Archive of Our Own ^beta

Three days after, Melchior still feels like shit. 

Of course, he has been kind of overdosing himself on over-the-counter pain meds, he is one-hundred-percent sure he was drugged pretty severely, and some of the bruises are so deep it hurts to exist. So yeah, three days after he obviously still feels like shit. 

Unfortunately, he has to go to school. 

And school… is going to be intolerable. Not that it isn’t usually bad, but that’s mostly because Melchior is on average two to five times smarter than his peers and also his teachers, and already knows most of what he’s being taught. Also, they teach blatantly untrue things regularly, especially in history classes. World Studies has been agonizing this year, even though it’s been barely a month since the school year started. 

But, as Melchior walks into the school building, gritting his teeth against the occasional stab of pain, he knows that school is going to be worse. At home he had his journal, his phone, and sure he was going insane from a lack of anything substantive to do aside from write in his journal and scroll on his phone, but at least- 

“Melchior!” 

An arm lands around his shoulders and he barely manages to not actually scream. As it is, he does yelp in a rather undignified manner, but Ilse doesn’t bat an eye. She has startled every single one of them over the years (even if usually not in such a physical manner), and has gotten every kind of reaction, from cursing to screaming. So, yelping is definitely not the worst response she’s ever gotten. And it’s normal. 

“Ilse, hi,” he says. Did that sound normal? He’s not sure. 

“Hi,” Ilse says. Her expression is weird but he’s too tired and stressed to try to parse it right now. “You missed a riveting lesson on terrorism and airplanes yesterday. Remember those towers that got destroyed before any of us were even born?”

Melchior blinks. “Why was that on the lesson plans?”

“The anniversary, or something.”

“Wow,” Melchior says. “That’s… stupid. We already learned about that.” 

“I know, right?” Ilse glances at him with another weird expression. “Plus a fascinating lesson on slope. Georg says it was so… gripping, in second period.” Melchior has second period math, with Georg, and Ilse has math third period, but it’s the same teacher, so the lessons are almost always the same. 

“Right. I’ve known about slope since I was seven.”

“Yes, I know, mister super-genius.” Ilse laughs, tossing her head back, and steers him towards their homeroom. 

“I’m not a genius,” Melchior says. Well, probably not. He’s way up there, yes, but really it’s just that he just likes learning. 

There were a lot of tests. His teachers really wanted to know if there was something wrong with him. Melchior is fairly sure they had ulterior motives. 

“Sure,” Ilse says. “Your mom said you had the flu?” 

“Yeah,” Melchior says. His mom certainly thought he had the flu. 

“Sucks.” Ilse lets go of him and hauls the classroom door open, and they file in and break off to their own seats. 

Melchior drops his backpack at his desk and eases down into his seat. Martha is already at her own desk, on his left, doodling in a notebook and twisting a curl between her fingers. On his right, Otto’s seat is empty. Otto is usually running late, though, and Melchior’s unexpected absence from school yesterday might have thrown him off. 

Melchior takes a deep breath, pulls out a notebook, and flips through his notes, double-checking what they’d been doing in classes last week. He’s going to be fine. 

Someone laughs at the back of the classroom, and Melchior’s pencil slips through his fingers and bounces off the desk onto the floor. He swears in German, heart pounding. He’s going to be fine. Someone was just laughing. It’s not a big deal, it’s not. 

Martha passes him the pencil, brow furrowed. He signs thank you and squeezes it tightly, taking a deep breath. 

Then Otto startles him by dropping loudly into his desk and giving a gusty sigh. Melchior, head aching, heart pounding, twists the pencil in his hands and thinks okay. He’s got to be okay. He’s got to try. 

But, God, he is not going to make it through this school day without having heart palpitations, is he?

---

Melchior manages—through sheer will—to make it through third period without dying.

He can only take so much though, and so now he's hunched in a bathroom stall struggling to swallow an aspirin without any water. He's only in the stall because he's painfully aware how weird it looks taking pills out of a Ziploc bag, nevermind the fact that this aspirin is the third he's taken. In the stall.

Melchior manages to get the pill down—already chalky from being in his mouth for too long—and shoves the bag into his backpack. 

He feels sick. 

The bathroom door opens, and Melchior’s heart goes racing again.

It's fine . It's a school bathroom . It's passing period . 

Melchior unlatches the stall door and goes to the sink. His fingers are covered with spit from taking the pills, and it would look weird if he just left the bathroom. He's got to be normal , he reminds himself. He turns the tap off and dries his hands.

He glances up to see who else is in the bathroom. It's just a random person. Not from Little Germany, he knows.

Melchior heads for fourth period, fighting the dizziness. He'll take being lightheaded over the way his skin prickles whenever his shirt shifts. It feels like his skin is on fire.

So yeah. Melchior prefers the dizziness. Not that the prickling is gone yet. 

Sometimes he wishes he believed in God so he might get a modicum of comfort from praying. Melchior could really use a prayer for these painkillers to actually work for the rest of the day about now.

Melchior sits down at his desk in English, briefly wishes he was dead, and shifts to a more comfortable position (relatively speaking—everything hurts now).

Otto taps his desk, and Melchior turns to look at him.

“Are you okay? You look pale.”

Melchior’s heart rate spikes again. It's starting to get really fucking annoying.

“Yeah, I'm fine. I had the flu, remember?” he says.

It comes out harsher than he intended. Otto just signs something small, fast enough that Melchior doesn't catch it (or is his brain just working slower?), and turns to look at the teacher. She's gotten up to start class.

Melchior flips his notebook open, ignoring the way his hands are shaking, and starts taking notes.

—

By lunch Melchior can't hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears. Okay, he might be exaggerating a bit , but everything around him is muted and he feels sick to his stomach.

Everyone else is talking about. Something . He tuned out a few minutes ago because he started feeling like he was about to say something insane every time he opened his mouth. Melchior doesn't need to do that. He needs to be normal.

Moritz nudges him, and he glances over.

“Are you going to eat?” Moritz asks, “lunch is over soon.”

Melchior shrugs.

“I'm not really hungry,” he says, which is true , “I had breakfast, so I'm still full,” which is not .

His parents had practically been in a panic yesterday. He'd refused practically every bit of food and drink they'd tried to give him. It was only when Mama had threatened to bring him to the hospital to put him on IV fluids if he kept this up, that Melchior had appeased them with a popsicle, and a few hours later, a granola bar. 

He hasn't eaten much since.

“Oh,” Moritz says.

Melchior glances at the rest of the table. It's a bit hard to parse but he's pretty sure they're gossiping about something . He missed the part of the conversation that had a subject, now everyone is just making jokes and comments and laughing. For some reason it doesn't make him quite as twitchy as first period, but he's on edge still.

Melchior glances past his friends, and accidentally makes eye contact with Dieter Bauer. He's staring pretty intently at Melchior’s table, and as their eyes meet, Melchior starts breathing a little faster. He looks away quickly, pressing a thumb lightly against his wrist. His heart is pounding and he somehow forgot his entire arm is a bruise so now his nerves are on fire and he feels like he's going to vomit. 

