Chapter Text
Friedrich. Everything was Friedrich. He had taken over his life, his thoughts, his dreams, all of his senses. His whole world had been reduced down to the boy on top of him.
He was everything Albrecht could feel. His strong body on top of him, the hardness of his broad back. His hands were clenched deeply into the fabric of his uniform - wool. It scratched the inside of his palms. Regardless, he kept his grip on Friedrichs back tight. He could feel him through it, through the wool coat and the cotton shirt and the flimsy top. Could feel the muscles, the way they were moving. Contracting and relaxing. He could feel the trembling of his chest, between it rising and it falling. The irregular hiccups, the tripping up. His body so hot, he could feel it on his own front.
Friedrichs strong hands gripping his sides almost painfully. The same hands that had landed hits just moments earlier. He felt the stinging pain of the punches, the dull ache of his back, from when they landed on the ground. The cold hard ground underneath him. The heat from above and the icy tiles from behind.
And the blond hair tickling his face. Just underneath his nose, scratching his cheek. He could feel the wetness on his chin, rolling down the length of his neck, seeping into the hem of his own uniform. Felt his own tear tracks, the saltiness stinging his face. He was painfully aware of the sensation of cool air against his overheated cheeks, feeling like a slap. He knew his face must’ve been bright red - considering how hot it felt.
He heard him too. His breathing, so close to his ear. He didn’t miss the way violent sobs made his rhythm trip up, punching their way out of his chest - it sounded painful. Drawing in deep shaking breaths and holding them. Crying just slightly less when he breathed out.
He picked up the sound of their clothes rustling, whenever one of them shifted. An arm that was adjusted to sit better against the other body, being followed by the sound of wool on wool. A chest pressed up closer to the other - buttons bumping against each other. Muffled noises filling the washroom. Their crying, their breathing, their moving.
Outside of the room he could hear normality. The stomping of boots, echoes of laughter. The low hum of conversation, of everyday life. Inside, the fast erratic pumping of his heart, which he heard in his neck, in his chest, in his wrists, and the rushing of blood, was just like the footsteps and the talking and the people. It was there, undeniably, but he had to focus to really be able to listen to it. It faded into the background as everything did, lately, that didn’t have anything to do with Friedrich.
He smelt the room. The lingering odor of dirty, sweaty boys and their soap. It’s soft, milky smell. It lingered in the crevices of the floor, in-between the tiles. It was in the sinks, in the drains. In Friedrich’s hair. Soap and something else, something Albrecht couldn’t name easily. It was the woods, the scent of pines and mud and dampness, it was sweat. In his hair, all over his body. When Albrecht breathed in it lingered in his nose - the perfume of a man. The sharp, stinging smell of hours spent in the same clothes, the smell of fighting and winning. It made his face flush even more, heat going up to his face - although not all of it. From his heart, where the blood was pumped out of, some of it went the opposite direction - much to Albrechts disdain.
When he finally opened his eyes, it wasn’t the top of Friedrich’s head he saw anymore. When he had closed them (to let the sadness overcome him) all he saw was the crown of the other boys head. His blond hair, where he parted it and the white scalp underneath. But now Friedrich was shifting. Moving upwards, his heavy body dragging along the length of Albrecht’s (it was so, so difficult to ignore the friction of their bodies and how it made him feel). Out of the corner of his eyes he caught Friedrich move his arms, resting his elbows on the ground to lift himself up. All he could do was look straight ahead at Friedrich’s face. Tears painting lines over his cheeks, which - oh - were adorned with a heavy flush. Bright red spots, high on his face. Albrecht felt his own body heat up in response to the lovely sight (god, red was his color. He looked heaven sent with his red cheeks, so much better than the red he usually wore, the red of his enemies. The bruises and the bleeding and the blood of when someone is too scared to throw-) and clenched his jaw.
