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Blue.
All around him.
A glow, cerulean and dense, covered the sky and grass. A warmth that he couldn’t describe began to seep into his skin. Moritz has had these kinds of dreams before, but none quite so vivid and sweet to his senses as this.
He could feel his hands flex and instinctively reach out to the blue. There was something there.
Another phantom of depravity? No. It didn’t feel like the faceless women who have populated his fantasies so many times before. It was different. Almost more…defined. Stable.
As if in sync with Moritz’s own desires, the vision lifted its hand out as well. He slowly pressed their fingers together, then their palms.
The warmth emanated so strongly from this one. It almost made Moritz forget. Forget his worries and despair. Forget anything that made him feel weak or alone. It almost made Moritz feel safe.
He took a long deep breath, taking in the salt and musk of this particular figment. The smell of moss, the smell of earth and libraries and sleep swam through his nostrils and into his head. His thoughts became clouded. All he could feel now was a need; a need to take in all he could from this moment, this dream.
He could feel it as the ghost of desire in front of him began to move and mold with his body. He could feel it as it held him and touched him. It rolled and crashed across his body, causing Moritz to cry out in a breathless and soundless plea for more.
Moritz wanted to touch back; to explore the shape of this figure before him. He needed to know more. He needed to f eel more.
But just as his fingertips brushed gently against the soft glow of his ethereal lover’s face, he woke up.
————
Moritz didn’t know how to feel about this new twist to his already distracting wet dreams.
Ignoring them as much as possible was usually where he landed when it came to dealing with them, but for some reason he just couldn’t put these new sexual imaginings out of his mind.
Ever since the blue figure first appeared in his fantasies, it had become the only thing he ever dreamed about (well…the only thing he dreamed about like that anyway). And while the figure had taken slightly more shape over the past week or so, it remained an indecipherable mystery that haunted his every waking thought.
Which was why he now stood pacing Melchior’s room when he should really be at home studying.
“I just don’t know what to do, Melchi! Every night it’s the same! This blue vision comes to me and brings me closer to the brink of insanity with every passing day!” He said, scrambling to find the right words to communicate to his friend how on edge this development was making him. “What am I supposed to do?”
Melchior was sat at his table by the window, holding the book he had been reading before Moritz had barged in, smirking fondly at his frantic friend.
“My dear Moritz, you’re completely overthinking this!” He responded cheerfully. “Who’s to say this ‘vision’ you see has any basis in reality at all? Perhaps it is simply a construction of your more general desire for affection and stability.”
“No.” Moritz started nervously. “It's too specific. It… has a smell that’s too…. and I can- I can feel it. It’s not the same…” God he sounded so naive and stupid. He hated having to even talk to Melchi about these things, but who else was there? If he tried to talk to his dad about it he would probably just be ignored or punished for being so obscene.
He had been a little afraid that Melchi would laugh at him and his dream, but the other boy simply nodded and furrowed his brow in thought. “Then maybe….” Melchior began to muse. “You should seek out this dream intentionally. Maybe there is a reason for them to have only started recently. Perhaps look for things in your life that have changed? Some sort of catalyst that may have caused them?”
Moritz shifted from one foot to another, shoulders raised almost to his ears. “As if I have not already been analyzing every little thing that could have led to this…” he retorted irritably.
Melchior sighed and stood to place a comforting hand on his troubled friend’s arm.
“Of course. I’m sorry Moritz. I wish I could be of more help.” He said sympathetically. Moritz shrugged stiffly. “It’s fine.”
He knew that Melchi really was sorry, and really was only trying to help. It wasn’t like the other boy could give him all the answers.
“Is there anything I can do to take your mind off of it?” Melchior asked, knowing that Moritz was just about at his wits end when it came to this conversation. The more anxious boy shook his head slowly and took the seat across from Melchior’s.
“No… nothing can take my mind off of it. I’m doomed to sit here in eternal agony…” he lamented, dramatically dropping his head into his hands.
Melchior returned to his place across the table and stared out the window a moment. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way to ease his friends' suffering.
“I’m having a thought, Moritz.” He mused to the glass panes in front of him. Moritz lifted his head in attention.
“If this vision you encounter does have a basis in real life, then maybe we could find who is causing it.”
“Who?” Moritz questioned, timid at the thought of following any kind of ‘plan’ Melchi thought up in that head of his.