The bell rings. Melchior flinches. Anna announces that the bell rang because this school doesn't have visual bells—it's weird for everyone from Little Germany. Half the population is deaf, so it's easy to forget that that is not the case everywhere.

The group gets up, Melchior dumps his full lunch tray in the trash, says his goodbyes to everyone except Moritz and Thea, and they head to Spanish.

—

Melchior doesn't remember anything that happened in Spanish less than five minutes after it's over.

The three of them are walking down the hall toward the gym. Halfway there, Melchior stops to tell Moritz and Thea to go on without him. 

He ducks into the bathroom, and pulls out his pill bag. This time he fishes out two ibuprofen.

Melchior can't go to gym. His uniform is in his backpack—in hindsight it might have been smarter to leave it at home—but he just can't. 

He stuffs the bag back and rolls his sleeve up to look at the bruises.

Melchior’s entire forearm is mottled a rainbow of sickening colors. Black, brown, red. Purple. They ring his arm, wrist to almost his elbow. There are a few on his upper arm too, but he doesn't want to try to move his sleeve more to look.

Carefully, he brushes a finger over the marks, biting back a hiss of pain. Melchior can still see the shape of them.

He yanks his sleeve back down.

Nope.

The pain from the sharp movement sends him reeling for- he doesn't know how long. When his vision is focused again he's leaning heavily on the stall door.

Melchior pulls his phone out to check the time. Thankfully, his gym dilemma has been solved for him. He's ten minutes late, so he might as well not go.

Melchior picks his backpack up and heads out, to go wait under the stairs by the gymnasium. He can't just leave the building entirely, after all.

Melchior spends a few minutes trying to figure out how to sit on the floor with the least pain, gives up, and pulls out his journal to record his thoughts. Normally he'd write about some of what happened today, but to be quite honest, he doesn't remember much of anything beyond pain. What's he supposed to write? Dear diary, today I took seven painkillers and experienced tachycardia about twenty times ??

No. 

Instead he writes about the unfairness of the school’s lack of accessibility. There's only two wheelchair accessible entrances, one elevator on the far side of the school building, no interpreters, no visual bell, and so many other systemic issues. 

The journaling distracts him from his abject misery for about half an hour, then the bell rings.

Melchior packs up his journal, and meets up with the others to walk home. 

“Melchior Gabor,” Ilse says, slinging her arm over his shoulders again. He barely manages to swallow a yelp. “You were cutting class and didn't invite me?”

He turns his head to look at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Call it a spur-of-the-moment decision,” he says.

She snorts.

“Keep it up,” Hanschen says, shooting him a derisive look, “if you get low marks for attendance it'll give me the edge for top-of-class.”

“You wish,” Melchior retorts, “if my low behavioral marks haven't put you on top before, this certainly won't do it.”

“Ugh,” Anna says, “can you two not bicker for once .”

“We are not. Bickering ,” they say in unison. 

Melchior glares at Hanschen. 

Hanschen glares back.

“Uh-huh!” Ilse pats Melchior’s shoulder, stretches around Ernst to do the same to Hanschen, “we all believe you.”

—

At dinner, Melchior pushes his food around his plate until his mother shoots him a worried look, then takes a bite. His stomach roils. He chews and swallows, staring at his plate. He pushes the food around a bit again and then takes another bite. He feels vaguely lightheaded. 

What the fuck is wrong with me, he thinks. Sure, he’s probably not been eating enough for ages, but appetite suppression is a normal side effect of his medication. This is… a whole ‘nother level, and he- 

He knows why. He just… 

… keeps staring at his plate. No one needs to know. It’s not a big deal, really. He should eat the rest of his dinner, though. 

He ends up eating most of it. Luckily his mama gets side-tracked because his father dropped a plate on the way back into the kitchen, so while his parents clean up the broken plate, he scrapes the last of the food into the trash and puts his plate in the dishwasher. 

Now, Melchior thinks, homework. 

Alas, his concentration is shot. Melchior struggles through the math, finding it hard to keep his focus on the equations. He forgot to do any of the reading for English, his World Studies class is currently learning absolute bullshit, and physics is boring. Spanish at least is a challenge, but Melchior wants to claw his eyes out halfway through it because he can’t concentrate and knows too many languages. 

Melchior pauses. He puts his pencil down. He stares out the window. 

Did he. Did he take his medication? He can’t remember. His inability to concentrate would normally be a clear indicator that yes, he did forget to take his medication, but with… everything, he’s not sure. 

And if he goes downstairs and checks his pillbox, he first of all has to remember what day it is (Tuesday, he’s pretty sure), and second of all has to avoid his mother noticing, because she will worry more if she notices him checking. Because he hasn’t forgotten his medication in years, except on weekends when he allows himself to let it slide occasionally. 

And she’s already worried. 

Melchior picks his pencil back up and taps it against the desk, frowning. His mama is moving around in the kitchen right now, so he can’t go look, because she’ll see him. 

He… definitely forgot. But there is no use taking it now, so he’ll have to… take it tomorrow, hide the pill he forgot, and do the rest of his homework in the morning after he takes it. 

Yes. Melchior puts his pencil back down, shuffles his homework into the folder, and nods to himself. That’s his plan. And he needs to forget his gym clothes tomorrow, too. 

---

Melchior’s head aches when his alarm stirs him from sleep the next morning. He goes through his morning ritual, dressing carefully (wincing frequently), brushing his teeth, taking an ibuprofen, and going downstairs, where he makes a piece of toast and forces himself to finish it. Then he opens his pillbox and takes the day’s pill, hides the one from yesterday in the main bottle (he did forget it), and closes the box. 

His mama comes in as he’s putting the pillbox back. He smiles at her, washes the crumbs and the residue from the pills he was handling for way too long off his hands, and goes back upstairs to get his backpack together. 

Walking to school sucks, and he did manage to legitimately forget his gym clothes, having taken them out last night to get his homework and left them on the floor under his desk. He can probably manage forgetting them for at least a week until his mother finds them under the desk and washes them and puts them back in his backpack. After that… he can probably pretend like his asthma is acting up. 

He takes his seat in homeroom (Martha is already there, as per usual, and Otto is not, also as per usual) and gets his homework out to finish it. 

Martha taps his desk. “You didn’t finish it last night?” 

“I forgot to take my medication yesterday,” Melchior confesses, then speeds through most of the homework. By the time the bell rings, the only thing unfinished is the Spanish homework, and he can do that at lunch. Since he probably won’t actually be eating.  

Otto comes in right before the bell, trailed by Rupert Schmidt. Rupert walks past his desk, and Melchior’s skin prickles. Chest tight, he drops his gaze to his desk, shuffling his homework together and putting it away again. Rupert is past in seconds, going to his desk at the back, and Melchior breathes out. 

He can’t remember very much… but it was Rupert’s house. 

---

At lunch, Melchior doesn't bother getting a tray. While his friends wait in line, he heads to their table and pulls out his Spanish homework.

As he works on verb conjugation, the rest of the group starts sitting down with their food. By the time everyone's there, Melchior is about halfway done, and is sure a modest proportion of it is wrong.

