It was a clear day today. Ludwig was enjoying himself as much as he could, given his position. He sat on the dry rocks, feet in the water that rushed up to meet him, hands in his pockets, and his eyes closed with his face tilted up to the sun. The seagulls weren't even squawking from their pesky daily tasks of annoying everybody around them. It wasn't humid, or at least by a person who lived by the sea's standard of not humid, and the air smelled like, shockingly, the sea. The weather was nice, but the man sitting on the rocks did not care. Something was troubling the man, and more specifically, his memories were.
A sigh escaped the lips of Ludwig Beilschmidt.
His didn't seem very fair. He had the money and the loving family that he could possibly need in his life, his brother proved his loyalty to him long ago, loving pets that would serve their entire life to making him feel happy and in return got love, and had even made a friend through hanging out at a bar with his brother, Kiku. He was even able to go out more and be able to socialize with his two friends.
But while Kiku and Gilbert were fantastic, he still missed his parents. And, of course, obviously, of course, Feliciano. Sadly enough, he couldn't remember all of the things of Feliciano or what they had done during the time they had together. It was like trying to find a fanfiction with a certain plot that you had no knowledge of the plot nor that the author deleted it You could google it as much as you'd like, you'd only be left with certain parts in your mind that truly stuck out to you when you never found it. And Ludwig, like most of us has experienced, could not find the fanfiction.
If he tried very hard and concentrated for hours on end, he would be able to recall the face. The face was the hardest part to remember of Feliciano, the easiest being his smile and his laugh. Ludwig had tried to draw the face that he could barely remember, but he was never very good at art to begin with and after a couple of attempts, gave up. After all, nobody could recreate that type of beauty.
Basically, he wasn't able to remember anything of Feliciano. He could remember his laughter, the way he said his name, and vague parts that stuck out to him. Otherwise, he was forgotten. But luckily, Ludwig would never let Feli be forgotten. Not as long as he lived, and he planned on living for a long, long time.
Three years ago, after Gilbert helped him remember Feliciano, when they came home from the memorable beach trip, the two brothers sat down in their living room to talk about everything. Gilbert, being mature enough for once, told him everything that happened that he knew of between them.
"Who knows, bro, you might've lost your virginity to a fish!"
Gilbert had a black eye for a little bit after that, but what Ludwig got was so much more.
During the months that Ludwig was refusing to go to the beach, Gilbert went down himself to tell the bad news to Feliciano. Feli hadn't taken it very well, and made Gilbert swear to come back, promising to be back the next day. Needless to say, both parties made it the next day, Feli waiting for him on the beach. When Gilbert went up to him, Feli shoved something to him, red faced.
"Make sure to give this to Luddy, I want him to have it!"
Gilbert took the object in his hand and ran his fingers over the rough yet smooth surface. The object itself looked and felt like a shell would, but it was blue and faded to purple. At the end of it was splash of yellow on it. The shell had bits of sand on it and smelt deeply of the sea, which Gilbert figured was normal, and looked up at Feliciano with a confused look on his face. "What is this suppose to be? It looks like a-"
"It's a shell, silly. It's actually my favorite shell, this is what I feel every time I'm with Luddy. All colorful and warm. See, if you squeeze it in your hand like this," the surprisingly warm hands of Feli wrapped around Gilbert's and curled the fingers shut. "All warm inside. I think that's what love is, no?"
Feli made him swear on his grave, after what that was explained, that he would give it to Ludwig when he remembered him. Gilbert promised and delivered through after he remembered. And now that was his most prized possession, taking place even over his parent's last family photo, which hung next to the shell on his dresser.
No, Feli was far from being forgotten, but he was also a long way from being remembered too. In time, Ludwig hoped, he would be fully remembered, but until then-
SPLASH
Ludwig's head snapped towards the sound. Something far out from sea had just jumped from a wave. No dolphins or fish could've done that, this wasn't the right season for that type of stuff. It was only March after all. So that meant…
"Feli? Feliciano?!" Ludwig stood up with his heart in his throat. "Is that you? Feli?" His breath was gone, could this really be the moment when he would finally re-meet the love of his dreams? "Feliciano?"
The top of a head rose from the surface of the waves, almost hesitant.
"Feliciano?"
