A/N : A new story. Yay.
Warnings! : AU. Human characters. Violence, language, mental disorders, weird things/subjects, bipolar!Denmark, MPD!Germany. I always wanted to write one of these and slap my signature on the long wall of multiple-personality-clichés, so here I am. I can have fun and be lame too, you know.
Pairings : Denmark x Germany. Other characters featured are Prussia, N. Italy, Finland, plus a few cameos here and there. Other characters that get to be the crazy voices in someone's head are Sweden, Russia, America, and S. Italy. I didn't want to go for a random selection of 'let's just pick these guys and stick them in Germany's head'. I tried to pick characters in whom I can see traits that are shared with Ludwig. It made sense in my head anyway, but I'm probably as crazy as the people I like to write. :D This is meant to be more quirky fun than it is to be taken as a serious study of insanity, cause I've done enough of that, I think. So take most of this with a shaker of salt. That's right, the whole shaker.
This will have 10 chapters. Yeah, I actually thought a story out for once before I started it. You can call the cops now, because I've killed this woman and stolen her identity. :D
As always, thanks for reading, guys. I really do appreciate it.
SHOT DOWN IN FLAMES
Chapter 1
Hole in the Sky
The first words he had said to him were, "My name's Magnus, and I'm crazy! Nice to meet ya."
Accurate. A bit sudden, perhaps, maybe a little odd to throw out, but accurate all the same.
The whole thing started when he got mad at the gas station.
Not at the person behind the counter, not at the other customers out at the pumps, but at the entire entity itself. He couldn't say exactly that he remembered how it had wronged him, assuming it had at all, but he got mad at it all the same.
Maybe it was because the wind had been howling so fiercely that the banner above the door had started flapping around, and maybe, in some way, it had made a shadow or a sound he hadn't liked. Maybe he had still been seething over being kicked out of his apartment. Maybe it was the fact that he had been sleeping in his car for a month. Maybe it was the fact that he had left Denmark behind for the first time in his life and had been living unsuccessfully in Holland and then Germany for three goddamn years.
Whatever it was, the point was that he got mad at the station, threw the handle of the gas pump down to the ground, and stalked right through the steadily growing puddle of gasoline to go up to the building and kick the door until the glass broke.
He couldn't really say that he understood, either, why the guy behind the cash register got pissed off enough to come barging out and shove him backwards.
Didn't anyone else ever get mad at this place and wanna hurt it, too?
Anyhow, long story short—he punched the guy in the face, some idiot behind had been oblivious to the pool of gasoline and had lit up a cigarette, and the whole store lit up soon after.
As far as he had been concerned, it had all been a case of fair is fair. The gas station pissed him off, and had gotten set on fire for it.
For some reason, the cops that had dragged him into the back of the squad car hadn't been sold on his explanation, and in a few days, he had been passed from cell block to courthouse.
He remembered feeling a little out of place, standing beside his well-dressed, court-appointed lawyer, still very much un-bathed and blond hair dirty with soot from the fire, and he remembered the judge sending him rather foul looks.
Everybody seemed so damn irritated with him.
He didn't get it.
What the hell had he done? Not like he had told the dumbass to strike up his lighter.
The judge blabbered on and on, and Magnus found himself paying more attention to the door in the corner of the courthouse, the one that kept swingin' open and closed with court officers and that was steadily pissing him off.
Goddamn door.
Didn't know it was supposed to sit still until everyone was done talking.
A nudge in his shoulder, and he looked over at his lawyer, who was prodding him.
"Well?"
The judge was watching him expectantly, and Magnus straightened up and asked, loudly, "What was the question?"
His lawyer shook his head and sighed as the judge repeated himself.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Magnus stood there for a second, his cuffed hands idle before him, and then he said, "Nah. Not really."
His lawyer sent him a stern look out of the corner of his eye.
Magnus took the hint, and amended, "Well, I mean, I guess I'm sorry 'bout punching that guy in the face. But he hit me first, so, I guess I'm not that sorry after all."
Maybe it was better when he kept his mouth shut.
He heard another low sigh, and then focused his attention back on the door.
The judge blabbered some more. He didn't really listen until he was being nudged again.