He takes a moment to reread what he's done, fighting the urge to rub his arm. All of his bruises are starting to ache with a new fervor, which means he's going to have to take more painkillers after lunch, but his wrist has the added bonus of being tired from writing, which he would normally stretch or rub until it stopped being sore, but given that resting his arm in the wrong place on the table, lightly, feels like torture, it would be a bad idea.

There's a thunk next to him, and Melchior jumps. He looks up, and Otto is offering a liter bottle of off-brand root beer. 

Somehow Melchior was lost enough in thought he didn't notice the bottle being passed around. 

Normally the prospect of sharing a drink with everyone wouldn't bother him. They've been doing this for a long time, swapping or sharing food and drinks. 

The liter bottles became a thing in sixth grade–Ilse had brought in a giant bottle of coke because a teacher had said that sharing a can or bottle between twelve people was ridiculous, and they should really all start bringing their own drinks. 

Ever since, they'd trade off who brought a drink. Usually it was Ilse or Otto, though Anna and Georg brought drinks pretty frequently. 

Melchior doesn't know who brought this one. He's pretty sure if he drinks from it he'll spiral. 

He's been staring at Otto for too long.

Melchior looks away, pulls his homework towards him, and slides the bottle to Moritz.

—

Melchior’s head is fuzzy. He split off from the group to go to the bathroom, and the hallway ahead of him is indistinct.

Melchior turns into the bathroom. His stomach is churning. Is he going to puke? He feels sweaty and cold and clammy and overheated.

His hands are shaking.

Melchior leans against the sink by the wall, blinking, trying to clear his vision. There's panic rising in his throat.

A ringing is echoing in his ears. He doesn't know if it's real or not.

Melchior feels really weak.

Are the corners of his vision going black? No, now everything is, and he's dizzy and-

Melchior wakes up slumped against the wall. The corner of his notebook is digging into his spine, and he feels strange.

But the bathroom around him is clear and visible.

Melchior pulls his backpack off, removes the bag of painkillers from the front pocket, and takes four…something. He doesn't bother checking what each pill is, and they're all mixed up.

Once he's (painfully) swallowed all the pills, he takes a moment to assess.

A glance at his phone tells him it's been three minutes since lunch ended. He can feel all his limbs, his head doesn't ache quite as much as it did before he passed out, and although he feels weird, he's pretty sure he can get up without falling over.

Pretty sure.

Melchior turns so he can lean on the wall as he gets up, and slowly, slowly , pulls himself upright.

So far, he isn't dead.

It occurs to Melchior, as he carefully puts his backpack on and heads to the sink to rinse the spit and bathroom floor off his hands, that he is very lucky no one else was in the bathroom.

He glances in the mirror to make sure it doesn't look like he just passed out on the bathroom floor. Melchior’s hair is a bit mussed, but that's normal, and thankfully he didn't brain himself on a paper towel dispenser, so he thinks it's probably fine to go to class and pretend this never happened.

Melchior checks the time again, and heads to Spanish.

He takes his seat between Moritz and Thea, and pulls out his homework and notebook.

Moritz taps his desk, and Melchior glances up.

“I think I did the irregular verbs wrong.”

“Honestly, Moritz, I didn't pay attention to the homework. I forgot to take my meds yesterday, so all my homework wasn't done until today. I don't remember how irregular verbs work either.”

“ Buenas tardes, clase. ”

Melchior sits back up with his pencil, and tries to pay attention, but his brain is still foggy.

He ends up spending most of class concentrating on whether or not he's going to pass out again. By the end of sixth period, he's written a single sentence. It's incomprehensible.

Melchior closes his notebook and packs up.

“Hey, are you skipping gym again today?” Thea asks.

Melchior pauses.

“Fuck,” he says, “I forgot my gym uniform.”

He genuinely did forget he'd done that.

“So..?”

“There's no point in going if I don't have my uniform, right?”

Thea and Moritz just sort of stare.

Melchior blinks. 

“I'll see you after class,” he says, totally not fleeing out the door.

He finds a quiet corner (under the stairs like last time) and huddles in a little ball. Everything still hurts. Or maybe it hurts again. He doesn't know anymore. He's sort of starting to forget what it's like to exist and not be in constant pain.

Melchior drops his forehead onto his knees and just tries to breathe normally. In and out. In. Out.

In. And out.

He stays like that until the bell rings. It takes him a minute to get up, and he does his best to compose himself. 

Melchior catches up with his friends by the main door. Ilse gives him a sideways look. 

“Forgot your uniform?” she asks.

“Haven’t you been forgetting a lot of things lately?” Hanschen interjects, tone sickly sweet.

Melchior catches Ilse shooting Hanschen a look. 

The group is awkwardly silent for several beats.

“So, uh, has anyone started their history paper?” Georg asks.

The group falls into mindless chatter, and they spend the next forty minutes at a park. 

Melchior wants to die. His head is pounding, his mouth is dry, and his skin is prickling again. Technically , he could leave any time. His house is only a block away, but he's trying to act normal . Normal is spending time with his friends. 

Of course normal is also participating in conversation.

Melchior looks up to tune back in.

Wendla’s talking about her sister.

“-and Mama's been babysitting a lot more lately, since Ida's very pregnant now and Elias has been working, so I've gotten to spend so much time with Clare, she's one now! Do you all want to see her?”

Everyone crowds around Wendla to look at her phone. Melchior scoots around (gritting his teeth the whole way) to peer over Wendla’s shoulder.

She turns to glance back at him, smiling a little bit. Melchior smiles back. Wendla has a really pretty smile. He can never not smile back, not even now. 

She turns to her phone to swipe through pictures of her niece, and Melchior carefully shifts to take the pressure of his foot off his bruised hip.

Anna starts cooing over a picture of Clare and Wendla. Wendla surrenders her phone, and Anna starts passing it around. Thea and Melitta zoom in on the picture, and flip the phone around.

Wendla is sitting next to Clare as she fingerpaints, smiling down at her niece, holding paint in one hand, signing ‘paint’ into her hand with the other. Clare is covered in paint and staring wide eyed.

It's a cute picture. 

Thankfully everyone else agrees, so Melchior has some time to stare into space and ignore all the ways his body hurts.

When he zones back into reality, he checks the time. Now it's a time when he could reasonably need to leave. 

Melchior tucks his phone away and glances up. The topic has changed completely and he is probably way too close to Wendla now. He scoots to the side a bit. When conversation dies down, he pipes up.

“I have to go, my meds are wearing off and I need to get my homework done. See you guys tomorrow.” He gets up, wincing (hopefully everyone chalks that up to sitting too long).

“I'll walk with you,” Otto says, scrambling to collect his things, “I should see if my mama’s home yet.”

“See you tomorrow!” Anna waves, and they head out of the park.

Making conversation in ASL while walking isn't easy, so thankfully, they walk the block to Otto’s house in silence. Melchior pauses to say goodbye, and heads up to his own, immediately making for his room, dumping his school bag, and going to drink some water from the tap.

Once he's less dehydrated, Melchior goes back to his room to change into clothes that don't irritate the bruises, and take a couple painkillers (he needs to go buy a bottle of his own, so his parents don't notice the rapid depletion of all three kinds of pills in the medicine cabinet and get worried) and settles in to do his homework until dinner. 

