Chapter Text
Maria was in the apartment. This would be good news in any imagining. This should have been great news, because this was not any imagining, but reality.
And yet. Gehrman stood in the doorway, holding a paper-bag full of something which possessed a singular redeeming quality (it got you smashed fast) and a bag from the convenience store mostly full of various snacks. He stood and ruminated on his situation, how the stuff of his loveliest dreams had been twisted by reality into something- something horrid.
It was terrible, because Maria was stretched out on their couch, with her limbs all tangled up in someone else’s — Laurence’s, the goddamn traitor that he was, Gehrman was going to have his head for this or die trying— and she was pressed to Laurence from their chests to their ankles, with her cheek on his shoulder and her gaze distant, as if she was too exhausted to focus, or even move at all.
It was an atrocity. A betrayal. Gehrman wanted to die.
“What the fuck are you crying about?” Laurence asked, brows arched, looking at where Gehrman was still frozen in the doorway. “You can’t hate the movie that much.”
… there was a movie?
Gehrman turned his face away from the scene of debauchery with some effort and looked at the screen. Pan’s Labyrinth. Okay, he knew… two movies with Labyrinth in the title. He had to wrack his brain trying to remember if this was the fun, colourful movie with goblins and a pop star or the horrible depressing movie about a war-torn country.
“Gehrman’s back?” Ludwig called from the flat’s kitchen, and poked his head in. “Great. Help me with this, please.”
Gehrman plodded to Ludwig’s side, thoroughly disheartened. “Ludwig, how can you let them do this?”
Ludwig turned to look at him, brows arched. Unlike Laurence, who usually looked mildly derisive when he arched his brows, Ludwig just looked sincerely concerned for Gehrman’s well-being. “… let them… pick the movie?” He asked, like he wasn’t sure and wanted to check, and handed Gehrman the bowl of popcorn. Gehrman deflated a little more, and Ludwig added, “Maria won at straws, though. Remember? We played at lunch on the pitch?”
Had they? He had a vague memory of Laurence thrusting a handful of coffee stirrers under his nose and commanding him to pick one while he’d been trying to memorize notes for his engineering final.
“No, that’s not the problem.” Gehrman said, and gestured morosely at the room where Laurence and Maria were- were- were debauching his couch.
Ludwig leaned out to look at them. His brow furrowed. “You want me to stop them from cuddling?” His voice seemed to imply that this was a bit silly, as requests went.
“Yes.” Gehrman hissed. Why was this so hard! “They’re destroying the sanctity of this apartment, Ludwig. I sit on that couch!”
“… Gehrman… they’re fully clothed…” Ludwig said, sounding uncertain all the same. “Do you not like people touching? But… Laurence is always touching you, I’m not…” He looked at them again, as if trying to decide what exactly had unsettled Gehrman about the situation. Making matters worse, Maria was watching them now, and tracing her finger over the cables of Laurence’s stupid sweater that Gehrman regretted ever making him.
“I’m not sure what the problem is?” Ludwig finished, a little weak-sounding.
Gehrman sulked, and without looking he could tell that Laurence was rolling his eyes.
“For god’s sake, we didn’t fuck. I was cold, now stop crying about it. If you didn’t want this to happen, you shouldn’t have moved my blankets.”
“It’s the middle of summer!” Gehrman hissed. “We don’t need a wool blanket on the couch in the summer! Or a duvet!”
Laurence narrowed his eyes, “Yes we do, because you keep it fifteen degrees in this goddamn flat.”
Gehrman valiantly ignored this. It was a distraction from the real problem. “If you don’t unhand Maria I will not join in this activity.”
Laurence blinked twice, then laid his head back on the arm of the couch. “… you’re quitting movie night because Maria is laying on me,” He said slowly, like he was translating a text that he was very, thoroughly done with. (Gehrman knew that voice well. He usually heard it when Laurence was reading texts from the much-hated Tuesday Lab partner.) “Really.”
“Yes.” Gehrman bluffed. Obviously he wasn’t actually going anywhere so long as Maria was visiting their humble home, but Laurence did not need to know that.
Laurence blinked, slow and reptilian-looking. Without breaking eye-contact with Gehrman, he said, “Ludwig.”
“Yes?” Ludwig asked. He was eyeing their living room like he was trying to figure out where he could sit without inconveniencing them. So thoughtful, Ludwig. Not like Laurence. No, no, the exact opposite of Laurence, who only thought about how to make things worse for Gehrman in any situation.
“Come and spoon Maria.” Laurence requested, proving Gehrman’s point in the absolute worst way.