Why was he like this? Why did the touch of his best friend make him react this way? Why did the sight of Friedrich’s striking blue eyes - even more beautiful with the red tint to his eyes -, glossed over and pupils dilated make his heart beat even faster? Why didn’t he feel scared to- even though Friedrich’s face was the picture perfect example of confused and scared, brows drawn together, raised high on his face, eyes darting between Albrecht, his eyes, his lips, and the door, fear written into the way Friedrich was cowering over Albrecht, shaking slightly as if he was so physically exhausted by holding himself up-
Why didn’t he feel scared? Why couldn’t he just have felt scared? Why did he have to go and ruin everything and surge up and press his lips against Friedrich’s?
Friedrich consumed all of him. At any hour of the day and any hour of the night. Albrecht sometimes woke up, long before all the others and snuck off to the bathroom. On the cold porcelain toilet seat, which burned the inside of his naked thighs, he would touch himself. He would tell himself it was just this once or that it was so he could fall back asleep. He would use the pictures that came to him in his sleep. He dreamt of Friedrich, broad and strong, touching someone so delicately, so soft, like the phantom of a touch. It wasn’t the same dream every night but it was always equally sensual and slow. Intimate. Familiar.
He would kiss her, closing his blue eyes and she would card her hands through his hair. She would let a hand trail up her thigh, his hands large enough to envelope her leg and in his dreams he would watch as his hands would disappear underneath her skirt. She would writhe and make sounds and claw at his arms, his back, his shoulders. He would kiss her, sans cesse. He would let the dream replay while pulling down his pants, sitting down and grabbing himself. The cold toilet seat and his icy hands were uncomfortable, of course, but not as much as the knowledge that it had not been in a girl in his dreams. It wasn’t a skirt Friedrich hiked up, or a maid he bent over.
It was horrible. The guilt he felt whenever he looked at Friedrich. The fear whenever he looked at Friedrich too long and, when he finally got himself to look away, he would find some other boy staring at him, like he could read Albrecht’s thoughts as good as a picture book. The hate inside his own veins, whenever his thoughts treated dangerous territory. There was only one thing he could do.
He would try to overwrite his memories, tell himself that it had been a woman. It had been a woman in his dream. He thought about his dreams so often, not because Friedrich was in them, but because he was jealous of Friedrich. No other reason. He thought of Friedrich so often because he was the perfect man. Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin. Strong, healthy, obedient. He was everything Albrecht could not be. A born soldier, well liked, making everyone proud. He knew how the other boys reacted to Friedrich and it sure wasn’t with a pounding heart and a flush on their cheeks and trembling hands. He wasn’t normal.
No one should ever find out. No one could ever find out - if there was nothing to discover. So he swallowed the name on his lips as he spilled over his hand and didn’t let himself look at Friedrich for more than two heartbeats when other boys were around. Kept to his side of the desk during class, made sure that their hands never touched. Laughed a normal amount at Friedrichs jokes, waited until he was done showering to step under the water.
He was perverted. Men died in camps for this disorder. When he first learned about it, around nine years old, he threw up. His mother had just put stew on the table, when his father began to talk about it. The jews and the criminals. The Sinti and the Roma. Albrecht had heard his friends talk about it earlier that day, on the school ground. They whispered the words like they did ‚panties‘ and ‚bras’. It was new, it was exciting, it was forbidden. They played cops and robbers but they imagined the cops wearing black uniforms with lighting like symbols and the robbers were whichever group they had heard the worst things about. But the next word his father said, he had never heard before. Homosexuals. He spat the word out, like the word alone could poison him. “Homosexuals are sick, sick individuals. To lust after another man-“, he stopped himself with a hand in front of his mouth, looking down at his plate. There was something indescribable in his eyes, something dark and dangerous. Albrecht could feel his scalp tingle, his body growing heavy. Huh, so there’s a word for this- “Such men should not be allowed to be alive. We should shoot them down-“ “Honey!“ Albrecht remembered the day vividly. His mother had interrupted his father, a cheeky smile on her face. She downed her glass of wine and laughed about it. “You can’t say things like that in front of him!“ Before his father could answer, Albrecht got hit by such a wave of nausea, he couldn’t help it and threw his dinner back up.