Dinner is largely uneventful. Melchior’s father had a long day at work, so conversation is limited. Melchior manages to force himself to eat his entire plate, despite the nausea, and drinks some of his water, which is far more of a challenge than he'd like to admit. 

He helps clear the table, put the leftover food away, and wash the pots, gives his mama a goodnight kiss, goes upstairs, and pukes in the bathroom. 

It's stupid, he’s sure it's psychosomatic, and he feels like shit. It wasn't even eating . He drank half a glass of water his mother poured, and just because he didn't see it happen, here he is.

He flushes the toilet, rinses his mouth out in the sink, and goes to get his pajamas so he can shower and go to bed. Normally he'd stay up for another four to seven hours, but for some reason he's especially tired.

Melchior showers as quickly as he can (the spray of water hurts), and brushes his teeth twice.

As Melchior heads to his bedroom, he passes his dad in the hall. He looks surprised.

“Early night for you isn't it?”

Melchior shrugs, “I guess I'm still tired from being sick. Goodnight.”

His dad just nods, bemused.

Melchior shuts his door, crawls into bed, and stares at his wall, curled into a ball under the covers.

It takes a long time for sleep to come, and when it does, Melchior’s dreams are filled with laughter he can't quite place.

—

Melchior groans and massages his temples, leaning on his elbows. He can’t wait for this class to end. He needs to go to the bathroom and take at least two tylenol. He needs to hide in his bedroom forever. He needs to not be here right now. 

Unfortunately, he can’t just walk out in the middle of class. Or, well, he could, but it would probably land him in detention and he doesn’t want to deal with that. At least it’s Friday. He can go home at the end of the day and sleep in tomorrow. 

When the bell finally rings, he trudges off to the bathroom and fishes out some tylenol, counting absently. It’s more than the recommended dosage for sure. He swallows them dry, then hears a squeaky noise from somewhere in the vicinity of the door and turns. 

Oops. Otto is standing by the door, looking rather horrified. 

“How many was that? Six?” Otto’s hands are trembling a little bit. 

“No,” Melchior snaps. “No, it wasn’t. You miscounted.” He’s pretty sure it was four, actually. 

“That was more than two,” Otto says. He still looks alarmed. “Are you okay, Melchior? You’ve been strange all week.”

“You didn’t even see me on Monday.” It’s pedantic and assholish, but he says it anyway. “And I’m fine, you’re overreacting.” He regrets it the moment he says it, as Otto jerks back and blinks. If his first sentence was assholish, the second one is just cruel, to Otto at least. He wouldn’t bat an eye saying it to anyone else, but Otto has probably been told he’s overreacting far too many times. 

Otto frowns. “I- I- okay. If something was wrong, though…” He pauses, clearly unsure. “You’d tell me, right? Or at least tell someone?” 

“Yeah, of course,” Melchior says. His throat is dry. He swallows a few times, trying not to wince as his throat scrapes unpleasantly. “If something was wrong.” 

---

The next week is utter drudgery. Melchior spends most of the week in a haze as he tries to wean himself off of the painkillers and deal with the healing bruises. And he’s still trying to avoid letting on that anything’s wrong. Otto’s already seen him take too many tylenol, and he’s probably on high alert. 

He doesn’t even need to bother faking asthma attacks half the week. He’s too anxious and it’s setting his lungs off. This makes two weeks of being able to avoid changing for gym. 

By the end of the week, Melchior feels like clawing his skin off. He feels trapped. He needs to do something, he needs to make himself okay again, or make himself so much worse that it just destroys him so everything stops. He needs to deal with it somehow. 

“Bobby Maler’s hosting a party tomorrow,” Hanschen mentions in an undertone after third period World Studies on Friday. 

“You’re going?” Melchior asks, and Hanschen nods. 

“Ilse will be too, I bet,” Hanschen adds.

Melchior hums quietly in response. 

Well. It’s one way to confront the situation. 

---

This is the second house party Melchior has ever been to, and within five minutes of walking in the door he’s sure it was a mistake to come. 

He came here because some of his friends are here, but right now he’s got no idea where they are - Melchior scans the room and spots Hanschen, leaning against a wall and flirting with a girl Melchior only vaguely recognizes. Ilse’s nowhere to be found. The rest of their friends don’t go to parties, whether because they would never be caught dead at a house party (most of them) or because they can’t get into most houses (Anna) or because they can’t sneak out (Georg). 

Actually, he’s pretty sure Ilse doesn’t even bother sneaking. Her mom is ridiculously permissive. 

Melchior moves through the crowd, shoulders tense. He’s fine, everything’s fine. He scans the crowd and doesn’t spot Ulbrecht or Rupert anywhere, so everything is going to be fine. He can’t exactly ditch early, since that might piss Ilse and Hanschen off, and he doesn’t want to. He’s stubbornly going to stick this out and prove to himself that he’s not scared. He’s not. This isn’t some life-destroying thing. He’s going to be fine tonight, even if he’s in a house that already reeks of alcohol and teenagers with shitty pop music being blasted at window-rattling unlistenable volumes. 

He takes a deep breath and then squeaks when Ilse grabs his hand. 

“Hey!” she shouts over the music. “Didn’t mean to startle you!” 

Melchior would respond, but it’s loud, and she’s already moving, practically dragging him through the crowd. He can tell she’s already tipsy, a cup clutched in her other hand. He wouldn’t mind being tipsy right now, actually. It might make it easier to get through this. Just this, though. He can’t become an alcoholic aged fourteen years, one month, and four days. Bad idea. It’ll wreck his future. 

Nonetheless, when Ilse offers him the cup, he accepts. 

This is the first time he’s ever tasted alcohol. It’s cheap, it doesn’t really taste good, but he drinks it anyway. There’s a reason he’s never drunk alcohol, but right now he can’t remember. He’s not sure he wants to remember. He just… drinks. 

At some point, Ilse vanishes again, leaving Melchior with the cup. He wanders through the crowd. Somehow, the cup is empty. He’s pretty sure he drank it. He quietly ditches it on a table and keeps wandering around, not totally sure what he’s doing or where he’s going or what he wants exactly. 

“Hey, Gabor!” 

Bobby Maler whaps a hand onto his shoulder, grinning as Melchior whips around. He’s already totally drunk, Melchior can tell. 

Also, he’s hot. Like, not that hot, not as hot as Hanschen or whatever, but in khakis he is very much hot. This isn’t even just Melchior’s opinion, it’s a fact, Bobby Maler’s khakis are magical or something because, as Ilse says, they take him from a two to a ten. 

Somehow. 

The point is he’s hot and making flirtatious expressions. At Melchior. 

… he definitely must have drunk more than he thought to be seriously considering flirting with Bobby Maler. 

… he’s going to, though. Tonight is about making bad decisions like going to house parties and drinking alcohol even though he’s on prescription medication (oh yeah, that’s the reason he’s never tasted alcohol before) and flirting with Bobby Maler. 

Also it’s been several seconds without a response. “Hi, Bobby.” 

Was that weird? Bobby doesn’t seem to think so. 

“This your first party?” Bobby asks. 

“No,” Melchior says. Bobby nods like that’s a meaningful response, leaning forward a bit. 

