols were over. They are only written out again in two months, so they are free with Gilbert for a while.

Huh, they are free. It was rather hard to conceptualise now that he was so used to that little routine of theirs. The patrol, their talks, the shared cigarettes and the shared nights under the same more or less starry skies were over now. It was weird and unusual and Feliks didn’t know what he should feel about that. Like, logically he should be happy that now he could go straight to sleep after a long day, like he wanted all this time. But somehow, the thought didn’t give him any joy now. Actually, it was on the contrary completely, he felt reluctant to even think about how things will be from now on.

But he didn’t have to think about that. Right now, Gilbert had an arm around his shoulders, while leaning his forehead against them too, laughing about something one of the boys have said. And it was so warm and comfortable, that it actually started lighting up a little flame in Feliks. Every single time he was near him, he found that little flame flickering stronger and stronger, and he was afraid it would engulf him completely if he wasn’t careful enough.

He grabbed the bottle of vodka passed to him, which had far worse taste than what they had drunk with Beilschmidt, but he was a bit too far gone to care about that.

“Say, do ya’ll have wives back home? I miss mine s’much…and her cooking…anyone has some sunflowers seeds left…I’m hungry...Ah my beautiful Zofia…I wanna eat sausage…” Marek leaned back, now having the strength to keep himself up in a sitting position anymore. He looked next to passing out actually, barely clinging to the faint light of the bulb hanging above his head. He continued mumbling something, while drool started flowing out of his mouth. Or stomach acid.

“Oh man, no-no, don’t throw up yet! Lemme bring you to the toilet brother! Come on, get up already…Shit I think I’m gonna vomit myself first…Tomasz! Make yourself useful and help me already!” shouted Piotr comically loudly, while having a painful grimace on his face, and his skin started to pale even further than before, meaning he wasn’t exaggerating with his claims. Tomasz didn’t look at first like he’d stand up, but after some trial and error he managed to triumph over his shit coordination skills.

“Ah my fiancé, beautiful one indeed… the prettiest tailor across whole Poland…” Tomasz’s words came out quite jumbled, but he wasn’t nearly as panicked or hurrying as Piotr, lost in the memories of his. He started mumbling a song fully out of tune, while grabbing the leg of the poor lad on the ground, and the two of them stated to drag him out of the room in a joint effort. Feliks was glad he wasn’t asked to help, because the closest bathroom was on the end of the upper floor.

Feliks couldn’t help but laugh on seeing the comical scene playing in front of him. Now it was just he and Gilbert, who all the while had slipped down from his shoulder to his lap. Feliks could only hope he wasn’t about to do the same thing as Marek was about to. That was literally one of his only two trousers, and he needed to wear that every fucking day. He seemed as if he actually fall asleep, which was probably a correct assumption, since otherwise he sure as hell wouldn’t be lying in his lap.

So, Feliks did the logical thing, took a swing from the bottle and started caressing his hair, since he wanted to do that since forever. Back when he was a child, it wasn’t only his cousins dressing up him, but he also loved to do their hair. Like, helping the girls to braid their hair. It was a methodical, mind-numbing activity he quite enjoyed, since it kept his hands full, while he could listen to the radio or talk with them. It was just comforting, to finally feel the same sensitization like back then, even if Gilbert’s fair hair was a lot shorter from either of the girls’. And it looked soft anyway, just like it was in reality.

It might be weird, but it was still in the explainable category at the end of the day. Who didn’t love a bit of repetitive comfort when drunk anyway?

Feliks started humming a song, closing his eyes as if he was readying himself to drift off too, while still clenching that goddamn bottle in his hand. The sudden almost silence was just so peaceful, it made his heart warm up even more. Maybe this thing wasn’t really that bad after all.

Just maybe, his words weren’t all a bunch of bullshit after all.

“Hmm…I never even had a girl I liked, not to mention a wife.” the words startled Feliks at first, and he for a moment couldn’t get what Gilbert was mumbling about. Yeah, he was still going about that thing.

“Forever bachelor, huh?” Feliks wanted to take his hand out of his hair, but the other stopped him with gripping on his wrist. He wanted Feliks to stay, which made his chest so fuzzy inside. Feliks continued circling around his head, as if he was just patting the kitten of his neighbour. It was kinda comedic considering Gilbert was half a head taller, and two times more muscular at least.

“’s not that bad. I love cleaning…I can clean better than any women…”

“Sure you do man. Shit, I think I’m sober compared to ya’ll.”

“Nah, I can…can handle alcohol better than ya…”

“Don’t even try to argue, you can’t even speak normally.” Feliks smiled a bit fondly at him as the other slowly started turning around, still not showing any intention to get up from Feliks’ lap.

His face was flushed red, and eyes hazy which looked way more attractive to Feliks than what it should be normal. Eh, maybe finding men attractive as a fellow man wasn’t normal to begin with.

“What, do ya-do you have a woman who cleans better than me?” Feliks almost laughed at how cutely petty he was, when the albino was pouting. It looked actually sweet, not as bratty as he was when doing that.

“No, I don’t. The one I had, well he hated doing all that stuff y’know?”

Ah, his tongue slipped.

Gilbert’s eyes were wide as if he saw a dead man rising from death, and he sat up immediately after that, ripping the comforting warmth away from him. Shit. It was as if he sobered up from a whim, it was so abrupt, and for a while he was futilely trying to get something out of his mouth, but he didn’t get further than moving his lips wordlessly up and down. Yeah, Feliks fucked this up, again.

Honestly, he couldn’t understand himself. He never ever did something like that before. He was well disciplined, could shut his mouth if he had to, and he hadn’t slipped up one time during all his life. Like, he rather just avoided the topic as a whole, and now it just got out without any kind of warning.

Feliks started to panic. He bit his lip hard to stop himself from saying anything further as long as Gilbert hadn’t reacted, and he tried his best to focus on counting in his head to calm himself down and stabilize his breathing.

It wasn’t working.

“What?”

“She didn’t like cleaning.” said Feliks a tad bit too fast than he should have, knowing well exactly that it was futile. He already heard what he said at first. This was just a very cruel rhetorical question, nothing more.

“You said he.”

“No I didn’t. You misheard it. You’re drunk and I’m drunk.”

“You’re lying. You’re looking into my eye, and you never do for a longer period. You think I hadn’t noticed?”

“You’re dumber than I thought. You literally can’t see straight, why would I believe shit you’re making up?”

Yes Feliks, you’re doing okay, don’t show any weakness, just don’t show any weakness.

“I’m totally sober, I believe my own eyes.”

“You were drooling in my lap for like ten minutes before this. You’re drunk Gilbert, and you’re imagining things.”

“No, I’m—” but he couldn’t finish the sentence, as his face paled even more, and he quickly slapped a hand on his mouth as if it could stop himself from vomiting. Well, even if it worked for a minute, Feliks knew it wasn’t sustainable for long.

He quickly pulled up Gilbert from the ground, and now he was very much glad for the fact that physical training wasn’t for naught. He wouldn’t say that he lifted the albino with ease, but it was definitely less complicated than it would have been without any training. Even he lost some weight anyway, so it wasn’t just Feliks complaining about the lack of normal food.

It seemed, Gilbert had forgotten about the previous minutes completely, because he was again clinging to Feliks as if his life depended on it. To some extent it did, because Feliks wasn’t sure if the man would have been conscious enough to turn on his side not to drown himself in his own vomit. Well, Feliks was glad that he didn’t have to wait it out, because that’d be not just disgusting, but also a pretty lame death for someone like Gilbert. Someone as cool and ambitious as him.

Feliks just sighed at that, starting to talk casually about some shit to give the illusion of security and safety to the taller man, hoping that if he’s convincing enough he would stop crying for his life. Because he started complaining that he didn’t want to die and some shit, and it was getting a bit annoying considering that some alcohol likely wouldn’t kill him. Maybe they really should drink less.

But a selfish side of him liked how close Gilbert was. It was plausible that he would have some spots here and there in his memory tomorrow, so he could just hope that his fuck up would be a part of that. Like, his reaction could have been a lot worse anyway. Actually it was surprisingly decent, and Feliks was proud how relatively calm he could manage the situation. If sober, he probably couldn’t have come up with any good excuses.

“Hmm…lemme lie down Feliiiks… don’t wanna… can’t walk anymore…I wanna have a cig…” he was mumbling with closed eyes, as if he was at least half asleep which was a surprisingly dorky from him.

“Come on Gil, it’s only a few steps now, and you’re a grown ass man. Hey, no, hold yourself up, you can’t sleep here!” but the albino refused to take any step further, and he started slipping off of Feliks, like a sack of potatoes. Feliks was a bit too tired for this shit, so he braced himself, and not listening to Gilbert, he started dragging him further down the stairs, not caring particularly if it hurt him or not. He had to change his position so that he grabbed Beilschmidt under his armpits, and Feliks tried to navigate walking backwards. If he didn’t know any better, it was like as if he was dragging a corpse.

“Shit, you really are heavy, can’t you help lil’ old me a bit by moving your stupid ass at least to the dormitory?” Feliks tried his best but it was to no avail, Gilbert hadn’t got more motivated by his pleas to do anything himself. Sometimes, Feliks really hated him.

“I don’t wanna…I wanna…will you hug me again?” he asked in a fragile voice, which was all too out of the character from him. Really, Feliks thought he could hold his drink better, considering last time it was him being more drunk. Maybe he just hadn’t noticed that Gilbert was equally drunk as him then, that was the only logical explanation.

“You literally are half lying on the floor. How the fuck do you imagine that?” he intended those words harsher that how they really came out, caring and gentle. He wanted to scold him, and to show him that he did not in fact want to drag him to the end of nowhere, but he was anything but stern in the end.

Surprisingly, it seemed to be working though. Gilbert begrudgingly started searching for some footing to help him stand up, while seeming still completely out of it mentally. As if he was just moving from sheer willpower through the biggest of sufferings only to do this. Honestly, it was almost cute that he was doing this.

Gilbert managed to make himself get finally up, even if stance still wasn’t the most stable and he started grinning at him sloppily and wannabe seducingly. It was all in all a very comedic sight, so Feliks felt the need to smile back at him.

The taller one didn’t wait a lot though, and fell back into Feliks’ arms, as if he was magnetically drawn there. This time, it was him holding into him like there was no tomorrow, and it made Feliks simply so happy, even if he knew that Gilbert probably wouldn’t do this when sober. Just now, it almost seemed as if he was smaller than him the way he snuggled into his chest for comfort, and Feliks was a bit relieved to that he wasn’t the only touchy drunk. And it felt good to hug again. It felt good every time when Gilbert touched him honestly, and he was glad that it slowly became the norm that they did it.