It'd be the tenth anniversary of Gilbert's passing in a few weeks. Ludwig sipped at his tea, wondering if he should do something special for his brother's death day. Maybe he could paint him a crude picture of his favorite bird. What was the bird's blasted name? Wasn't it something like a pun? He could barely remember. Ludwig was after all nearing the steep age of seventy in a few months.
Those were the days, if he could recall. He could recall less and less everyday, his brain was slowing down these days. But when he was in love with the only person his life would allow, Feliciano, he felt like nothing could stop him. Those days were the best days of his life and like all good things, they came to an end. Feliciano was dead. The memory stung at him when he remembered it.
The head looked at Ludwig and swam closer to him. Ludwig was sure that he never met this guy, it looked nothing like Feli, but responded to the name like it was a slap in the face. Eventually the two were close enough that if Ludwig squatted down, he would be able to see him properly and talk to him without shouting.
"You know Feliciano," the voice stated in wonder. "You must be the amazing Ludwig, no?"
Maybe he could go surfing today. He had been very keen on that sport out of all the water sports. It was like gliding on the water's natural waves. It didn't affect any lives like scuba diving when he did that thirty years ago. Besides, the oxygen tanks ran out of oxygen too fast. There was simply too much to see, the colors, the fish, everything. Now he knew that Feliciano would love it if the two of them could just swim down there.
Gilbert told him that Feli would talk about the two of them doing something together, but they never truly got the chance to do something like that.
When Ludwig rose out of his chair, he tried to ignore the cracking noise his bones made. He tried in vain to ignore the noises that his chest was making when he was coughing after he rose as well, but it wasn't very easy to ignore the pain that your chest makes. He lived the last six decades learning all about that.
"Feliciano would talk about you all the time," the merman that was now known as Antonio told Ludwig. The two moved down to the beach where both of them could comfortably sit and talk. "He was so scared that you would never remember him."
"That's the thing though, I was hoping that I could talk to him. I miss him and I," Ludwig trailed off at the look that Antonio was giving him. "What? What is it?"
"Ludwig," Antonio swallowed. "The reason why I'm here now is because Feliciano wanted to come back down here every now and then. I wanted to honor that promise we made him and return, but the others wouldn't come with me. They said it was too hard."
"Why would it be too hard? Is it hard to swim?"
The, now white haired, German brought his old surfboard and loaded it into the bed of his old truck. It was too much of a hassle to walk the mile down everyday. His truck would work just as well and gave him a place to rest without worrying about drowning, regardless of him mastering the art of swimming long ago.
It was a nice day outside that day, just like the one with...Antonio? That sounded right. Just like the day with Antonio the merman, Feli's friend. He would never forget that conversation that took place, it truly changed his life after it. Ludwig relapsed into depression for months and the only thing that shook him from it was Gilbert's idea of living for Feli. Go and explore the world that they had shared at one point, go into the water, get involved in life. Feli would've wanted it for Ludwig.
After he put the board into the truck, Ludwig watched with exasperation. He was really tired, would he even be able to surf today? He felt like he could just take a nap all day long and not miss a thing. He probably wouldn't anyway, he didn't do much except sleep or surf anyway. Plus, all his friends either moved away or died, he didn't hang out with anybody anyway.
"W...what do you mean? He can't be dead! He's suppose to come and see me, you said so!"
As much as it pained him, he decided to sleep instead of going to surf that day. As much as it hurt him, he couldn't go today. His knees were hurting anyway.
"I'm sorry, Ludwig, really. But he's not coming back."
His bones creaked along with the stairs as he clambered upstairs to his bedroom. He could have a nice snooze until two o'clock, that's when his favorite World War Two movie came on and he wanted to watch it. It was Fantastic with a capital 'f.'
"You are LYING!"
His bones finally relaxed when he returned to his plush white pillows. They didn't even rattle when he yawned one of his bigger yawns that meant he would be missing his program. Ah, well, with technology today he would simply be able to rewind the channel to watch it. If nothing else, he could just pick up a book from a pile of things from World War Two to read something about it.
Ludwig looked at himself in the mirror that had been attached to his dresser as a kid. His face had grown wrinkled, along with the rest of his body. His muscles had faded away, though some still remained with him. His hair had retreated to the back of his head, leaving a shiny spot of skin. It had also turned to a soft glowing white. In the sunlight it beamed off in waves of new light that made his tired eyes blink. The only thing that remained the same were the striking blue eyes of Ludwig's that dazed the brown ones that he yearned to see again.