Gehrman choked.
Maria looked thoughtful, which was — no, no, he hadn’t seen that, that was a nightmare vision, it was not reality, he was living in his nice little denial-hut for the rest of forever and no one would drag him out.
Ludwig looked at the couch with more skepticism than Gehrman really felt was fair. “It will not hold the three of us if I try. Also, I’d crush the both of you.”
Laurence shrugged. “I’m willing to risk that.” He looked to the beautiful woman sprawled across him. “Maria?”
“Yes, come lay on me.” Maria encouraged with more glee than was really healthy from a sober person, especially in regards to being crushed under a friend’s bulk. “I hate this fucking thing, anyway.”
Gehrman despaired of all of them. “That is my couch. I bought it. Don’t just decide to break it—”
“Yes, dear, I remember,” Laurence drawled, “You were very excited to find it so cheap at that estate sale. But, and here’s something you should consider: my family is filthy rich and I will happily buy us a couch that hasn’t been used by half the town plus, probably,” He paused and scrutinized the cushions next to his face, nose wrinkling in disgust. “… a few woodland creatures.”
Gehrman deflated. “But it has character.” That was what all those patches were, really.
Laurence curled his lip. “No, Gehrman, it has lice.”
Gehrman stared at him, too shocked and insulted for words. (Laurence was a grandmaster at arousing this state in him. Agreeing to sign a lease with the man knowing that was possibly the greatest mistake in Gehrman’s short life.)
“I’m not laying on the two of you and breaking the couch,” Ludwig decided, crossing his arms and frowning. “But if you’re really bent on sitting together, we can take Laurence’s mattress and set it on the floor?”
“No!” Gehrman said, horrified. The bed was tainted, and possibly cursed. Laurence probably had spells on it for seducing innocents. Gehrman did not want it in his living room!
“Yes!” Maria cheered, whether at the idea of a nest with her at the centre or moving Laurence’s mattress or just getting away from the couch it was hard to say. Maybe a little of all of them.
(She was always complaining that the upholstery smelled like weed and bad decisions. With Laurence living there, only the latter could really be explained. None of them smoked.
Actually Gehrman smelled cigarettes on Ludwig sometimes, but he had no idea whether that was Ludwig making bad choices or just collecting bad friends. It was hard to picture either of them, even knowing that Ludwig, inexplicably, thought Laurence was good company.
… Putting aside also that Gehrman liked Laurence enough to live with him. If anyone asked, it was just more convenient having someone who paid half the rent. And didn’t mind dealing with the neighbors. And stared at the landlord when the miserly bastard tried to refuse things like fix the broken heater before a blizzard, and of course Laurence was also fond of dropping scary phrases that Gehrman never dared to like ‘legal suit’ and ‘tenant laws’ and ‘it would be such a shame if something happened’…)
Gehrman expected Laurence to stop the plan the moment he realized it required their friends to go in his space, but — no, Maria passed into the dark bedroom without more than a “Don’t touch anything,” from Laurence, and Gehrman shuddered in dislike. He didn’t actually know what he could do to stop them, aside from standing in the doorway to block the mattress’s removal—
(Even as Gehrman considered it, he could hear Maria snapping, “Change the sheets before you bring it out, I don’t know who you’ve done on these and I don’t want to sit in the remains.”
And Laurence scoffing back at her, “You think I bring people back here to sleep with them? With Gehrman in the next room?” Which, well, fair. Laurence rarely brought people back to his own bed. Gehrman thought.)
Meanwhile Ludwig was moving the coffee table aside, and the couch back, and… oh, oh bother, Laurence and Maria were hauling out the oversized over-plush thing Laurence insisted he needed for the collective three hours of sleep he got every week.
(Give or take. Gehrman was, obviously, not awake to say what Laurence was doing most of the night. For all he knew the bastard went to bed ten minutes after him, woke up another ten before, and had tricked him into thinking otherwise for years by a mix of clever tricks, and mutual friends willing to lie for him.)
“I’m making a nest.” Laurence announced, eyeing the mattress critically, his arms akimbo. “You can sit in it only if you stop whinging, Gehrman.”
“But I’m not—”
“This is half my apartment and I say you’re whinging.”
“Laurence… what.” Gehrman squinted at him. Laurence shrugged and walked away again, coming back with a comforter that they did not need because it was July.