During the past days, he noticed that he’d been more casual with him, so he reciprocated that gladly, and didn’t think about it more deeply. But now, that he actually got what he most desired during all this time, he felt himself a bit self-conscious. Don’t get him wrong, it was fantastic that he could hold him again, and rub circles around his bag, feeling the warmth radiating from him, but it started to be a bit too familiar to his liking.

All too familiar to how things have been with Tolys.

And well, he wouldn’t want to go back there if he had to be honest. He couldn’t, for both of their sakes, and their families’. The thing is, this all was too good to be true anyways, so maybe Feliks overthought it simply, but the more he played with the thought, the more real it all seemed.

It was as if he liked the other just a tiny bit. And now it felt as if he was walking on a death row.

So he just started gripping Gilbert’s back a bit tighter, while feeling that his eyes started to wet up a tiny bit.

*

Feliks was a relatively lucky fellow despite everything. He was fortunate to have the chance to taste freedom once again, even if for a very limited time before his actual leave, and the best was that he could do it with Gilbert.

Of course, some of it depended on him too - he was one of those who succeeded at their first time getting their driver's licence. And well, he generally behaved well despite everything and although he held his chin up always, he never really talked back before. It was like a prisoner getting their parole for good behaviour.

Despite that bit of sourness inside of him, he smirked gladly at the UAZ in front of him, waiting to be filled with supplies. At least, this would be actual relaxation unlike cleaning on Sundays. He liked to drive, despite how his right leg controlling the gas and brake started to hurt after a short while usually from the tension. It was like a bite of an ant compared to how much he liked zooning out while mechanically controlling the car. Running actually started to become something like that too, despite how much he hated it initially. And don't get him wrong, he still wasn't the best of runners, but he actually improved somewhat - naturally.

Well, he imagined zooning out wouldn't be that easy with Gilbert. He was the one whose presence just made him seem known, whose whole being screamed loud and dominative. Despite the fact that he wasn't relatively tall, nor stereotypically attractive, he ruled over the attention of others usually. Like as if in another life he'd be some high ranking general, eager to give out orders. Though, it wasn't as if it was intimidating to Feliks, who also made up for the fact that he was outright short with his pride and confidence. Actually the two of them weren't that different at the end of the day, despite what Feliks initially wanted to believe.

But Feliks noticed that Gilbert acted different with others. He wasn't nearly as touchy nor warm like with him. It was subtle though. He was still goofing around and stuff with their mates, cold and rigid to their superiors, and antagonizing with Comrade Braginsky. It was how everyone acted, really. But still, it might have been Feliks imagining things, but he noticed that maybe he was a bit closer to him than the rest.

Who could blame him for thinking that way though? They slept facing each other every night, lowly murmuring little nothings to each other, entertaining each other when they had trouble sleeping. It was more intimate than hearing Tomasz snore next to him anyway. And they did everything with each other if they had the opportunity. From the shared cigarettes, to the pair exercises and the cleaning, they were almost inseparable.

And to Feliks, Gilbert was like nicotine. Someone, who he came back to despite how sometimes he hated him and felt disgusted by the whole thing. Because at the bottom of his heart, he craved him as if his life depended on him. Even though it was inconvenient and wrong, he found himself drawn to him, and it was just all so confusing.

Because Gilbert was his best friend after all. And he wasn't like Tolys. The Lithuanian boy was predictable, he didn't stray away from his shadows, and never spoke up against him. He was meek and shy, just like how stereotypically good girls are portrayed. They never argued with each other, and in retrospect maybe that exactly was the issue. Maybe Feliks was always a bit pushy, and just maybe Tolys accepted everything too quickly. It wasn't all Feliks' fault, but he could understand now how Tolys turned out to be that different, yet the same time his core self was still the same. The same people pleaser he always was.

Gilbert though, he opposed and bickered with him frequently. It wasn't like there was a deep grudge between them, and at the end of the day, they still always came out laughing and all like the oldest of friends. It was fun to relieve stress yet be all jokey with each other at the same time. Like the perfect mixture of everything Feliks wanted in person. And he was glad to call him his best friend.

"Hey, are we going or?" Feliks heard that endearingly obnoxious voice cutting through his thoughts. The taller one arrived finally, dropping the dead cigarette butt from his hand. He had this smirk on his face Feliks would call anything but charming, although it was probably meant that way. It was visible on Gilbert perfectly, that it was already early December, since even he was wearing his complete uniform with an additional overcoat and gloves.

They looked almost identical this way with the only exception that Gilbert didn't look to be bothered by the cold that much like Feliks. The blonde was shivering, and he very much wanted to be sitting in the car already.

They shook hands, and without further ado, Feliks motioned him to sit in. He started feeling a weird twist in his stomach, which never happened before when he sat in the driver's seat. It usually filled him with confidence and anticipation that he could be driving, like he always wanted when he was a kid.

"Shit, it's still freezing." complained Feliks when they sat in, having their belts fastened.

"Shut it, it's not that bad. Doesn't just the flame of youth warm you?" Asked Gilbert in a fake poetic voice, imitating the voice how Feliks usually spoke.

"Only the flame of annoyance." Replied he dryly, while he started the engine.

“Right, because you totally didn’t beg for me to come.” laughed him obnoxiously, just like he always did.

“If my memory serves me right, it was the exact opposite way.”

“Don’t be zealous shorty.” he ruffled endearingly Feliks’ hair, now smiling a lot more gently than before. As if he actually cared about him.

“Hey—Leave me alone, I’m driving!” pouted a bit at that Feliks, though it didn’t actually bother him that much. Not that he’d ever admit it though.

“You’re no fun. What’s the point of me coming then?”

“To don’t let me get bored. Entertain me, but not like this.”

Gilbert hummed slightly dissatisfied, but then he started singing quietly some folkish sounding song. Feliks finally relaxed, the strange tightness in his chest started slowly dissipating as his gentle voice lulled him into comfort. The obnoxious Gilbert disappeared at times like that, and only that serene, angel like being remained. Feliks could listen to him for ever and on.

He started tapping along on the wheel, while enjoying the rare change of scenery he desired for a good while. It was still a bit cold inside, but it started bothering Feliks less and less as he was more focused on the sight of the ocean of trees, and the lovely humming of Gilbert. It was more perfect than anything he could wish for. And Feliks, he was so grateful for once that this all could be his, even if for only a short while.

“Hey, man. Will you - would you like to come with me to my cousin’s wedding?” blurted out Feliks after a bit of silence from his part. He’d been avoiding touching it, because it was well, a bit embarrassing to ask for. Like again, Gilbert didn’t know his cousin, and they were just friends anyways.

But he’d been meaning to ask, really. And the comfortable noise relaxed his nerves enough to grow a dick and say that simple sentence. It shouldn’t have been such a big deal anyways. He felt a stone roll down from his chest the second he got the question out, but just as if he was Sisyphus, the stone rolled back again with Gilbert’s too long silence. Yeah, everyone would be a bit taken aback by a question like this, but it was just simply too much in Feliks’ opinion, and he started feeling himself self-conscious. He didn’t fuck their friendship up, did he?

He allowed himself a second away from the road to glance at the albino’s reddened face, which looked all too cute to Feliks. If he hadn’t been embarrassed himself, he probably would have teased him further with how sweet it was when he lost his composure, but now it would have been a bit too hypocritical. His face was flushed red similarly to his, and it got worse by every second Gilbert wasted with not replying.

“It’s not like I can force you, just –” started Feliks, barely keeping himself from stuttering, but Gilbert for the better or worse cut right in.

“No! I’ll come just, you know, I…Thank you I guess.” Gilbert kept his stare away from him, making the whole ordeal a lot more awkward than it should have been. It was a simple invite for God’s sake, Feliks didn’t understand himself why the both of them were this embarrassed by it. Like, friends invited each other to places all the time, this time wasn’t different at all. It was just Gilbert making it out to feel weird.

“I just thought that you’d want to get out for once, y’know? And maybe to eat something good? Don’t think anything of it really. I, myself rarely talk to Vika anymore, so I might be just as well another stranger she invited to her wedding. And she said herself to bring some friend with me.”

“It’s okay Feliks, you don’t have to overexplain it. I’m just simply happy that you chose me, that’s all really.” still, it didn’t calm his nerves at all, and Feliks just felt himself as a dorky teenage girl right now rather than a grown ass man. He didn’t get why it was this weird for him, but he almost wanted to step out of the fucking car because of it.

Gilbert probably noticed his agitation, because he placed his hand on his tight to reassure him that everything’s fine. Feliks was instantly calmed by the touch, when otherwise he’d probably be more unnerved because of it. Right now, he didn’t think about the further implications, and the awkwardness for his hand’s chosen position, but rather let himself melt to the touch of him. Everything was fine now. He didn’t have to worry about anything either.

“Yeah, sorry. It was stupid to overthink. I just didn’t want you to think I’m being weird about it, you know?” He briefly glanced in his direction again, which was more puzzled than before.

“Whaddya mean not being weird? You are being weird about it. I don’t get your point.” Now Feliks returned to his original state of being all blushy and embarrassed. He rather didn’t spell it out to him.

“Ya know, that like, uh both of us are dudes? I mean, most people like, go with their partners not their best friends to weddings and such. I didn’t want you to feel awkward about it.” saying that out loud was torturous for Feliks, his voice turning meeker as the sentence went on. Thinking about it, this was more than stupid to have got worked up on, but anyways. What happened, happened, even if he made a fool out of himself. Things like that regularly happen with him.

“Yeah, sure – ehm, I don’t mind it.” the response was rushed, awkward and it felt a bit wrong when Feliks heard it. The usual confidence completely vanished from Gilbert’s voice, and what was left was similarly meek and lost like Feliks’. Like both of them felt something shift in the air for the worse.

A strange tension vibrated between them, but neither of them did actually anything against it, as if they were too scared for that. It was a border better left uncrossed, even if it felt wrong. Because well, the consequences if they step over would be much greater, that much was for sure. And nobody liked dealing with heavy stuff like that. There was so much Feliks’ heart could take for a day, and that was it.

“Feliks, you know I said it seriously?”

“Yeah of course. Sorry I was being that awkward, I just tend to overthink everything. Forget what I said.”

Silence followed, and the atmosphere became more suffocating than ever. God, Feliks wanted to jump out of that stupid car.

