Standard disclaimers apply.
After a whole week apart, Ernst realizes with a pang that he had forgotten exactly how good it feels to kiss Hanschen, even with all the time he'd spent committing it to memory. He hadn't been sure he'd ever get to experience this again, and that makes their reunion that much sweeter.
But when he remembers the reasons for his fears he gently squirms out of Hanschen's arms and pushes him away, because they were in the middle of a discussion and he isn't quite ready to give up yet.
"Um?"
"Friends who kiss sometimes," Hanschen agrees belatedly. Ernst gets a little thrill at the way his voice is thin and he's out of breath, but he's also almost positive this concession is only intended to shut him up. After all, it's difficult to talk with someone's tongue down your throat.
"You didn't want that," Ernst reminds him, a little uncertain now that he's forcing Hanschen into a situation he's not comfortable with.
"I changed my mind." Hanschen certainly doesn't sound uncomfortable anymore. He's reaching for Ernst's face again. Ernst swats at him, smiling so the other boy knows he's mostly kidding.
"So…"
"I did have my reasons for pushing you away," Hanschen says, leveling Ernst with a pointed look as he adds, "many of which I articulated."
"Some of which I suspect you didn't," Ernst says stubbornly.
"None of which matter now," Hanschen finishes, pulling him in again.
Ernst blinks up at him, but Hanschen's eyes are already closed. This makes his face harder to read, but if his body language is anything to go by, Hanschen is completely calm — he's relaxed against Ernst, leaning into his touch in a way that suggests wholehearted trust. Somehow Ernst can't help but feel like there's a hint of tension somewhere in the line of his spine, some unspoken fear he can't quite let go of, but as there's no evidence for this strange inkling he forces himself to let it go.
"If you're sure," he mumbles into the other boy's mouth, fighting back a smile at the way Hanschen sighs breathily against him when he concedes to the kiss.
Ernst loves this side of him — the way distant, collected, often cold Hanschen almost becomes undone when they're like this. Despite his unmistakable prowess, he just lies there and lets Ernst do his worst to him. He's still in control somehow, of course — he's just found a way to manipulate Ernst's actions by the subtle shifts in his breathing and the way he squirms in his arms.
This tactic works so well that Ernst completely forgets about his unanswered questions and himself, focusing entirely on the boy who just recently ended up beneath him. He links their hands together at their sides, moving his lips from Hanschen's mouth to his jaw and down the side of his neck. Suddenly Hanschen is wearing the lesser amount of clothing between the two of them, blazer thrown to the side, shirt unbuttoned, trousers somewhere around his knees. Ernst kisses further down, tracing his tongue over his collarbone, his chest—
Then he freezes, because that's when he notices the bruises.
He doesn't speak and he doesn't move — his mind feels fuzzy, and he has to take a minute to work out exactly what he's seeing. His breath ghosts over Hanschen's skin, the puffs of air causing his stomach to twitch gently in anticipation. When no more kisses come, Hanschen props his head up lazily, peering down at Ernst in languid confusion. He follows his gaze, and Ernst can pinpoint the exact moment that his stomach drops in understanding. The light flush that had started to color his cheeks drains away, leaving behind a sickly gray.
"Fuck," he mutters, and then he's gone, scooting back through the grass until his back slams into the trunk of a tree. He doesn't wince, doesn't even blink, just stares at Ernst with a kind of desperation on his face, as though he's willing him to ignore the explicit explanation for his reluctance that he'd thought he wanted.
But oh, Ernst had never dreamed that the cause of their separation was this.
He blinks forcefully, knowing that he shouldn't stare, that he should say something, but unable to tear his gaze away. Hanschen's chest is a mess of colors, stained yellow and green and dark dark blue like some kind of twisted artist's palette. Swirled within the bruises, he thinks he can make out the outlines of a belt buckle, fingerprints, maybe even the imprint of a shoe. The marks trickle down beneath the line of his underwear, wrap around to his back. Since their last meeting in the clearing, Hanschen has clearly been beaten by someone, mercilessly and repeatedly.