(True, Gehrman kept the air going, but it wasn’t… that bad, was it? Alright, so most of their guests brought hoodies even in the miserable sticky heat, and the only people that seemed okay with it were Maria and Gehrman, but…)
Ludwig followed Laurence into his room— Gehrman waited for the furious hissing of Laurence realizing he had an intruder in his space, and when it didn’t come Gehrman panicked a little, because that was two people now he’d seen allowed into the banned space in an hour — and came out with an armful of pillows to dump on the mattress. The end result looked like nothing so much as they’d robbed the bedding section of the local department store and tossed the spoils around Gehrman’s living room. (Not half Laurence’s, whatever he said. Gehrman cleaned the living room, therefore it was his. Flawless logic.)
Maria tossed herself onto the blankets with a little angelic cheer.
(Laurence often described her vocalizations as ‘mannish’ or even ‘demonic’, but Laurence was a tone-deaf charlatan with no appreciation for beauty.)
Ludwig folded himself down beside Maria with a smile, and leaned back on his hands. “Oh, I forgot how nice your bed is, Laurence.”
“You’ve been in his bed?” Gehrman needed to pay more attention to what was going on in his apartment, clearly. This was one too many developments. He wouldn’t be able to sleep later if this kept up, he’d be too worried about what else he might have missed. Laurence could not be trusted to his own devices.
Ludwig turned and gave Gehrman a concerned look. “… Yes?” Should I not have been? Read his face very clearly.
Gehrman glanced at Laurence, who looked conflicted. He could almost hear the man’s thoughts. Something like: on one hand, Gehrman did not know what was going on, which always amused Laurence. On the other, Gehrman was digging into his business, which annoyed him something awful.
Gehrman continued to press the issue. “When were you in his bed?” If people were having sex in his flat, he wanted to know about it, so he could ban it or otherwise ruin things. If he wasn’t getting laid, neither was anyone else.
(… well. Neither was anyone else in the flat. He couldn’t really stop Laurence otherwise. He doubted even a shock collar and a chastity cage would faze the bastard: he’d just smile and say ‘kinky’ or something and then move on while Gehrman was still sputtering at that liberal and deliberate misinterpretation.)
Ludwig blinked a few times, brows furrowing. Ludwig was a good friend. It would be horrible if Gehrman had to kill him for having sex in his home, and with Gehrman’s awful roommate at that. Tentatively, Ludwig offered, “Last… Wednesday?”
“When I had the pottery final?” Gehrman demanded, turning an appalled look on Laurence. “How could you?!”
“… we were drunk?” Laurence offered, from where he’d laid his head in Maria’s lap. It was unconscionable. How could one man be such a hedonist? Chasing after both innocent Ludwig and poor, beautiful Maria!
Laurence sighed. “Oh, Gehrman. You’ve got that stupid look you get, where you’re making up something completely disconnected from reality. Do you know that?”
Gehrman ignored him. “I don’t understand how any of you are okay with this. … well, alright, I understand half; Laurence is completely shameless, but Ludwig, Maria, I expected better of both of you—”
“Have I done something?” Ludwig asked, a little more concerned than before.
“You really shouldn’t expect better of me.” Maria assured him. “This is terribly amusing, and I’m going to come back for more of it next week.”
“He’s just having one of his delusions.” Laurence sighed again, like Gehrman was the exhausting one. “If we ignore him he’ll finish his tantrum, and settle in once he’s calmed down. You can’t acknowledge him otherwise… it inflames the passions.”
Gehrman stamped his prosthetic leg. A little harder than he meant to, which hurt, and added to both his offense and his volume. “How dare you-”
“You’re blocking the television, Gehrman, please.” Laurence interjected, the opposite of pleading or helpful.
“Why were the two of you drunk in my apartment?!” Gehrman bemoaned his fate in particular, and Laurence’s existence in general. What had he done to deserve this, hmm? Was it the shrine to Maria? It was, wasn’t it. He knew the doll was a step too far, but he wanted to see if he could pull it off…
“First off, I pay half the rent and groceries.” Laurence’s voice was infuriating: it was too even and bored sounding, like there was nothing upsetting about this situation and Gehrman was being unreasonable. But he wasn’t overreacting! This was the exact, appropriate amount of emotional response he should have to coming home to people in their flat! Especially when one of them was Maria and she had been tangled up with Laurence like a lover not ten minutes before. Alone! Without even Ludwig supervising, because he’d been making popcorn. Gehrman ate some from the bowl he was still holding, morose.
“Secondly,” Laurence continued, unknowing or uncaring of Gehrman’s inner turmoil, “because we were at a bar, and this was the nearer flat. I would have crawled in his window if his place was closer.”