“Hey, can you pull over? I need to pee.” asked Gilbert tensely and rigidly, and Feliks was sure he was lying.

“What do you mean? We’ve only been going for like twenty minutes.”

“But I need to pee now. And I’m sure comrade Kaczmarek wouldn’t be that happy to have his car seats washed by my golden dragon.” laughed Gilbert to try normalizing the situation, but Feliks couldn’t get himself to laugh along with him. He scoffed instead and started looking for a place where he could stop the car further away from the road.

When he managed to pull over, he waited for Gilbert to get out of the bloody car, but he didn’t seem to want to move a centimetre. He was stubbornly looking in front of himself, biting his lip, and Feliks became all the more unnerved from the whole ordeal. What the fuck was his deal?

“Would you actually tell—” started Feliks annoyedly, but Gilbert didn’t let him finish the sentence.

He grabbed Feliks’ coat and pulled him closer, pressing their lips together almost violently. He grabbed into Feliks’ hair after the blonde’s initial shock was over, and he started kissing back. Gilbert pulled his soft hair forcefully, and passionately, and Feliks supposed he didn’t really mind the sting it left on his head.

His own arms started slipping around the albino, pulling him closer as much as he could. Then, his hands grabbed into his lower back with his sharp nails digging into his skin through the scruffy jacket of his. Gilbert let out a small noise at that which sent something like electrical waves to his abdomen and shit, he enjoyed this so fucking much.

But that was until he realised what the fuck they were doing. Feliks abruptly pulled back, causing him to bump into the door of the car. He was panting as if he was just finished with the eight kilometres, fully blushed and his eyes were widened, mirroring Gilbert’s expression. He also seemed as if he saw a ghost, or a mass murder happening, or something even worse than that, and he nearly looked like fainting. He probably couldn’t even tell himself what happened.

Feliks didn’t hesitate any longer, and quickly tore his gaze away from the other man, burying his face into his hands, leaning it against the wheel. Fucking hell.

“Yeah, so I was right about that.” muttered Gilbert as if he was in a trance to particularly no one.

“What?” asked back Feliks roughly, even if he was so ashamed that he didn’t just want to bury his face, but his whole being six feet deep into the ground.

“That you’re gay. I mean I suspected it for a while but--”

“I’m not.” interrupted rudely Feliks, his voice full of defiance. He turned his head a bit sideways from its position to glance at the other, who looked at him with the mixture of intrigue and disbelief.

“Then why did you kiss back?”

“I just—It was a moment of weakness. Curiosity, if I can put it that way. But definitely nothing serious.”

“You had a boyfriend before.” Shit, Feliks didn’t think he’d remember it.

“I already told you that you misheard it.”

“If I remember right thought, your explanation before was that you misspoke. And you’re doing it again. Looking properly into my eyes. You’re a really shitty liar Feliks.”

At that, Feliks couldn’t do anything else but bite his tongue hard, so much that it hurt. Touche.

“So you did this just to prove your nonsensical theory? Listen I don’t give a fuck whether you’re gay or not, but I am not, and it’s going to stay that way. I’m just like, horny and whatever, so don’t think too deeply about this. You could be a woman or a man for all I care. It’s not fair to judge me based up on that.” Feliks finally got up fully from his crouching position to regain some sense of pride. It wasn’t working well though.

“Oh again with the overexplaining. Feliks, what’s the point?” Gilbert placed his hands on Feliks’, who didn’t have the strength to move them away. He wanted, really. To slap them, to hush Gilbert away and to straight up push him out of the car to leave him to freeze to death.

“I hate you.” and with that, it was Feliks who pulled him closer this time, kissing him roughly, just as white little dots started hitting the windshield. Feliks put in everything; his hatred, love, disgust and lust and everything in between them. Maybe it wasn’t even that big a palette, at least to him, the lines were blurred long ago. He wanted to mean his words, and he simply despised acting so against them, but it was as if someone else took control of his own body.

And he didn’t get why Gilbert wasn’t disgusted by him. He just shifted closer, and reciprocated the kiss lot more gently, as if trying to pacify Feliks’ rough demeanour. And because of some unfathomable reason, it seemed to be working, because the blonde couldn’t resist. It felt wrong to listen to him so easily when he wanted to protest harder than ever. He was a lost cause, wasn’t he?

So, he let it happen. He didn’t pull away this time, just when he was really that out of breath, and then he quickly reconnected to Gilbert, as if fearing that if he lets him go again, he’d disappear for good. It felt so good yet so wrong at the same time, and he just wanted to shut his thoughts up for ever. For just a second, he wanted to enjoy the moment without thinking about the consequences.

Ah, he could get used to this.

The snowing became stronger, and rain didn’t seem to follow along. If they’re lucky, it would stay for a while, because the temperature was low enough, and the ground was dry.

Chapter Text

Hey, what’s up man? The new chapter was totally awesome, but you don’t seem to be too happy about it.

Hey, idk really it’s just the usual stuff I guess

Parents?

Lol they don’t even bother with me anymore. I’m sleeping at a friend’s again. Fuck them

You’re not that much of a help if I wanna get smtg out of you

It’s not that deep anyway. I just have some problems with a guy from my class, that’s all. The same shit that was in my last school.

It is serious than, man. Don’t belittle yourself that much cause you’re belittling me with that

What even does that mean?

Cause I like you, and I only like awesome people. Don’t make me question my principles

You’re cute, but like the problem is that barely anyone likes me irl

And? Fuck them, like you said. I know it’s hard, but you’re worthy of love and acknowledgement. I mean, you’re an awesome writer, and an awesome friend. And I’d really miss you if you were gone too lol. I’m not that great with this feely stuff (as you can see) but I just want you to know that I mean it. And like, this all is not permanent. It’s only one year, and you’re free, right? It’s hard, but I believe in you, and the fact that you can pull this off.

You’re really sweet, aren’t you? Well, it’s definitely more helpful, yk to read this, than cigs lmao but like I’m not about to off myself or anything haha if I die young it’ll be from lung cancer so like, dw about me

You never change man, I can’t even feel disappointed anymore lol. And you usually do sound like you’re about to off yourself.

As if you’re any better Mr. Perfect Son

Stfu I literally just wrote an essay about how much I like you don’t ruin it

Haha dorky <33

*

Wanna play mc with meeeee

Nah man I let’s play smtg else instead

But you only like shooters

Not true I like indie games too

But there’s no coop

YOU only like playing mc and roblox

Bruh you talk like I’m a kid and you are my elitist cousin

Suck it up bro

Pretty pleaseeeeee <3333

Don’t think that’s enough to convince me

I’ll spam your messages if you don’t agree

I’ll block you lmao

One of my friends’ bff is some IT kid I’ll ask him to hack you

Boo-hoo pretend I’m afraid

Fuck you >:((

Fine okay boot up the server

Hey

Now you’re giving me the silent treatment?

Fuck you

Little shit

Kurwa

Ily too <33

*

Just a random thought isn’t it lowkey weird we still don’t know each other’s name

It’s funnier this way. Like you know, wouldn’t it be funny if we only met irl on the day of our wedding

Bro we aren’t even dating and two guys can’t even get married

Yeah, but it’d be funny and my name is Maria can’t I kinda count as a woman?

Wait. 1stly; it’d be more like middle age-ish and weird. 2ndly; wtf? are you joking?

No it’s my second name. Or was. Weird family tradition, that all the first sons have it as a second name. Even weirder since I’m not even catholic lmao
Yk I’ve already given in my application for the Registry Office to change it (as soon as I turned 18) and now I’m happily living Maria-lessly.

Poor you that’s like totally embarrassing and not from your part but your parent’s but like, are you an atheist? or why do you mind it?

No, I’m an evangelist. We don’t do this Mary-cult thing.
Yk, my father was a catholic, and my mother the protestant one. My mother took me to her church, they managed to convince me to believe lol

But like it’s kinda cute lmao and also unique

Nobody ever said anything good about it :’)

Now I do, but like I completely get it and it sucks ass that your parents haven’t thought about the fact that it’ll be embarrassing for you. At least your other name is okay?

Kinda? Like I have a foreign name since my parents aren’t Polish and some people looked at me like weirdly a bit after they heard it but it’s rare

Well, that sucks bro

Ever the sympathetic?

Bro, yk that ily

Ever the sweetest <33

*

Feliks’ relationship with G was weird. They chatted constantly, in a weirdly flirty way. More like they outright talked as if they were dating with heart emojis and saying that they loved each other. It wasn’t like what he experienced with Tolys.

The Lithuanian boy was dense, and never would have talked this confusing. He was practical, never so feely, and when he confessed his feelings, that was the only time he really opened up in this regard. Otherwise, they really were just like very good friends, and Feliks was way more comfortable with that than someone actively courting him. It was just simply so unusual that he was this direct with hitting him up, and Feliks started to worry if he really was an eighteen-year-old like him, or some weird old man. He dared to say, it was almost girly how he wrote, more like what he was used to from Iryna.

However, it was cute. And charming. And now he was the innocent princess charmed by her knight in shining armour. This all made him feel so confused, that it was getting again hard to bear.

The thing was that additionally, things haven’t been going better at school either. Mostly, they just ignored each other with Gilbert, but fights between them were still regular. It was monotone and tiring, like he was trapped in an eternal spiral never wanting to let him go. He just wanted to end it all so desperately, but didn’t see a way how. The only little relief was when he could talk to G about it a bit, but he never went into too much detail. The best would be to forget, but no amount of weed could numb his brain that much, ever.

And even worse was, that his butt was freezing off because of the awful coming of the winter. Maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea to sit on an almost frozen swing, but he still couldn’t miss his routine he was so adamant about. It was better than being at home, anyway.

This time he wasn’t writing, but merely swinging gently and sombrely. It always calmed him down when he was disturbed, and numbed his brain enough to regress into the childish mindset he had as a kid. Forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards and backwards again. He started down at his legs kicking the air, and only focused on the movement being on the beat established in his head.

He imagined kicking the head off of people he hated. Beilschmidt, his parents, Tolys and himself in that exact order. The cycle repeated just like the position of his legs continuously. It was comforting, even more than thinking of nothing.

He didn’t like a lot of people on the contrary, just Natalia, Iryna and maybe Tomasz. His cousins didn’t really count, because they couldn’t give a shit about him, and the feeling was reciprocated. He sometimes wondered if he just simply wasn’t fit into this world, and should die. Feliks usually supressed that voice at the back of his head quite well, but as someone with one foot long in the grave, he couldn’t always count on his abilities. And now, it was a time like that.