"—three months in the psychiatric ward. You need help. I think all parties can agree this is a better alternative than locking you up, again."
Psychiatric ward?
Well, he hadn't agreed to that. And why did he have to go? What were they gonna do about that fuckin' door? 'Cause it was still opening and closing like nothing was wrong.
The gavel banged, someone was pulling him along, and right when they were crossing the threshold, he looked over his shoulder and cried, loudly, "Why don't you send that fuckin' door to the ward, too, because it doesn't listen, either!"
No one ever had answered him on that one, and before long, he found himself being shoved into a room with a handful of white clothing.
At some point between there and here, his car (or the burnt shell of it anyway) had been sold.
His last possession.
He had stared at the clothes rather foully, because he hadn't ever liked white. He put them on all the same, though, because if he didn't the nurses made it quite clear that he was getting a needle in the arm, and even he had enough sense to just lower his head and do what they wanted.
Crazy.
They moved him through a long hallway and then into an elevator, and then into another hallway. He passed a few people, dressed in white like him, wandering around as if in a daze, lurching along clumsily, and Magnus didn't like what he saw.
Lifeless.
Some of them waved at him, placid smiles on their faces.
Drugged to high heaven.
Eventually, he was stopped in front of a door, a card was inserted into the lock, a green light lit up, and he was escorted inside, told to sit still, and then left alone.
The first thing he did, when he settled into his room, was look at himself in the mirror.
Crazy.
Yeah, sure! Crazy handsome, maybe.
He observed himself, as muffled voices came in through the door, and he couldn't understand how he was so different from anyone else.
His hair was messy, yeah, sticking out in odd places no matter how many times he tried to comb it down, but so what? Other people had messy hair. His eyes were blue, darker towards the pupil, but lots of people had blue eyes. He was pretty tall, wide in the shoulders, strongly built. Lots of guys were. His hands were big, veins visible on the backs. He didn't always shave all the way, leaving a little hair on his chin sometimes. Plenty of men did that. His jaw was square and wide, nose straight, cheeks high.
Looked pretty normal, all things considered.
But they said he was crazy.
He didn't have a roommate like some of the others did. He was a danger, apparently. Bars on the window. And it wasn't even glass—some kinda acrylic or something, not easy to break. The mirror wasn't glass, either.
They musta been waiting for him to pitch a fit and start breaking stuff again.
A few hours later, when he had settled in a little, they came back in and handed him that little plastic cup full of pills, and he swallowed them, because they sat there and stared at him and then grabbed his jaw and opened his mouth to double-check.
Dumbasses.
As soon as they left the room, he just went into the bathroom and stuck his finger down his throat.
Everyone walkin' around this place was a fuckin' zombie, and he had little interest in joining them. If he was crazy, then he'd just stay that way, because he would rather be insane than a walking corpse.
The months dragged like fuckin' years.
He didn't understand how some of these people had lived here for actual years and hadn't tried to drown themselves in the toilet yet.
He dreamt of freedom, even though he didn't have anywhere to go once he got out. He was gonna raise enough hell to make up for all of this, that was sure. One gas station? Ha! He'd burn six more.
In here, three months felt like sixteen years, and if he hadn't ever thought he was crazy before, then he was pretty goddamn sure he was crazy by the time he got out.
His head was killing him the morning they unlocked the door for good.
His throat hurt.
On the day he finally walked out of the asylum, a chilly Wednesday, he found himself back in the dirty clothes he had been arrested in, and when he crossed the lobby he saw a man at the counter, leaning over and signing papers.
Magnus stopped in his tracks, and stared at him.
Couldn't really say why.
He was beautiful. That was the first thing Magnus had noticed, in all honestly. Pale hair slicked back, platinum in the sunlight, as tall as he was and just as strongly built, strong jaw clenched and shoulders squared, he was hunched over, pen in hand and scribbling away on the forms.
His clothes were very neat, and pretty expensive. Who dressed that nicely to walk inside the loony bin? That had been the second thing Magnus had noticed, his clothes. He wore shined shoes.
The third thing Magnus had noticed was that the man looked lost. Like he didn't really belong here, but had somehow found himself here all the same.
Magnus knew that feeling well.