“We picked the bar for that reason…” Ludwig admitted, “My family would have called the police.” That didn’t seem unreasonable. Gehrman should have called the police the first time Laurence held his hand out to him, but he’d been taken in by the charming smile. He had no idea that the person who possessed it had actually crawled out of the underworld at the time. “They still haven’t forgiven Laurence for the fistfight.”
This sidetracked Gehrman. “The what now.”
Laurence let out another sigh and averted his gaze, arms crossed. “Must we discuss this?”
If Laurence didn’t want to discuss it, then, yes. Definitely. Gehrman turned his gaze back to Ludwig and waited.
“He hit my oldest brother on the nose.” Ludwig explained, lips twisting like he himself hadn’t decided how he felt about it yet. “It was… er, mother wasn’t happy.”
“Isn’t your brother taller than you?” Maria asked, poking her head up from where she’d burrowed in the blanket-fort. This detail seemed somewhat unimportant to Gehrman, but he was sure Maria had her reasons. “How did he even reach?”
“I jumped on the table.” Laurence sounded so bored about it that Gehrman was seized with the fear that he was telling the whole and honest truth, and at some point in the last month Laurence had jumped on a table and punched a magistrate’s grandson on the nose. “Can we please start the fucking movie?”
“Why are you still talking to him?” Gehrman asked Ludwig, eyes wide with horror.
Ludwig had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Er, that is…”
“Why aren’t you in gaol?” Gehrman turned to Laurence. “You punched a magistrate’s grandson!”
“In front of his family.” Laurence confirmed, rubbing his cheek, “And I was in gaol.” Now Laurence sounded smug. “Ludwig paid my bail.”
Gehrman turned a look of utter betrayal on Ludwig, who refused to look at him or make any response to this at all. There was nothing quite like a man pretending that he was alone in a room when he had the company of three other people, all of whom were watching him: Gehrman with alarm, Maria with amusement, and Laurence with a degree of self-satisfaction that flew past sin and into pure unbridled egotism.
After a moment Maria snickered. “Of course he did. I’d pay your bail for punching the bastard too.” She wiggled until her head could rest on Ludwig’s side — he moved his arm to tuck her further against him immediately. Gehrman put another sad tick on his ‘maybe dating’ list.
In the process Maria dislodged Laurence from her lap, which seemed to annoy him. He fell on the bed and grumbled in her direction, “Maria, I was laying there.”
“I wanted to cuddle Ludwig more than I wanted to be your pillow.” Maria sniffed. “Cry about it.”
“Fuck off…” Laurence sat up and scooted closer to them, and then tucked himself into Ludwig’s other side. Ludwig allowed this, and wrapped his free arm around Laurence even though Laurence was, objectively speaking, a demon who’d learned to speak English and put on oversized sweaters and, and… complain about the apartment being too cold…
Okay, so if Laurence was a demon, he was a rather pathetic one. But the point still stood that he was the worst and no one should ever cuddle him.
“Are you joining us, Gehrman?” Ludwig prompted gently. “I haven’t seen this movie. Is it good?”
“Oh, really fun.” Laurence assured him, which Gehrman took as confirmation that it was not the fun, colourful goblin movie and was the awful sad one with children bleeding out on screen. “Here, you’ll love it.”
The. Worst.
Gehrman groaned, and made himself sit down. Obviously he had to protect Maria’s virtue — from Laurence, he very literally had her in his bed, right there! — and… he guessed, Ludwig too, even though it seemed like Laurence had already gotten in his claws and deflowered the poor man before Ludwig could realize Laurence was no good at all. Gehrman made a note to revisit his ‘enchanted bed’ hypothesis later, while Laurence was on a lunch date or something.
“You’re so sulky.” Laurence muttered. One of his socked feet prodded Gehrman. Gehrman had made him those socks, and this was the thanks he got for it. Betrayal, and minimization, and — and sad movies. “Just sit down with the rest of us, okay. Shhh.”
“You can’t make me.” Gehrman hissed, and settled on the edge of the stupid mattress. It was too soft, he hated it. Getting out of it was like trying to swim to the side of a pool full of jello, or like falling into a foam pit at the local trampoline park.
(They had gone once before they decided that prosthetic legs and leaping about like a lunatic weren’t agreeable bedfellows. Laurence had laughed until he cried, the useless lump, while the staff was forced to empty the foam pit searching for Gehrman’s missing limb. Prosthetics were expensive, you couldn’t just replace them like a lost pen!… and it probably would have traumatized any child that landed on it pretty badly, too.)
It figured that the only bed that Laurence deemed acceptable was one that would trap him in its confines for hours on end. It was probably the only way the lunatic got any rest at all.