Feliks jumped out of the swing clumsily, not even trying to avoid the painful collision with the ground instead of trying to land on his feet. He knew that it couldn’t cause him permanent harm, but he wanted to feel the sting of him crashing to the icy sand, and he barely could get himself to get up afterwards. Everything was bland and boring, and he just didn’t want to exist.

As he started walking back to his car, a familiar figure appeared in the corner of his eye as he passed the jungle gym by. He was leaning against the climbing wall despite the uncomfortable colourful pieces sticking out of it, which probably stuck into his back. Well, for each to his own or whatever. Feliks wouldn’t have cared if it wasn’t for the fact that when he saw Gilbert here, that never meant anything good. And now, he wanted to do anything but fight again. His car wasn’t far, and the clouds gathering above their heads promised a horrible rain soon, that was for sure. The blonde hated to be drenched with rain, cause he hated when it fucked his freshly washed hair up, which was carefully dried the way he liked it.

Their eyes met for only a split of second, and Feliks showed no intention to stop, but the albino grabbed his hand, and the green eyed wasn’t strong enough to pull it out with the momentum of his movements. He was defiant though and didn’t turn around to face him.

“Why are you here?” asked Feliks, before giving a chance Gilbert to explain himself, just as if their positions were reversed.

“I was walking by.”

“So you have nothing to say? Then let me go.”

“Why the hurry?”

“Not your business.” at that, Gilbert smirked maliciously.

“Do you have a date by any chance?”

“Would be fucked up if I dated my cousin.” Feliks just made shit up without a blink of eye, not particularly worked up by a white lie like that.

Gilbert let his hand go, but instead of continuing on his escape route, he turned around with his whole body in the taller one’s direction. He eyed him sharply and mistrustingly, even though he was just given the benefit of the doubt that he’ll stay. And he was morbidly happy that something was happening, so he didn’t mind doing that exactly.

The albino tore apart him to atoms with his eye, or at least it felt that way. He watched him from head to toe, analysing every detail of him, but Feliks just took it lightly, and nonchalantly with sharply eyeing back.

“Have you been eating normally?” Feliks’ outer shield broke for a mere second before reassembling it. What the actual fuck was he talking about?

It seemed even Gilbert was taken aback by his own question, not completely believing that it slipped out. Or maybe it was planned but he regretted it immediately. It was more than possible form the amount of heat rushing into his face. He was unlucky, because it was easy to see through him because of his condition. Well, the better for Feliks.

“It’s funny that you pretend to care, but then you go and beat me up every other day.” smirked at him Feliks, tilting his head up slightly so that he seemed a bit taller. The other didn’t say a thing, just clenched his fists painfully hard.

Feliks felt a bit cocky, so he pulled out his pack of cigs performatively, stuck one of the sticks into his mouth, and lit it while intently keeping eye contact with him, despite Feliks finding that usually hard and uncomfortable.

"Here, this is my breakfast, lunch and dinner." His words flew out of his mouth with the sharp smoke, while wearing a daring expression.

"You can't be serious."

"Oh, I completely am."

They stood in tense silence after that for a while. Feliks slapped his hands into his pockets, cause his fingers were freezing off thanks to his fingerless gloves. He left the cig hanging out of his mouth like a pleb on a construction site, which was probably his destiny in a while.

Gilbert was visibly annoyed at that, and he was scrunching his nose trying to block the horrid smell out, which amused Feliks even more. That look in his eyes he oh so well knew, the pity mixed with contempt, he was merely feeding off of it.

But instead of what Feliks predicted would happen - that meaning Gilbert slapping him - the hand reaching toward his face simply took the not even half smoked cig out of his mouth, and stomped on it aggressively. Feliks was taken aback for the second time today, genuinely confused by Gilbert's intentions behind this all. Like, he didn't seem as he wanted to specifically hurt him with that, and did that simply out of the good in his heart. Like a good Samaritan saving his brethren.

"Never considered quitting?"

"Maybe if I'm diagnosed with lung cancer, I'll consider." Gilbert didn't seem pleased with his response, based on his frown.

"Why do you want to die so bad?" Feliks eyes immediately turned apathetic at that. Just how many times have he been asked that? His initial smirk morphed into a frown, and he really considered punching him in the face. Only to help his deviated septum.

"I don't. Just don't get why I shouldn't live my life the way I like it."

"Can't imagine you saying that seriously."

"I really don't get why are you so worked up by that topic. It's been a good while, and no incidents like that happened after. It was a one-off thing."

"Incidents? You did that to yourself."

"Whatever. I can do whatever the fuck I want."

Gilbert stared at him weirdly. It wasn’t pity fully, but something akin to that, just more conflicted. Like he himself had no idea what to do now. Feliks knew this whole charade was pointless though, because he was adamant about being unsavable. And he hated getting help from others. He didn't like to be indebted to anyone.

"Come with me, I'll take you to get lunch." Well, Feliks thought this was the end and he had finally gone crazy after suffering from brain damage when he hit the ground before. The seventh seal was broken, and doomsday had descended to this earthly realm.

He waited for Gilbert to laugh in his face, but he actually looked very much serious, though his dace was still red. Feliks just still couldn't comprehend what this was. A weird way of apologizing? Or an offer of truce?

"I'm not hungry. And I'm meeting my cousin."

"You're lying, aren't you?"

"Cute that you always seem to think that. I am not."

He sighed at that, and Feliks could almost see the cogs running in his head, wanting to come up with another method of convincing him. It was still out of the realm of possibility to the blonde why the fuck was he doing that.

And then, he felt something hitting his face. No emotional trauma has been inflicted on him this day, so it was baseless to think he started crying out of the blue, which could only mean that it started raining. Which was fair, since he predicted a while back that it would, but now it gave him another reason not to waste more time on Gilbert, and reach the fucking car in time, because he didn’t have a hoodie to protect his fabulous hair.

But neither Gilbert moved for real, nor he. And the more time they spent staring at each other, the faster rain drops began to fall with more strength in each one. The heavens were falling down in the glimpse of a second, and Feliks instinctively grabbed Gilbert’s hand and grunted him an instruction to follow him more compliantly. Their steps slowly turned faster with the rain, until they were practically running towards Feliks’ old Fiat. Well, his parents’, but whatever. He borrowed the keys for an indefinite amount of time.

Luckily, he didn’t bring a bag with himself so his keys were only hidden in his pants not the endless black hole his bag usually was, so finding them weren’t that big of a deal. He opened the doors fast, and sat into the driver’s seat, while Gilbert hurried to the other side and repeated his motions.

It was weird how normal it seemed as they were loudly panting in the closed car, finally relaxing after the adrenaline rush. The both of them were drenched and tired, even if it was a short distance, and the weather didn’t seem to be improving at all. On the contrary, Feliks swore that ice was falling with water from the sky, cause it was around 0 degrees.

He reflexively started the car to start up the heating, but remembered that Gilbert was next to him, and he took of his left leg of the clutch.

“Guess you can’t take me to a date then.” jeered Feliks when he finally stabilized his breathing.

“Then you take us. I’m hungry anyway.” the blonde had to roll his eye at that.

“But I’m not, and gasoline isn’t free.”

“Oh shut it. If you didn’t want to do something me, you wouldn’t have told to come with you.”

“I just didn’t want you to get too drenched. Consider this the payment for your sandwich.”

“I’d be more happy for a genuine sandwich.” Feliks rubbed his forehead and sighed at that. God, this man was insufferable.

“There’s some soda on the backseat. That’s all I have.”

“At least take me to a Żabka.”

“Fucking hell no.”

“Pretty please.”

“You won’t stop bothering me, will you?”

“Nah.”

So, Feliks started the car at that, looking defeated and tired. This was going to be a long ride.

“I didn’t imagine you could drive.” muttered Gilbert a bit surprised as he finally took his time and looked around.

“You’re so flattering.” Feliks’ voice was sharp and sarcastic, hating to be forced to deal with that stupid classmate of his. He felt Gilbert’s gaze on his face, as he leaned back into the cold and uncomfortable car seat with an audible huff. It was hard to concentrate on the road this way, but he rather didn’t acknowledge it happening at all. To not repeat that incident in the dressing room and whatever.

“You don’t even look confident enough to make a presentation. It’s quite fair I think this way.” his voice was weirdly sincere as if his intention wasn’t to make a jab, but to state an actual observation. It had no ill intention, and this made Feliks’ brain jumbled like pieces of puzzle in their box.

“I am though. Well, I’m not that great at driving that I passed on my first try, but whatever. It’s okay. If it was on me, we’d be still riding horses, that’s my thing.”

“That’s like the most rich kid thing to say.” laughed Gilbert a bit at that. Feliks’ mouth also turned upwards by a few millimetres.

“Exactly because of which I don’t ride anymore. I only did when I was young, you know, I have scoliosis and it was good for my back. I guess I turned to like it more than I originally planned to.”

“Horse riding for scoliosis? What on earth? Why not swimming?”

“Well, I didn’t want to wash my hair every other day because of the chlorine. It would be like all greasy and ugly if I did that.”

“So, the scoliosis stayed but at least you have pretty hair?”

“Exactly.” now, Feliks realised how dorky that sounded but whatever. He was proud of his looks, and he was also very vocal about that.

“Jeez, that’s like, sweet.” the blonde would have given everything for a red light to come, to get a glimpse of the expression Gilbert was wearing, because hell, he said that way too seriously. He didn’t want to feel like the loser girl from teen romance book swayed by his bully, but he couldn’t help himself blushing a bit. It didn’t change the fact that he still hated Gilbert. They were just having a civil conversation for once in a while, and Feliks wasn’t used to taking compliments. He might have told Natalka that he had a crush on someone, but that was just to calm her down.

He was so stupid, that it physically hurt him.

“Can you hold the wheels for a bit?”

“What- No, absolutely not, I can’t even drive. What do you want?”

“It’s like, not a complicated thing. And we have to go forwards for a while. Just say if like, you see lights or whatevs.”

“Fuck no. Say what you want and end of the story. You might be suicidal, but I’m not.” though, his voice turned a slight bit insecure. It piqued his interest.

“Eh? If you think I’m not the type to drive, then shouldn’t you be that? This isn’t rocket science.”

“My Lord, Feliks just say what you want!” he was audibly annoyed, so Feliks gave in. But it still bugged him why Gilbert didn’t just simply did as he told. It wasn’t even that he argued just for the sake of it, but the green eyed would have been happier if he was given an actual sound reason.

