funny how you don't realize how much you care about someone until the very moment you lose them
as if it's nature's cruel way to warn you of doing the same mistake ever again
cherish them or i will perish them
to adore or just no more
so hey, unrelated
but has anyone discovered a time machine lately?
lucas like hugs. he doesn’t get a lot of them, growing up.
for nat (@nachtumringt), who said: I would really like to read sth about touch sensitivity or being overwhelmed by emotions and sensations & then some tender caring and like, boundaries and comforting?
and, umm, somehow it got away from me and yet it’s neither of those things. but there are talks about boundaries and a meek attempt at comfort so,,,i’m sorry please enjoy.
read on ao3.
///
“you like it,” she says, eyes glimmering from the stars spun overhead. crying, he nods; he holds her tight.
his mama’s hands are warm where they press over his back. she gives good hugs, and she gives them freely. he likes that she does: her fingers in his hair where she scratches lightly, lovingly, gentle arms the only solace when he’s hurt, when it’s time for bed, when he needs it; even when he doesn’t. she doesn’t hold back, and neither does he. the vanilla of her hair is his favourite smell, maybe. it makes him feel safe.
her touch is warm, soothing. light. his father’s, on the other hand, is not.
he does not hug. doesn’t like to, lucas thinks. instead, he’s fond of giving a firm pat on the back, or rough handshakes, or a high five on a very rare occasion, all buddy-buddy slaps entirely not meant for a ten-year-old. his fingers are cool and clinical and commanding when they grip his arm, and they grip it often. lucas can only do too much to not shrug it off, to not recoil away from his touch.
his ways stand in such violent contrasts with his mum’s. he never curls up with them on the movie nights they have on saturdays, that’s just how he is, because he’s the same with his mum, as far as lucas knows. even when she becomes sick and dwindles away and does not get well again, he remains cold; he isn’t warm, never will be.
lucas has learned not to expect anything less than careful, meaningless touches.
he gets used to it, to locking that part of himself away that still wants. that never learned how to stop. over the years, he’s been given little leave to express himself, and he learns how not to. to pull away, to never let his hand linger, to repress the memories of his mum’s touch and her hands. he’s never been the one to forget. lucas misses her, misses the warmth that usually settled in her hold, and in the cool vacancies of the night, everything is far more pronounced. but that kind of things barely let him breathe, leave him with a terrible ache in his chest. he has to learn to put them away.
he doesn’t find much warmth in his new home, or rather, his only home. his nights are spent awake in a bed that feels too big, with the bone-crushing knowledge that he does not even have a previous home to miss. he gazes wistfully at mika when he places his arm around lisa so carelessly, mindlessly. the way lisa snuggles closer to him on the couch. they learn to leave him out of it, because, well, it’s his fault, isn’t it? he’s grown so sensitive over the years that little touches come to him as a shock, especially when he’s not expecting them. so.
he pulls away when arthur moves to rest his chin on his shoulder. flinches, without meaning to, when mika reaches forward to what he can guess is ruffle his hair, too many times. and they take it as a hint to keep their hands to themselves, after a while, to not linger too much near him. they’ve assumed it’s the touching that bother him, he believes, and not the fact that it happens without intent or unexpectedly. it hurts, but no one says a word, so he doesn’t have to, either.
it’s easier this way.
he doesn’t date much throughout high school. there are occasional flings, but he leaves too soon. before there can be any questions. the sex is great, mostly, it’s the after that makes him queasy. he’s never wanted to stay, anyway.
and then there is marc, who breaks up with him towards the end of summer, when he’s still trying to deal with the fact that college is starting in less than two weeks. marc’s whole face goes red when he says those words, as though he’s let them out accidently. they sound hollow, distant, but he doesn’t take them back.
“i’ve never been with someone who’s so distant after sex. during it, even,” he tells lucas, barely glancing in his eyes, stuttering throughout. the tight line of his narrow shoulders makes lucas want to reach out and touch him.
he merely shrugs, eyes averted.
“you’re doing it again. putting up a front,” marc says, in that soft voice he uses when he talks to his parent’s labrador. strangely enough, it stings. “i know something's wrong, but you won't talk to me. it’s not fair to me, lucas.”
and lucas wants to say – there’s nothing wrong. something does not have to be necessarily wrong for him for him to be like this. he wants to say that this is how he’s always been, how he’s cultivated to be. it’s just that the thought of being that physically close to someone without any intent makes him ache. he wants to. he doesn’t. and it’s another one of his faults.
it ends with a whispered apology from lucas, a promise of no hard feelings from marc. it ends, and it hurts. but it’s already ended before lucas can think about redeeming himself. and marc doesn’t take these words back. lucas isn’t sure if he really wants him to.
the university life starts without much fanfare. it rains for a week straight, thunder and lightning draping over paris in a watery sheen. the nights take on a gray hue, shivery and mildly unpleasant in the residual heat. dried leaves adorn the sidewalks and the grounds, and there is always some other thing that’s dying. the taste of an approaching storm is too blatant on his tongue; a perennial chill in his fingers that never goes away. nights are the same with their sullen clouds. it makes him miss the sun, and strangely enough, the stars too.
somehow, lucas knows that none of them will make much difference.
he’s grown used to the feelings the thought of physical touch brings him. ache, longing, apprehension — it’s all there like an ugly monster; crowding in his chest and pressing against his ribs. feelings made of broken metaphors and similes; mindless little synonyms stuck in his throat. but he is not a poet, has never been.
still, there’s something to be said about the way eliott demaury makes him feel the first time he bumps into him, that very first day, and every other time after. he’s a year ahead of them, but he fits into lucas life as though he was always meant to be there. his smile is serene, pretty, those glimmers like stars in his eyes, ocean-clear and beautiful. an unnatural sort of charm in his voice. charcoal always stains the skin over his hands — lucas watches him run nervous fingers over the jut of his bottom lip, rub his thumb and forefinger together, and there’s charcoal. deep obsidian smudged at the edges of his fingertips, against the pale of his hand, on the underside of his jaw.
and the scent of forest and sunlight — it makes him feel like eliott might be warm.
the days when the sun does appear are spent in the courtyard, leaning against a concrete wall which remains cold to touch, blending in with the contrived shades. they don’t stay around for long, though, because autumn has come with biting wind – all that cold, it makes for a saturnine landscape. they’ve grown used to spending what little time they have on their hands like houseplants reaching for the sun.
not too far away, someone sighs. “i missed it so much.” footsteps shuffle on the cobblestone. above him, against the faint sunlight, eliott stands, gaze soft, entirely affectionate. and maybe there’s irony hidden in those words, but lucas does not mind. “did you?” he asks. all around, it still smells like dirt and mud. a burn stretches itself across his lungs. eliott shrugs. “didn’t you?”
“our lucas misses the stars,” yann says, snickering from somewhere to his right. it has eliott looking away, but lucas just stares, and all he can see are the moles dotting the side of his face like little birds and the way the sun haloes around him.
“ah, well, same difference.” he turns to face him with the corners of his mouth curving up softly. “in a parallel universe, some other star is the sun.”
it’s so unexpected, the way he looks so sincere, that it has lucas sucking in a sharp breath. his words are pretty, deceptively so, flimsy in the way they make lucas hope. he blinks, flustered. “i didn’t take you for someone who believed in them.”
“we all have something we believe in,” the conviction in his voice is unnerving. his eyes twinkle. “maybe you don’t know me well enough.”
maybe there’s more truth to it than lucas likes to believe. maybe there are a million different things he really does not know about eliott. but he knows that smile. his voice. the pretty things his hands are able to create. his gentleness to his words. and it’s enough. a certain fondness makes home in his heart.