… is he. Is he…? Checking Melchior out? Because the way he’s looking at Melchior’s face, and the slow sweep of his eyes, sort of seems to make that the case. Melchior’s face heats. 

“You know,” Bobby says, smirking, “you’re pretty hot.” 

“Not bad yourself.” The words spill out of Melchior’s mouth without his permission, and he immediately regrets it. He’s definitely tipsy. Very tipsy. Bobby’s smirk widens, he leans forward, and-

Melchior’s mind blanks. At least, mostly. For a moment it’s nothing but kissing, before things start clawing their way back into his mind, thoughts darting this way and that. And for a moment even that is acceptable, and he kisses back. This isn’t the first time he’s ever kissed someone, but the second time is still probably fraught with obvious inexperience (and his first kiss was hardly intense), and Bobby pulls back for a moment, snickering, then leans forward again. 

This time he plants a hand on Melchior’s hip, right over a bruise, and the flare of pain and the mocking little snicker and the alcohol on Bobby’s breath twists into Melchior’s skin and suddenly he wants to go. Bobby’s sort of caged him against the wall, but Melchior puts a hand against his chest and pushes until he pulls back. 

“What’s your deal?” Bobby demands. 

Melchior’s in no fit state to answer properly, head clouded and skin prickling, so he only spits “Back off” and flees the moment Bobby steps back. 

He ends up all the way across the room, head still spinning, and leans on the wall. Across the room, Bobby Maler’s already moved on to flirt with a girl Melchior doesn’t recognize but knows is a cheerleader because she’s wearing her green-and-blue bow. He looks around, breathing slowly. Hanschen has vanished. Ilse- Ilse is also scanning the room, and she spots him and smiles and starts toward him. 

The smile- his face flushes again. Fuck. 

She reaches him, still smiling, and slings an arm around his shoulders. Her hair is extremely mussed, and he has the strangest urge to try to straighten it out. He resists, valiantly. 

“You look lonely,” Ilse teases. “Sorry for ditching you.” 

“I am not lonely,” Melchior retorts. “And it’s fine.” Over here at least no one is staring at him, and the smell of alcohol and copious amounts of perfume and cologne utterly failing to cover body odor isn’t as strong. Though the music is still unbearably loud and unbearably shitty. The amount of autotune makes Melchior feel like every lyric is scraping though his ear canals and clawing at his brain. 

“Right,” Ilse says, turning her head to look around. “Seen Hanschen anywhere?”

“Not since…” Melchior tries to think back. “A while, I think.” 

“Oh, you are tipsy,” Ilse says, and laughs. It’s not a mean laugh, at least, but it still makes him vaguely uncomfortable. “Don’t worry,” she adds, “I lost track of him too. He’s probably hooking up with someone.” 

“Are you drunk? ” Melchior asks, squinting at her. 

“Not yet.” Ilse grins at him and turns to look at the crowd. “So. I noticed you with Bobby Maler…” 

He crinkles his nose and she laughs again. “Yeah. He’s not even that good of a kisser, right?” 

Melchior looks away. “I wouldn’t know.” 

There’s a pause. It feels charged. Her arm slips off his shoulders, then her fingers lace with his. 

He looks at her. She’s looking back, eyes so blue and dark hair falling into her face. He’s pretty sure he might be blushing again, and later he could not have said which of them leaned in first. 

His mind blanks again, creeping thoughts and awful hollowness silenced and erased. There’s no more agitation or dread or emptiness, just her mouth, her hands, her fingers tangling with his and her perfume, something floral, his eyes are closed and he’s just kissing her. 

Ilse pulls his hand to her hip, just over the strip of skin between her top and her pants, and slips her hand just under the hem of his shirt. Suddenly her hand is on his cheek and she’s turning her head, deepening the kiss.

Ilse pulls back suddenly, and he opens his eyes. “You wanna go somewhere else,” she whispers. Her face is really close still, and Melchior can feel her breath on his face. 

“Yeah,” he says, and then they’re kissing again, and moving along the wall, bumping past people.

They half fall through a door, and Melchior kicks it sort of closed. Ilse reaches out behind him to shut the door, and they separate for a second. Melchior’s eyes flick over her face, and she smiles again. Ilse’s smile is actually gorgeous, Melchior realizes, and it’s reminding him of something.

Before he can think too hard about that, she leans in and they’re kissing again. Her hand slips under his shirt again, his hands have found their way to her hips, and Ilse turns them around and they sort of stumble—walking backward is really hard right now—further into the room. The backs of Melchior’s knees hit an edge of something—a couch?—and now he’s sitting, Ilse leaned over him, still standing.

Somewhere in the fall his hands ended up under her shirt, loosely around her waist. Ilse hand is on the back of his neck, her thumb is on his jaw, and she’s shifting the angle of the kiss, opening her mouth, and did she just nip his lip?

She did, so he shifts, and tugs her waist a little to bring her closer, nipping her lip back. He feels her smile a bit, and then she plants a hand on his shoulder, bringing a leg up to rest her knee on the cushions of the couch. Ilse shifts her weight, and then she’s sitting in his lap, knees on either side of his legs. 

Melchior's hands are now definitely somewhere higher than her waist. His fingertips are brushing what he’s almost certain is Ilse’s bra. 

His mind is so blank, there’s only Ilse, her lips, her hands, her weight in his lap, and all he can think is that this is the best he’s felt in…he doesn’t know how long. All he can think is that this is a turning point. 

Ilse slips a hand under his shirt again, fingers cold against his back, Melchior shifts his hands on her ribs, and the nips they were exchanging have evolved into literally just biting each other's lips between kisses. Ilse shifts her weight again, leaning forward until he’s pushed up against the back of the couch, and her shirt is hiked up around his wrists, and he’s beginning to think they’re about to have sex.

There’s a bang on the door.

“HIS PARENTS ARE HOME! RUN!” 

They break apart and both of them jerk around to stare at the door, then look at each other in panic. Because Melchior will be in so much trouble if his parents are called, and Ilse… probably won’t be in trouble, but still. 

Ilse jumps up and grabs Melchior’s hands again. “We’ll go out a window,” she says, “the doors are going to be a traffic jam.” 

“Out a window? ” Melchior demands. They’re going to die. They’re going to break their necks and die. 

…on the other hand, he’d rather his father not get a phone call from the Malers. Window it is. 

Ilse shoves the window open and awkwardly swings first one leg, then the other, out, then drops down into the half-dead plants below. Melchior follows her, heart pounding as he ducks under the bottom edge of the window and scoots out. His knees twinge when he lands, and he scrambles after Ilse out of the plants. There’s a car in the driveway, and the Malers are gaping at their house, probably because of all the teenagers swarming out. 

Ilse grabs his hand again and starts running, and he follows with a glance back at the house, wondering if Hanschen is going to make it out (and also how much trouble Hanschen would even get in with his parents if caught). He catches sight of a blond boy climbing out a second story window and sliding way too fast down the drainpipe; a moment later Hanschen (because of course it’s Hanschen) is booking it across the grass in the opposite direction from them. 