"You idiot," he says in a low voice, and even that wobbles like he's about to cry. He might be; he's honestly not sure at this point. "Who was it? Who found out?" There's another question, too; one that he doesn't ask but tugs at the edge of his consciousness: Are they coming for me too?
"It's fine," Hanschen says immediately, shaking his head. It's almost as if he can sense Ernst's unspoken panic. "I took care of it. We're good."
Ernst might be good, but Hanschen clearly isn't, and suddenly it hits him that Hanschen's self-proclaimed efforts to protect him must have been far more meaningful than he had given him credit for earlier.
He moves slowly closer, crawling over the trousers that Hanschen had slid right out of during his mad escape. He reaches out to touch him, to cradle his face, but stops short, his hand hovering in mid-air. "Why wouldn't you tell me?"
"I didn't want you to know. Obviously." Hanschen's voice is icy, painfully clipped, but tears have started gathering at the corners of his eyes.
Ernst frowns. "And yet, you let me—?" He gestures vaguely to the pieces of uniform strewn around them.
"I thought you wouldn't say anything," Hanschen admits, coughing.
Ernst stares at him, incredulous. Well, he directs a brief incredulous look at the other boy's eyes, and then his gaze returns to the horrible bruises discoloring his chest. "You thought I would ignore this?"
"I thought…" Hanschen swallows thickly, pulling his shirt closed. "I thought you'd be so glad I was here that you'd let it go."
"Oh my God, Hanschen." Ernst isn't even sure what to do or say to contradict this absurd notion. He settles for grabbing Hanschen's hand, because he's honestly afraid to touch anywhere else now. "The fact that you could ever think that I was only in this for … for your body is horrifying to me. I would never ignore that you're hurt."
"That's not what I meant," he says witheringly, but the bite in his voice is undermined by the way he lowers his eyes and hunches over after he says it, and Ernst knows he's lying. He's struck suddenly by how alone Hanschen must have felt, even before this. Did any of their classmates see him as anything more than a pretty face?
Ernst has for a long time now, though. He knows how compassionate Hanschen can be, how loving, when he allows himself to open up. And the fact that his affections, already so rarely displayed, were met with this horror … it makes his blood boil.
"You have to tell me who," he repeats, gentler this time. He pulls Hanschen into a loose hug, terrified of hurting him worse. When Hanschen grips his shoulders with a kind of rough desperation, he lets himself hold him a little tighter. If Hanschen hadn't been hurt by his earlier touches, he doubts this embrace will be painful either.
Just before letting go, Hanschen whispers something in his ear, and it's so soft that he's almost sure he imagined the words.
"Your father?"
There's no mistaking the tense nod Hanschen gives to his question. He wracks his brain for something to say and comes up short — is there a proper way to respond to such a revelation? Fortunately his struggle is short-lived, because without his asking, Hanschen launches into the story. Ernst has a feeling he really just wants to get it off his chest.
There are enough bruises already marring the skin there that he probably needs to make the confession to be able to breathe at all.
"It was after you walked me home. He was watching. When I — when I kissed you. He didn't see your face because you never turned around, but he knew you were a boy and … he didn't like it." He rubs his eyes angrily. "He told me as much with his belt, among other things. And he reminded me throughout the week, just in case I happened to forget." That explains how the injuries still look so fresh and raw, nearly a week after they had been discovered.
"Did he even ask you if we were … together? To make sure? I mean, I know we kissed, but—" Ernst's voice is tentative; he's doesn't want to request details that Hanschen isn't ready to give. Or to make the other boy feel bad if he renounced any ties to him in an effort to protect himself. But Hanschen's lip curls, and he all but spits out his response.
"He asked if we were— if we were fucking. I told him no; I don't know if he believed me. I don't know if it mattered either way. If the … the urges are there, he failed, and it was obviously easier to blame me than to blame himself."