“Exactly. Who.” Melchior responded.
“You said that there was a distinct smell and physical definition. So maybe we can find the person who most closely fits into those categories and see if spending any time with them altars the dream in some way. Like maybe the vision stops being undefined entirely and instead takes the form of that person.”
“Uhhhh I don’t know, Melchi….” Moritz muttered as Melchior continued to talk. “Can you describe the shape of your blue figment? Was she shorter than you? Bigger than you? Give me any detail you can recall and I’ll try to sketch it out.” He rambled excitedly. It obviously brought joy to Melchi to talk so freely of the subject of sex and attraction. Moritz could never be as comfortable as that in any topic let alone this one.
Despite this, Moritz began to think of his blue ghost and recall the shapes that formed its body. It wasn’t something he ever really paid attention to, too caught up by the sensations and torment caused by the experiences. But as he began to recall its form, he startled. There was no way that the figure in his dreams could possibly be a woman! How could he have missed that?!
Moritz made maybe the most embarrassing noise he had ever made in his life, blushed a deep crimson and stared stricken at Melchior across the table. “I-I….” He stuttered.
Melchi’s expression took a sudden note of concern and placed his hand gently atop Moritz’s. “Moritz?” He said cautiously, as though talking to a poor and defenseless animal.
Moritz took in a deep breath. Then another. And another. Until he was calm enough to speak. Melchi wouldn’t laugh at him. Melchi wouldn’t think he’s weird. It was OK, he told himself. “I-it’s umh….. it’s not… it’s not a woman……this time…” he gulped, waiting for Melchior to respond with some semblance of disgust or surprise.
There was a long pause. Just as Moritz was beginning to think this was all a terrible mistake, Melchior let out a soft chuckle and regained his determined demeanor.
“So a man then!” He said, much louder than Moritz would have liked him to. “How would you place him? Anyone from our class?”
Moritz could only shake his head, too stunned and petrified by shame to speak. Melchior seemed to notice and tapped on the table softly to ground his friend.
“Moritz…” he breathed. He slowly moved his hand back to Moritz’s and gave it a comforting squeeze. “I know you won’t believe it, but this is in no way something to be ashamed about. It is perfectly normal for one to be attracted to the similar sex.”
Moritz raised his eyes to look at Melchi more than skeptically. “…really?” He asked, barely able to keep his voice from cracking and sputtering with his nerves. The other boy just smiled his annoyingly charming smile before answering.
“Remember when you first read the essay I wrote you?” He asked. Moritz nodded, not quite sure where this was going. “And you remember the conversation we had about what it would be like for the woman? What it would feel like to be in her place? To give yourself over to someone else like that?” Melchior continued. Moritz nodded again, this time more nervously at the memory of that conversation.
“Well, I actually think about that quite often, being in the woman’s place. Though in most of my fantasies, I will confess I am not a woman.” Melchior leaned back, smirking knowingly at Moritz. Though, what Moritz was supposed to read from that he could not tell. All he could do was blush and even deeper red as Melchi’s words sunk in.
“Y-you mean you—“ Moritz stuttered, uselessly moving his hands in small circles in the air as if it was the secret trick that would finally help his brain work for once in his life. “…you think…. I mean— you—“ he stopped and started and stopped again, taking his time to form the words together in his mouth before repeating them aloud. “You mean you also… think…about um….sleeping with another man? A-as a man?” He finally forced out.
Melchior’s smile grew at his friend's progress in being able to even mention ‘sleeping with’ anyone, let alone a man. The shorter boy nodded and waited for Moritz to continue his thoughts. The taller boy was still fidgeting and nervously pulling at his lip, but he was much calmer now than he had been and seemed to be concentrating deeply. A look that Melchior found utterly endearing.
After a few minutes of intense table-staring, Moritz looked back up to Melchi. “Why?” He said.
Melchior was thrown off guard by that. He wasn’t really expecting to be asked why he liked men the way he did. Maybe what it felt like for him in those fantasies but not why those fantasies even happened in the first place. He thought for a moment before answering, the most unsure he had ever felt answering one of Moritz’s many questions.
“I don’t know.” He answered honestly. “I just do. I almost always have… Ever since the first time I felt physical attraction it has always been to both girls and other boys. I guess I never really thought about why that was. It’s just how I am, you know?”
