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My kingdom for a kiss upon her shoulder
It's never over
All my riches for her smiles
When I've slept so soft against her
Lover, You Should've Come Over; Jeff Buckley
“How come you don't know how to dance?”
The night is quiet, but it's this odd sense of quiet that is only here, only in this place.
Annegret knows that if she would step back just a few metres, she'd be right back in the life of the night, right back inside that bar they've just escaped.
Cigarette smoke curls lazily through the dark, its origin flicking between her restless fingers as if it were just a pen.
The woman beside her shifts, her long blonde hair falling to fan out in front of her face.
Annegret longs to tuck it away and behind her ear, to have those eyes on full display again.
“I like your accent,” Frederike says like she always does, ignoring the question.
Annegret sighs, “It's called a dialect,” she corrects quietly, as always, “You have one too, you know.”
Frederike snorts.
“Yeah,” she agrees, “But I'm from here. Everyone talks like this. You don't.”
She's picking at the ragged leather of her shoes, old as they look. Annegret’s, in comparison, look almost sparkling.
It's the thing she doesn't get about the concept of uniforms hiding student's classes, because they so obviously don't.
Annegret shrugs, considering her cigarette for a moment before she tugs it back up between her lips.
“So?” she asks.
“‘So?’” Frederike mimics, leaning back on her hands to look at Annegret. The posture change has her hair falling back, revealing a distinctive pale face and a set of blue eyes that wouldn't have Annegret drowning for the first time, “So, I hate the way you smoke.”
“Would you want to teach me another way?” Annegret cannot keep the smirk off of her lips, the grin from her voice.
“I'd rather you wouldn't at all.”
The cloud of smoke Annegret blows into Frederike’s face she quickly bats away with an obvious kink to her brows.
Annegret laughs, sees the reluctant smile on Frederike's face in return.
They settle back into their silence, only the droning music of the jazz club somewhere behind them.
It's a Saturday night, a chilly one despite it being late early July already.
Annegret can't quite grasp it.
A few more weeks, and she won't see this place ever again. She'll have graduated by then, moved back in with her parents down in Bavaria; after almost four years of Berlin, she doesn't think she wants to.
Worst of it, she’ll have to leave Frederike behind; just the thought of it has Annegret's heart clenching painfully in her chest.
Annegret stubs her cigarette out and leans back until her head collides softly with Frederike's shoulder.
She smells like the jacket she always wears, even though it's battered and worn down, its hems frayed. Beneath it, somewhere, the scent of the perfume Annegret once gifted her.
She breathes in deeply, both scents by now familiar and safe; calming, almost.
It feels like forever the time they've known each other, even though Annegret knows it's the same barely-four years she's been going to that godforsaken ‘fancy boarding school’ her mother is so obsessed with.
The arm Frederike doesn't need to keep herself up she uses to wind around Annegret's shoulders, hand coming to toy with a stray strand that must've escaped her braid at some point or another.
Silence, Annegret finds, says much more than any amount of words ever could.
The same way any quiet minute with Frederike means so much more to her than any hour wasted at the therapy she doesn't want to attend; the same way every hour they spend holed up in their shared dorm room, not talking but still living in perfect accord, listening to each other’s music or the scratch of a pen on fragile paper is an hour spent more wisely and effectively than any of their classes.
Behind them, the double doors of the bar break open, followed not only by a sudden burst of colourful music but also the hectic steps of shoes that obviously have heels.
Annegret doesn't need to turn to know who's coming at them and she doubts Frederike needs to either, but she still does, chin grazing the top of Annegret’s head as she does.
And then it only takes another moment for Christa Schneider to speak up, rounding them as she does (Frederike’s chin, again, grazes the top of Annegret’s head. Annegret feels warm).
“I kissed him!” Christa screeches, coming to a halt in front of them, hands up to her head.
Finally, Annegret thinks.
“Finally,” Frederike says.