“parallel universes?” basile is saying. “it’s so cool, isn’t it, lucas?”
no words come, so he nods. there aren’t many things he could say, anyway.
the first time eliott leans in and touches him, his body freezes up.
it starts, as it always does, with a jibe from basile, and soon it’s turning into meaningless banter. they’re standing outside the coffee shop they like to frequent at the end of each day, and lucas’ coffee isn’t hot enough to soothe his shivering body. his friends rise to the bait almost immediately; he tunes out most of it in favour of rubbing his hands together, and then arthur and basile are laughing, and yann is laughing with them.
eliott joins in, too, and he is bending forward, gripping lucas’ shoulder lightly as he laughs and laughs. it’s a pretty sound. his fingers don’t meet lucas’ skin, pressing just over the material of his scarf, but lucas recoils, panicking, heart beating all wrong. the sudden touch is too difficult to bear. eliott doesn’t seem to miss it; lucas watches him straightening up instantly, smile slipping. a speculative look adorns his features as he studies lucas’ face.
belatedly, he realizes that no one is laughing anymore.
“lucas—” yann steps forward, lucas steps back, quickly making to leave. eliott doesn’t say a word, but he watches him go. lucas wonders what he sees.
the second time never comes. eliott is careful, almost too careful, like maybe he doesn’t understand. but he doesn’t ask, and lucas never tells. eliott never makes another attempt to touch him, and it’s silly and it should not hurt. but it does. something pointy blooming in him, all-consuming, hot like the shame that floods his insides.
“you’re awfully quiet today,” eliott comments as they’re making their way to class. to lucas’ class; eliott doesn’t even study in the same building. today, yesterday, every day. the words echo with a strange sort of pain. “lucas—” it makes him stop and stumble. he turns, searching eliott’s face, thinking this is it.
“i don’t know what you mean,” he says. there’s panic bleeding through his voice. “—we’re here.”
eliott averts his eyes swiftly, apologetically. there’s something like hurt contorting his features. he nods and says, “we’re here.” and then, “see you, lucas.”
(back home, lucas feels the cold as it seeps through his bones. it’s relentless, still, lonely. he thinks about eliott and pain and eliott, and his friends all looking at him like he’s a weakling. he imagines eliott asking them about him, imagines everyone chuckling and saying things like, oh, you know our lucas. he’s a little fucked up like that.
guilt churns messily in his stomach. he shouldn’t even be thinking thoughts like these)
september bleeds into october. nothing changes much beyond that. a certain chill infuses the air, sharp and biting as it always is. nighttime lengthens and drags, pressing through his windows with an inexorable hunger; it feels too slow. the rain still hasn’t found a rhythm. it falls and falls and falls over melancholy shades, flowers staying dead, soft thunder brooding overhead. it’s all the same.
the second time does come, just not in the way he’d been expecting it.
the sun sets. it’s dark and cold when they make their way towards the party daphne has invited them to. a friend of my friend’s, she says, the house isn’t too far from lucas’ place, their breaths coming out in feathery swirls as they make their way over. he stays behind when everyone else moves towards the living room to dance, and then eliott finds him there, in the kitchen, as he’s nursing his beer and searching for an excuse to head home early. it’s loud and packed and it makes his skin crawl, but there’s also something feathery beating underneath his ribcage when eliott gives him one of his grins.
like maybe he understands.
“it’s getting crowded.” there’s something hesitant in eliott’s voice. “would you like to go somewhere else?”
he nods. “i’d like to get out of here.”
eliott leads him away from the kitchen and out towards the door. they pass by yann and basile and arthur as they cross the living room, all of them giving them exaggerated thumb-ups and not saying anything else. they gather their jackets and lucas’ scarf by the door and emerge out into the front porch. the night is dark, so dark and completely lacking colour, but it isn’t raining. he breathes out a little easily.
eliott pulls out a joint from behind his ear as they walk. he turns to glace over at lucas, at the way he fidgets with his hands, his eyes colourful and colourless all at once. “do you mind?” his voice echoes strangely in the night.
lucas shakes his head. “it’s fine.”
the streets are empty, lit only by the streetlamps; there are no stars out. they’ve started walking towards lucas’ flat-share without him realizing, and he watches, enthralled, as eliott lights the joint and takes a hit, cheeks hollowing out. the smoke he exhales curls upwards in the air before disappearing.
wordlessly, he passes the joint to lucas, holding it so their fingers don’t touch when lucas takes it from him. the smoke settles almost hesitantly in his chest. he coughs on it, weakly.
“we’re nearing your place,” eliott states, after the joint gets stubbed under his shoe, and it’s another thing he knows about lucas without having to ask. the thought should alarm him. it doesn’t. “can i ask you something? you don’t have to answer, of course.”
worry eats away at his edges. glancing up at the saturnine sky, he thinks, this is it. “go on.”
“do you mind me touching you?” there’s a soft hint of reluctance in eliott’s voice; it’s not a why, or a how, either, but the words are still sharp. he could choose to not answer. he could. it’s eliott after all, he’d understand.
“i—no,” he says instead, and because it’s eliott, he makes himself keep going. “no, it’s not that.”
eliott nods. keeps on walking forward. doesn’t say anything else.
it’s cold, so cold, and maybe it’s just that, or the way eliott seems to keep his distance. it must have been the warmth lucas knows eliott wicks off, but the words come out frantically. “it’s not the touching.” he stops, they both do. “or maybe it is. it’s also that it happens without any intent, and when i don’t expect it.”
there’s a moment of silence before eliott speaks. “okay.” the light in his eyes is burning, barely concealed.
“okay,” lucas says, letting out a breathy laugh, disbelief hidden in the layers. there’s not much to say after that.
soon enough they’re outside lucas’ flat, and then eliott’s stepping closer right into his space, his fingers hovering right in front of him, never touching.
“a strand of your hair is sticking up,” he murmurs, his stare burning through the cold. “can i?”
and lucas — he nods.
it’s not touching, not really, but he has to breathe deeply as eliott fixes the strand. “see you, lucas,” he says, like all those weeks before, and he’s already turning away before lucas can form any sentence.
it’s not touching, not really, but it’s the first gentle thing he’s ever allowed himself in what feels like forever.
it shouldn’t come as a surprise when, after that night, it doesn’t become a thing. eliott doesn’t ask again, doesn’t come close enough that lucas has to back way. he’s always touching someone else, though: a hand to the crook of yann’s arm, playfully shoving arthur’s shoulder, ruffling his own hair often, like maybe his fingers are aching to hold something. it doesn’t stop lucas from wanting to reach out, his heart taking on an odd beat that only grows worse.
the carnival happens towards the end of november, when autum has already given way to winter and hard frost, the incongruous way with which it engraves itself over the ground. no one seems to mind it; lucas has long since stopped sharing how he really feels, because, well, his words are frayed and loose enough that they might run away, were he to set them free. he often wonders how long he can keep them in for.
it shouldn’t come as a surprise when they all end up going, when eliott asks, low and sure and not too long after, if lucas wants to leave. and, maybe, that has become a thing. it surprises him, however, when this time they end up at eliott’s place. he raids his fridge as lucas peruses the living room. there are sketches taped to the walls, and a piano pushed towards the corner, blending in with everything else. his place is cluttered, messy in a way that feels lived in. home. a small part of lucas envies him for it.
eliott comes out of the kitchen with two bottles. he’s smiling in that entirely soft way of his. “make yourself at home,” he comments, plopping down on the couch and placing the beers on the coffee table. lucas watches him tuck his hands under his legs. he’s restless.
lucas joins him soon after, close enough to touch, but there are still many inches between them. silence is all there is, neither of them willing to bite the bullet. he doesn’t know what he is here for. doesn’t know how much longer he can stay before leaving becomes necessary. he knows that, maybe, eliott wants to talk. maybe they’ll do that. that, or maybe, eliott will kiss him. he doesn’t know.
and it shouldn’t surprise him when the thought does not fill him with trepidation. he trusts eliott. completely, utterly, recklessly, he trusts him. it’s probably what makes him talk.
