Written for my friend Harinezumiko!
...
The patches of darkness caused by the foliage of soaring pines danced deliriously across the external boundaries of the individual's upright shoulders, and the entity who watched their flutterings gambol gaily over the man before him moved one of his palms, casting a shadow over his brow, leering at the play of the light. The individual found the day wondrously lovely, and his companion before him ever so much more so, although at the moment he'd admit vocally to but one of the sentiments; this he did then, for the third time that day, having been understandably captivated by the glory of the season surrounding he and his partner. Laughing, the young man agreed, his countenance beaming with the totality of his merriment. Veneciano's mirthful tone elevated Ludwig's cheerful spirit, and the German breathed in the warm air, sighing it outwards contentedly.
Spring had descended on the Black Forest, and with it had come all its trappings; the lambent emerald of newly-sprung verdure, the spangles of varicolored flora midst the scrub and upon the terrain, the cries of avian creatures hidden amongst the leaves. The hour was balmy, and a sun of a hue that mimicked the daffodils struck at the earth and its inhabitants with temperate rays.
The two humans had come to Baden-Württemberg to camp, and now were wending their way through the eminent evergreens that composed their surroundings towards a secluded creek; they hoped to chill themselves, and wash from their exteriors the sweat which had accumulated in the morning. Ludwig was the grimier of the pair, having had singlehandedly assembled the tent; Veneciano, as always, had been of little help, and in this case had slumbered in the grass as the work was done, exhausted from having been awoken early for departure.
.
"Hey! Look at this! Look at this!" Veneciano scrambled up a log that had fallen crosswise over the waterway, balancing on the upper surface and waving spiritedly to his companion. "Come on up, Ludwig! Things look cool from up here!"
"Er, you should get down... you're going to hurt yourself..."
"Nonsense!" he shouted in response, "See, I can balance like a c-" the lad's steadiness was sabotaged by wild gesturing, and he screeched, tumbling backwards off the trunk upon which his sandaled feet had rested.
The German was swiftly at his side. Veneciano gazed up helplessly from a pool of streamside muck.
"You're lucky you didn't crack your head open on a rock," murmured the more wary of the two, as his musculature slackened in relief, and his digits prehended those of his feckless companion. "Look, now you're more dirty than you were when we came out here."
"Eh, I'm sorry..." replied Veneciano, directing his gaze joylessly at his bemired self.
"Well, at least you're not hurt," remarked the German stoutly, disturbed by the unhappiness portrayed in his partner's aspect. "Now, get that washed off of yourself, and don't do any more dangerous things."
.
The Italian was seated on the bank, his cervical vertebrae arced backwards, his head being tended by the individual with whom he shared the day. With the utmost carefulness Ludwig teased a comb through the entanglements that interposed upon the orderliness of the silky filaments of his partner's tresses; at some times, he resorted to the use of his fingers, drawing them blissfully through the chestnut locks. Satisfaction smoldered in the man betwixt his knees, betrayed by the rubicund hue that ornamented the bones of the upturned cheeks.
In time he took a place beside the lad, gazing peacefully with him at the reflections that wavered to and fro across the creek's surface. A sigh escaped the creature aside him, whose physique shifted sideways to lean warmly against his own; slight digits converged on larger, more knotty ones, enveloping them. Ludwig tilted his mien to view the countenance of that creature that had so captured his appendage; twin ponds of amber bordering pupils overcrossed with the gold of the falling sun met his own gaze, and so captured this aspect of him, as well. His aspiration halted, and it seemed so much better this way, that he would pause the rhythm of the physical function, whilst he paralleled the lull in time by lingering in the rapt eyes of the entity opposite.
It didn't last. The lad before him drew towards him, as if lured by the communion of their gaze; an arid heat swept into his mouth, settling on his tongue; he retreated, taking his hand from its bond, coughing uneasily once into a fist, before fixing his visual faculties weakly on the area at which the opposite shore was wetted by the gentle lapping of the channel it paralleled.
"You love me, don't you?"
The interjection was unexpected. As usual when it came to his partner's outbursts, Ludwig was ill-prepared to respond.
"Er, yes, I guess..."
Even he knew how weak his words sounded. It was, however, good enough for the Italian, who was in the habit of interpreting the German's most badly-presented signals of affection in positive ways.
"Eh..." He grinned playfully, "You missed a good chance, then..."
A scarlet hue cracked the German's complexion, which contorted into grim shapes as a result of his abashment. He was speechless. The more jovial of the pair leaped forward in a movement that the grimacer did not anticipate; the lad seized the superior half of Ludwig in a grasp that was as much an embrace as it was a tackle.
"Tell me you like me!"
"I just said-"
"But I like to hear you say it! Tell me, tell me...!"
.