Christa buries her face in her hands, “Oh, God,” she groans, “I kissed him.”
“He didn't kiss you back?”
“What are you thinking? You bet your arse he did!”
“So, what’s the matter?” Annegret asks, fighting God’s strongest might as she pulls away from Frederike to properly sit up and righten her skirt around her legs where the breeze is becoming uncomfortable.
Christa stares at her, lips pursing and eyes forming to slits.
Then, in the same whirlwind she arrived in, she takes back off, the doors falling shut behind her.
“She's so normal about him,” Frederike mocks, talking about what Christa told them just two weeks ago.
“He does look good, though,” Annegret chimes in and Frederike hums in low agreement, yet as soon as their eyes meet she breaks into a laughter Annegret can't resist.
Fredrike always laughs so brightly it lights up her whole face as if she were the world’s brightest star, even brighter than the sun.
Annegret does not think about the way breath always caught in her throat at the sight, always would.
She feels light as air, even more so as she gets to her feet, skirt and loose blouse flowing around her.
Frederike stares up at her, hands thrown over her knees and back hunched over yet her eyes are full of an emotion Annegret would only describe as awe. Her heart skips a beat at the thought and she quickly reaches out a hand before she can do anything worse.
Frederike stares at that, too.
“Come on,” Annegret says, almost pleads, and Frederike’s brows pull together once before she catches on and groans, head falling back and exposing the length of her pale neck.
“I do martial arts,” Frederike protests, even though she is already getting up, “I don't dance.”
“You look like it.”
“I look like a dancer?”
“Almost,” Annegret almost trembles as she takes both of Frederike’s hands in hers “You know, when you're fighting—you do it so smoothly you could be dancing as well.”
Frederike huffs, hands tightening around Annegret’s once, twice; Annegret mimics the gesture and pulls Frederike closer until the space between them is thin enough to share a breath.
This close, Frederike’s eyes need to flit from one of Annegret’s to the other in order to really look at her and Annegret can see in real time the way her pupils dilate ever so slightly. She licks her lips.
“Teach me, then,” Frederike breathes, “If you're so keen on it.”
Annegret swallows thickly, she nods once, doesn't dare a second time.
Carefully, she takes Frederike’s right hand and poises it at her side, almost completely on her back; her free hand she lays on Frederike’s arm and their still intertwined hands she directs away from them.
She forces herself to take a deep breath before she looks at Frederike again, her hand an almost burning degree of hot where it lays on Annegret’s ribs.
The look Frederike gives her in return could melt glaciers—at least so Annegret thinks; it’s certainly melting her.
She's backlit by the orange light of the street’s lantern and the colourful lights of the club behind. Her hair, golden now, flows lightly with the breeze. Annegret can count her freckles from here, her lashes, even, long as they are.
“All right,” Annegret breathes, looks down at their feet, “And now, you just—”
She won't even start about some footwork—not today at least, to keep her own sanity, fragile as it is—as she steps out of their careful formation to begin their waltz across the night-empty street.
The amount of times they step on each other's feet is definitely Annegret's fault, that she has to admit—but she can't possibly tear her eyes away from Frederike's face. She couldn't even if she really really wanted to.
She begins to hum a tune out of habit, a song she has listened to from time to time in their dorm room, sometimes dancing to it while getting ready as Frederike watched her.
It doesn't take long for Frederike to join in on her hum and Annegret's cheeks burn so hot they have to be the brightest shade of red.
The smile that stretches Frederike's face is to die for. Her eyes are so blue and so earnest, and the blush on her cheeks is definitely not purely Annegret's borrowed rouge anymore.
“Having fun?” Annegret whispers, her voice barely audible above their steps and the low bass of the bar, Annegret's own heartbeat. She could get lost in those eyes, those impossibly blue hues. How many poems has she written of them? How many of her freckles and her endlessly smooth planes of skin; the muscles that are almost a taboo to most but nothing else than an absolute dream to Annegret.