"Maybe if I finally go to sleep, I'll see them," he yawned to himself and rolled over on his side. "Then I'll be happy at last."
The old German man dug his head into his pillow and shut his eyes, not even bothering to take off his glasses this time. He was much too tired for a simple task such as that. It made him shudder and sputter out a cough, at least that's what he thought. The darkness slowly crept up on him, coming closer and closer, then taking him all at once.
His dream today was again, on the beach. This time it was the beach somewhere else though, which was weird. Everyday for the past forty-nine years had been on the beach he lived so close by, the beach where he met Feliciano, the beach where he was the happiest he had ever been. This beach, however, had a totally different layout with even more beautiful water that dazzled the eyes. The beach glimmered with amazing shells, glistening in the sunlight.
His sky blue eyes shifted upwards to the sky and blinked back in it's amazing sight. There were clouds, but the perfect clouds. They were puffed up just right and had been spread apart as if there were a ruler involved that wanted everything in order. The sky even bared a rainbow that shown not only once, but twice through the sky. A double rainbow, something that Ludwig had never seen before.
The eyes returned to the ground where a couple of trees were crossed and had a hammock tied to their trunks. It was the classic netted hammock that hung between the palm trees, the only thing missing was the little drink with the umbrella. The trees were surrounded by pure white sand, things so commonly missed these days with pollution.
But regardless, he was still there and was still imagining something that would make it even better. Feliciano Vargas jumping through the water with a smile on the distinguished face. In fact, Ludwig could actually make out the face this time through the sleep's dream. He smiled softly, it had been quite a while since he was able to see it, and had solely missed it.
The soft brown hair bobbed slightly when the man stopped moving around in the water and turned towards Ludwig. "Luddy!" The chiming voice called out, making his heart throb. The merman stuck his arm up, showing him the fin that was on his arm. This dream was very detailed, Ludwig came to realize a minute or so after watching his love. He had forgotten some of the details on his body. Like the exact shade of the tail and fins, or how Feli had the hair curl.
This dream was very lucid, in fact. He could feel the entire surrounding area. He was able to smell the scent of what smelled like fresh cookies in the air. Ludwig was able to run his hand over the sand to feel every grain move underneath it, the heat it was giving off. Was it…?
"Luddy, come on, I've been waiting for you!" Feli laughed the most adorable laugh that he hadn't heard in a long, long time. "Aren't you coming?"
Ludwig sighed and stood up, rising to a height he forgot he had when he was twenty-something. "Gimme a second," he called back. A confused look replaced his already slightly concerned one. His voice actually rumbled in his throat, something that he felt when he was actually speaking. He lifted his hands to see the wrinkle-free version of them that he only saw in dreams. His arms had the muscles still attached to them that disappeared years ago. Everything looked like it did when he was with Feliciano before he died.
Was this truly a dream? Because if it wasn't that meant…
"Feliciano?" Ludwig hesitantly called out. "Is this real?"
"Of course, silly." Feliciano giggled. "Everything should be real. I'm here after all." He smiled as though that helped Ludwig figure out what was going on.
"But where are we?"
"Heaven, of course!"
"Heaven?" Ludwig stammered out. Was this really…?
"Sure! What do you think the afterlife is called? I guess you could call it Paradise or something else, but that's what I call it at least!"
"The...afterlife?" Ludwig blinked. "But I just fell asleep to take a nap."
Feli splashed some water around with his arms. "Well, yeah, but…" he trailed off and looked back up at him with teary brown eyes that almost broke Ludwig's heart to see. "Do you not want to see me again?"
Ludwig only had to wait a second before breaking out into the water and wrapping his strong, forever strong, arms around the body. He squeezed the now laughing body tightly with them and kissed the top of the brown hair, feeling the other's arms wrap around him. Nothing ever felt so good, nothing could ever replace the feeling he got when he wrapped his arms around the most precious thing in his life that had been missing for majority of it.
"I've waited my life to see you again, liebe."
He forgot what it felt like to hold him, he forgot what it felt like to smell his salty hair, he forgot everything that should never be forgotten. But at the same time he was glad, he was finally able to see Feliciano again. And this time, while the two made new memories together, he would remember the old.
And what better way to start off forever than by a kiss?
High Tides, something that brought in a merman when he was looking for shells. Something that changed the life of two destined beings for the better.
The End.