Laurence’s foot settled in the muscles of Gehrman’s back, and then he dug his heel into a muscle knot. Gehrman groaned, and Laurence laughed quietly. “What exactly do you think I’m going to do?”
“This is a trick.” Gehrman muttered, staring at the DVD’s menu screen. “You are trying to get my guard down. Well, I won’t fall for it!”
“Honey.” Laurence said, dripping with false patience and poisonous sympathy, “We’re watching a movie and then we’re going to play Never Have I Ever. It’s… it’s not a trap, it’s just Saturday.”
The idea of playing any kind of drinking game with Maria was thoroughly distracting. Gehrman shut up longer than he meant to while considering the potential benefits and, er, pitfalls.
… Was he pathetic enough to wish for a pity kiss? Hmm.
“I think I smell steam.” Maria mumbled, somewhere in the vicinity of Ludwig’s side. That was a depressing reality check. Gehrman still hadn’t figured out if they were dating or just… really good friends who… cuddled. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, he supposed. Laurence was very tactile. And it wasn’t like he could get an answer from either of them, Maria laughed every time he asked, and Ludwig just looked tired by the question.
Gehrman deflated. “I think Ludwig is the favourite,” He said to Laurence in a conspiratorial whisper, deciding they were allies again for a moment. “Why is Ludwig the favourite?”
Laurence arched his brows and reached over to pat Gehrman on the shoulder with his hand this time. “Have you looked at his face?” He asked in the same undertone and cast a meaningful look at Ludwig, who was politely pretending that he couldn’t hear them whispering a foot away from him. “That’s why he’s the favourite. Honestly.”
Gehrman looked and, yes, okay, fair. But he didn’t have to like it. He sunk into the mattress and grunted his displeasure. “This movie makes me cry.”
“Shhhh. It’s okay, Gehrman, none of us respect you anyway.” Laurence soothed. Gehrman decided to go and hide all the sweaters in the house after the movie was finished.
Ludwig hummed a polite disagreement, apparently done with faking deafness. “I respect you, Gehrman.”
Laurence turned his head up to scold Ludwig for it. “Stop kissing up to him while he’s being a toddler. You’re going to reinforce his bad behavior.”
Gehrman smacked Laurence on the foot, and Laurence put his heel on Gehrman’s shoulder and ground it down. Gehrman whimpered and curled in on himself.
Devoid of sympathy, Laurence said: “Stop sleeping at your desk and perhaps you won’t be so tense.” And kept digging his heel in. He didn’t have a bit of kindness in his horrible little imp body.
“You should be sent back to hell.” Gehrman hissed.
Laurence rolled his eyes again. “After. The. Movie. Gods damnit, why is this like herding cats?” He snatched up the remote and declared, “I’m hitting play! Stop arguing.”
“You’re arguing more than anyone else.” Maria mumbled. Her eyes were cresents in her face and her voice was gleeful, like the bickering amused her as much as any movie could have.
Laurence ignored Maria’s statement, as he was wont to do with anything that didn’t match his ideal version of reality.
(He and Gehrman were remarkably alike in this trait, but neither of them was at all interested in hearing about it.)
… The movie was, as predicted, terrible. Ludwig cried.
Laurence and Maria sort of patted him, and he asked them why they kept laughing in such a despairing tone that Gehrman rejoiced a little inside. Perhaps now, finally, Ludwig saw what was obvious all along (that Laurence was terrible and Ludwig could do better, like, literally anyone was better, even that weird guy from Laurence’s Tuesday Lab was better, Micolash or whoever he was).
Gehrman knew what was going to happen on-screen (thanks to Laurence’s insistence on annual Halloween binges, Gehrman had a truly unfortunate number of horror movies memorized) and still cringed at all the awful things because, really, he should have known better than to think Laurence would agree to a campy 80’s movie over something with depressing social commentary and an excess of gore. Laurence was horrible and so was his taste in movies. (… putting aside that Maria had picked the movie. Laurence had probably encouraged her, or maybe even tricked her.)
But during the film Maria laughed a lot, and putting aside the mental dissonance of Maria’s angelic laughter—
(“Angelic? She sounds like she’s about to eviscerate you for walking in on her evil plot…”
“Be. Quiet. Laurence.”)
— juxtaposed on the awful soundtrack of the film, and Gehrman couldn’t find it in himself to resent the night altogether. Mostly.
… At least until the credits rolled, and Laurence got out the vodka and shot glasses. Apparently he’d been very, very serious about the drinking.