Later when he was already lying in bed, cold and wet towel on his forehead, he heard his mother through the wooden door. “You know what he’s like Heinrich, he doesn’t do well with violence. You shouldn’t have said that-“ The sound of a slap echoed through the big, empty house, up into his bedroom. “It’s up to me to decide what I do with my son, you understand?“
He had always felt that something was wrong with him, always the soft spoken kid. Always the boy the others had poked fun at. After that night it seemed that information had also reached his father. It was the beginning of the end, the beginning of being ignored, of being kicked aside. The first time his father didn’t try to hide the disappointment in his eyes anymore whenever he looked at him.
From that night on he did his best to push these feelings, this strange affection for other boys, deep down. Never think of it again. Block out any thoughts, step on their hands as soon as they tried to climb their way up from the deep pit inside of him. He asked girls out, kissed them behind school, peeked at them through windows. He had considered himself successful, no one had ever suspected anything. At one point he had gone years without feeling anything akin to lust - or more - for another boy. He thought he had finally finished this phase of his life and was finally free from this curse. If only he had never met Friedrich.
Friedrich, who looked like Arno Breker himself had sculpted him, who touched him at any occasion. A hand on his shoulder, a hand ruffling his hair, hands taking his own into them to guide him. He never wanted his feelings to bloom outside of the line of friendship, never wanted to taint something so beautiful, their friendship, with his perversion. But there was no stopping.
He took up everything, his body, his mind, his senses. All of it, all of him, all of them. Friedrich, Friedrich, Friedrich.
When you’re born the first thing you sense is the cold. Inside the uterus you are warm, you haven’t ever known the cold. So when you’re painfully pushed out and the first thing you feel is the cold and the second thing you sense is the bright light blinding your eyes, seeing it even through your closed lids (all you’ve ever known is the darkness and the warmth) you scream. You hear yourself scream and hear your mother scream and smell the blood with which you were birthed, you smell it with the first breath you ever take, the fist of so many - it’s horrible. Your senses are overstimulated and you haven’t even used all of them yet. At last, after you had to suffer through the cold and bright and loud world, after you were bathed and wrapped up and pressed up close to your parents, you get to eat. You taste food for the first time of your life, the milk of the breast in front of you. It’s sweet, it’s warm.
When Albrecht darts his tongue out after, he tastes salt. Despite feeling like he had been set on fire, his breath is cold on his wet lips when he breathes out. His chest is cold, his legs are too. Friedrich had jumped back.
Just like they practice every morning after being dragged out of bed, you do one fluid motion from push up to standing upright. He backed up, his hands raised as if to surrender and his face distorted. Not the gorgeous, vulnerable and raw boy he was just moments ago, clinging to Albrecht like a lifeline, showing himself from his worst side (at least that’s what everyone else says; don’t ever show sympathy Friedrich, don’t ever hesitate, only show yourself as the prime aryan you are). He looked repulsed, disgusted, shocked. He opened his mouth to speak and of all the things he could have said, this hurt the most. “Don’t.“
One word. And yet he could hear the tremble in Friedrich’s voice.
He tasted the tears of Friedrich, mixed with his own. He tasted bile rising in his throat, suddenly his mouth was full of it. It hurt, when he swallowed it. It stung his throat, the acid burning at his insides. The aftertaste on his tongue was bitter and sour, it tasted like fear.
“You know what they do with...“, Friedrich’s eyes were low, refusing to look at Albrecht. He seemed to be fighting for the right words. ‚Men like you‘ hung heavy in the air. “…men like that.“
At this he laughed, a bitter sound. “Well, I’ll be dead soon anyway.“ He felt his eyes sting with new unspilled tears. Only 16 years old and already looking death in the eye - what a waste. He turned his face to the side so if Friedrich happened to look up, he couldn’t see him crying again.