When he was done filling out the forms, the woman at the counter took the papers, said, "Just a moment," and the man stood up straight and took a step back.
He was a little taller than Magnus was, on second thought. His eyes were a paler blue than his own, and he stared down at his feet, brow low and lips pursed and cheeks gleaming with blond stubble.
He hadn't talked to anyone since he had been committed, but Magnus wandered over to that man then, coming to a rest right before him, and tried to catch his gaze.
Seeing the feet maybe too close to his own, the man looked up.
Magnus stuck out his hand.
Didn't know why. Something about that face. Looked so...
"My name's Magnus, and I'm crazy! Nice to meet ya."
...resigned. Sad. As if he had been forced here somehow.
Magnus' voice was rough and raspy, maybe a little guttural—three months of forcing himself to vomit once a day had burned his throat raw.
The man stared at him for a second, and then politely accepted the handshake.
"You checkin' in?" he asked, and the man just nodded.
Poor guy.
The man never had told Magnus his name, and the woman was back suddenly, ushering him forward. As he went, Magnus just called, "Good luck."
He didn't really know why he felt so agitated suddenly. Maybe just knowing that someone else was about to go through what he had.
Later on, when the man was gone, Magnus wandered away, hands in his pockets and shivering in the wind, and only got a few lousy blocks down the street before he realized he didn't really feel like going anywhere after all.
Months, waiting to smell fresh air instead of chemicals and medicine.
Months, waiting to get out, and now suddenly he wanted to go back.
So he did.
He returned to the asylum, and looked around.
The man was long gone.
He couldn't get farther than the lobby, so he went back outside the premises, leaned against the stone wall, and waited. He could have gone off somewhere and gathered the last of his money to buy food or at least find a fountain somewhere to leap into to get some of the dirt off his clothes, but he didn't.
His mind was preoccupied.
Maybe he was crazy, because a normal person might not have found themselves thinking so much about someone they didn't know. He couldn't shake the man from his head, and didn't really try to. Why bother? He had nothing on the outside. Nowhere to go. Nobody waiting for him.
Nothing.
Why not just let his spontaneity lead him where it would and see what happened?
When it was dark, he crept over the gate and walked around the premises, using shadows to his advantage and peering nosily into windows.
He had been on the second floor during his stint, where the security was higher.
He assumed the man, having walked in, was on the first floor.
He was right. Didn't take too long to find him.
A glimpse of blond, as he passed a window, and he poked his head up, caught sight of the man, sitting on the bed with a book, and felt himself being drawn over like a magnet.
He had introduced himself earlier; it would be nice, at the least, to get a name in return.
He crept to the window, put his hand up, and rapped the glass with his knuckles. Real glass, he noted immediately.
The man turned his head this way and that, searching for the noise, and when he saw Magnus outside the window, he fell still, and stared, pale eyes wide beneath his loose hair. By all rights, he probably could have run out of the room and searched for the nearest security guard to come in and beat the hell out of the creep peeping in his window.
Instead, for whatever reason, he stood up, walked over, and grabbed the windowsill.
The pane was lifted up.
This guy must have been low-security, because his fuckin' windows had always had bars.
When the glass was up above and the barrier gone, Magnus leaned forward, folded his arms and rested them on the windowsill, poking his head in rather obtrusively. The man just stared down at him, and if he wanted to question this exceedingly odd event, then he thought better of it and stayed silent.
Magnus was glad he didn't ask, 'Who the hell are you and why are you spying on me, you perv?'
Awkward.
Well, so far the man seemed patient. That was always a good thing when it came to Magnus.
Not off to a bad start.
A short silence.
"So," Magnus finally said, when he found his voice, "I just gotta ask! What's a pretty thing like you doin' in a place like this?"
Pretty was an accurate word. Other people might have been too scared to come up to this husky, well-built, virile young man and call him 'pretty', for fear of being punched in the face.
Not him.
The man stood there for a second, staring at him, and then he lifted up his chin in acknowledgment and replied, "What do you think? I'm crazy."
The man's voice was about as low and gruff as his was, although his was surely just natural, not the result of sickness.
He had liked the sound of it right off. Magnus smiled, and rested his chin on his folded arms, peering up at the man with a high brow.