“Okay, so like take out my cigs from my back trouser pockets. The lighter is eh, in my jacket’s right pocket, I think? If not, then there is one in glove compartment. Light me one.”

“Are you like actually crazy? Like hell no, I won’t help you.”

“Now, don’t be a dick, or I’ll just let the wheels go and I won’t care whether you’ll hold it straight or not.” Gilbert tsked at that, and Feliks just grinned smugly knowing that he managed to blackmail him into helping.

“You can’t even go ten minutes without smoking that shit? I don’t even get how you can bear the stink. I won’t even go about how irresponsible it is to drive when—”

“Are you my mother or what?” cut Feliks in annoyedly, even more than Gilbert was. He hated when people tried talking to him as if he was a child. He perfectly well knew what he was doing, and that it was bad for his health and blahblah but he was of legal age and he could decide alone what he wanted.

“No, I’m just being reasonable. And if I touch your pack, I’m throwing it out of the window, first thing.”

“Guess there isn’t any other way.” he said jeeringly, and performatively let go of the wheel, at which Gilbert actually started to panic, which was really funny to see.

“No-no! Okay fine, just hold the fucking wheels!” it was very much amusing to Feliks. It was as if Gilbert never sat in a car before with how much panicked he was, when it wasn’t that big of a deal to not hold the steering wheel. He technically could reach for his cigs with only one hand, but if Gilbert would have helped it would have been a lot easier, and safer considering that the roads were a bit slippery from the rain.

But Gilbert genuinely looked and sounded afraid. Well, a lot of stuff could have been behind that, but right now, Feliks was happy that he knew that weak spot. One more thing to get out of this ride, and if he was skilled enough, he could maybe even get the root cause of it. Maybe it wasn’t even that deep, just being a bit too tight about rules.

But, Feliks complied with his pleas, and finally he could feel Gilbert starting to do his part of the deal. Feliks didn’t even want to smoke anymore, it was just way too amusing to have that power over him, to make him do what he wanted.

For a while though, the albino was still just staring at the pack in his hand. Like it was carrying some contagious disease or something, which was true in a way, but still slightly a bit too overdramatic.

Feliks rolled his eyes at the silence but didn’t nag him any further. As it seemed, the other man was a lot weaker than him in psyche, and it was enough for him today. Though, now all things combined, bad memories seemed to be more plausible than just being too stuck up. A part of him was satisfied though, that he could make him feel bad. It caused him such a primal enjoyment, which was hard to compare to anything. Again, he wished he could saw more of Gilbert’s solemn face staring at the crumpled package, and the feeling was way stronger than before.

Despite everything, he was glad that the way was soon over. It was only just now that he noticed that the radio was turned off, and the air turned a bit awkward. Or maybe awkward wasn’t the best word, but rather tense. Not like back in the dressing room, but like it was on the playground when they were fighting. It’s just that, he finally got the right end of the stick.

“We’re here.” as he said that it was as if Gilbert snapped out of a trance, and he abruptly opened that bloody pack already.

Feliks had to smirk at his face going paler than usually, no matter if he was already as white as chalk. He slowly turned his head to Feliks, who radiated self-righteousness mixed with amusement from himself.

“You knew this was empty.” it was more like a statement than a question.

“Eh? What are you saying?” but he could barely keep himself from laughing.

“I hate you. I genuinely, from the whole of my heart despise you.”

“Hm, you know if you want to make a villain out of me that much, at least I thought I’d give you some actual reason to.”

Gilbert’s face was flushed red from embarrassment. He looked at Feliks as if he was betrayed, and Feliks really didn’t get why the whole drama. This was just a little game, nothing else. And he did a lot worse to him usually.

“Want a ride home, sweetie?” If Feliks had been more empathetic, he may have even pitied him with how disappointed he looked.

“Fuck you.” with that, he was gone in an eye blink, slamming the door in with full force.

*

You can’t believe how pissed off I am

What happened sweetie?

There is this boy in my class, and like ik that we aren’t on the best terms but he made me so mad today
He like knows that I barely can fucking see and was still fucking with me about it
And on top of that he did other triggering stuff too when I wanted to be kind for once

What do you mean by that? Like you need glasses but don’t have?

Nah glasses don’t help. It’s like a genetical thing and can’t be corrected
Like he’s just a stupid spoiled rich kid who only cares about himself

I’m sorry to hear that:/// it really sucks, I get it.
And I can’t even believe that someone would do that to you if you are disabled like that’s just cruel
Sending you hugs<33

Thanks man, you are really cute<33
Yk, I can’t really talk about stuff like that with my classmates
And I’m sorry to be dumping all that on you

Haha no problem, really. Coincidentally, I also have similar problems (but like less serious. It’s just mildly annoying)
Like there is this guy who is the desk mate of mine in a few classes and he always makes a fuss about me stimming
It’s fucking annoying
I can’t control it but he won’t understand that
And well, he occasionally beats me but yeah
But like I learnt my lesson that I can’t let myself to be fucked over again
On the hard way

It’s like life hates us lol
It’s almost funny, even if there’s nothing to be laughing about

No, I get you. Sometimes I’m so sad that I just laugh about it
It’s liberating I think?
At least literature kids would say that I guess lmao

As a certified literature kid yeah lol
Yk things would be so much better if we could be there for each other irl
Sorry to be sappy
I never really had genuine friends who didn’t want to fuck me over
I don’t wanna sound creepy .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.

It’s fine lol
But I get you
I have like a few people I consider my friends
But we never talk about shit like this
Idk I can’t really say these things out loud

Yeeaah that’s why no one knows I’m gay too
I mean it’s much easier to say it out like this when I don’t actually have to face the person I’m talking too

Ah, my first and only relationship was online
it’s rather pathetic thinking about it

No it’s not
Like I don’t even think I know anyone gay
Ehm maybe the one I was talking about
Like there was something weird that happened between us
But I still don’t know what to make of it

Hard stuff lol
It’d be much easier if we never would have to return to the real world
Like I get you, that like I want to talk to you constantly
But I feel as if we’d known each other irl I’d be a bad influence on you

Wdym?

Like you are so perfect in everything and I’m failing school
I don’t do anything just write fanfics, occasionally play a game and sleep
And do some drugs lmao

I wish I could take things that easy tbh
My life’s way shittier than people would imagine
But like I totally get it
I mean besides everything I do, I have to work to have money for all my extracurriculars
Music school is ok cuz it isn’t entirely legal or what and it’s quite cheap but my football practise isn’t
Not to mention getting mental breakdowns if I don’t get a 5 lmao
Like ik it doesn't sound that bad
But I feel like I can’t take it anymore way too many times
Sorry I’m complaining again

I don’t mind it
Rather sorry I’m not empathetic enough
It’s just hard for me to imagine what it’s like to be you I guess
But like it isn’t good what I do either
At least, you can become something
I won’t
I’m literally doing nothing but wasting my life away
Shit I don’t want to make this out as a “who has it worse” cuz that’s fucked up
Still, I’d like to think that at least you have it a bit better than me, because I don’t want you to feel this shitty. I wouldn’t wish this for anyone else

Yk, if we continue like this we might end up considering double suicide
lmao
that’d be the fucked up stuff

can’t even believe you￣へ￣
But yeah lol
I don’t want you dying so let’s talk about cute stuff now
would you send a pic of your doggie?
he’s such a fluffball I love him to death

ofc haha
at this point I’m almost jealous at him
If the feeling wasn’t mutual I’d be

don’t be lol
I love you the best <33

*

"So, Tolys. I think there is a guy I like."

"What did I--"

"Not you kurwa. It's some online dude again."

"Very kind that I was just some online guy to you." Both of them laughed at that, although Feliks with a slight bitter taste.

They were playing CoD together this time, finally talking again. And consistently. In the last few weeks Feliks had been in an inescapable low, and didn't have energy to talk, but now he somehow got it right back. Luckily for them, it was already Saturday, so none of them had to hurry to bed. And they could play again like it was summer break.

Feliks' hair was tied back loosely and he was dressed into comfy sweats. It was fast around midnight, though he was too occupied to take a shower, and it wasn't that big of a deal to skip it. Showering was optional to him on weekends like eating, since he had no one to be dressed up for. He didn't have to pretend in his room at least.

The room was slightly cold, so he had a blanket in his lap. His parents still hadn't really started heating, even if Feliks was very much sensitive to the cold. Though right now, he had more important things to worry about, namely Tolys.

He was more than excited when the brunette texted him that he wanted to talk. Because well, he might have had a crush on G, but it didn't change the fact the first one was always Tolys for him in spite of everything. Even if it wasn't love, he still was very much obsessed with him, and he was convinced it was impossible to let that go. Because he was the first one that gave him the attention he desperately sought after.

"Anyways, he's kinda cute. We kinda talk as if we were already a couple yk, those stereotypical American ones. But like, he doesn't have Discord, and I don't know what he looks like either."

"Feliks, don't you like, think it's a bit fast? Or I don't know, you should be more careful with who you talk to, and I say this with no ill intent. I want you to be happy, man."

"Nah I get it." the blonde said it a bit absently, right as he shot an enemy "I'm not hurrying it. Just, I guess I'm glad someone to talk to."

He heard Tolys taking a sharp breath, even if he didn't meant to attack him.

"You know, there was something that happened. It's kinda hard to wrap my head around it." Feliks changed the topic abruptly, sensing the discomfort falling over them. "So, remember that guy I told you about in my class? The one who I'm fighting with regularly."

"What? Is he giving you too much of a hard time?"

"No? Well, that wasn't my point. I took him to a Żabka with my car when it started raining. He was like, afraid. Actually afraid and tense the whole time. So, I asked him to hold the wheels for a sec, and he turned even more frightened. As if he just saw a totally scary film. Then I thought it was funny and I threatened to let the wheels go if he doesn't help me get my cigs. Cause like, he hates smoking or whatever."

"You are a dick that's obvious, and?" Feliks had to scoff at that.

"As if you're any better. That's the story. I don't get why he was that afraid. Like Irynka doesn't piss her pants if I ask that, and neither Natalka. Neither if I let go of the wheels. But he was like panicked, and I don't say that lightly. I just don't get it."

"Mayhaps some of his relatives died in a car crash. Non-smokers usually can't stand smokers. You are an inexperienced driver and you act equally as irresponsibly. The solution is quite simple."

"But that's lame." All excitement from his voice disappeared as he was staring at the quote appearing on the screen as he died.

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. – Gandhi

What a fucking piece of crap.

"Not everything in this world is your fanfic."