“i don’t touch, eliott,” he sniffs, aware that it’s not new information, not really. men didn’t touch without intent, that’s what he’s been taught. “sometimes i don’t want to. sometimes i can’t. i will never initiate, sometimes i’ll ask you to. but it — you do understand that it’s not something you can expect to change, or try to, don’t you? this is how it’s always been— how I’ve always been.”
he averts his gaze, body shrinking into itself, breathing weirdly. hands clenching in his lap, uncomfortable inside his skin, and he’s tired, so tired and cold, everything hurting. the beers stand forgotten, sweating improbably on the table. one of eliott’s hand twitches at his side. the lights glow a waning shade of white, so different from the moonlight, yet so similar in the way they wash eliott’s skin in plain ivory.
eliott doesn’t say anything for a long moment. glancing up, lucas sees him swallow. “i would never, lucas,” eliott says eventually. it’s so stiff that it startles him, and maybe there’s desperation bleeding through his voice. it breaks him. “i would never do that, you know that right?”
lucas looks at him, just looks. eliott looks back. his eyes are a haunting gray.
“eliott —”
“—unless you ask me to—”
“eliott,” he says again, voice wavering but it’s loud enough to drown the beating of his heart, colour burning on his cheeks, his ears. when it feels like he’s not going to fall apart — “my hands are cold.”
the statement hangs in the air for a moment. and then, eliott breathes out, almost like relief, a smile tugging the corners of his lips up, and when he shifts closer, minutely, a hand coming in front of him, he exhales too, his own smile pulling across his mouth. everything else seems to fall into place, feathery, alight. hopeful.
“i’m going to hold your hand now,” eliott breathes, “is that alright?”
he nods, sure. eliott’s smile is blinding, moon-like.
a hand reaches out towards his lap, before a fingertip traces delicately over the metacarpals, trailing down to his knuckles, his fingers, and then — and then eliott’s hand wraps around his own. it’s tender, so tender, like maybe eliott is a little skin-hungry himself. lucas inhales sharply, the sensation of eliott’s skin, the heat pouring out of it, the affection — it’s too much, but it’s not unpleasant. lucas watches it all, barely breathing, awed.
eliott demaury is careful with his words and his touch, and with everything else he is. careful in the way the night is with its assembly of stars, that is so unlike what lucas has always known, a certain gentleness in his bones. he pulls away, leaning back against the couch, sympathizing with the beer bottles standing bereft, but his heart is singing, flailing in the cage of his body. eliott leans back, lucas watches, his eyes shut closed, mouth curved up in a soft smile.
he lets out a breathy laugh, night curling around them, soaked in understanding and maybe-love in the heady proximity and it’s warm — warm, warm, warm.
the best part about life drawing class, in eliott’s opinion, is that it’s acceptable to stare.
that’s why he had gotten into art in the first place, in fact. more than anything, he loved looking at beautiful things. and— frustrating as doing them justice may be— bodies are his favourite thing to draw.
especially when they look… well, like that.
like the boy stretched out on the platform, his tan skin tinted various colours from the lights shining down on him. this module of the class is focused on the way colours change the appearance of the body, of the face. and eliott tells himself that his desire to see what the model looks like under normal lighting is purely artistic, for the sake of comparison.
not because he’s been looking at him for what must be nearly the whole three hour class, at this point, and certainly not because every time the boy’s eyes meet his— briefly, before they continue their lazy path around the room, watching all of the students work— it sends his limbs abuzz, a full-bodied shiver down his spine.
he’s having trouble getting the right blend of colour for the way that the pale yellow light meets the boy’s hip, making it look like his entire lower body has been set in gold, from the dip of his waist, across his stomach, down along his hips and all the way down to his—
“alright everyone,” he nearly groans aloud as his prof comes to the center of the room. “that’s our time for today! finish the portion you’re working on, and then pack up.” he turns back to the model. “lucas will stick around for another fifteen minutes or so, and then he’ll be back the same time next week.” all of a sudden it’s as if the world around him falls away. lucas, his brain chants, lucas lucas lucas. it’s fitting, he thinks— he looks like a lucas. the fluff of his hair— a task that eliott couldn’t dream of tackling until he has the body done— the way his nose juts out just so, the gentle arch of his upper lip…
“— eliott, you there?” he blinks, hard, shaking his head a bit to ground himself back in reality, before looking at his professor, stood beside him. “you done for today?”
“oh— yes, of course, sorry. just lost in thought.”
“all good. trust me, you’re not the only one who feels the effects of this being an evening class.” his prof chuckles, before continuing onward to his other classmates, seeing them off for the day. a few minutes later he has all of his supplies safely in his bag. as he turns to leave, he has half a mind to wish lucas a good night, to find some way to talk to him.
“have a good night, lucas,” is what he decides on. when lucas looks over at him, that same shiver from before rushes over him, and he has to put in an effort to keep his composure. the smile he receives in return is sweet, and he internally delights in the way lucas’ eyes crinkle at the edges when he does.
“you too, ah…” it takes him embarrassingly long to realize that lucas is implicitly asking for his name.
“oh! eliott, i’m eliott.”
“well then, you too, eliott.” he’s ready to pass out, at the sound of lucas saying his name. “see you next week?”
“yeah— yes, you will! of course.”
“great.” another smile that makes him weak in the knees. eliott leaves with a quick wave before he can do anything he’ll regret.
when i met him, i thought ' he is so out of my league. ' older, wiser; already out of college; i was just stepping out into the world 一 fresh out of highschool.
and when i stayed over at his house for the first time; it was also the first time he left rose colored streaks over my skin as we kissed for the very first time.
then, one year, two years passes, my rose colored boy has made me his rose colored girl. i am no longer shades of blue and purple and red and green; he has made me to match him, to fit by his side, matching rose colored shades sitting high on our noses.
once rose colored turns to deep pink, i do not even notice; i do not even realize i have been dipped into and made the color of the deep pink roses that i am so fond of. it's when he touches me the first time, deep streaks of pink along side pastel; he says he loves me; i blossom. believe.
it is when my shades are loosened, and steadily slip down the length of my nose do i catch the flickers of blue that cover him. he asks me, ' why are you crying ' i say pink was always my favorite color 一 he laughs it off. so do i.
the day i bend and my rose colored shades that he gifted to me, break; shattering to the floor is when i see that my rose colored boy was actually painted blue. and when i went to hide my face, i seen that my hands were too.
The thing about Chanyeol and Kyungsoo is that they are, in most ways, polar opposites. Chanyeol really loves socializing and being out and about while having lots of loud fun; Kyungsoo prefers to stay in with a nice book to read ( maybe going out to hang out with Junmyeon every now and then at a nearby cafe' ) and enjoying the quietness away from the bustle of life and city living. Outside, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo being a couple has people raising a brow -- but it's really not that odd of a thing at all.
They both have the same sensitivity of life. Chanyeol likes to sit and listen to his boyfriend talk about how he feels on certain subjects, and those are the times that Chanyeol realizes how much he loves Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo likes to sometimes sit in while his other half is out and about being a jumping bean with his friends - watching from afar, and those are the times that Kyungsoo realizes how much he loves Chanyeol. They have the same outlook on life, that things aren't that great sometimes but we have to power through and keep our heads above water. They both have their faults, and they argue, and they both have times that things just aren't okay.
Yet, at the end of the day, you can find them curled up together in their Queen sized bed; Chanyeol's long limbs enclosing Kyungsoo's just a tad bit smaller limbs. Kyungsoo loves that Chanyeol is just that extra much bigger than himself, folding himself up and being vulnerable. His head pressed against the others chest as he listens to Chanyeol's soft breathing as he sleeps. Sometimes, he watches him, too. . . letting his fingertips graze Chanyeol's features, making sure not to wake him. Kyungsoo examines everything that Chanyeol is. The actual man that he is - here lying next to him: Soft, vulnerable, beautiful. Enchanting.
Other times, it's Chanyeol watching Kyungsoo. He basks in the softness the other becomes when he's sleeping - compared to the furrowed brows given throughout the day because he doesn't want to wear glasses. He's more rounded edges rather than rough corners this way; more Kyungsoo. Everything that Kyungsoo is, Chanyeol gently lets his fingers make a path through the others hair, careful not to wake him. The breath of content that comes through Kyungsoo's nose as he leans into it subconsciously has Chanyeol smiling. A man of many charms, wit, intelligence, kind-hearted. Beautiful. That's what Kyungsoo is to him.