"There's nothing wrong with this," Ernst says calmly, though inside he's screaming. "He didn't fail because of this." Other, more recent developments have convinced Ernst of Herr Rilow's utter incompetence as a human being, though.
"Of course not," Hanschen responds immediately. "I never believed that for a second, and I'm sorry if I made you think otherwise. But if one of you had to hate me — I trust you a hell of a lot more than I trust him." He winces. "For obvious reasons."
"I don't hate you." Ernst presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, finds it cool and clammy, still slick with sweat from earlier. "No matter what you say, what you do, I could never."
"I wasn't lying, though," Hanschen says, suddenly, inexplicably desperate. "When I told him we weren't— because this isn't— that." He grips Ernst's hands tightly, staring at them instead of his face, and bites his lip. He takes a deep breath, then scrunches up his face like he's about to admit something horrible. "This is … it's love. Or— or something. Maybe."
Ernst ignores the way he mitigated his declaration, knowing full well that Hanschen is wracked with insecurity but that the sentiment was genuine. His face splits into a smile despite the seriousness of the situation. "You love me? Really?" He'd known it all along, of course, but the fact that Hanschen would finally say it now, amid so much pain and confusion …
Hanschen looks away, and Ernst is relieved to see his complexion flushed with a healthier color once more. "Yes, Ernst. I love you. Of course I do. Happy now?"
"Not particularly. I mean, yes, but — this is all my fault." The realization settles in his stomach even as he says it, bringing with it the memories of all the ways he must have escalated the situation throughout the week.
Now it's Hanschen's turn to study the other boy in surprise. He does not look amused. "And how do you figure that, exactly?"
"I wanted to walk you home. I'm the reason you kissed me in front of your house. And maybe if you'd given me up — if you'd told him it was me — he wouldn't have hurt you so badly."
"Don't be ridiculous," Hanschen says, angrily now. He runs a hand through his hair, causing his shirt to fall open again, and Ernst tries not to stare. It's truly awful. "You don't make my choices for me. You didn't make me do anything."
He sounds a little more defensive than he has to be, but Ernst doesn't blame him — he's been denied agency in a lot of decisions lately, after all.
"I'm sorry," he says immediately, not wanting to upset Hanschen further. "It just feels like … like I'm doing all of the wrong things lately. I lost you. I kept you away, drawing attention to us instead of understanding and fixing this."
"That's less your fault when you remember how you tried to get me to explain what was going on, of course," Hanschen says wryly, rolling his eyes like he can't believe his stupidity. Their stupidity, really. Although perhaps they shouldn't be too quick to condemn their actions. Maybe they were stupid, but they're young, and in love. Ernst thinks they deserve a little leeway.
"I suppose." he giggles reluctantly. "You should have just told me. We could have come up with a plan. We'll only meet here. We'll behave in public. This can work."
"Well," Hanschen says, and Ernst knows that's the closest to an admission of wrongdoing he's going to get, so he leans in and kisses him.
He goes much slower now that he knows about Hanschen's injuries, taking the time to trace each bruise in gentle kisses before moving on to the next. He arrives at a particularly dark patch just below his ribs and uses even less pressure, skimming the edges of the mark with his tongue. Then he freezes as Hanschen's muscles clench, a little gasp leaving him as he tenses.
Ernst looks up, worried for one heart-stopping moment that he hurt him despite his care, but Hanschen's head is thrown back and his eyes are pressed shut. He was squirming in anticipation.
Ernst smiles, sliding back up Hanschen's body to press their lips together again.
Thirty years from now, tonight will seem unbelievably beautiful.
Maybe, just maybe, theirs was the promise of a beginning and not an ending. The present can be beautiful because it leads the way into the future, after all, and not just because it is all they can ever have.
If Hanschen's grip on his sides is any indication, he will never let go again.
Hopefully this lived up to your expectations! It obviously took a lot of time to get right, but I think I'm finally happy with it. Let me know what you think! Reviews are confidence boosters.
Much love,
KnightNight