"Was I really that big of a dick? I mean, he deserved a little scare after everything. It wasn't even like, that serious that he usually does to me. It's a little nothing compared to beating the shit out of me."

"Listen Feliks, I noticed something. Depending if you want to seem an equal, or a victim, you use different words for your fights. It's you two fighting when the former is true, and "he beating you" when the latter. Which is the truth?"

Feliks dropped the controller out of his hand, which landed in his lap with a soft thud. He hadn't noticed that before, huh.

"To get it straight; I don't really care. You are my friend, and things will stay that way. I'm just curious. It’s not me who you have to be honest with anyway.”

What was the truer thing? He instinctively glanced at his arms, even though he was wearing a hoodie. He felt exactly what hid behind it though, and that it was the exact same on the rest of his body. Everywhere and anywhere, he was fully littered with deep purple and greenish spots, like they were just distorted and huge moles. He knew that he could never leave a single mark on Gilbert. Except that time maybe when he managed to bash his head into the edge of the slide. But that was once, purely out of luck.

“I guess I can deal with him. He’s stronger than me, but I managed to overpower him sometimes.”

Eh, he really should stop playing the victim every time. He was a big boy now, wasn’t he? Feliks could well enough protect himself, and he didn’t need anyone’s pity either. And certainly no more useless complaining like that. He fucked up the very second he started talking about this topic.

“If you really think so, then that answers your question. If he was really that bothered, that was some trauma related thing. You wouldn’t want others to put you in the same situation as you were in your old school, would you?”

Feliks wanted to bash his fucking laptop in, go to fucking Vilnius and choke Tolys to death, revive him, then kill him again.

The first moment, he wanted to blame him for being even born, and the next, he sounded more uncertain than when Feliks was trying to figure out the answers to a history test. Couldn’t he just decide already? If Tolys hated him that much, he should just outright say it than making up all these stupid mind games.

It wasn’t his fucking fault that Gilbert overreacted that much, because he completely fucking deserved it. It wasn’t his fault. It just wasn’t his fault, unlike what every fucking one was saying.

Feliks gripped into his hair hardly, tearing and pulling it with full force to make him stay grounded in reality as much as he could. He started franticly rocking back and forth, hoping that it would help calming him down like it usually did, but it was to no avail.

“Feliks? Hey, Feliks, are you still there?”

“Just…my stomach hurts. I forgot to eat today.” he gritted out those words through his teeth hurtfully, trying to remain calm although his eyes already watered up.

“Don’t start that again, okay? If you need help, talk to me. I wish I could do more but-“ Yes, because you’re really that fucking helpful.

“It’s fine. I just go and eat something. Let’s talk again tomorrow. Bye-bye.”

“Bye, but take care of yourself, and I’m serious.”

Feliks couldn’t wait any longer and ended the call, as he felt his tears spilling from his eyes. He never was such a cry baby before. This wasn’t fair. Why didn’t others get to feel as bad as him?

Like, when will Tolys get what he deserved? It just wasn’t fair that it was always him making Feliks feel bad, and not the other way around. He wanted him to suffer, just like he made Gilbert too, or even worse. He didn't get why his goddamn stupid brain still felt too attached to him to truly hate him, but that didn't mean that Feliks was okay with him being a dick. This was all Tolys' fault that he was feeling himself shitty yet again, and he felt even worse knowing that this could have been avoided by shutting his mouth.

In a desperate attempt at calming himself, he reached for his phone and opened his messages with G. His fingers hovered over the bloody screen almost petrified, because he perfectly well knew how he shouldn't complain anymore. And he shouldn't in any case make G hate him too if he knew how shitty of a person he was. Like, initially he didn't feel himself bad at all, but now he was starting to question if he should off himself simply if Tolys hated him that much. Not loving is fine, but outright being disgusted - like he was, no matter what he was blabbing about - is just something Feliks couldn't stand.

And he liked G. He didn't want to lose him either. So, he closed the app and threw the phone away from him. He quickly considered his options and figured he really could use a damned cigarette already if he wanted to make himself a bit more presentable. Or at least calm down enough to stop crying and be able to go to sleep.

Feliks went to his pants he wore that day, and started searching around his pockets, but to his misfortune, they were empty. And so were his bags and other cloths. Huh, he couldn't remember the last time he had nothing on him. Not even a single cig. Even the pack was with Gilbert - to be more precise probably slumping in a rubbish can. The only reminder of his habits were his horrid stench and the lighters lying around his table.

Was he really that smelly? He liked to believe he wasn't. But he couldn't tell of course, cause he couldn't smell himself objectively.

Feliks desperately tried to come up with some other stupid shit to think about, but he was out of ideas, left alone with his regret and sorrow. It was just he and himself and Lord did he feel himself so lonely. He just wanted a hug from someone, no matter how short. Just a bit of comfort.

Just someone telling it was not his fault.

Chapter Text

Feliks swore he didn't care if he died anymore, if the last thing he experienced was this. He was sitting on the desk in the abandoned room they mostly used for drinking, while hugging closer Gilbert as much as he could, never wanting to let him go ever. The taller one was standing in front of him, one hand on his waist, the other roaming in his hair, with his lips plastered over Feliks'. They've been doing that during the past hour, kissing and hugging each other as if there was no tomorrow.

Feliks was just so happy that all his urges about physical affection were satisfied, that he could forget everything happening around them. He couldn't give a fuck if Gilbert was there with him.

And it was a lot gentler than he imagined this would be. They were as careful with each other as if the other was made out of porcelain, and this was a big thing for Feliks, as he was used to just being the dominant and rough one. It was like Gilbert matched to him in that aspect and it was just perfect. And like, it was great that he didn't have to be on guard for once and could let go himself.

The late afternoon sun was comfortably slipping through the window, giving it's last shreds of warmth. Or well, since it was December, it wasn’t that late in the afternoon. But Feliks liked the night better always, so it was very much comfortable like that. If his eyes were opened, he would probably be charmed by the orange hue dancing over Gilbert's face, and basically every other thing in the room, because it looked very poetic and all, but he had better things to do than to search for metaphors.

The taller one leant back a bit, to catch his breath. Although he didn't like to admit it, the break was very much needed for Feliks too, who tiredly collided with the wall behind him. Gilbert decided quite fast that he should follow Feliks' example, and he sat up onto the desk right next to him. Feliks’ head then hit his shoulder while he let out a small huff of satisfaction. He really could get used to this.

After a few seconds, Feliks couldn't control himself again and he reached for Gilbert's hand. It was rough and full of callouses, just like his own. They weren't even far away in size despite Gilbert's clear advantage in height. The only difference was really, that Gilbert's skin was a lot lighter than his own, more akin to the snow outside. Even if it looked sickly wrong to others, he still found him very pretty.

"This feels so surreal." Feliks' whispering voice sounded so meek in the heavy silence.

"I certainly wouldn't have thought that this was part of the training." Laughed at that Gilbert fondly.

"Hm. I wouldn't have thought that the training would be good at all, but you changed my mind."

"That's an honour. Managed to make Comrade Łukasiewicz like physical work? The greatest achievement a man can achieve if I have to say."

"Shut it." He turned his head to face his shoulder, hiding himself away with it. Unlike usually, Gilbert didn't really have now the strong smell of sweat, but rather neutral. But like, it wasn't in a bad way. More like calming. Like home. His fragrance wasn't like a stranger to Feliks.

"Hell, I hate to be this sappy, but you're just too cute." Gilbert gave a peck on his head.

"I like it, you know. Never thought you'd be like this though."

"I barely believe it myself. Shit this is like- I don't know. But I'd like if things stayed this way."

"Mhm. I love you too." said Feliks as he raised his head up, and kissed Gilbert's cheek.

Fucking hell. For once, Feliks never thought that he'd get physical with someone ever again, not to mention it not being just a simple feelingless affair. It was a while ago since he felt so loved and appreciated, even if at the back of his mind, the thought bothered him that this was all the same. But he couldn't really start overthinking that, since he was just simply that happy to be here and now.

And he'd never been happier in the last few weeks. Even if they had to stay in the darkness and reduce their encounters into this bloody, forsaken room, at least it was all theirs. And Feliks was more than fine with hiding away if that was what he got with it. He'd be fine hiding it away till the end of his days, if he could always get a bite of this apple.

"Y'know I wonder why that is. I don't understand it myself, and I never did how it works." Asked Gilbert thoughtfully, but insecurely. Maybe it was a bit weird, but Feliks found that cute, and also a bit comforting that he wasn't the only one with doubts. If even the usually prideful and manly Gilbert Beilschmidt felt that way, than it was completely okay for him too.

"Hm. Well, I can't really answer. I guess things like that just work in an incomprehensible way. I mean, it's obvious that I spend the most time with you and I know you the best hence, but that isn't enough for it to be love, I think. I like to think that there is something called "faith" or "god" or whatever we call it, that determines things like this. Imagine it like this; love can only have the value of for example zero or one. Zero meaning "no" and one meaning "yes". The machine controlling all of us randomly determines the number, and things happen that way. That's how I see the reason behind love."

Feliks went into a rumble most would deem the very least weird, but more likely maniacal. Gilbert barely could hold back a laugh, because the sheer nerdiness was cute, and although he wanted to hear something more heartfelt and reassuring, it would have felt wrong to hear Feliks be sappy. This was more like him, and if he really did believe that their infatuation was predetermined fate, than it would go against his principles to leave him. Yeah, this felt better than an empty "I’ll stay with you forever" like in fairy tales.

“Well, I could get the half of that, but I’ll give you that I agree. You’re smarter than me, so I’ll believe it, if you say so. I guess this is why I love you. You’re just absolutely the cutest.” laughed innocently Gilbert, and Feliks’ face immediately turned into a bright shade of red. Welp, it was embarrassing that he said that, but there’s nothing to be done now.

“Ah so you meant it that way. Not literally.” pouted Feliks and he quickly went his way to hide his face again in Gilbert’s shoulder. “You’re infuriating and obnoxious. I don’t get how I can even stand you.”

“Yeah sure. Come on now, you’re a big boy Feliks, look at me.”

“Nah and fuck you.” Feliks was proud that he wasn’t ticklish unlike Gilbert, and he liked using that knowledge out as much as he could. And now, he wasn’t in the mood to spare, so he made a coordinated but surprising attack on his stomach from both sides, while the albino started kicking into the air like a dog with rabies. He begged for Feliks to stop while trying to snatch his hands away, but it was to no avail; Feliks was too defiant. Honestly, he didn’t even mind it that much initially, just after noticing that Feliks really had no intention to stop. Fuck him.