Their friends were very confused at first, as to just why these two were together. It's such an odd arrangement. But. . . as they examine more. . . it's actually not that odd. They somehow complete each other - filling in each others gaps. It's almost hard to tell where each one ends and where the other starts at times. As they look on as Kyungsoo grooms Chanyeol as he's working on new music ( him not paying it any mind ) and as he works on paper work they realize:
It makes perfect sense - Chanyeol and Kyungsoo.
it starts in a bar, or in an alleyway, or maybe in a thousand different glances and words and kisses. and it keeps on growing with every moment that follows.
but it isn’t that simple. nothing is, really.
(— or, a friends with benefits au.)
read on ao3
///
He wakes to no light breathing around the room, the taste of slumber too prominent on his tongue. The world is on the verge of summer. It’s the scent that gives it away; it lingers between his sheets, on his pillow, fresh grass and clean air and a faint undercurrent of honey and someone else, someone who’s been here most night. It’s a stubborn thing, never really going away, no matter how many times he tries to wash it. Strangely enough, it all reminds him of winter, an inexorable longing for the cold filling his lungs, for a beginning which is still blurry inside his mind.
Lately, Lucas doesn’t know if there even was a beginning.
He doesn’t know if it really matters.
///
Maybe, possibly, it starts five months ago. The beginning doesn’t come like that though, a bit unclear beneath a thousand moments lining the trail like seeds, each one blooming to complete a pattern reserved only for him to see. The lines stood clandestine; just friends, they’d say. But the night brings with itself a shift, a novelty to their interaction, vivid and unnerving. It starts in a bar; five shots of vodka consumed, Lucas spends his time on the dance floor, under the neons that flash about too fast, fluorescents dripping all around. It does something to his senses, the way everything fades to a static hum in his ear, like being submerged underwater, like he’s drowning, only he doesn’t want to come up.
He dances between a cluster of celestial bodies and doesn’t care about anything else; except, maybe, for the way Eliott Demaury looks at him under these lights, his eyes mercury-bright as he shuffles closer, and Lucas takes his hand and pulls him into the tight knot of people all huddled together. The music plays on, pulsing in a rhythm synchronous to his own heartbeat, but they keep on dancing anyway.
Later when the haze settles, they find themselves outside, standing too close, heavy breaths exhaled into the still of the air. Lucas hides the staccato of his heart over the joint he’s sharing with Eliott, tries to, at least, and the lines, they feel tainted, somehow. Lungs too choked up on smoke and dirty, dirty feelings. The cars go by too fast to count, December air a little cold to the touch. Eliott says something that falls flat in the night. Hazy. It’s all vivid now: the glow of moonlight against the obsidian of Eliott Demaury’s hair, eyes too sharp in the dark, the buttons of his shirt undone to the middle of his chest, revealing a smooth, pale expanse of skin, glowing silver beneath the moon.
It makes Lucas wonder, then, how it would feel to press his lips against the hinge of Eliott’s jaw.
It’s certainly not the beginning, but it feels significant, somehow, plucks the string that has always stretched taut between them. Something that hums through him, beautiful, endless. Echoing. It leaves Lucas with feelings too intense to carry, strong and fervent, cutting through the blues of the night. And the sense that they had settled a long time ago, and they’ve just now come close to realizing it.
It’s certainly not the beginning, but it’s what sets them in motion, he thinks.
///
The thing is, it wasn’t that simple.
The thing is that nothing was, really. It was slow and full of holes and complex feelings they couldn’t quite hold in their bodies. Something about Eliott kept pulling him in, frighteningly, intoxicating, it settled behind the hollow of his ribs, staining and consuming there, until holding back became too tiring, until Lucas gave up, gave in, he did it all. The mess in his chest throbbing with a rhythm of its own, it was too much, too much, too much.
And Eliott — his eyes were a thing of the ocean, colors striking, sharp features and the softness hidden within. Eliott had kissed him, first with a gentleness in his hands as though he was scared of breaking him, and then more surely, fiercely, tasting faintly of cigarette smoke and not much else. Fear, desire, want, flooding Lucas' insides with warmth, their bodies like two ends of the same miracle.
An explosion, like a star going supernova —
And, maybe, possibly, this is where it all began.
(Eternal, until it ended. Just this once was all they said. It wasn’t enough.)
///
Eliott lets out a high-pitched whine as Lucas’ mouth closes over the edge of his ear. He kisses his cheekbone and Eliott chases his lips, running a hand through his hair, pulling, hard and unyielding and just on the right side of painful, rendering him breathless. He moves below, sharp teeth against the dip of Eliott’s collarbone; the tattoo just above his heart; over the hollow of his pulse, where the light illuminates a patch of skin dusted in bright red. Lucas wonders, in his daze, if Eliott knows how quick he blushes; every part of him flushed and warm under Lucas’ attention.
He supposes it’s a good thing.
Two a.m. drips with longing around the air they share, intense and treacle thick as Lucas presses him further into the mattress. He puts his hands under Eliott’s head and presses their lips together, the kiss turning messy, needy, a bit of teeth, everything tinged a silver hue. Miraculous. His tongue is hot, urgent, and Lucas tastes the bitter undertones of cigarette smoke and hunger, and that warm, intimate sweetness of another person’s mouth. He chases it all, Eliott’s body pliant and giving underneath him, and Lucas takes, and he wants. He thinks that he would never get tired of wanting.
“Please, Lucas,” Eliott chokes out the name — his name, frantic, in desperate undertones—and it sets his every nerve ending on fire. His hand crawls up Lucas’ neck, thumb brushing against the hollow of his clavicle, and the touch lights Lucas up from inside. A sharp swirl of heat low in his belly, this thing that Eliott does to him, the sounds that leave his vocal cords. He kisses Lucas hard and almost frantic, tugging onto his hair, it’s a sweet, sharp pull. His lungs burn.
“Look at you,” Lucas murmurs against his mouth, breathless, a little awed at the intensity reflected in Eliott’s eyes, like pools of darkened silver. “So eager. So ready.”
Eliott lets out a huff as he moves away. “Fuck off.” The words catch on the side of his neck where Eliott’s lips are now pressing, scorching and damp, and then, sharp, and almost carnal: “fuck me.”
///
(— just this once, they’d said.)
Eliott was still recovering from his breakup with Lucille, the first time it had happened. He was hurt, he said, and so incredibly tired that it warranted a long break. That he deserved it, even. And Lucas. He could pull through, he thought he could, after all, Eliott was just an itch he badly needed to scratch, under his skin (and in his head, his lungs, behind brittle ribs, it stayed, it did). A cruel sort of want in his bones, too obvious, much like the sharp pull between them.
After that, though, they’d lasted only a week.
A week of stolen glances and tight smiles whenever they crossed paths on the university grounds, going out to meet in their free time like friends did, each interaction filled with a flicker of attraction, and maybe something more, something Eliott couldn’t offer back in the same way Lucas did.
It broke like a storm when they were hanging out at Eliott’s. When one moment they were watching another one of his favorite movies, an oscar fiasco that Lucas couldn’t quite pay attention to, and the next Eliott’s mouth was on his, and Eliott’s shirt was gone and their jeans were unzipped and then. And then Eliott was pressing him back against the couch, panting, shivering, his hand wrapping around them both, all skin against skin against the calluses on his palm, and Lucas tasted stardust when he pressed his lips to the smooth plane of Eliott’s neck and came first, galaxies unraveling behind his eyelids.
Later, with Eliott’s hand touching the ends of Lucas’ hair, he’d huffed, “We’re so fucking stupid, aren’t we?”
“Regretting it already?” A heaviness clung onto Eliott’s voice.
“Fuck, no. I just think we complicated everything even more.”
