Chapter Text
It was the middle of the night, Ludwig didn’t bother to check the time, but he assumed it was somewhere from two to four in the morning, judging by the fact that the whole world seemed so quiet. It was so quiet that he could hear Feliciano’s snoring echoing through their shared apartment all the way from their bedroom, a trait of his lover that he always found endearing, but lately it seemed almost irritating. Everything seemed irritating as of recent in fact… the clicking of computer mouses and keyboards at his office job, the ever pre traffic outside on the streets, even the sounds of appliances were so much more apparent to him now and so so loud. And yet, they were not even close to loud enough to muffle the overwhelming voice of his mind. Nothing could ever be loud enough.
As he paced around the cold, dark and silent kitchen, not even recognizing the room that once seemed so warm and inviting, he tried every possible way he could think of to drown out the two voices in his head. One screaming from hunger and the other yelling something about self control. The humming of the fridge that lingered in the background wasn’t helping in distracting him at all, on the contrary only adding fuel to the fire and luring him over to it, to open it. Just a little snack that he can get rid of later. Just *something* to lessen the pangs that shot up in his stomach every few seconds, hurting as much as he imagined an actual gunshot would. Usually he would resist more. Usually he would have more self control. Usually he would never let himself be lulled this easily into being a complete pig. But not today, he was too tired, too *weak* and a wave of emotions he’d never allow himself to express hit him at a stage like that. As he slowly opened the fridge with his pale, shaky hands (having to put much more effort into a task that seemed completely effortless not even a year ago) a wave of blue light flashed across his face. After blinking through the blinding light of the fridge, he anxiously reached for a container of leftover food made by Feliciano for them to have for dinner. Ludwig felt a wave of guilt hit him as he remembered the argument he had with the Italian over it just a few hours prior. He caused his lover so much trouble and anguish and yet here he was, eating the very food they argued over in the middle of the night like the pig he was. He felt so ashamed and disgusted, but he reached to grab a fork from the utensil drawer anyway. He didn’t bother walking over to the dining table, instead just shutting the fridge door and slumping his back against it, until he hit the floor with a slight wince.
He screwed the lid of the container off and laid it on the floor next to where he was sitting, grabbing his fork and digging into the meal that took Feliciano so much work, which he just refused like an asshole and even had the audacity to raise his voice at the smaller man when he expressed concern for him. At this point he didn’t even know why did Feliciano still stay with him, he didn’t have a *single* redeeming quality that could count as a reason to not give up on him. He has been nothing but an asshole to Feliciano these past few months, he didn’t mean to but he just couldn’t let the other get too close. He was too embarrassed of his own issues, too *ashamed* that he still had the same problems he had as a teenager. The same problems that Gilbert would tease him for, saying that they were "girl issues". Ludwig was aware that they were teenage girl problems, he was *painfully* aware that his issues were pointless and ridiculous and that he was worrying way too much about something that others didn’t give a second thought, *normal* people didn’t have these problems… that is what they were: *problems*… no matter what he told Feliciano, what he swore to Gilbert, what he tried to tell himself, he *did* have problems. He was aware that this wasn’t normal. Normal people didn’t feel guilty to the point of nausea from eating. Normal people didn’t force themselves to vomit food back up. Normal people weren’t scared of their partner seeing them naked, because they had too much of a stick up their ass about their appearance. Normal people weren’t assholes to their loved ones when they expressed concern about them.
As Ludwig finished the last piece broccoli that was left in the container, he felt a familiar wave of guilt combined with nausea form in this stomach. He laid the now empty container down onto the kitchen counter and used the edge of the same counter to prop himself up back onto his shaky legs, his knees almost buckling in the process. He ran over to the bathroom, automatically kneeling down in front of the toilet and shoving his cold fingers down his throat and attempting to trigger his gag reflex. Unfortunately for him, the only thing he managed to trigger was a couple pathetic gags. So he reached further, punching the inside of his throat with his (now much bonier, but not bony enough) fingers. He punched his throat repeatedly, tears filling his blue eyes as he desperately tried to get himself to vomit. The realization of all the calories that he just consumed made him punch more and more frantically, to the point where he didn’t even notice that his sobs echoed through the apartment and over to the nearby bedroom. His head was spinning and his mind felt fuzzy, but he was desperate to get that meal out of his stomach. As he pressed his forehead against the edge of the bowl and reached for a nearby hairbrush, he could’ve sworn to hear some noises behind the bathroom door, but at this point he didn’t even care. As he shoved the handle of the hairbrush down his throat, letting out a couple sobbing gags before finally vomiting, he suddenly heard a soft, but horrified voice behind him, which made him freeze in place.
“… L- Ludwig…?” Said the terrified, meek voice which belonged to no one else but Feliciano, who was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, frozen in place at the sight of Ludwig, who at this point barely resembled himself. Instead, all that was left of him was nothing but a living corpse, reduced to a puppet, who was letting its strings be tugged on by this disorder.
Ludwig tried to mumble something out, but all that came out was a bunch of coughs, followed by some more gagging. Feliciano rushed to the German’s side, kneeling down next to him and frantically trying to get the other to calm down. “L- Ludwig… what’s wrong!? W- what’s going on!? Are y- you sick???”
“…. I- I’m sorry….” He managed to get out between gags before throwing up again, the liquid his stomach was expelling having a noticeable amount of blood mixed in. He slightly froze at the sight, never having anything like this happen to him before.
“W- what for…?” Feliciano softly muttered as he pulled Ludwig into a tight embrace, holding the other close to his chest.
“… a- all of it… e- everything…” Ludwig mumbled, burying his face into the Italian’s chest in a rare moment of vulnerability and weakness. “… y- you weren’t supposed to see this… s- see me like th- this…”
“… Luddy, what are you saying…?”
The shorter man demanded an explanation, what was Ludwig talking about? What did he mean by that? Was he apologizing for feeling sick?
The German didn’t respond, not having the courage to admit to the extent of his patheticness, instead he buried his face even deeper into Feliciano’s chest, praying away the agonizing headache that was tormenting him at the moment and shivering slightly through his thick sweater.
Feliciano let out a soft sigh, knowing that it was pointless to demand explanations from his at the moment clearly exhausted lover and dropping the subject. “Let’s just go to bed, sì?”
Ludwig just nodded and let the Italian help his stand up and lead him to their shared bedroom, already thinking about how he’d have to explain the disappearance of an entire container of leftovers, feeling guilty for selfishly eating food that Feliciano had saved for the next day, but also feeling very anxious about the other seeing him like this…. how is he going to explain his way out of this without raising suspicions every time he went to the bathroom right after eating a meal from now on? What if Feliciano catches on? What if he starts forcing him to eat? *What if he tells Gilbert?*
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He wasn’t able to sleep that night, his mind being plagued by the possibility of Feliciano finding out about his *problems* and involving his older brother… he was sure that they’d start forcing him to eat again, perhaps even send him into a psych ward. He *hated* the idea of that. He didn’t belong in a psych ward, he wasn’t sick! Sure, he maybe had some *little*, *pathetic*, *unimportant* problems, but he wasn’t sick! People in those hospitals were! They were all really underweight, not even close to Ludwig’s weight at the moment… he’d be just wasting a hospital bed, keeping it from someone who *actually* needs it.