Something in Frederike's gaze changes, shifts just so barely, “Nobody ever taught me how to dance,” she says quietly, “Anything that doesn't bring money isn't really that much use to my family, I think they knew I wouldn't be good at it anyways.”
Annegret wants to protest, but Frederike cuts her off, “And I never really saw the appeal of it, you know? What use do I get of dancing.”
That word, she twirls into a dialect mimicking Annegret's and while she would usually be annoyed, her heart skips a whole two beats. She hides her face against Frederike's shoulder, in the warmth of her jacket before her head slides just so she can press her forehead against Frederike's neck.
Frederike's pulse beats so violently she may as well be dying of a panic attack.
“But I think,” something in Frederike's breath stutters and she cuts off.
Annegret moves her hand from Frederike's arm to wind it around her waist instead, pulling her closer until it was no longer a waltzing position but rather a comfortable embrace, especially when Frederike got the hint and rearranged her arms as well.
For four years, she and Frederike have gotten painfully close.
Hugs, cheek kisses, sharing beds and clothes and perfumes—none of those are any special to them or to any other duo of girls. Annegret wishes it were.
She wishes for it to be different now in this moment, as she stands so closely to Frederike, to the one person who has ever managed to get her to actually blush. She wishes for this to be more than just a hug.
She wishes she could raise up onto her tip-toes and kiss that damned grin off of her face.
And, see, sometimes, Annegret can be quite impulsive. Intrusive, too. But this, it would be an impulse. The impulse to pull away and take Frederike's face between her hands and pull her down to her until their lips could meet, until Annegret would never have to let her go again.
“I think—” Frederike repeats and Annegret is so ready to follow through with her plan, when the doors again fly open.
She very nearly groans into Frederike's neck.
Two pairs of feet, this time, and Annegret pulls back just enough to spare an almost angry glance at the intruders.
Frederike sighs as they spot them at the same time.
Christa and Karl, the school's lovebirds since literally ever except that none of them ever acted out on their much too obvious mutual attraction.
It's even more obvious now and Annegret quickly buries her face back into Frederike's throat to escape the sight of what is damn near public indecency.
Frederike's laugh vibrates all the way over to Annegret's head.
“Get some!” she yells over Annegret's head and Annegret almost wants to be angry at her for further ruining the mood, but she gets the why a second later when she can make out a startled sound and the quick fading of footsteps and laughter.
This time, Annegret really does groan.
Frederike's laugh is loud in her throat and Annegret wants to lick it away, to bite it up until it is her own; until it only ever sounds for her anymore.
Oh, what she would give for it; for Frederike to only be hers.
She pulls away, doesn't see the way Frederike attempts to follow her. Or at least she thinks she does, she doubts Frederike would. It's wishful thinking, she knows.
Because Frederike isn't like that.
She's all proper—usually. Clad in her uniform and her neat blonde bun and her golden necklace and her golden earrings and and her golden hair and her golden skin— God. Annegret should stop thinking about that, she really really should stop thinking about that.
She turned around sometime in her silent heatstroke, but now as she faces Frederike again, she is already looking at her.
And oh her eyes are so earnest, so clear and so bright they could as well be the stars that shine somewhere above.
Annegret swallows.
“I think,” Frederike says again, and this time she sounds earnest and almost gloating, as if this is a topic she's already much too well educated in, “I think I get it now.”
“Get what now?”
“Why people like to dance. Why my parents dance when they think we aren't watching, why Christa twirls around the room just at the thought of Karl.”
Annegret stares at her. She can feel her eyebrow twitch, can feel the breeze that's so cold on her burning face.
“Are you telling me you have actually never danced?”
Frederike shrugs and she looks almost smug as she does.
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn't,” she says dismissively, “I'd never danced with you, though.”
“You are unbelievable.”
“Well, see, apparently I am because otherwise you wouldn't have belie—”
“God,” Annegret groans, “Shut up.”