“I’m sorry, Lucas,” he said softly. Lucas liked the way he said his name, rounded syllables and its raspy hues, the warmth it seemed to carry. “I’m just not looking for a relationship right now.”
It didn’t hurt much, just a dull ache blooming between his lungs, smothering, much like what desire did. Eliott’s knee was jittery where he sat pressed to his side, and Lucas put his hand out to squeeze it lightly. “I understand,” and he did, but he was just a human, and human beings were weak, fallible creatures, aching for the things they couldn’t really have.
And then it happened again, and again, and again, until it became a countless affair. Until Eliott was taking him home every other night and marking up every inch of his skin, but he still wouldn’t call him his.
///
Eliott’s apartment feels strangely warm, alight, as though the sun spills through his windows at all hours of the day, washing over the walls in a perpetually soft glow. It shades over the furniture, specks of dust swirling in the shivery light. His books and his vinyl’s and art supplies stacked into a shelf by the corner, sheet music lying around somewhere, everything cluttered in a way that is eerily characteristic of him. There are drawings everywhere. Stark white pages against the grayscales and charcoal smudges, paintings and half-finished sketches spread over the living room floor, taped to the walls. There are some in his bedroom too, albeit a bit different, all in haunting blacks; long silhouettes and lines and forlorn shades that Lucas takes too long to understand, fingertips uncertain as they follow the lines from afar, not quite touching. They never do.
It’s affection he feels for this place and the boy it homes, affection, but not quite. It's an all-consuming thing, twisting into a helix of something deeper, and it brings love, then, too ruinous of a thing in its syllables and its noise, and in everything else it does.
(It bleeds and it chokes, is what it does — but no, it’s not love).
But there’s light filling in all corners of Eliott’s kitchen, artificial, pale over the sharp contours of his face. It smells of rain, from this evening, and, under it, there’s a faint layer of springtime. Eliott would probably taste like a thunderstorm, if Lucas’ lips were to find his and lingered there, the world quick to fall away beneath his fingertips, quiet. In simple present, though, it isn’t, and he doesn’t, and he just lets it hurt in a melancholic sort of way, in the way longing often does.
Instead they have Chinese takeout at the kitchen table, sitting close, knees almost touching, and it’s mostly become a routine now, this. Reasons seemed too flimsy of a thing to have, but they always made for complicated actions, later. Lucas tries not to think too much of it.
“I’m still thinking of yours,” Eliott tells him after a couple of mouthfuls. “I’ve narrowed it down to a few options, but I’m still not sure.”
“You do know that you’re not diagnosing me, right?” Lucas says on an exhale. For some reason, the food tastes like ash in his mouth. “It’s just an animal, Eliott. It shouldn’t take time.”
A crooked smile is turned towards him. “Art always takes time, Lucas.”
His name is soft, always so careful in its inflexions. Lucas huffs, rolls his eyes, says: “Okay, then.” Says, “It’s a relief, honestly.”
“Why?” Eliott stares, perplexed, knee bumping slightly with his, warm at the point of contact.
“Because — because it would be extremely awkward to know you were thinking of an animal when you fucked—”
“Lucas!” Eliott’s laughing already, bright and loud, before he’s reached the end of the sentence. He’s alluring like this, a boy spun out of yellows and golds, and a certain softness hidden behind all his sharp angles — alluring in a way that blinds, makes his heart skip too many beats.
“Well. You asked for it,” he whispers, mirth too evident in the cadence of his voice, words falling into the void between them, and Lucas thinks it’s not just the spirit animal he’s talking about. The universe — it contracts into just the space around them when Eliott leans in closer, when he presses his mouth to Lucas’, laughter still tucked into the corner of his mouth, when he cups his face with both hands and kisses him slowly, deeply, like what the sun does to her flowers. The air turns thick, heat simmering underneath; a shiver crawls up his spine, skin going all shades of red, and then it’s just warm lips and slick tongues and Eliott’s smell getting everywhere.
He takes Lucas right there, against the kitchen table, gentle and too sweet, mouthing at the soft skin low on his belly, only touches him with his hands at the very end and it’s — soft, intimate, and Lucas gasps, shuddering when Eliott grips him too tight. But it’s good, so good, this moments in its breathless wonder, the wild pace to his heart, and the feeling of Eliott’s mouth on him, the cloying heat — it’s exquisite.
Lucas chokes on the feelings inside his lungs, and the ache that blooms is sweet, saccharine.
///
He’d come home most nights, tired, a flailing heart cradled in the palm of his hand, wanting out, and he’d come home to Yann on their couch, blinds drawn open to pull moonlight into the living room. He’d be holding a cup of coffee, or a controller, or just his notes, brows furrowed like he thought the universe had it out for him specifically, but he’d let Lucas sit and lean into him with a half-smile and a jut of his chin. The smell of Eliott would be all over his senses, all over his clothes, impervious to everything else, and Yann would know, but he never asked, and Lucas never really had to explain.
One night, the boys had come over, and they had brought so much beer that he’d found cans under his bed, even. It had been a silly night, drunken jokes and karaoke’s sung to the music from Arthur’s machine, at some point, Yann had said: “Do you guys remember how Baz chased Daphne all through high school?”
There was laughter, a moment of complete hilarity while Basile spluttered out some non-words, and Arthur snorted, “Do you remember how hopeless he was?”
“You were so whipped, Jesus Christ.” It was funny, agreeably, friends goofing around like friends did. They’d moved to Truth and Dare, and Lucas had leaned back against the couch and wondered about it for a nanosecond, but something stuck, though. It always did. An inescapable yearning filling his insides at the memory.
Later, when they went around cleaning whatever they could, Lucas asked:
“Hey, Yann, do you — did you ever think that Baz was willing to do it forever?”
Yann turned to him, frowning in the soft way he did. “What?”
“You know,” he said, flailing his hand, suddenly lost for words. “That he planned to ‘chase’ Daphy forever, if she hadn’t come around?”
“Maybe he did, Lu,” Yann had said. “Or maybe he didn’t, but I don’t know. It’s like…asking the flame to burn you twice. Nobody would like that.”
“Yeah,” he spoke to the walls, voice too quiet, like the atmosphere was drowning out the sounds, and the conversation sloshed around confusingly. Or maybe it was just the booze, they had been drinking after all. “No one would.”
Yann didn’t say anything, but his face went soft, gray understanding was all there was as they went about in the drunken buzz. “Coffee?” he asked after a while.
Lucas didn’t think he could keep anything down, his ribs starting to bruise, hurt, but he’d nodded anyway. It was Yann’s answer to everything for a reason.
///
Lucas gets out of work when it is still light out, wind carrying all sorts of sounds. It rattles about in a sort of rhythm, everything does. And Eliott meets him soon after, hands in his pocket, eyes twinkling. There’s a strange familiarity in the way he stands, his art supplies in the canvas bag he’s carrying, the impossible shade of red to his lips; all nervous energy.
It was terribly busy today, Mondays usually are, from the high afternoon rush in this café he works at, the hiss of coffee machines and the cacophony of conversation played around gratingly. Lucas was left to the almost comfort of the smell of fresh coffee. The number of times he’d sighed from behind the counter was a countless affair, and then phone in his pocket had stirred with a simple text (pick you up at 4?). People came and went, rarely anyone stayed for long, there was small talk, a comment or two about the weather, Lucas didn’t know what to say.
“Where to?” he asks.
Eliott takes him to an old diner, colors all faded but it still has a charm. “I thought we could eat together,” he mumbles. Together, the word is messy, disconcerting, its implications far too dangerous to even consider. Lucas bites his lip, flustered for some reason. They sit at a booth by the windows, and he watches as frazzled daylight still breathes around them, breathing in the same way as he orders some fries. Opposite him, Eliott does too, along with a disgustingly sweet drink, his bag tucked behind him, their knees touching just the slightest under the table. Lucas stares, curious, not used to the mundanity of it all, not commenting on the mismatched scene they make, stares until their food arrives, and then he has to look away.