Eyes closed once more, he heard soles hitting the ground he was still laying on. Felt hands, hands that had caused him sleepless weeks and mental anguish and questioning if it was all in his head or if he the last thing he was ever going to do was kiss Friedrich, wrap around each of his wrists and pull. Stumbling he fell forward into his arms, against his solid chest. There, Friedrich held him tight, wrapping his arms around him once more. One hand he settled on the back of Albrecht’s head, fingers carding through his hair, to push it forward and into the crook of his neck. The other hand gripped at his side, pulling his body even closer.
Albrecht didn’t know what startled him more. The act of intimacy, having revealed himself to be a criminal (these thoughts and urges have recently been turned illegal and punishable by death) and yet, being enveloped into Friedrich’s arms. He didn’t dare breathe against the other boys chest, the moment felt too delicate. Didn’t dare say anything in the fear that Friedrich might jump away again, push him away and storm out of the room, up to Herr Gauleiter and-
“Aren’t you afraid?“, Friedrich whispered into his hair, voice shaking. Listening to Friedrich’s quivering voice, once more so close to him, he felt a chill run up his spine.
“Of death?“, he took a shuddering breath, “I don’t know. Everyone has to die. I guess I am scared of being wounded, of dying on the front-“
“No.“ Friedrich clenched his fist in Albrecht’s side, his other hand tugging his hair almost painfully. Since when had he been shaking? Albrecht felt it everywhere now that he had noticed it. The chest he was pressed against, the hand at his side, the breath in his hair.
“No, that’s not what I meant.“
Albrecht was about to push himself off Friedrich, to put space between them and this weird atmosphere. Something sweet and heavy like syrup hung in the air. Made his eyes droop, his knees go weak, his hands - curled up against Friedrich’s chest - release all of their tension.
Friedrich was faster. He grabbed both of Albrecht’s shoulders and moved him backwards, just a few inches.
Looking back at it, nothing else could have happened. If he wanted to rat Albrecht out he would have fled. If he had been disgusted he might have thrown a few punches, kicked him while he was still down (Albrecht knew that not even hanging in the ropes and gazing upward through swollen eyelids and blood from the split eyebrow would stop Friedrich). He could have pulled him upward, slapped him on his shoulder and pretended nothing had ever happened.
Looking back at it, it had been so predictable a blind man could have seen it coming. The way Friedrich cupped Albrechts cheeks, large, warm hands caressing skin underneath them. Calloused skin brushing against his chin, his cheekbone, his lips. Friedrich’s breathing, labored and pained, unheard of (even in the mornings, sleep still in their eyes and feet already freezing, Friedrich’s breathing would be controlled. He would be out of breath, panting like the others would too, but always seemed to calm himself quicker than anyone else). His eyes were roaming Albrechts face as if he was searching for something, as if he wanted to engrave it into his memory, as if he truly saw Albrecht for the first time.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Friedrich whispered, “Aren’t you afraid of this?“, and before Albrecht could ask (this? What is this?, even though they both knew he knew. It was the thing he didn’t even let himself hope for - the probability was zero, if not below, a boy like him with urges like his? -, the slightest chance that whatever Friedrich saw in him might have not just been friendship-) he leaned forward, millimeter for millimeter. Until the felt Friedrich’s hesitant breath on his own lips. Breathing in, holding it. A tongue darting across his lips. A soft pressure on his lips.
Friedrich’s eyes were lidded, looking down at the floor. Red cheeks, pale face. Trembling. Still holding onto Albrecht, pushing him away first and pulling him in second. Now he was Friedrich’s arms length away, who didn’t look up at him.
It was silent in the room, their breathing the only sound, their chests rising and falling the only movement.
Then, their eyes met.