Melchior nearly trips then, and turns his attention back to running while trying to be coordinated about it, which is much harder when tipsy than it is when sober. Also his lungs are starting to give the telltale squeeze of an incipient asthma attack. Ilse’s faster than him, probably because she’s done this (running while drunk) before, and also because she doesn’t have asthma. 

They’re all the way into the woods before Melchior wheezes “Hang on, hang on,” and stops running to lean against a tree. Ilse lets go of his hand and reaches down to fix her shoe, which is kind of broken and starting to come apart in the back. 

Melchior leans his head back against the trunk of the tree, trying to take deep breaths. Why is it that every time he has an asthma attack his inhaler is at least half a mile away? He rubs his chest and wheezes for another minute or two before the tightness in his chest starts to ease. 

“We should get home,” Ilse says finally. “Who knows, they might call around. Better if we’re at home in our beds.” 

“Yeah,” Melchior says. She starts off in the direction of her house, and he watches her go for a moment before he starts walking home. 

---

Melchior wakes up late on Sunday morning, with a headache. It takes him a moment to remember why. 

He groans and rolls to sit up, rubbing his temples. This headache isn’t as bad as some of the other headaches he’s had the last week and a half, but it still sucks. And he can’t (or, well, shouldn’t) take any ibuprofen or tylenol or aspirin, because he’s been taking so many. He now has his own personal bottle of ibuprofen hidden inside his desk, just in case his parents start noticing how many he’s been taking. He can’t risk depleting the household stores of painkillers too much, after all. Not that he’s taking as many now as he was, but still. 

Water. He should go drink water. Melchior gets up, wincing as his head twinges in protest, and double-checks that his pajamas are covering any possible signs of the bruises (mostly healed by now, but some went very deep), before quietly padding out to the bathroom and gulping cold water from the tap until his throat hurts. 

Afterwards, he wanders back into his bedroom and lies down on top of the covers, thinking. His mind keeps returning to last night, and Ilse. And, almost more than that, the blissful feeling of quietness that filled him and emptied his thoughts and, at least for a time, pushed away the hollow numbness that’s been crushing him for months. 

Melchior wants to do that again. It made everything better for a bit. He thinks if they’d been able to keep going it would have done more, pushed through the darkness more, lasted longer. He can already feel it ebbing away, vanishing, slowly, not slowly enough. 

He sighs and rolls over, reaching under his pillow and finding his phone. He checks it. Nothing much; Moritz asking if he’s finished the Spanish homework, Hanschen telling the group chat that Bobby Maler got “super busted”. Melchior sits up again and digs out his Spanish homework, texting Moritz back. He has finished it, so he spends the rest of the morning helping Moritz over text, though he twice catches minor mistakes in his own homework- mixing up grammar rules from Latin or German with the Spanish. If it’s possible to know too many languages, Melchior probably does, given he’s fluent in English, German, American Sign Language, and Latin, and is now somewhat conversational in Spanish. 

He mostly ignores the gossiping going on in the group chat. It’s not strange for him to do that- he never usually pays much attention to gossip, at least not openly (he learns quite a few things and occasionally shares them with Moritz, but he’s not really a gossip, not like Thea or Georg. But he does check in with what the others are saying every so often.) Looks like Bobby Maler is very grounded and won’t be hosting any parties (or going to any parties) anytime soon. 

Oh well. Melchior rereads a sentence on his homework and sighs as he erases one word and replaces it with the correct one. Mistake number three. It’s not his fault, though- he just keeps mixing up the Spanish and Latin grammars. 

---

On Monday morning, Melchior gets all the way into homeroom without seeing Ilse. 

They haven’t discussed what happened on Saturday. He doesn’t particularly want to discuss what happened on Saturday. He’d prefer to never talk about that ever. It’s not that he’s embarrassed or anything, and he would have liked to finish what they were doing, and he is perfectly open to the prospect of making a second attempt, but…

Talking about it seems unnecessary, to him at least. Maybe Ilse thinks they should talk about it, or maybe not. She’s not really one for talking about things. She makes jokes sometimes that really toe the line even to Melchior, but she doesn’t talk about things, which actually suits him just fine. 

Melchior twists his pencil in his hands, frowning at the chalkboard. He hasn’t taken any painkillers since… Thursday, he’s pretty sure, but his head is killing him and it’s probably not the hangover from Saturday. 

It’s probably an overuse headache. He did some Googling. That can happen. And given the amount of painkillers he was ingesting in the last two weeks… yeah. So, no painkillers, just enduring it. 

Ilse comes in right before the bell and heads straight for her seat, but flashes a smile his way as she passes. He taps the eraser end of his pencil against the desk, worrying at his lower lip for a moment. 

They definitely don’t need to talk about it. 

---

At lunch, Otto gets out the day’s soda, some off-brand Sprite. Melchior picks at his lunch, pulling cheese off of the pizza and eating it. 

“Well,” Hanschen says, dropping into a seat and setting his lunch tray down, “guess who’s in trouble with the school?” 

“Bobby Maler?” Ilse asks, leaning over and stealing a squishy french fry off of Georg’s tray. Georg swats at her hand, scowling. 

“Yep,” Hanschen says. “He’s in a lot of trouble. He turned eighteen on Friday.” 

“Ohh, shit,” Anna says, wide-eyed. “And I bet there was alcohol.” 

“Yeah.” Hanschen, who was totally shit-faced at that party, opens his milk carton and casually takes a sip from it like he has only second-hand knowledge of the alcohol. “And guess what?”

Wendla slides the soda bottle over to Melchior. He tilts it into his mouth and then passes it on to Moritz, eyes on Hanschen. 

“He was messing around with a JV cheerleader,” Hanschen says. “Eighth grader.” 

“Oh shit, really?” Ilse blurts. 

Hanschen nods. 

“So he’s really in trouble, then,” she says. 

“As far as I know.” 

Melchior tears off a bit of the crust and puts it into his mouth, frowning. It occurs to him only then that he drank out of the communal soda for probably the first time in two weeks. 

He expects panic, or something, but there’s only a flicker of unease. Also, he gets a weird look from Wendla, and realizes that he still has a bite of pizza in his mouth. 

He swallows it. 

---

As they walk out of Spanish class, Melchior drags his feet. He’s still not sure about gym. The bruises are mostly gone, but the idea of- just- 

Rupert is in the same gym class. He’ll be in the locker room just like all of last week and the week before that. Melchior’s bruises are all but gone and he has his gym clothes and if he keeps missing class for asthma the school will call his parents. He can’t skip it again. 

But, God, he does not want to change in the locker room. 

Still, he follows Moritz into the locker room and fishes his gym clothes out of his bag. All around him, lockers slam and fabric swishes, and someone whose voice is unfamiliar makes a crude joke in the next row. Melchior changes quickly, trying to remember the breathing exercises his mama came up with back when they first realized about the asthma. 

He bundles his clothes into his bag and sticks it into one of the lockers, joined by Moritz’s bag. Deep breaths. He can do this. 

As he and Moritz walk towards the locker room door, Melchior catches sight of Rupert, shirtless by a bank of lockers and laughing about something with his friends. Melchior looks away, chest tightening, and for the first time since April he thinks of Adele Hahn. 