Eliott drums his fingers against the table, looking down at the greasy fries before catching Lucas’ eyes. “Well, not too bad for dinner, I suppose,” he laughs, it’s a charming sound.
“It’s barely evening, Eliott.”
Eliott just rolls his eyes. “Late lunch, then.”
“Listen,” he begins again when they’re almost finished, fingertips tracing over his bottom lip. “Are you free this Friday?”
Lucas nods. “Why?”
“There’s an art exhibition.” His hands flail. “It’s gonna have my art —”
“— wait, wait. Your art?” Lucas cuts in, voice tinged with surprise. “Eliott, that’s. That’s incredible.”
Averted eyes trail the end of his sentence. “It’s, umm, it’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Lucas scoffs lightly. “It’s huge.”
Silence is all that follows as he stares, Eliott’s cheeks are a pretty shade of pink. It is strangely endearing. He shrugs, “I guess, yeah,” and after a moment that lasts longer than a minute, he tilts his head to the side and, with eyes that feel calculating, says, “So?”
“So what?”
“— will you come?”
The words are said in earnest, hopeful, and Lucas coughs on the feelings blooming inside of him, the possibility. It’s bittersweet in a way that gets caught in his throat, that can choke if he isn’t careful. Lucas tries not thinking too much of it. This isn’t a date, of course, it never is, and the truth of it stings. But the truth also is that he wants it to be terribly, selfishly, so badly it hurts. This thing that doesn’t even have a name — people have names, and storms do, too, chaos usually does — and he thinks it’s because they’re scared of ruining it, too.
But he knows better, he does, still he finds himself nodding. “Yes,” he whispers, the word almost shy on his tongue.
Eliott gives him a bright smile, one that lights up his entire face, one he does when he is genuinely pleased by something. Nothing much is said after.
They part when the sun has lowered behind the seedy architecture, colors tangling against a fiery sky, and Eliott beneath it with sunset shades playing over his face, in his eyes, his smile. He kisses Lucas’ cheek under a bus stand, touches light fingers to his cheekbone, and Lucas smiles, warmth filling the insides of his lungs. Then, with a see you whispered into the space between them, Eliott turns the other way.
Wind murmurs with the dead leaves, cars going by at odd intervals, Lucas remains standing there for a long time, cotton candy colors on the back of his hand. He watches them stay between the gaps of his fingers, and he brings them home, kept safe and warm between the hollow of his ribs. They drip out and cover the walls of his room in faded pinks and reds, like dried blood on cloth.
Like love would, if he allowed it to bloom.
///
“It’s me,” Eliott had said, the first time Lucas stayed over, colors rendered dull in the afternoon light pouring through his windows. Lucas looked up from where he’d been staring at a sketch of a racoon on the wall. A glass was placed on the shelf. He hadn’t heard him come from the kitchen. “They’re cool, the racoons. My spirit animal.”
Lucas didn’t see it, though, couldn’t, not in those sharp pencil strokes and the contrasting grays and whites, drawing color out of everything else with its contrived shades. But he supposed Eliott must like that, this apparent connection, however unclear. Eliott, who noticed the smallest of things and understood.
“They wear a mask,” he said, a brittle thing his mind had caught, repeated. “Most people do.”
He could feel Eliott looking at him, and when he turned all he could see was Eliott’s face above him: in perfect symmetries, the gray of his eyes and the soft curve of his smile. His hand rose up to ruffle Lucas’ hair.
“Not for long. Hiding can’t be done forever, you know,” he replied, in an entirely honest, artless way he sometimes had. It was difficult not to blanch at the quiet conviction in his voice, and there had been a part of Lucas that didn’t believe him. “Feelings don’t work like that,” Eliott had continued, it sounded like a poem, or a song. “Push something down it turns on you, and it grows, too. In your lungs and in your airways. Coped up behind your ribs, it doesn’t let you breathe.”
There was a heaviness in Lucas’ heart, he’d realized, the words like shards under his skin. They hung around them in a way that stung, thorny around the edges. It was too real, the almost truth of it all, the loss of control over things that felt like choices once. And choices weren’t built to wound, to end just like that. He’d wondered then, how Eliott knew all of this, how he’d sounded like he was speaking to that hard, cold part buried deep inside Lucas, still in hiding.
“It sounds cruel,” was all he could say. Eliott simply shrugged, timid, a faint smile curving along his mouth. It felt like lost hope.
“What about me?” he asked, a change of subject, while his ribs pressed in with a dull sort of ache. “What would I be?”
Eliott had ran his eyes over his appearance, briefly, far too quickly, as though on purpose. “I don’t know,” he said at length. “I’d have to think about it.”
///
Neon colours everything. There are paintings in deep shades, blues and purples and reds, even, and he drinks cheap wine out of a flute and watches these colours surround Eliott like a halo, carefully softening out the lines of him. Unsurprisingly enough, he looks like he belongs.
He takes Lucas through the wide room with artworks hanged on its walls, explaining each stroke, the cadence of his voice a careful hum, expression wistful, almost. They stop at a corner, and three canvases look back at them with contrasting shades of grays and cyans and oranges, a calmness within a chaos, like the heart of a fire. And admittedly Lucas doesn’t know much about art or its intricacies, but he thinks that they’re—
“They’re beautiful.”
Eliott smiles, then: a small, frail, shivery thing, but it breaks the violets dripping all around them. “They’re mine.”
Lucas turns, eyes tracing the shapes on the canvas. “What do you call them?” he asks into the open space. Eliott’s voice, when it comes, is sweet, warm.
“Polaris,” he answers, “It’s a small series I’d been working on for a while.”
Polaris, north star, the way home. They’re different words for the same thing.
“They’re wonderful, Eliott. And brave.” The words stumble out before he can stop them. “I don’t know how you do it. This. It must take a lot of courage.”
His heart flutters when Eliott looks at him, just looks, and maybe it falls, too. “Thank you, Lucas,” he says, blinking slowly, wondering, “for coming here, and for everything you said. You made me so happy.”
Lucas smiles, you’re welcome. Still Eliott keeps on looking, and Lucas looks back. Fingers fall to the back of his hand, brush over his knuckles fleetingly, lovingly, and Lucas’ skin sparks underneath them. And then they circle around his hand in a soft grasp, squeeze it once, twice, three times. There are maybe a million hues written into the creases of Eliott face. He’s pretty like this — breathtaking, Lucas thinks, with dusty red cheeks and boyish charm and eyes that glimmer in the light. Lucas knows he’s pretty in every way, but somehow, with heart beating awfully out of pace, Lucas just—
He just knows that he’s fallen in love.
It’s a devastating sort of realization.
It feels ruinous, too, in the way his heart just about tips over his ribcage. Because, you see, this thing with Eliott, it’s all watery, built to break apart, end. All this time he’s been half-heartedly trying to run away, convincing himself to leave before he inevitably burns, and breaks, and bleeds.
“Lucas?” Eliott’s face appears in his line of vision, face furrowed with concern.
“I—I’m sorry,” he speaks when he trusts his voice, clearing his throat afterwards. “What were you saying?”
“I was just asking if you were ready to leave?”
Eliott brings him home down a familiar path, stopping under the mercury vapor to kiss him, but beyond that it is dark, darker even, shadows flickering, shifting. Lucas tries to soothe the voice in his head when Eliott unlocks his door, heart beating unevenly as he carries him to bed, and everything is tinged soft and quiet. Shirts are removed, other bits of clothing follow soon after, Eliott’s mouth over his chest and ribs, slow and deliberate. The mattress huffs when Eliott presses in, foreheads pressing together, his hands everywhere, and Lucas groans when he picks up speed. Lips bitten, warmth everywhere, it’s unrelenting, unyielding, different.
Gods, does it feel different.
Eyelids growing heavy, he lets Eliott pull him close, after. Lets himself be tucked into his chest, soothed by the thump, thump, thump of Eliott’s heart. Nothing sweet is said, and Lucas thinks that he’ll tell him soon, maybe in the morning, when the world wouldn’t be exhausted and a bit hazy around the edges.