Frederike grins at her, all sharp teeth and bunching cheeks and crinkling eyes. And Annegret, sue her as she is, wants those teeth to sink into her skin—she’d want for them to rip her heart apart if only it meant she would be the only one to ever see Frederike look like this; if only it meant she would never have to know who else knows this side of her, this pliant and free side that’s become so rare with their looming graduation.
Annegret wants to run her tongue along those teeth and figure out if they are as sharp as they look and if they pierce her skin should they be, at least she could carry a reminder forever of who Frederike Weimer was for her. Still is; because it isn’t over yet.
For Annegret, it will never be over.
Even the thought is ridiculous to her. How could it ever be over?
Something in Frederike’s gaze changes and, briefly as she regards the softness of her features, Annegret wonders whether Frederike thinks about the same things she does. Whether Fredrike thinks about the future and sees Annegret the same way Annegret sees her; the same way Annegret sees her in her past and her present.
Frederike takes a step towards her and then another and a half-one until she's standing right in front of her, until Annegret can smell her perfume again and feel her heartbeat in the air.
Sometimes, Annegret feels like she knows Frederike’s heartbeat more intimately than she does her own.
Nights where they lay cuddled up in one of their beds, listening to Christa talk her heart away or just enjoying each other’s company, Annegret’s head bedded on the warmth of Frederike’s chest and eavesdropping on the steady sound of her heart.
When Fredrike reaches her hands up, Annegret's heart stops. It skips a beat, it feels like it resets itself.
But she's not reaching for her, she's reaching for the cigarettes tucked into the pocket of her blouse.
She sticks one between her pink lips and looks at Annegeret expectantly.
“I thought you hate smoking,” Annegret whispers, hands fumbling with the pocket she keeps her lighter in because she can't possibly tear her eyes away from Frederike’s mouth right now.
“I don't like the way you smoke,” Frederike mutters around her cigarette, coming even closer so Annegret can properly light it with the breeze. She chooses to ignore her shaking hands.
“You don't like how I smoke while you're doing so as well?”
Frederike rolls her eyes, “I don't smoke,” she chastises, “I’m making excuses.”
“Excuses for what?”
This time when Frederike reaches her hand up, it does come to cup Annegret’s face and she really tries to ignore how it feels so cold against her skin because her cheeks are so warm, have to be so red.
Instead, she focuses on how Frederike tilts her head up and brushes her thumb across Annegret’s lip until her mouth falls open just a bit, just because Annegret feels so high strung on nerves right now she can’t actually think about what she's doing.
When Frederike takes a long drag from her cigarette and then pulls it away, she gets an inkling.
When Frederike tilts her head so close their noses almost touch, Annegret feels like she has to pass out.
She blows the smoke directly inside Annegret’s mouth, but she can barely even taste it, can barely do anything else but think about just how close they are, how close she's just gotten to Frederike kissing her.
“This way, I like better.”
Annegret doesn't even attempt to think about what Frederike could possibly be talking about right now. She's pretty sure her brain is frying in her head and her heart is turning into soup.
God, even her breaths come stuttering.
“I don't need excuses,” Annegret neither knows how she manages the words nor what they mean exactly because from the very moment she managed to count the amount of colours mixing in Frederike’s eyes, a new plan had hardwired into the place her brain had once sat.
Her arms are thrown around Frederike’s neck before she can overthink the move, pulling her even closer, even further than just their noses touching until it’s their lips colliding against each other in a frenzy of leftover smoke and aborted breaths.
Frederike tastes better than anything Annegret has ever been plated, than anything she has ever gotten to see in all of the fancy restaurants she's visited.
And when Frederike smiles against her lips and kisses her back, passion only comparable to her dance of a fight, cigarette dropping to the ground just so she can bury her hands in Annegret’s hair and mess up her braid, Annegret feels like she's the only thing Frederike sees when she thinks about her past and her present and her future as well.