Through a long struggle, Gilbert managed to get a grip around his wrists, and he quickly pulled them back to finally get room to breathe. He was grasping for air as if he just ran the marathon, while Feliks was laughing more than he did before. That little shit really liked to play with him, didn’t he?

The blonde’s playful look still hadn’t disappeared though, and he leant closer again to catch Gilbert’s lips. Feliks would be content doing this the whole day, forever on and on. He just liked this man too much, even against all the odds.

He abruptly pulled back, making the albino not so slightly surprised. Feliks pressed his lips into a thin line, biting into the soft flesh as he started intently staring at him. That look alone was able to make the other drop his hands in a sudden flash of weakness, so Feliks was free to stand up. Gilbert was too taken aback to do anything, and before he noticed, it was now Feliks standing where he was before. The exception being that he wasn’t kissing him, just staring at him very closely which was partly intimidating and partly exciting.

“You’re really pretty. And I love hanging out with you and talk to you and all that. But like, for real. I mean it. You can make me lose my temper sometimes, but in a good way, I guess? You’re entertaining. It’s grounding and keeping me from going completely insane. I like arguing, and I can do that about the stupidest shit with you. I really appreciate that, unlike you do my numbers.”

The albino’s lips perked a bit upwards at that.

“Believe me, I like you with your stupid numbers. And despite the fact that you already sound as if your brain was fully rotten by Comrade Garczyński’s mindless screaming.”

“I’m not even half as bad. He like, only knows how to count to three, and bawl obscenities.”

“Exactly, and your talent of counting extended to zeros and ones.”

“Fuck you. That was just a metaphor.”

“A very bad one. See, your school years weren’t that worth it—” that was the most well-known trigger point of Feliks, so he didn’t even let Gilbert finish the sentence and shut him up with his lips, to not pump his blood pressure up even higher. He was dominant in the kiss, not letting Gilbert to take the lead, which the white haired not so gladly, but accepted eventually, making Feliks smile triumphantly into the kiss.

“Come, we have to go, otherwise there’ll be no dinner for us.” said Feliks as soon as he finished the kiss, his stomach grumbling in agreement. Gilbert smiled back cheekily, and now waiting for Feliks to leave him some space to get up, he just jumped off the table right so that he collided with the other’s body. Feliks stumbled backwards, but Gilbert immediately caught him by the waist.

“It’s not fair that I only get this much out of you though.”

“Life isn’t fair, so we have to find the small gates. Makes you creative, and at least you use your brain on something.”

“But still…I’d like to have another chance without all this unfairness.”

“Ya know, if wearing makeup, and skirts could achieve anything, I’d do it for you without another thought, but I imagine that wouldn’t even work if we were reborn once again. And if we can only be reborn to this world in a later timeline, things would still fundamentally be the same, I guess. But it’s like, kinda romantic. The whole world against us, those who are doomed from the start. It’d make a D rated film at best, but I’d still watch it gladly.” Feliks kissed his cheek as soon as he finished talking.

Yeah, it really would be so much better if he could solve all their problems with wearing a bloody skirt. He couldn’t give a fuck about how manly or not that was, when he just wanted to be peacefully with Gilbert, and end of the story. But right now, they didn’t have any other choice but to hide themselves. Maybe after they are both discharged, they could find a nice apartment to live together in, and nobody would question it—

Nah, who is he kidding? People would definitely notice, but he wouldn’t care there. They couldn’t prove it. But here, it was hard to find time to be alone while also having to hide away carefully, otherwise they’d be completely and utterly exposed. And neither of them wanted that, obviously. It was just a mere childish phantasmagory that they could be together without worrying about anything.

“You’re too pessimistic, Feliks. Come on, we are gonna eat something then drink with the boys. Aren’t you just excited about our diverse entertainment options? We can even smoke a few cigs.” said Gilbert sarcastically, while starting to drag the other towards the door.

“You’re not making my job any easier.”

“Hm, you just simply can’t appreciate the wonders of my encouragements. They’d work if you tried to believe in them for a bit.”

“That’s the problem. I can’t believe in anything.”

*

“FÉLIXKE! I’m so happy you’re here!” Feliks couldn’t even blink once as they arrived, because Erzsi spotted him from afar, and ran at him to give the biggest hug he’d experienced in a while. It was a bit comical that he was almost half a head taller than his cousin, yet she was the one who managed to even lift him a bit up.

Erzsi was at least as strong as him, despite the continuous training he’s been through. Behind her stood and awkwardly smiling and waving blonde girl, who was a slightly bit taller than Erzsi, but still not as much as Feliks. She was probably that colleague of Erzsi, Iryna about whom she wrote before. Beside her stood the shortest of them all, another girl in a pioneer uniform. She looked grumpy and rude, but Feliks figured that was just her natural look since there wasn’t anything here to be mad about. And the other two girls seemed completely unbothered about it.

Who could be grumpy anyway when they were at a wedding? Feliks personally was the happiest he’s been in a while, even if every moment spent with Gilbert was like an earthly blessing. But if it was about his cousin, of course he was this glad.

And another factor that played into his happiness that he was finally free for two whole days, and at night, they could sleep together with Gilbert. Well, he still felt a bit like a prisoner since both him and Gilbert were wearing their formal uniforms, but that was like whatever. The illusion of freedom was stronger than any actual shackles.

Erzsi started nonchalantly chatting about whatever was on her mind, with Feliks happily nodding along, and injecting his own remarks, which was disturbed by the awkward cough on his side.

“Oh, yes this is my best mate, Gilbert Beilschmidt. Gilbert, this is Erzsi, my cousin. I’m guessing the lady is Comrade Chernenko and her little sister.” Feliks politely reached for the taller woman’s hand first, and pressed his lips on it. She seemed a bit embarrassed by that, but he wanted to be extra polite. Knowing what he wanted to do to her too, the fair haired girl gripped onto his hand strongly, and forcibly shook it. He had to smirk at that, not caring how murderously she was glaring at him.

Gilbert was not that theatrical with the introductions, and he simply shook everyone’s hand. Before Erzsi could start another rant, Feliks quickly dismissed her saying that he wants to find Vika and Jakub to say hello. That was true partly, but he also didn’t want Gilbert to feel awkward, because they had a tendency to forget about everybody else with Erzsi.

“She’s kind of…”

“Intense?”

“Yeah. A lot like you actually. Those two girls were?”

“Erzsi’s best friend and her little sister. See, you aren’t the only one who doesn’t know shit about Hedvika.”

“I don’t know Feliks, it’s still… well whatever. I’m here already, so there’s no going back.”

“Come, I’ll introduce you to the others.” Feliks grabbed his hand with a smile and started dragging him. Gilbert could have easily, but chose not to catch up so it wouldn’t be that weird that they were holding hands.

*

“And like, these two patients managed to take the windows down only to reach the ashtray and take out the cigarettes. Then, they got out the remaining tobacco, and from a newspaper they rerolled them. And that happened on this Monday already. The remaining of the week was even worse than that.” Iryna became a lot more talkative after consuming about a bottle of wine, and half a bottle of vodka. They’ve been complaining about their job with Erzsi for the last few minutes, and Feliks was weirdly entertained by it.

The music was loudly roaring in the background, and most of them were really drunk and completely exhausted by dancing. They were sitting at a table together, the three cousins and their pairs with a disinterested Natallia tagging along. At least as much disinterested she could pretend to be when she was also heavily under the influence. Almost all of them held a cigarette in their hands, they were practically drowning in the smoke around. It wasn’t solely their fault though, since it’s not like anyone from the other guests particularly cared about the lingering stench either, but after a while it really became suffocating.

Feliks wanted a bit of fresh air, but didn’t have the heart to break the conversation when he was so hungry for meeting his cousins again. And Gilbert seemed to have a good time too, especially getting along with Erzsi despite his earlier claims.

“Didn’t you have anything interesting happening in the army? Dramas or anything?” asked Jakub while chewing on a piece of cake.

“Nah. Boring as fuck. I envy you that you had a lot better times than me.” answered Feliks as he blew out some smoke.

“Well, I had luck. That’s how I got Vika too. If she wasn’t such a pussy, I’d have a try with gambling but now she doesn’t let me.” Jakub got a bit overzealous, which resulted in Hedvika slapping the back of his head gently. Or not, well Feliks couldn’t really tell.

“Because it would be my money you are playing with, you good for nothing.” her words slapped even harder though with her murderous glare.

“Very sweet of you, my wife of like three hours?”

“Wouldn’t be even a day if you continue acting like this.” after a bit more of the heavy glaring, she turned away from Jakub and looked around the little group, lingering a bit longer on Gilbert. “Hey, you the German boy, sorry I forgot your name. What about you? You’ve been quiet the whole night. How did you even meet other than obviously being drafted at the same time?”

Gilbert looked as if he was snapped out of a daze he silently lulled himself in. He didn’t even drink much, and usually he was the loudest of the whole room, but because of something, he seemed to hold himself back now. As if he wanted to act the most perfect he could. As if maybe, he wanted to act right and impress the others.

“Eh-I’m Gilbert. We started talking when we were assigned to night watch together, I guess he couldn’t get rid of me since then. And our beds are next to each other anyway.” Hedvika eyed him a bit suspiciously, then locked eyes with her husband again and they seemed to have a wordless conversation about him. Only after that did she turned back and warily nodded.

“So like, do you have a girlfriend? You could have brought someone if you wanted. I mean, it sucks if you used up your first leave on us, and not her. What about your family? Are you stationed far from them?” Feliks understood quickly, that if he doesn’t signal for Vika to stop, she’ll have another whole plethora of questions for Gilbert, who already looked confused and overwhelmed by them.

It was weird, since Hedvika wasn’t naturally this suspicious. At least, he hadn’t seen her interrogating Iryna or Natallia this much before, and he certainly didn’t expect Gilbert being the victim of it. He had to roll his eye because of the fact that she was probably just being overprotective of him because he was the youngest. Which was like, absolutely pointless and made him feel embarrassed.

“Vika.”

“I’m interested. And sorry that I’m suspicious regarding your judgement of character but that Lithuanian boy whatever his name was, last time was a –“

“Hedvika.”

“And if ugh… Gregor. Gerwin. Yes, Gregor wants me to stop asking, he is perfectly capable of doing so, right Gerald? Perfect. See?”

“At least you got the first letter right.” laughed at her Erzsi, stopping her own separate conversation with Iryna just for this.

“SHUT UP ELIŠKA!” both of them shushed her more than aggressively, while she just pulled her shoulders disinterestedly, and went right back to where she was in the talking.