Eliott kisses his forehead while he falls into slumber, waking up too many hours later to sunlight in his eyes, washing over the walls in bright golds. The space beside him is empty, cold to touch, still smelling of all the sweet things Eliott is made of. Sheets tangle around his neck as he gets up, something on Eliott’s pillow catching the glint of the light. He rubs the sleep from his eyes, it’s —
It’s a brass key.
And lying under it, a hedgehog drawn over a post-it note, captioned:
so you can let yourself in any time. p.s. you’re beautiful when you sleep.
///
(“Don’t let it hurt you, Lucas,” Yann said. The words sounded almost grieving, like they were scratching past his throat.)
///
It scares him, sometimes, how easy it is to hope.
It’s easy when Eliott smiles at him like it’s the easiest thing to do, his eyes crinkling in the corners.
When he takes him places and always, always brings him home afterwards.
When he gives him a fucking key.
So, standing on the edge, it’s easy to want, to feel, to hope, and to just take the fall and let it hurt.
///
(
had to pick a shift at work
i’m ☹ sorry
what are you doing this evening???
theres a movie you have to watch
spoiler alert! it’s v v cute
i think you’d like it!!!
lucas?
)
///
Lucas is drinking stale beer, left alone and a bit tipsy in the middle of Idriss’ living room on a warm Saturday night, when he catches Eliott’s eyes and realizes that fate is a fickle, fickle thing.
It’s funny, the way time slows and speeds up in a sudden moment, the way it seems to move in a circle, so slowly that it’s unnoticeable, and then all at once, until you end up at the point where it all started. A cruel mockery fate makes out of you, all those things you could’ve stopped, all those ways you could’ve run the other way.
And Eliott does. He turns around and then he’s walking away, moving through the throng of bodies, head ducked low on his shoulders and face creased, frowning, maybe, though Lucas can’t tell. He just stands for a moment, unblinking, watching him go, and —
It aches.
In a split second, he’s moving too, following Eliott as he heads for the door, and they step out into the clear night silently. The distance between them feels large and looming, Lucas doesn’t try to close it, instead finding focus on the hunched shape of Eliott’s shoulder and the way he’s taking short, measured steps, as though he doesn’t really want to get away. Hope rears its ugly head again, the knowledge that Eliott Demaury holds Lucas’ heart in the hollow of his palm wrecking a chaos inside of him. The silence gets too much when they near Eliott’s neighborhood, and Lucas opens his mouth to speak.
“We need to stop leaving like this,” is what comes out.
It’s the wrong thing to say, apparently, because Eliott takes too long to turn around, face hardened, affronted. Their eyes meet over the asphalt.
“It’s been a week, Lucas,” he comments, sounding distant, and he looks tired under the streetlights glimmering against the contours, the shadows under his eyes. “You didn’t call, you didn’t text me back. And now you’re here, you’re — why didn’t you text me back?”
His heart sinks. “Because. Because I—”
“Because what?”
“Because I was going to end things with you!” he says, the words stumble out in an angry drawl. Eliott didn’t get to ask questions, to get angry, when it was Lucas who had been hurting all along. He watches as all color leaves Eliott’s face, something like hurt flashing in his eyes, but he can’t stop now. “Because I wasn’t being fair to myself, to you. Because I can’t do this anymore. Whatever we have, it’s lopsided and fucking messy and it’s been months and, and —” he swallows, lungs burning. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”
“It’s not! Lucas, it’s not lopsided,” Eliott speaks, taking a step forward, voice shaking, tremors running through his tone.
A bitter laugh escapes his throat. “It isn’t anything, Eliott,” he spits out. “It isn’t anything.”
“You don’t — you can’t say that, you can’t!”
“Why can’t I? It’s true, after all.”
Eliott looks stricken, small, faded like smoke and clouds in a sky the color of a propane flame. The sight causes a sick lurch in his stomach. “Fuck, no, Lucas,” Eliott says, reaching out a hand between them, but then it drops to his side. He seems to shrink even further into himself. “You can’t, not now, because I…never mind, it doesn’t even matter anymore.”
His hands clench, a wave of frustration rolling in. “Fucking hell, just tell me, Eliott.”
You see, it’s fucking easy to hope, it has always been, even easier when Eliott looks at him like he’s the moon, like he’s the center of Eliott’s world, when he speaks in just a whisper, “You can’t because I’m in love with you,” and Lucas’ world completely tilts on its axis.
Eliott takes a step back, his gaze falling away. “And I want more, so much more with you, Lucas. But. It doesn’t matter,” he echoes. “Goodbye.”
And then he’s spinning away, he’s leaving, and Lucas can’t have that, not now, not when it feels right for once. Not when there’s still so much to say, Eliott’s words settling into his chest and making a mess there, tendrils of congealed blood and these stupid, stupid feelings that made it hard to breathe, once. But it’s fine now. Now, that he knows for sure.
For the second time that night he races forward and grabs Eliott’s arms, bringing him so close that their foreheads touch, and Eliott’s eyes, those eyes, they’re too wide, stunned, the gray of them covered in a watery sheen of tears. Eliott breathes out shakily, bringing his hands to Lucas’ face, tilting his head so their noses brush.
“I love you, Eliott,” Lucas breathes into the space them. The words lift a heavy weight off his chest despite how light they feel. “I’m in love with you, too.”
Eliott lets out a choked noise, and then he kisses him. He kisses Lucas, a little slowly, a little unexpectedly, but then it turns hungry, desperate, Lucas’ teeth scraping against his bottom lip and his hands in his hair, pulling, rough. Hearts in a frenzy. Eliott pulls back will a groan, pressing a thumb against the corner of his mouth.
“It’s cruel, isn’t it,” he croaks out a laugh, the sound lacking neither humor nor pain. “When something you never wanted becomes the only thing you want most.”
Lucas shakes his head. “I’ve always wanted this, you,” he says. “You, on the other hand, have always been stupid.”
“So you’ve said.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Lucas asks before he has half a mind to stop himself.
Eliott gives him a smile, small, watery. “I was a coward,” he says. “I thought I would ruin this, that I would make you leave. I’m — I haven’t been completely honest with you. I need to tell you some things about me.”
“Then tell me in your own time, Eliott.” And then, a whisper, “I love you.”
Lucas watches as his lips widen into a bright grin, pressing his forehead firmer against Eliott’s, eyes boring holes in his, almost reverent. Eliott kisses him again, kisses him until the streetlamp flickers above their heads and the stars come home, soothing a thumb over his cheeks and under his eyes. He drags his lips over the side of Lucas’s neck, and says, “Lucas Lallemant, would you give me the honor of being my boyfriend?”
And Lucas watches him, still, a bit helpless, open, irrevocably in love.
when you kill the lights (and kiss my eyes) || 1.1k || ao3
it isn’t his first time —or the second, or the fifth— here, eliott’s first workspace; a place that meets him every evening, watches him into the tender hours of the night.
soft lights—nebulous pinks and blues. a surreal bubble of time stuck in its swiftly moving current. here, in this setting, it slows down. he almost feels out of place.
his eyes wander around the store. it isn’t his first time —or the second, or the fifth— here, eliott’s first workspace; a place that meets him every evening, watches him into the tender hours of the night. the days drag on, flow on, the nights find him here too, tucked in eliott’s space, on the verge of something changing and yet unchanged—a milieu of paradoxes. lucas often stops to look at the racks in the far right corner, the dvds that present little glimpses of eliott away from lucas, that are so blatantly him it lights him up from inside, this passion that eliott clearly feels for his work. it drips all over this place, eliott brings it home, too—in their living room and bedroom; treacle thick and hard to miss if someone is really looking.
lucas is, though. he’s always looking.
“you do this every time,” eliott says. lucas keeps his eyes on him, quiet as eliott shuffles closer, on the shift of light reflected in his eyes. it trickles molten silver there and then cotton candy colors all over him, and unsurprisingly, eliott looks like he belongs.
syllables burning in his throat, lucas just shrugs. he thinks about all these parts of eliott he’s yet to unearth, the parts he’s kept private, and in settings like these everything turns watery. slips quietly from his grasp. how to say, i’m always hungry to know more of you, when he’s just realized it himself?