---

Melchior waits until he’s alone in his bedroom, homework set out on his desk, to pull out his phone and look Adele up on Instagram. 

Her account is set to private. Not surprising. The profile picture looks like an old one, because she’s wearing the uniform for Knochenbruch Akademie, and she changed schools halfway through last semester, before the Akademie got shut down. 

Also, she looks happy. He remembers the look on her face before she changed schools. She walked from class to class like a ghost, barely acknowledging anyone around her. 

He worries at his lower lip and checks Facebook. Again she has the highest privacy settings on. He really can’t blame her. 

Back then, last school year, when she accused two ex-boyfriends of rape, no one had believed her. Oh, her peers generally believed that she’d been raped, but… not that she’d accused the right people. She’d been drunk, everyone said. She didn’t remember who had done it. She was grasping for someone, anyone, a face, a name, and she came up with two boys she’d had sex with. That was all. And the adults assumed that she had had sex with one or both of her ex-boyfriends and then lied about it. 

After all, who would believe that Rupert Schmidt and Dieter Bauer could rape someone? They’d put on such a show of shock and horror, and said she had been so drunk, and that they should have kept a better eye on her but who would think she could be in danger? In Little Germany? 

Melchior suddenly wants to throw up. Who could believe they’d rape someone, indeed. 

He can buy it, now. She’d been right. Not even her own parents had believed her and she had been right all along. 

He drops his phone on the desk and gets up, nausea swirling, and walks into the bathroom to vomit. 

Fuck. 

—

Melchior wakes up the next day still miserable. As he gets ready for school, he can't stop thinking about Adele. 

While he walks to school he considers how glad he is he didn't tell anyone. “Remember, no one will believe you.”

He wishes he didn't remember as much as he does. Or that he remembered more. It didn't make much of a difference for Adele, of course, and he's pretty sure she'd just been a little drunk. Not drugged .

Melchior hears running footsteps and turns, startled.

It's Otto, a little out of breath.

“Hi,” Otto says.

“Hi,” Melchior replies, “why were you running?”

“I saw you leave and wanted to catch up.”

They fall into step, and somehow, Otto's presence keeps the thoughts at bay, thoughts of Adele, of the drive home after, of how much Melchior wishes someone knew.

A few blocks later, they meet up with more of their friends, and Melchior has successfully pushed any lingering unease aside. 

For the moment, anyway.

—

School goes relatively smoothly, all things considered. Melchior thinks he managed to keep the (probably visibly disdainful) glances at Rupert Schmidt to a minimum, which was difficult. He couldn't stop seeing Adele how she was before, and remembering what she became before transfering. 

He also managed to make it through gym with only one mild flare up of panic-induced asthma. 

Of course his head is still pounding, the kind of headache that presses against the eyes and throbs dully until you want to bang your head on a wall just to make it stop.

It's especially annoying right now, as he's trying to help Moritz with physics, and much more challengingly, trying to keep his patience and sanity.

It's not Moritz's fault. It never is. But Melchior can't help but think he'd rather be eaten alive by ants than try to explain momentum one more time.

Moritz puts his pencil down. “Are you okay?”

Melchior looks up at Moritz’s face, realizing he's been scowling at the desk and massaging his temple for probably longer than he should.

“Yeah, I'm fine, it's just a headache,” he says, forcing a smile he knows Moritz won't buy. “Let's just finish this.”

“Have you been drinking water?” Moritz asks. 

Melchior’s head throbs. Moritz is far too kind and patient with Melchior. He knows full well he's been temperamental and weird, as much as he's been trying not to be, and he knows he's said some things he didn't mean to, and Moritz always knows he doesn't mean to say things the way he does. He's the only one of Melchior’s friends that he hasn't said something kind of mean to recently.

That being said, Melchior really doesn't want Moritz fussing over him. He's fine . 

“I'm fine. Don't worry about me, worry about your physics grade.” There he goes again.

He knows that hurt Moritz, partly because anyone saying anything about Moritz’s grades makes him anxious at best, and partly because Moritz is giving him that look . The you're out of line look. 

“You wanna try that again, Melchi?”

Melchior sighs.

“Sorry. I really am fine, and I am drinking water. I just mean that you don't need to worry about me, I'm here to help you with your homework.”

Moritz considers for a moment. 

“It isn't due until Friday,” he says, “let's take a break.”

—

They never get back to work. They end up taking a nap until Melchior has to go home for dinner.

Moritz tells him not to worry about it, and that Melchior can help him more when he doesn't have a headache.

As he walks home, Melchior quietly wonders when he'll ever not have a headache again. It's starting to feel less like a problem and more like how he exists. At least his bruises are pretty much healed up, so his entire body feels less like genuine hell. Now it's just his head.

At home, dinner is normal. His dad talks about work for a few minutes, Melchior says a few random things about school and Moritz, and his mama talks about her day for a bit as well. 

Melchior helps with the dishes, gives his mama a hug, and goes upstairs to lie in the dark with his eyes closed until he falls asleep.

—

Melchior didn't actually mean to sleep the entire night away, but his alarm rouses him and he realizes quickly  that he spent the entire night curled in a little ball at the foot of his bed. It's not very comfortable.

He turns his alarm off and peels himself off his bedspread. If anything, his headache is worse today, which is just lovely. Maybe it was just bad sleep. Maybe drinking some water and having breakfast will fix it. Maybe the universe just hates him.

Melchior changes from the street clothes he accidentally slept in to different street clothes he didn't sleep in, and heads downstairs.

He must look awful, because Mama presses her hand to his forehead for a moment, before drawing back to ask if he's feeling well.

It takes all of his restraint not to simply reply “no”.

“I just slept weird, Mama. I have a headache.”

“Do you want any medicine to take with breakfast?”

Melchior can almost swear his heart rate accelerates at the mere mention. He's pretty sure that would be a very bad idea.

“No, I'll be alright,” he says, hopefully normally.

Mama raises her eyebrows.

“Alright,” she says, “if you're sure you'll be okay all day at school without.”

He nods, and she disappears into the living room.

Melchior turns the other way and goes to get breakfast from the kitchen.

The rest of the day goes smoothly, and this time Melchior remembers to change and sleep under his covers when he goes to bed. 

---

By the time Thursday rolls around, Melchior is beyond sick of the headaches, the way his temper keeps flaring at stupid things, the way even sleep doesn’t seem to help. He’d like to be better now, thanks. 

Unfortunately, that does not seem to be in his immediate future. He wakes up with a headache already burrowing into his temples, and why yes he does in fact know that the brain has no nerves but it sure does feel like something’s drilling through his brain. 

He goes through the motions of getting ready, then goes and gets breakfast. No painkillers. Though the headache starts to fade once he drinks something. 

In third period, Hanschen leans over to Melchior and says, “There’s a party tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, at Dieter Bauer’s place.” Hanschen glances quickly to the front of the room, then looks back at him. “You coming?”

“Maybe,” Melchior hedges, but he already knows he’ll go. Even if there’s probably at least one reason why he shouldn’t. 

Given Dieter might have been involved. 

---

After lunch, Moritz pulls Melchior aside and says, “You’re acting weird.” 