“And you should too, Vika, it really is enough now.” he turned to his older cousin, who was just as heated as him about the argument, since she was really drunk, also just like Feliks.

“And who are you to tell me what I can do at my own goddamn wedding? Last time I checked, I’m the older one, and consequently the smarter too, and you little cuz, hadn’t demonstrated reasons to trust in your brain at all.”

“You aren’t my mother either, so just shut the fuck up! I don’t care if you are senile, old witch just leave him alone, cause he’s fine, and way better than that piece of shit Tolys was! I swear, he was a friend I wouldn’t wish for my worst enemy, but Gilbert would never even hurt a fly!” which was definitely an exaggeration, because he must have killed many flies before, and also very far from your stereotypical good boy, but Feliks had to overpraise him a bit so that Vika would leave him alone.

“Aha, sure, because he looks exactly that gentle like a delicate flower. Just stop trying to blindly believe everyone Feliks, because I won’t for the love of my life listen to you again—”

“Now, now you really should stop with that Vika, cause that’s absolutely nobody else’s business but ours.” interjected again Erzsi.

“I’ll correct you; it’s my business, and mine alone.” slapped his hand on the table Feliks, which left the girls a bit taken aback. Now, that was part of the reason he was afraid of Gilbert meeting them. The both of them were overbearing, and they absolutely didn’t care about boundaries, it didn’t matter how much he loved them.

He would have gladly continued telling his opinion not so kindly, but he felt a hand creep on his tight under the table, which immediately calmed him down. Right, Gilbert was still here, and he probably felt himself very awkward in their crossfire.

“Hmp. Come on Gilbert, I need to pee, and I demand you to accompany me.” With that, he stood up abruptly, and started dragging him again by his wrist. It sucked that they had to disguise holding hands that way.

But well, Gilbert seemed more than relieved by it. Again, it was so weird to see him without the usual confidence at all, as if he was lost without Feliks. He may as well be that though, since he literally didn’t know a single soul around here. Feliks didn’t want to solely make a scapegoat out of his drunkenness, because he knew he should have paid more attention to him. In a reversed case, he most likely would have been close to crying, or alternatively so badly drunk, that he wouldn’t care about anything.

Outside of the walls of the house, things were a lot more quiet and colder. The sky was hued over by fog, so the darkness was almost swallowing, which all was a bit solemn to look at. Since there was nobody standing there, they didn’t have to pretend any longer, and Feliks could finally slip his hand into Gilbert’s properly. He blessed his head that he didn’t listen to his initial instincts and he hadn’t undressed from his thick and warm uniform, otherwise he’d be freezing his ass off even more than now, which was an achievement if he had to say. Gilbert just quietly followed him wherever he pulled him to as if he was just a ragdoll. It felt wrong, and Feliks got uneasy fast because of it.

But he couldn’t do much more than to reciprocate what the albino did before, and he reassuringly squeezed his hand.

“I’m sorry about them. And about me. I should have noticed it sooner than you’re uncomfortable. Feliks quietly lit another cigarette, just like he always did when he was anxious. And well, when he was generally existing. After a few puffs, he offered it to Gilbert, who gladly accepted and only that way did his tongue get looser.

“No, it’s nothing at all. Just you know…please don’t laugh but I felt as if I was introduced to your parents or whatever.” he said with a deep blush on his face which was uncharacteristically genuine. He was getting a lot softer since they’ve been dating.

“Yeah, that was probably it? I mean, don’t worry though. Both of them like you, I could tell.”

Despite the comforting words, Gilbert didn’t seem less worried at all, which unnerved Feliks even more. He desperately wanted to find something he could leach on to, but it was to no avail. He just couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

They were quietly walking next to each other in the dark, getting further and further from the location of the party, but none of them seemed to mind it. Feliks hadn’t even realized before how much he missed this comforting silence, but now he was reluctant to even think about going back. He really wanted to just go to bed with Gilbert and fall asleep hugging him. Or Gilbert hugging him. Preferably experiencing both, but he just simply wanted to be close to him already. And the constant social interaction tired him out too. Even when he was younger, he preferred being alone and working, but now after he finally had some fucking freedom he was happy to get away from everyone. Constantly being surrounded by people and never having actual privacy started to take a toll on him, even if he stopped actively fantasizing about death.

Things were still a bit too much.

“So, Feliks. There’s been something…bothering me recently.” the blonde stopped dead in his tracks. Well, fuck. He hoped at least that they would manage to hold on to the half a year mark. He couldn’t help but associate his tone with the worst scenarios, because it was all to similar to how Tolys told him that he would be gone forever.

“Hey, now, don’t worry, okay?” sensing the disturbance in Feliks, Gilbert put a hand on his shoulder to try calming him down. Feliks only bit his lip and tried swallowing less than successfully his anxiety.

“Sorry, it’s just…”

“You don’t have to explain it. Just accept that nothing is wrong with you or us. Perhaps I just worded it the wrong way; I’m interested in something about your past. Come on Feli, everything’s alright, repeat after me.” Gilbert hugged him merely, finding it the simplest solution to this issue. And well, it wasn’t that hard to convince Feliks after that.

Feliks was a bit confused at himself too after that. Like, it was not just Gilbert getting softer, but him too as it seemed. He normally wouldn’t have gotten this anxious by a simple sentence, and he certainly hated playing the drama queen. Just what was this man doing to him?

“Okay. I’m too drunk I guess.” Feliks tried to shrug it off, but he couldn’t help but notice the dishonesty in his own words.

Gilbert stepped a bit away, and tilted his head with an incomprehensible expression. It was as if he tried analysing Feliks, and he absolutely couldn’t stand being on the other side of the stick. He was supposed to be the one doing the analysing, not the other way around.

“Just say it already. Please.” the last word was an afterthought only, because he noticed his tone being a bit too harsh. He didn’t mean it obviously, but it was getting harder to control his emotions.

Gilbert just sighed, but didn’t comment his attitude. The cigarette in Feliks’ hand long ago went out, so he took it upon himself to reclaim it, and light it again. He solemnly stared at his only match left.

“I won’t beat around the bush any longer then. I’m interested in that guy Hedvika mentioned. And you on a few occasions.” He had such a serious face, that Feliks’ first reaction was to laugh. It felt a bit inappropriate, and Gilbert probably didn’t appreciate to be laughed at, but as he said before, he couldn’t really control his emotions any longer. It was as if the hourglass has cracked.

“What, are you jealous of my ex?”

Gilbert’s expression hardened, but he didn’t seem to lose his patience just yet. If he only knew how much of a talent Feliks had at pissing people off.

“No, I’m genuinely just interested.” Feliks stopped laughing and managed to make his face blanker then ever. This wasn’t like him, mocking and ridiculing a person he liked. It was as if his personality turned upside down for a second. He didn’t want this. Feliks didn’t want to argue this soon, nor being even more of a dick. He knew he had to stop. He took back the cigarette from Gilbert’s hand and with a deep huff, he started finally talking, a lot more reasonably than before.

“There’s nothing much about him. We were classmates, and he was obsessed with me. Then I became obsessed with him. He was like my sidekick who did everything for me, and I liked having control over somebody. I dragged him to everywhere, and he gladly followed me. And then he had to leave. He just simply and merely left, without any protest.” it was hard to bite back his impulses and passive-aggressive voice but be managed to get out a decent summary. Getting into details would have been pointless, and Feliks wasn’t really proud of that juvenile version of himself.

Tolys leaving was probably what snapped him out of that kind of behaviour. That behaviour which resurfaced again just now. And it was pointless anyways against Gilbert, who was not easily swayed by his bitchy acting.

“And you—”

“I don’t really care anymore. To me, he died that day. We actually met on the train there, but he was just a stranger. He addressed me by my last name, and kept the distance, which by the way I was glad for.” the words were coldly spitted out to the foggy night. If Feliks wouldn’t have got a grip, he would have laughed yet again, but this time at himself. Or at Tolys, he didn’t exactly know. He couldn’t tell which of them was the more pathetic one.

Because he still cared, even if just a tiny bit. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be this angry.

“Thank you for telling me.”

Gilbert’s voice was neutral at worst, and Feliks quickly deduced he must have found an issue with his previous behaviours too – which was very much fair. But, well as they said: nullum crimen poena sine lege praevia. It wasn’t fair to judge him for stupid stuff he did as a kid, when he wasn’t fully developed in brain yet. How could you expect children understanding the rules of society without having been taught to act properly? Like of course, if he did that now, that’d be more than wrong, but he was just a kid then. And the rules amongst children are different from those amongst adults.

They have to be.

It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know any better and never realized how toxically codependent they were.

“It’s like – I know I sound like the bad guy, but things were more nuanced. And I’m no longer the person I was before, so…”

“It’s alright, I mean it. Everyone did shit they regret, but it’s too late to lament on them. But I won’t lie, that I was surprised. You know, you seem too pragmatic and down to earth, to like, do stuff like this? I kinda assumed all you did was studying before, and end of the story. That you met in a library or whatever.” to ease the tension, Feliks grabbed Gilbert’s hand again and resumed to walking around idly.

“Hm, well something like that. I mean, I did study a lot, but I don’t know, when I was with him, I went out a lot more. I took everything more seriously after he left. But it’s true I changed a lot. Guess that’s natural.”

“Ah, I’m convinced I haven’t matured a bit since I was like fourteen. That was my breaking point, I guess. If I had another chance at life, I’d never want to grow up, because it sucks.”

“It isn’t so bad. I mean, if I hadn’t matured, I’d be still the stupid little fucker I was, and you would have certainly hated me. I would have hated me too. And there would have been no excuse for my actions.”

“Perhaps. But if the both of us were kids, we’d have got along maybe. But well, I guess it’s enough for me that we get along now, and Punkt um. Even if this world wasn’t the right one for us to be born into, we should use it out that we had a chance at all.”

“Yeah, but like…I wonder, huh. Anyways, fundamentally you are right. And at least now, I can do this.” at that, he grabbed Gilbert’s shoulders to pull himself a bit up and kissed him quick as a lightning cheekily.

“Better than any fantasy. I don’t believe in reincarnation either, no matter how good it sounds.” patted Gilbert his head fondly, then pulled Feliks closer again.

Feliks had to correct himself. He didn’t believe in anything, but the fact that despite all the odds, their relationship wasn’t that doomed from the start. All the secrecy sucked, but it really was worth everything, no matter how inconvenient and tiring.

And what the most he wanted to believe in was the fact, that things can and would stay like this forever.