"You sure don't look crazy."
Neither did he, but he had found himself behind that glass once all the same.
"I don't feel crazy, either," came the deep, rumbling drawl, "But they tell me I am, so I guess I am."
Magnus scoffed, as pale eyes met his own, and he knew his smile was showing off his teeth.
"Ah! What do they know? They told me I was crazy, too, but I think everyone else is crazy, not me. They just can't handle guys as interesting as us, is all."
The man came a little closer, and appeared to warm a bit to his presence. His tense face loosened, and so did his stance. Relieved, perhaps, that someone was agreeing with him.
Crazy people always felt the most comfortable around other crazy people, after all.
"Oh yeah? What did they say was wrong with you?"
"I don't know, something about not having any boundaries or whatever, ah—I think they said it was Intermittent Explosive Disorder, or something. I wasn't really listening in court. What about you?"
The man reached up, smoothed back his silky hair, and said, "Well, apparently there are some other guys living inside my head or something, but I haven't met any of 'em yet so they might just be fuckin' with me."
"Oh, I'm sure," was all he said.
They stared at each other for a while, Magnus still leering up perhaps a bit inappropriately, and the man came closer to the window, resting his hands on either side of Magnus' folded arms.
A face was suddenly very close to his own, and the man's voice got lower.
"Did you hurt somebody?" he asked, and Magnus shrugged a shoulder.
"A little. I've never killed anyone, if that's what you're asking. Guess they thought I could, though, if I got mad enough, 'cause I was never allowed to be alone with anyone else in here. You? Ever hurt anyone?"
The man rested his weight on his elbows then, falling down ever lower.
"Not that I can recall. But like I said, I haven't met the other guys."
Right then and there, Magnus was pretty sure he could have fallen in love with that man, in one way or another, and he put his hand in through the window in an offer of freedom.
"If you don't feel crazy, then why don't you come out?"
Hesitation.
The man stood back up straight, and stared at Magnus' hand as if it were rather daunting. Like he was looking at something he wanted but wasn't really allowed to have.
"I can't. I promised somebody I'd stay in here until I got better."
Better.
Better was just a word.
"You think you'll really get any better by stayin' in here? Maybe I am crazy, but I think the only time I got better was when I walked out. I'm tellin' ya, I've been in there. I never got any better. Worst days of my life, sitting in here."
The man shifted, looking so disheartened suddenly, and Magnus raised his hand up higher.
"Well, come on," he goaded, persistently. "You don't look crazy to me, so let's just get the hell out of here. I know you don't wanna stay in here. Hey, sometimes you gotta break promises. Anyway, if they wanted you in this place, then maybe you shouldn't'a been making promises to them in the first place. If you're afraid to go home, that's alright. You can come with me, if you want."
The man looked down at him, and seemed a little brighter.
"Oh, yeah? Where're you going?"
"Dunno yet. I don't have anybody, so I was just gonna start walking and see where I wound up."
And, well, that must have sounded pretty good, because the man broke into a smile at last, and gripped the windowsill in his hands as he swung his legs through.
"You want me to come out? Catch me, then, and let's go."
He did.
The window wasn't high up in any sense, but he didn't mind holding arms up and grabbing the man by the waist to lower him down until his feet hit the grass.
Kinda haughty, in his own peculiar way.
"What's your name?" Magnus finally asked, as the man straightened up and brushed himself down quite neatly.
"Ludwig."
"I'm Magnus—"
"And you're crazy. I remember."
Yeah, making a memorable first impression was usually something he was pretty good at.
They looked at each other for a moment, each seeming to size the other up, and Magnus was the one to jerk a thumb over his shoulder and whisper, "Let's go this way."
Ludwig followed him when he started slinking along.
It had been a long time since he had done anything fun, but sneaking that man out of the sanitarium was pretty damn exhilarating.
Climbing the fence was more of a thrill than walking out of the door.
When his feet hit the ground, he reached up, expecting to be chided for not catching Ludwig as he had when he had crawled out the window, but Ludwig just dropped down onto the concrete and pulled himself up quite easily, brushing down his shirt.
Well.
Maybe that haughtiness came and went as much as Magnus' anger did.