“come on, then.” eliott curls a hand around his wrist and tugs him close. there’s affection underlying his words, like maybe he understands, and his warmth encloses lucas all over, settles behind his ribcage. he keeps it close. his hand finds eliott’s, soft, fingers twined, squeezing, and eliott says, “i remember i promised you a movie. is there something you’d like to see?”
the words fall oddly between them, now, when lucas knows that any given moment there are at least six possible options eliott is adamant to make him watch. “what,” he snorts, “no more pretentious movies to bore the hell out of me?”
it’s with a gentle touch that eliott brings him to the counter, and they squeeze in through the small space to the backside. “no,” he shrugs, “it’s your choice, tonight.” notion simple, he slides an arm around lucas’ waist, pulls him closer.
lucas kisses the hollow of his collarbone through his shirt. “surprise me,” and he means it.
eliott smiles, and then he kisses him slow, the edge of the counter digging into his backside as he tilts his face. eliott’s hands never leave his face, and the touch heats up his skin, sings to every part of his soul. eliott pulls away to bounce over to the rack lucas was perusing just moments ago, retrieves a dvd and sets it up for them. lucas sits down on the bench he’s procured and watches on, and the walls around them stare back at him accusingly.
he blinks, and suddenly eliott’s by his side, holding the case toward him. lucas looks down, colors too bright. Up. it’s an animation of sorts. he’s seen the posters before, but never got around to watching the movie.
“another oscar lynchpin,” eliott announces, proudly, settling beside him.
the words are echoes of the ones he’s said before, once when eliott played him moonlight. most of eliott’s movies fall along those lines, at least the ones he analyzes and relays the synopsis to lucas, and lucas takes the shit out too many times, his sentences silly, too playful to wound. but he likes the way eliott’s voice turns almost nostalgic, eyes wide and translucent with the glow inside them, absolutely breathtaking, and he drinks it all in.
“get on with it, then,” he prompts.
he keeps his attention on the screen, most of the time, and cries a bit when the whole montage of carl and ellie plays, but he thinks it’s a nice movie. when he cuts his eyes to eliott he can definitely see why he picked it. eliott doesn’t look back, like maybe he’s forgot that lucas might be looking at him, that anyone might be looking at him. something about it – about the way eliott gets in moments like these, face placid, though a smile plays at the corner of his mouth – it settles something deep at the base of lucas’ throat. he has to look away.
midway between the movie eliott gets his arm around his shoulders and lucas melts further in his hold, breathing him in. i love you. “you’re not watching,” eliott murmurs, smile in place, low against the sound around them.
“i am.”
he looks at him. “that’s your thinking face, i know.”
“i—okay. i’m just—” lucas sucks in a breath, suddenly feeling out of depth, eliott leaning close enough that his hair tickles the side of his face, his smell gets everywhere. “—thinking,” he finishes lamely.
a gentle smile stretches across eliott’s face, and it crawls up his chest all shivery (it makes him feel like falling—). “i am, too,” he admits, “it’s just the kind of movie that gets you thinking, you know?”
“about?”
“the future, and stuff.” he shrugs. “it’d be nice, no?”
the thing is, lucas knows. he does. he doubts and plunges himself into a void of insecurity and terror and it’s hard to stop, sometimes, but he knows. he’s known his fears and now he knows eliott, a bright star in lucas’ little galaxy, his and only his to keep.
(—it makes him feel like falling) but lucas has already fallen, too fast and too hard.
he fists the hem of eliott’s shirt and just doesn’t speak for a few moments. the movie plays on forgotten and its sounds disappear into the nighttime, perhaps merging with the soundtrack of stars blinking improbably against a navy blue sky. vocabulary fails him so he takes eliott’s hand in his and watches the different hues play across the skin; purple and blue and the colors of sunset.
he finally raises his head and says, “i just think that you’re a sap.” eliott scoffs, but his smile doesn’t dim, and he curls his other hand around the hair against his nape and kisses him, and his lips are soft and he tastes sweet, and lucas kisses him back with a heart so full of warmth it burns.
“well, my lucas,” the words are ghosts of breath on his face, fingers squeeze around his hand like a tether to this world, “i think that you are, too.”
@nachtumringt sent me a 🌈 to lure me into writing a drabble, and well, i’m too weak to deny her. enjoy.
content warning: descriptions of blood and death // angst.
the crying has stopped long before eliott leaves, suffocated by the air of decay and ruin, and in its place is ringing silence. it echoes in the bucolic gray of the dying sun, the mist that has draped itself in a translucent veil. earlier, the rain had washed everything clean, and now there’s little left of the rot, but the air around him is too full of it. he stood there throughout it all — throughout the crying and the mourning and all the dying. and the scent of flowers and clean white sheets and — and the souls clinging onto the onset of spring, unliving, it follows him like the plague, bleeds into his home.
he washes his hands in the sink even when there’s no need. the rain has cleaned the blood off his hands. his skin is pale, translucent, but the sight of crimson is all too fresh, its smell hidden by layers of dirt and decay. he scrubs at his hands under the freezing water, and everything is freezing and cold, devoid of the warmth of another body and human things, entirely filled of the lonely, lonely silence. it doesn’t make him stop; he still has another place to go.
the hospital is washed in neutrals, here too reeks of the decay he knows so well, ivory walls and hallways eroded with contrived shades. no one sees him come in, they never do, his steps always silent. everywhere here contains the dying, those clinging to every ounce of life they can, those letting go. pain and grief and sorrow seeps through every pore, the despair chokes his lungs.
the room he enters is much the same, but there’s a certain light aglow within its walls. but it’s still the gray of dust and decay and ruin. the boy on the bed sits up at his sight, crystals of melancholia in his eyes, concealed by the warmth he’s grown to miss. he’s wearing a loose cotton shirt, collarbones peeking out and eliott looks back, just looks.
“is it my time yet?” the boy — lucas — says on a laugh. his voice is nepenthe, healing. eliott’s heart breaks, it’s too human of a thing to happen.
the numbers over lucas’ head are vitals, his fate spelled out for eliott to read. they’re the same as they were a day ago, a week ago, six months ago. he plops on the chair near the bed, a sharp sort of pain blooming across his chest.
“no.” it’s not the first time he’s said it. it’s probably not the last, either. “did the doctors say something?”
lucas shakes his head. “the same old,” he mutters, finger tracing the hole in his pyjama shorts. his eyes are blue like the clearest of streams even in these strange hues. “they’re sure it’s a disease of the heart, except i keep coughing up blood. it’s confusing them.” his words are colored in forlorn hues. the air smells of something acrid, something like helplessness and grief and longing. lucas lallemant is a study of it all.
“lucas —”
his swallow is audible. “ — who was it this time, eliott?” the sound of his name is a devastating thing, too real in the way it makes his heart flutter and burn and ache. there’s despair concealed in the undertones of lucas’ voice, eyes like an ocean in the storm.
and eliott tells him of the child. a boy, two years old, maybe, barely breathing when eliott found him. it was his heart that stopped first. how he smiled at eliott when he coerced his soul out of his body. a frail little thing, unnaturally warm in his hands, alight, as though it’s too happy to let go. maybe it was, eliott thinks, pain isn’t mean to be held onto for long.
he doesn’t tell lucas that.
“that’s unfortunate,” lucas says when he’s finished, and his throat feels oddly parched. there’s no pity in his voice, only sadness, and he looks at eliott with a certain fondness, and he’s dying but he still breathes: an enigma, he blinks. “i know why you’re here, eliott demaury.”
“do you?”
“yeah i do.”
an inhale, he leans in. “tell me, then.”
everything is washed in a sickening gray. lucas remains still and says, “because you like dwelling in the living, don’t you? you miss the living.”
and, in the simple present, it’s the entire truth and more.