“Weird?” Melchior echoes. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Weird.” Moritz scrutinizes him with narrowed eyes. “Are you alright?”

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You’ve been weird for ages.” Moritz frowns at him. “I know something’s wrong, Melchi.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” They’ve had this conversation before. Melchior kind of suspects that they’ll keep having this conversation until one day he cracks and spills it all out and then Moritz will cry. And probably Melchior will also. 

Which is why he absolutely cannot tell Moritz. At least, not now, not today, not in this hallway in the middle of passing period. 

“We have Spanish,” Melchior says. “Let’s go, okay?”

Moritz hesitates, dark eyes lingering on Melchior’s face, then nods and follows him down the hall. 

---

Melchior stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror for five minutes, sort of scrutinizing his appearance, some part of him well aware that staring at yourself in the mirror before a party is an absolute cliche. However. It’s also necessary. 

The eyebags are now at a minimum. He finger-combed his hair so it doesn’t look like he stood on his head and spun around in circles. Not that it often looks like that. That’s more Moritz. 

Unfortunately, his eyes look like he is haunted by demons. This isn’t really something he can change, though, so he turns the light off and goes back into his bedroom to get his phone. 

Okay. He pauses to listen for his father’s snores, then slowly opens his bedroom window and climbs out, lowering the sash quietly but leaving enough of a gap to get back in. 

Then, slowly, he clambers over the low roof and down the brick wall, fingers digging in. He lands with a wince and glances up to check that his window isn’t visibly open. 

He’s delaying. And well aware of it. 

Melchior pats his pocket to make sure his phone is still there, then squares his shoulders and sets off. 

---

The party is crowded and loud. Melchior ducks around the crush of people, grimacing, and does a quick circuit of the living room, before stopping at the drinks. He hesitates. It’s a bad idea, like a colossally bad idea, but… 

He takes a cup. 

Of course, Melchior has never been stupid, so he holds the cup close. Most people here are wrapped up in flirtatious conversations or dancing. Or both. Melchior weaves around a couple grinding on each other (to fucking Ed Sheeran, of all people. He’s still popular? Un-fucking-believable) and ducks past a senior loudly chatting up a cheerleader. This one appears to actually be a high schooler. 

The music is entirely too loud. Why is Melchior doing this to himself? But the energy in the room is high and Melchior’s veins are thrumming. He drinks. It tastes bad. But still, this could be good. This could be what he needs. He’s buzzing, he’s flooded with energy, it might be adrenaline but he’s pretty sure it’s not. This could be good. He could be good. 

Or he could crash and burn. That’s also a pretty likely result. 

The music is too loud, the people are too loud, and Melchior quite literally bumps into Hanschen. 

“Jesus,” Hanschen says, looking at the cup, “you’re drinking?” 

“That’s rich coming from you,” Melchior says, because everyone knows Hanschen drinks too much. 

“Fair,” Hanschen says. “I wasn’t actually expecting you to show up, to be honest.” 

“I…” Melchior says, and winces as the volume gets cranked up. “…am full of surprises.” 

“Yeah.” There’s a strange look on Hanschen’s face. “Do you actually like parties?”

Melchior pauses to consider this. He takes another drink, makes a face, and says, “I haven’t decided.” 

“Right.” Hanschen eyes his cup. “You know that’s the cheap shit, right?” 

“I kind of figured. Otherwise no one would drink this.” Melchior tilts the cup back and forth, briefly, realizing that he’s drunk more than he thought he had. 

“Yeah, this is the beer of high-schoolers and the poor.” Sometimes Hanschen really sounds like a spoiled rich kid. 

“Well.” Melchior half-raises the cup, then drinks the rest, grimacing again. 

“They’ve got better stuff, you know,” Hanschen says suddenly. “It tastes bad too, but it’s supposed to.” 

“What?” 

“C’mon.” Hanschen snags the empty cup, sets it on the nearest table, and hooks his arm through Melchior’s. “Let’s go get fucking plastered.” 

Melchior raises an eyebrow, but lets Hanschen lead him off. 

---

It turns out Hanschen’s better idea is shots. Melchior is not entirely opposed to this. He is pretty sure he’s now drunker than he has ever been and possibly ever will be again. 

Oh, well. Bad decisions. He can make them if he so desires. 

Even if they are really horrifically bad. But then Melchior’s decision-making skills have never been particularly lauded. And hey, he’s still upright and can talk fairly clearly! So he’s fine. 

And anyway Hanschen doesn’t seem concerned, which- yes, Hanschen’s habits surrounding alcohol consumption have been subject to concern, and yes he has an alcoholic mother, and yes he’s probably bordering on reliance if not addiction, but hey. That just means that if anyone here knows how drunk is too drunk, it’s Hanschen. 

Probably. 

Melchior can’t bring himself to care much either way. He makes it all the way into another room, this one empty and blissfully quiet, following Hanschen, who is also still upright if a bit wobbly, and sinks to the floor to lean against the wall. 

Hanschen sighs loudly and follows him down onto the floor. 

They sit there in the quiet, the sounds of the party filtering through the closed door, music and dancing and loud talking muted. Melchior leans his head against the wall, closes his eyes, and squeezes his left hand with his right hand as hard as he possibly can. The muted quality of the noise is sort of disturbing. 

Then Hanschen breaks the quiet. 

“Something’s been bothering you.” 

“What?” Melchior says, opening his eyes and turning his head to squint at Hanschen. 

“Something’s been bothering you,” Hanschen repeats. “Come on. Moritz has been worried and I think Otto has been working himself into fits lately.” 

Oops. Both things are true. Melchior looks away. 

“It’s nothing.” 

“Bullshit.” 

“Really,” Melchior insists, before realizing that he’s still squeezing his hand really hard and that might not be helping his point. He lets go, shaking his hand out. “Nothing’s wrong.” 

“Right.” Hanschen turns away, and Melchior hesitates. 

It would possibly be too easy to tell him. Especially since Melchior is kind of really drunk and his brain-to-mouth filter is fucked at the best of times. 

But he really should not. Rupert is Hanschen’s cousin. Melchior should not, can not, tell him this. 

What ends up slipping out of his mouth instead is “Do you ever just… not feel anything? Or…” feel too much, he means to say, but that seems like the wrong way to put it, so he just doesn’t finish the sentence. 

Hanschen turns back to him, eyebrows lifting. “Yes. Of course I do.” 

“Nothing?” 

“Yeah. Why do you think I drink and fuck people? It sort of… makes things a bit better.” 

Melchior looks at him, remembering the last party, kissing Ilse. “Really?” 

“Yeah.” The corner of Hanschen’s mouth curls up. 

Melchior is maybe staring a little bit. Hanschen must notice, because after a beat he says, “Want to try?” 

“What?” Melchior says, because he’s kind of busy wondering why Hanschen’s expression is giving him the feeling colloquially labeled ‘butterflies in your stomach’. Then he realizes what Hanschen just said and flushes. “Oh.” 

“So?” Hanschen raises an eyebrow. “Do you?”

Does he ever. 

There will probably be consequences. Maybe even, like, serious ones. 

However, Melchior can’t really bring himself to care right now. 

He doesn’t answer, just leans in.