The tenebrous swathe of the celestial sphere was perforated through with the needlepoint interjections of faraway stars; the further of these thousands hit the pupil as teal luminosities, coalescing in places into milky amalgamations that stretched across the heavens. The cloying scent of newly-bud trees and vegetation floated on the warm air. In the distance could be heard the soughing of a breeze, which wended its way listlessly through the lofty silhouettes of treetops in their nighttime shroud of sable. Every so often came the shuffling of some avian being as it returned to its roost; less frequently, one would be reached by the drowsy pitch issued forth from one such entity's feathered figure as it settled itself in under weary wings.
The couple was unused to seeing the totality of the firmament so laid bare, as in more populated regions the lights typical to urban environments concealed those luminous beacons on high. In spite of the stars, the darkness about the two was deep.
"My eyes are adjusting finally," chuckled Veneciano, "But I still can't see you."
"They're not going to be completely adjusted for a while yet," replied his partner matter-of-factly.
"That's all right, I can find my way around, anyhow."
"Oof!"
"Oh gosh, I'm sorry!"
"Well, I guess you found me, at least," said the German.
The Italian managed to adequately settle his periphery alongside that of the German. He lay so that his exhalations teased the ear of Ludwig, forming slight zephyrs against the side of his head, which were audible to the man in the stillness.
"Tell me you love me," Veneciano uttered, "at least once more before we fall asleep."
The man assured the lad of his love with many kind words, but the adored entity was unresponsive. Noticing his unnatural silence, the German, flustered, questioned the reason for it. He felt his beloved tense momentarily, felt a heated palm alight on the area where his ribcage segued into his abdominal musculature.
It wasn't enough. The words alone- sincere as they were- were no longer enough.
"Kiss me," he pleaded. His voice had petered out from the tones he'd used during the day, which had been unfettered and full of the easy happiness typical to the young individual. The stillness of the nighttime was oppressive. The hand he laid on the German's midsection constricted, fabric puckering in his grasp.
Not even a change in respiration marked that Ludwig had had a response. The Italian's heart pulsed heavily, its owner distraught. Why hadn't his companion answered him? What was going on in the man's head? He sunk his brow into the angle of the accompanying entity's shoulder, low-toned suspirations settling in warm wafts in the crux where a muscle-bound arm merged with its owner's torso. The scent of the German permeated his nasal cavities, heady and brackish, overwhelming his senses to the extent that stars swam before his vision.
Perhaps, he pondered morosely, Perhaps he's ignoring me. Perhaps he's not ready to discuss it...
"Kiss you?"
Apologies came readily to the tongue of the lad, and were issuing in stuttering form from between his teeth before he'd gathered himself; it was a precaution he'd acquired in the past, when the temperament of his companion was less inclined to forgive offending conduct. To the young man's relief, his concomitant was familiar with this particular reflexive behaviour of his, and disregarded it.
"It's not like I'm averse... to the idea, you know. I'm just... well, you know," he said, crumpling his eyelids together painfully tight, "Cold feet."
"You want to kiss me?"
He stammered, but eventually got the point across: He did. The Italian pictured his partner's face turning beet red, as it undoubtedly was doing at the moment. He knew his partner was accustomed to feel the twinges of embarrassment with relative ease, and it always wrote itself in searing carmine across his features.
"Mmm..." moaned the amorous creature, glad that the man sharing the space with him did return his sentiments, but aggravated by his darling's idleness. A vagrant lock of his hair tickled the edge of his cheek, and he lifted his hand from Ludwig's torso temporarily in order to sweep away the transgressor. His palm alighting once more on the abdominal space of his mate, he noticed something he hadn't before. There was a slight shaking beneath his hand; Ludwig was trembling.
If his companion would not take initiative, he'd do it himself.
Ludwig felt the weight on the muscles of his abdominal grid increase, heard the shuffling of the restless being as it shifted, situating itself atop his breast. His dear one held himself aloft, and in the dark his visible aspect was composed chiefly of greyscale tones. The beloved's face, framed by smooth locks that would have flaunted the hue of cinnamon in harder light, remained shrouded by deep shadows.
The Italian inclined his head. Bringing his lips to the flushed surface of the German's countenance, where the fine hair remained silky and invisible at the upper plane of the cheek, he brushed the faint margins of his mouth gently downwards the tremulous exterior. One of his knees settled between the German's legs, and the subjacent man was beset by a sudden fluttering of terror, fearing his partner would realize his attentions were causing his corporeal self to react to his enamored condition.
Veneciano's physique, the weight of which was borne by the ribcage of his companion, quietly swayed with the respiration of his beloved. The eye sockets of his partner were coal-black, and he could not distinguish the outlines of the circular organs there, but he knew, regardless, that the pupils were fixated on him. He pressed a damp forehead to that of his love. He felt a shudder unsettle the bones of the entity beneath him. Nothing was said.
The silver periphery of a cloud was thrown into bright relief, its form sliding to eclipse the gleaming disc that reigned over the nocturnal firmament. The heavenly body disappeared. Two ebony silhouettes converged in a lea far below.
When finally the moon's absence was no more, and the two creatures had pulled shy lips from those of one another, each man breathed into the turquoise-lit atmosphere, quietly ruminating over the joy within.