"Where did you have in mind?" Ludwig asked, and Magnus shrugged a shoulder.
"Let's just walk."
So they did.
Creeping silently until they were well in the midst of the city streets, and when they were far enough away, Magnus tucked his hands in his pockets and loosened up.
Everything now was just up to chance, because he didn't have anywhere he was supposed to be and Ludwig wasn't staying where he was supposed to be.
Low chatter amongst themselves.
They walked through the dark streets, hands in their pockets and hair whipping in the chilly wind, and Magnus felt better then than he had in years.
Just making small talk with some guy he didn't even know.
Exchanges of pleasantries and a few personal details.
Buildings all around. The streets were lit up by headlights and shop signs, and even though they were supposedly crazy, nobody stopped to question them or even send them strange looks as they walked. Magnus was too loud, maybe, but otherwise he couldn't have ever said for certain that there was anything wrong with either one of them.
Ludwig looked like any other guy as much as he did. Didn't talk that much, maybe, but that was alright.
Magnus spoke enough for both of them.
He was very ready to keep on walking and never look back, but when they reached a certain point, maybe some kind of invisible line, Ludwig paused, and fell to a halt by digging his heels into the ground.
Magnus looked back at him, and Ludwig shook his head.
They hadn't even gone that far. Why was he stopping here?
He had just assumed that Ludwig was really going with him.
"What's the matter?" he finally asked, when Ludwig seemed content to just stare at him, and he could already feel the irritation creeping up.
Maybe he shoulda mentioned to Ludwig that he had a short fuse.
And by short, he really meant no fuse at all.
"I should go back," Ludwig suddenly said. "I gotta tell a friend goodbye before we head off. Anyway, I already committed myself. I should at least get a few days of rest out of it, right? They've got some crazy drugs, or so I hear. Why don't we start out this weekend? So I can at least pretend that I tried keeping my promise."
A burst of anger that was no doubt irrational, but Magnus bit it down, and went when Ludwig started to lead them back to the ward.
Almost pitched a fit for a second there.
Somehow, he got the rage under control, for once, and instead barked, "Forget the drugs. Don't take that shit, whatever ya do. Makes ya dull as hell."
"Is that so?"
He looked at Ludwig, at those cool eyes and that intelligent air and that vibrant step, and couldn't imagine what he would look like if he actually swallowed the stuff they gave him.
Adamantly, and maybe a little too loudly, he said, "You're too interesting to take that stuff. If you do, you'll just turn into a ghost, you know? You're so—well, you seem really nice, and you're really good-lookin', and, damn! I'd hate to see ya turn into one of them. You wouldn't even be able to think anymore. They'd ruin you with that stuff. I think you're great the way you are! Don't let them change anything. It'd be a shame, losin' the way you are."
The idea of drugs got him so riled up.
Three fuckin' months, throwing that stuff up and hoping they never caught on.
Ludwig probably thought he was crazy, alright, and he was, but he couldn't stand the thought of someone he suddenly liked burning out, wandering around those halls like the others did.
Somewhere during that speech, something must have set off a trigger in Ludwig's head, because suddenly an arm was thrown around Magnus' shoulders, and when he looked over, Ludwig was smiling at him, nose so close that it touched his own.
Looked a little different, suddenly.
Friendlier. More approachable.
When he opened his mouth and spoke, he sounded different, too.
"You sure do know how to flatter a guy! Jeez, you make it sound like you've already got a thing for me! But I'm still gonna hang out there for a few days all the same. So, buddy, are you gonna wait for me to come with you or are you just gonna take me back and ditch me there and go have all the fun yourself? 'Cause you look a little mad."
Magnus stared at him, at the way Ludwig's brow was high and the smile was lopsided and how bright his face suddenly was, and he was pretty sure that he was meeting one of the 'other guys' that Ludwig had mentioned.
Ludwig's voice was a little higher, and the pronunciation of certain vowels had changed.
Maybe he had stoked Ludwig's ego too much or something.
Dumbly, Magnus said, "I'm not mad. But, hey. You're still Ludwig, aren't you?"
Ludwig's brow crinkled a little, but the smile stood strong.