Moritz nodded hesitantly. Somehow, he did know. As Melchi had started to teach him about what all of the dreams and sensations he had been having meant, he had started to realize that maybe he wasn’t so like his other classmates who were so often single-mindedly fixated on the soft and voluptuous nature of the opposite sex. Sure, women were pretty and sometimes even beautiful, but there was just something about men that made Moritz’s hands go hot and sweaty, that made his head swim with fervent fascination.
Melchior watched as Moritz’s eyes averted his once again. He watched as the slightly taller and much thinner boy rubbed his hands against the wooden edge of the table in a slow rhythmic fretting. Even in such a distressed state, Melchior couldn’t help but notice the way his friend’s brows softly scrunched together in a perfect M shape befitting of his name. He couldn’t help but notice how no matter where or how he sat, he always ended up crooked and his right foot always stuck out just a bit more than necessary. He couldn’t help how his heart fluttered in his chest when Moritz’s eyes would dart towards his own, looking to Melchior for validation and understanding.
Suddenly Melchior had an idea. It was a stupid and potentially disastrous one, but when had that ever stopped him before? Without warning, Melchi leaned over the small space between him and his friend, and kissed him.
Moritz’s eyes flew wide open and he let out a surprised squeak from the back of his throat. But while the kiss was definitely a surprise, the thing that really threw Moritz into panic mode was the smell of his friend. It was so light that you couldn’t quite make it out unless you were as close as he and Moritz were at that very moment. It was the smell of earth. Of moss, and books, and leisure. It was the smell of his blue phantom. Before he could fall too deeply into his own head, Moritz shoved Melchi back by his shoulders, breaking their kiss abruptly.
Melchior looked confused and hurt for a moment before he noticed how much Moritz was shaking and gripping onto his chair for dear life.
“Moritz? What’s wrong?” He said softly, trying to reach out to comfort him only earning a flinch in response.
Moritz felt his head begin to shake slowly.
“Melchi…” his voice crackled with emotion. He could almost feel his teeth chattering at how much he was shaking. “Don’t…don’t make fun of me….” He whispered painfully.
Melchior’s eyes widened significantly. He looked devastatingly stricken by this. He had never intended to hurt Moritz, his best and closest friend. He simply wanted to show him just how much he cared about him. But it looked like Moritz thought it was just some sort of sick joke in response to his emotional vulnerability.
Melchior stood and moved quickly to kneel in front of his now crying friend, grabbing his thin and clammy hands in his own.
“Moritz….” He whispered reverently. Moritz continued to sniffle but seemed to be listening. “Moritz, I would never make fun of you. Not about this.” He squeezed his hands, feeling their individual heat begin to intermingle between their fingers.
“You are so special. You are so special and so beautiful and so smart. I can not begin to explain how much I care about you.” He said, voice almost a whisper. “I'm sorry I kissed you… I should have asked you first. But I promise it came from a place of complete sincerity.”
Moritz brought himself to look back into Melchior’s eyes. They were glassy and wide, completely honest and heartbroken by his lack of forethought. As he stared into his eyes, Moritz felt that same strong feeling of invincibility that he had felt in his dreams. Melchior was his rock, he was his anchor and his lifeboat. He was everything to Moritz, and he had been so close that he hadn’t been able to see it clearly.
Before he could think to do anything else, in one swift motion, Moritz dived to the floor and embraced Melchior in a great crushing hug. Melchior startled a second before eagerly returning the favor. Moritz took a deep breath in and felt the calming beautiful smells of Melchi float through his senses. He could feel a rumble as Melchi chuckled a little.
“Are you smelling me?” He whispered amusingly.
“Yes.” Moritz replied.
“And?” He asked.
Moritz brought the boy even closer to his body and closed his eyes as he let the sensation of being loved wash over him. “You smell like my dream.” He said softly.
He could feel Melchi smile against his neck before separating them a little bit. Before Moritz could begin to miss the closeness, Melchior began to speak, his warm breath ghosting across Moritz’s lips. He could see as Melchi’s eyes followed the movement as his tongue slid out to lick his lips. Melchior let out a shaking breath. “Can I kiss you, Moritz?” He asked.
Moritz chuckled softly at the politeness of his request.
“Please.” He replied, slowly leaning in before bringing their lips together once more. This time it was magical. This time he could feel the warmth and love and care radiating from every movement their mouths made. This time he wasn’t dreaming.