After some prodding and flattery from our dear Demactica, I decided to write this New Year's fic, since I missed the Christmas challenge. I promise from now on I'll definitely try to fit more fic into my life. Gutes Neues Jahr, everyone! Welcome to the new decade. (:

The sky is a solid shade of silver, the barns and houses tinted with lavender as the sky turns less silver and more charcoal grey. Ernst swivels his ankle, his boot making a circular shape in the last slush pile that reminds the townspeople it snowed yesterday. It's approaching tomorrow now, and he is pleased that the parents of the town have not called in their children. Well, except for Martha, who is taking her sweet time walking away but is obviously trying to get home before her mother has to call her again. It's surprisingly quiet for the eve of the new year, especially so when several sixteen-year-olds are congregated in one fifteen-foot radius.

Over on a swing gently rocking to and fro under a lavender-white wooden belvedere, Georg is fiddling with a pair of his old glasses, using a kitchen knife to pry out the cracked lenses carefully enough so he doesn't bend the frames. He raps the handle of the knife against the unbroken lens and breaks it into two clean pieces, which fall out of their circular frame easily. The three lens pieces are slid into a small cotton bag in his pocket. Anna unwinds her fingers from their home threaded with Georg's to put on the frames. Georg smiles at the sight, and Anna rests her head against his chest.

Ernst knows their parents don't mind, especially now that both are as artistically inclined as ever, maybe even more so. Anna's voice has gotten more beautiful as Georg's piano concertos have gotten more classical, growing together in a way that only complements each other's talent. Ernst doesn't even mind that Georg has surpassed him in school in almost all subjects; Greek is the only subject he truly cares about, anyway. And anyway, both Anna and Georg look so happy and glowing that Ernst doesn't think anyone could bear to separate them.

Ernst considers all that happened the past year. The anniversaries of Wendla's and Moritz's death had come and gone, with only a small group present at either. Ernst attended both. Melchior attended neither. Everyone else… well, they did as they liked. Of course, Martha was the only girl present at Moritz's grave that day, at least during daylight hours. Ernst suspects Ilse paid her respects earlier or later than everyone else. She always was a contrarian, he thinks with a mirage of a smile.

Wendla's anniversary was a bigger affair than (obviously) any of her peers had hoped; it was more socially acceptable to attend the grave of a girl who died of sudden and serious "anaemia" rather than that of a boy who had shot himself in the head due to his family's lack of support after his failing out of school. It was more uncomfortable and solemn, however, for each of the small group to see Frau Stiefel with silent tears down her face at her baby's tomb than the wailing of Wendla's maiden aunts and sister- which was, frankly, just annoying.

He smiles. Ernst remembers every tiny aspect of summer, starting from those anniversaries. He remembers the deep lavenders in the sky melting into the pinks and blues found only in their dreams and in the lake's reflection. The nights when the crickets and cicadas came out to play, the fireflies dancing around everyone and threading themselves into their hair. The flowers winding around the girls' braids, the extra circlet they'd made due to force of habit left unwasted: it was given to Ernst, who wore it proudly and danced and twirled with the girls as if he were one. He was a girl, if only an honourary one.

Flickering candles dot the darkening grass now, and Ernst nearly knocks one over with his foot. He recalls the day before school let out for summer, when a note was passed around that said simply, "Don't let your parents see you." That night, everyone climbed out their windows and made their way to the lake, where candles lined the edges and they exchanged stories. It felt right, as if Moritz and Wendla had made it through the year with them and were celebrating too.

Thea and Ilse were the first to jump into the lake, having stripped down to their undergarments. "Oh, if my mama could see me now!" Ilse had cried, giggling and being hushed by Anna, who was worried her nine-year-old sister had followed and would hear. Hänschen had spent that night with his school pants pushed up to the middle of his thighs (nothing Ernst hadn't seen before, but it still made him close his eyes with embarrassment that Hänschen was confident enough in himself to share that with the boys and the girls) and his socks and shoes folded neatly and tucked inside the log beside the bank. Every time a candle would go out, he took it upon himself to take one that was still burning and relight the one that had extinguished.

Ernst still wonders if Hänschen ever really allows himself to have fun. He smothers a laugh as he realises that this past year was certainly fun for Hänschen and Ernst. Together. It took Ernst a while to find something that would help him avoid questions from his mother when he came home: about his bright red lips and cheeks, the faint bruises on his neck and chest, and the angry red lines on his back and thighs.

He'd figured out that slipping into the bath straight after a meeting with Hänschen meant he could change from his sometimes-wet, sometimes-muddy, sometimes-just-wrinkled-beyond-all-belief day clothes straight into his pajamas, and any redness left over afterwards he could blame on the heat of the water, any bruises or welts on the stiff bristles of the wooden brush. Luckily he wasn't like Otto, whose mother still laid out his clothes and washed his hair. Ernst could take care of himself, though he did like to let Hänschen take care of him sometimes.

By now the sky is no longer silver, the buildings no longer lavender. Everything is tinted faintly orange now, the numerous candles and the single, gently swaying oil lantern the only light from the green and black in the lawn. The parents and other townspeople were at some black-tie-not-optional annual event held in the town church on this night every year, and God only knew Ernst's mother had spent days on end with the other mothers in town, gossiping over tea and biscuits about the gowns they planned on wearing.

Ernst knew she had spent months piecing together her dress, each piece a part of his childhood or his parents' childhoods. A bit of the extra inner upholstery of his father's old armchair from the den, the lace drapes from his mother's room as an infant. Before he left that night, Ernst had made a point to tell his mother how beautiful she looked. The radiant beam of a smile that shone on his mother's face afterward suddenly made all her hard hours worthwhile.

Otto pulls out his pocket watch and says, seemingly to himself, "Two minutes." Slowly, like a quilt, everyone inches together, the boys each picking up a candle from the grass and holding it up to their chins. By the time only a half minute is left, everyone is standing in a circle, shoulder to shoulder. (Or as close as they can get, Ernst and Georg are now so tall. But everyone is so close to everyone else that it doesn't even really matter.) Melchior is not holding a candle, but a softly flickering oil lantern. Thea starts to hum quietly, a tune that Ilse taught Georg to play the previous year's summer, before… everything… had happened.

Anna picks it up, her voice only a bit lower than Thea's. Soon Ilse is crying, but humming as well. Otto whispers, "Drei, zwei, eins… Gutes Neues Jahr." Ilse finishes the tune alone, as Anna leans up to meet Georg's kiss and Thea plants her lips on Otto's cheek. Hänschen presses just that millimetre closer to Ernst, and their fingers lace together behind Ernst's back. The boys blow out their candles one by one, and Melchior sets the oil lantern down in the middle of the circle of survivors.