"Who's that?" he finally asked, a bit curiously. "Don't know him. Name's Alfred. You're a weird guy, Magnus."
Look who was talking!
All the same, he felt himself smiling like an idiot, and just let Ludwig, or whoever, keep an arm around his shoulders. Wouldn't complain, that was for sure.
Huh. Ludwig was crazy after all.
Wouldn't complain about that, either.
"Well, I like you anyway!"
For once in his life, Magnus found himself rather speechless, as Ludwig kept that arm around his shoulder, fist hanging loose under his collar, and gawked over at him instead.
He couldn't even remember the last time he hadn't been able to think of anything to say.
His enthusiasm for this insane human being he didn't really know magnified tenfold in that instant.
Ludwig just chattered on.
"Anyway, I wish I woulda met you a long time ago. They've been telling me that I'm crazy so long I almost started to believe it, you know? I coulda used you before, to tell me I wasn't."
Ludwig spoke in his ear as they walked back, and Magnus just listened and nodded his head, the dumb smile still plastered on his face.
This guy was much more talkative than Ludwig was, certainly, and a little quirky in his mannerisms.
Kept on running a hand through his own hair.
Well, everyone was quirky, Magnus supposed, in their own way.
'Cept for that damn judge that had sent him out here, maybe.
That arm stayed around his shoulder the entire hour they walked back.
The gate of the ward, once the arch to freedom, suddenly loomed in the distance like a guillotine.
The last place Magnus ever wanted to see again.
All the same, Ludwig (Alfred? Alfonso? Whatever the hell he had said his name was) grabbed the fence in strong hands, and started hauling himself up.
Magnus followed him.
That had been the first time in his life that Magnus had ever intentionally tried to sneak into an asylum, rather than out of it.
They passed without incident, and Magnus considered writing a letter to some public officials about the rather lax security in this place. Even if they didn't house truly dangerous people, still seemed more like tempting disaster.
All the better for him, though.
They went back the way they had come, and with every step, Magnus' heart dropped. The still-open window stood out, and Ludwig leapt for it in a second.
Magnus hung back, feeling a little dejected suddenly.
Back here again.
Ludwig turned around, arms crossed, and said, "Guess I'll see you in a couple of days. Don't forget about me. I'm kinda lookin' forward to going with ya."
He couldn't find his smile, then, even though Ludwig had declared intent to come with him.
A couple of days was too long.
If there was anything he lacked more than restraint, it was patience.
At the last minute, Magnus just sighed and said, drearily, "Remember not to take the pills, whatever you do."
With that, he turned on his heel, and had every intention of sleeping under the nearest bridge until he could come back and get Ludwig out for good.
Didn't make it far.
Voices from behind.
Ludwig stuck his head out of the window suddenly, right when Magnus started walking off, and whispered, "When the hell did we get back here? Hey, where are you going? Wanna spend the night?"
The first voice was back.
Rather, Ludwig was back, and Magnus immediately whirled around and bounded back towards the window.
"Sure!"
Not even a second of hesitation.
Spending a night in the institution was pretty much home, sweet home by now. Not like he had anywhere else to sleep.
Ludwig stuck a hand through the window, Magnus took it, and Ludwig hauled him inside.
He tumbled in, feeling a bit mischievous, and heard a laugh from the side.
When he looked over, he saw another man, sitting in a chair, shaking his head to himself as he held a book.
"This is Timo," Ludwig said, quietly, as Magnus pulled himself to his feet, and the so called Timo glanced up from his book, brow high and the start of a sneer on his face.
"Whoa! Jeez, Ludwig, you've only been here for a day and you're already bringin' guys in through the window. 'Bout time I got an interesting roommate. Good thing I left it open for you, huh? I was about to go to sleep."
Magnus smiled at Timo, who smiled back at him as he stood up, stretching the book over his head.
"Well!" he said, rather slyly, "Guess I'll go find somewhere else to crash for the night. You two look like you wanna get to know each other a little better."
Timo crept to the door, slunk through, and shut it quietly behind him.
That must have been the guy Ludwig had wanted to say goodbye to.
Alone and feeling like he was a little kid suddenly, Magnus threw himself down on the bed, crossed one leg over the other, slung his hands behind his head, and heaved a sigh.
