Can't Get You Out of My Head (please get out of my head I'm begging) (bxb)

11 | wanted this to be a slowburn but lets be real my guy is in love

The night is hot and humid. I lie awake in bed, sweat pooling at the nape of my neck. My window is thrown open but the air is still. Giving up on sleep, I go out to the balcony to cool down.

Ethan is on the balcony opposite the street. I hear his thoughts before I step outside. He's got an open tent on the ground, having the same idea as me.

"Lukas?" he calls over. "You couldn't sleep either?"

"Nein." I blow a strand of hair off my face. "Just came out to get some fresh air."

"You wanna come over? I've got a tent."

After the night at the cinema, I don't know if I trust myself to be alone with his thoughts. But a firefly zooms between us, drawing a golden streak across the air. And I don't want to overthink it so I nod.

I go across the street and Ethan opens the door. He's in pajama shorts and a green T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Curly hair falls over soft brown eyes.

"Hey! So I was tossing and turning all night, but then Mr. Müller randomly showed up and said it's a good night for camping and gave me this tent, so...." He shrugs. "It's a bit cooler outdoors."

He's rambling but I can hear his heart beating in his ears. He's sleepy enough that his thoughts are muddled, and I can't make out the words as much as the general feeling behind them. Wistful and reminiscent.

"That's a...good idea. Yeah." I bite my lip, suddenly feeling awkward and out of my depth. I don't know what he's thinking.

Ethan smiles. "Come on up."

He takes the stairs two at a time and I follow him. He picks up a second pillow from the bed and takes it out to the balcony, chucking it into the tent. There's a blanket on the floor of the tent which I settle on, Ethan beside me.

"The sky is so clear." He flops back onto his pillow, staring at it through the open flap. "I can see all the constellations. The Swan and the Lyre."

"You know how to read constellations?" I lean back next to him.

"The Swan is this one, shaped like a cross." He lifts his arm, pointing out each star that makes it up. "It's wings are spreading across the sky."

I squint, trying to pinpoint it. They just look like a random cluster of dots to me. Ethan takes my hand and trails it across the night sky. He moves his head closer till our faces touch, his index finger lifting mine up so that we point at the same place.

I can't hear the words in his thoughts but I can see the stars through his eyes. What were once individual pricks of light turn into a tapestry so intricate that it blocks out all the empty spaces between the stars with imagined arcs and lines. Ethan visualizes each individual feather on the swan's body with such emotion, that it looks like it is soaring.

"Do you see it?"

I turn away from the sky and look at him instead. He's so mesmerized that he doesn't even notice. His eyes are filled with stars, glittering beneath the midnight sky. Freckles make a constellation across his cheeks, and I realize I've never been close enough to see them before. I may see nothing in the sky, but if I could just touch him...I would trace verbenas and wishing wells and every book he'd ever want to read.

I swallow hard. "Yeah. I see it."