Jittery. Excited.
Ludwig watched him for a moment before sitting himself down carefully on the edge.
For a second there, as Ludwig stared at him, Magnus was pretty sure he saw a flash of confusion cross Ludwig's face; a crinkling of his brow, a pursing of his lips, a slight tilt of his head.
Probably wonderin' how the hell he had gotten back here so damn fast.
Ludwig said he hadn't met any of the 'other guys', so that past hour or so must have just been total blackout. How disconcerting that must have been, to sit up straight and suddenly realize you didn't remember how you got somewhere and why. Where those lost hours went.
He smiled at Ludwig, intending to distract him from that sudden confusion, and said, "Have you ever been in a place like this before?"
Ludwig caught his gaze, and shrugged a shoulder.
"I think I was when I was little, but I hardly remember any of that. Maybe that was just something I dreamed."
"Or maybe they gave you the drugs," he muttered, swinging a restless foot, and Ludwig just raised a shoulder. "Who sent you here this time, if you don't mind me asking?"
"My brother."
"What did you do?"
"I don't remember," Ludwig said, and Magnus believed him.
A silence that was more melancholy than awkward.
It was a little sad, seeing Ludwig attempting to recall a memory only to have nothing come up no matter how hard he tried.
"Well," Ludwig finally said, in an effort to take his mind off of the fog, "It couldn't'a been anything too bad, I guess. I didn't wake up in a police station or naked anywhere."
Magnus burst into laughter that was probably too loud, and Ludwig sent him a reproachful look.
"Tone it down a little, won't you?"
He couldn't help it. He had always been loud. His obnoxious laughter died down into giggles, but it was a little too late.
A knock on the door interrupted them shortly afterwards.
A voice came in through the wood.
"Ludwig? Hope you're decent, I'm comin' in."
Ludwig jolted upright, and Magnus took the adrenaline rush to mean that he should be hiding.
He dove to the floor.
The door started clicking open.
Magnus stuffed himself under the bed, as best he could, and peered out from beneath the bottom of the blanket.
A nurse stood in the doorframe, leaning against it, and looked Ludwig up and down with a smile. Magnus recognized him as the same guy that had always tried to give him his pills. Dark hair and dark eyes, always smiling, a little on the short and stocky side, he had always been civil, even as Magnus had sent him dirty looks. Nice. Too nice, maybe, to be working where he did. The nurse took a sudden scope around the room, long and hard, before reaching up to scratch the dark shadow of stubble on his cheek when he saw nothing, and then he spoke.
"Hey, Ludwig."
"Hi, Feliciano."
"What are you doing in here?"
Not a bad guy.
"Nothing."
"I saw Timo wandering around in the halls, so... Who were you talking to?"
Brown eyes settled on blue, and Magnus could only imagine that Ludwig was smiling too when he said, "I don't remember. Guess you scared him away."
Ha—well, Ludwig said he wasn't crazy, and probably didn't think he was, but he sure could use everyone else's assumptions to his advantage.
Smart.
He liked people like that.
The nurse was still for a second, and then he stood up straight, gave a short laugh, and shook his head.
"Well. I was just checking on you, but you look alright, so. You know. Behave yourself for the night, won't ya? I got a date in the morning and I already look like hell. Cut a guy some slack."
He ran a hand through his messy hair, still smiling, and Ludwig was quick to throw out, in an intentional distraction of the nurse's wandering eyes, "If it doesn't go well, then you can always just have a date with me and Timo. If you work at it."
The nurse laughed, and crossed his arms, letting down his guard.
"Yeah, sure. Who could resist that! Just don't bring any uninvited guests to the party, alright?"
"I'll try."
"Excellent. Get some sleep."
Another smile, and then the door shut.
A sigh from Ludwig.
A short silence, and then Magnus rolled out from under the bed, and when he poked his head out, Ludwig was hanging over the edge, his face right above Magnus', and was staring down at him.
His hair hung loose as he sent Magnus a stern look.
"Is there a volume button on that voice of yours?"
"Not really," he replied, as he lifted his head up and nearly bumped Ludwig's nose with his forehead, but when he crawled back on the bed, he found himself lowering his voice all the same.
Speaking in quiet, hushed tones.
A long time coming.
He felt rather like a schoolgirl in that moment, flopped on his stomach on the bed with his arms crossed beneath his chin, Ludwig sitting in front of him and both of them whispering and turning eyes to the door as they did something they shouldn't have.
He hadn't ever really had a normal childhood. No one had ever spent the night at his house or invited him over to theirs, so lying here with Ludwig was about as close as he was gonna get.
Ludwig put his palms on the bed, rested his weight atop them, and looked down at him.
"Have you ever been in a place like this before?"
Magnus shook his head.
"I've been in jail a few times, but never in here. Don't know what I did different this time, though." He shot Ludwig a bright smile, and asked, "Ever been in jail?"
From the wide-eyed look on Ludwig's face, the answer was obviously 'No!'
Straight arrow, maybe. At least this Ludwig was. Maybe the other Ludwigs had gotten into trouble here and there and left no memories of it behind.
"I've never been arrested. I mean, I've been inside jails a couple of times, for my brother. He gets into trouble every chance he gets. Sometimes I think maybe he should be the one in here, not me. I've never even gotten a ticket for anything. Maybe I wasn't the best in school, though."
As Ludwig spoke, Magnus listened intently, at least he did until he suddenly found his eyes drifting up, over and over again, to the wall behind Ludwig.
Agitation.
He tried hard to keep his attention on Ludwig, but for some reason he always found his gaze falling on that same wall.
He raised up a shoulder, rolling it restlessly.
Fuckin' wall.
Kept on staring at him.
Couldn't focus.
"—anyway, I dropped out after that. I got tired of them looking at me like I was crazy."
He sat upright, put his hand on Ludwig's shoulder, and said, snappily, "Hold that thought!"
Ludwig stopped short, looked at him as he slid off the bed, and then he stalked over to the wall, pulled back his fist, and punched it.
His knuckles cracked and pain shot up his wrist, but it was worth it just to put that fuckin' wall in its place.
Show it who was boss around here.
It stopped staring at him afterward, that was for sure.
When he pulled his fist back, Ludwig raised his brow and sent him a strange look.
"What'd you do that for?"
Magnus lifted his chin, squared his shoulders, and ignored the ache in his knuckles.
"It was pissin' me off."
And, for some unholy reason, Ludwig smiled.
No one had ever smiled at him after one of his episodes.
Silence, and then a gruff scoff.
"Ah. I never liked that wall much since I got here, anyway."
Suddenly, Magnus found that his fist didn't hurt so much anymore.
Just having Ludwig looking at him without scorn. The first person who had seen him be crazy and still smile.
And suddenly, he wanted to be outside, but only if Ludwig was with him.
If Ludwig stayed, then he'd stay, too.
Crazy.
"Do we have to wait a few days?" Magnus finally asked, no doubt looking as impatient as he felt, and Ludwig stared at him for a second, and then tilted his head. "If we hang around any longer, they'll try to give you those damn pills in the morning! Let's just go tonight! You saw your friend again, and your brother doesn't need to know."
He had always lived in the moment. This was no exception.
Hadn't even known this man for one whole day.
"Well. If you wanna go that bad, I guess—"
He didn't let Ludwig finish, too excited to wait any longer, and just cried, "Great!" as he began to pull Ludwig to the window.
"Where are we going?" Ludwig asked, as he had hours before, and this time, Magnus had a better answer.
"Well, they say we're crazy, right? So let's go see if we can find out where we left our sanity at."
Didn't make much sense to a normal person, sure, but they weren't normal, and Ludwig gave a short, brisk laugh, and pulled the pane of glass up again.
"Then! Let's get goin'. 'Cause if we are the crazy ones, then I haven't seen my sanity in a long time.
They leapt out of the window, scaled the fence, and didn't glance back this time.
Ludwig looked over at him when their feet hit the ground for a second time, and said, "You've always been an instigator, haven't you?"
Magnus just smiled.
"Yup."
The pale light of dawn turned the horizon pink.
Magnus reached out, grabbed Ludwig's hand, yanked him into the street, and they started walking.
They left the asylum behind, and walked through the hole in the sky.