authors note: for the OTP Boot Camp Challenge on hpfc, challenging you to write 50 fics about your OTP, which, for me, is LucyLouis. some of these will be oneshots, some of these will be drabbles. also, apologies for the bad cover image, it's only temporary.
the prompt for this one is whisper. i also combined it with some prompts from the rosescorpius fans forum (which y'all should totally join if you ship scorrose), which were from the 24th march: girl on fire, she builds up walls to protect herself, smoke & "It's not my fault I can't be like you, okay? I don't get up in the morning thinking the world is one big, shiny, happy place, okay? That's just not how I work. I don't think I can be fixed."
"And I would wait for you," he whispers, "thing is, I don't know if you'd do the same." –- LucyLouis, in fifty different ways.
whisper
He doesn't really know when it starts, if he's honest. Sure, he's a Ravenclaw, but the one thing he was never wise about was love. If he were wise with love, he would have ended up with Eliza Wood, maybe, or Susan Boot. Someone smart, someone kind, someone not so broken that they don't even know where they're going anymore.
But Louis is not wise, or at least not in love—he never was. And maybe, just maybe, that was a blessing in disguise.
(Louis isn't so sure.)
.
There's a whisper in the wind, calling him. Louis, it calls, Louis, Louis, Louis. He often wonders just what it means, but he's frightened to ask, because maybe it's only in his mind. There's nothing logical about the whisper in the wind, and maybe it is just his mind, but it seems that every time the wind passes by him, it calls his name, whispering frantically, as though it's a hushed warning that Louis can't quite understand.
It is on days like this that Louis wonders if there is a point. Is there a point to the endless whispering? Or a point to the leaves that swirl in the breeze and yet fall to the ground; having taken their fight but being returned to reality? Is there a reason that he is alive and others… others are not.
He's not sure. For a Ravenclaw, and for Louis, that is terrifying. To wonder if there is a point is perhaps the biggest debate of all. If there is no point to existence, then why is anyone alive at all?
Perhaps that is our fate. Perhaps it is our fate to wander the world with no real purpose, only trying to make it through with minimal bruising, and the least scars.
It seems a cruel way to have to live.
Louis concludes that it's probably true.
.
Her cold voice rings throughout the flat they share. "Louis, get out."
He can hear no emotion there, no clue that she cares about him. It's as though she's ordering coffee, or some such other menial task. It seems everyday, ordinary. Maybe it is. Louis has lost count of the times Lucy has banished him from the flat. Lucy has lost count of the times she's begged him to come back.
That is how they work. They love, they fight, they always fall apart and then try to put the broken things back together.
"Lucy, please," Louis begs, moving closer to Lucy, not wanting to have to spend another night trying to find somewhere to stay.
(This is how it always goes, next, she'll push him away.)
She pushes him away, aware of how close he is to her. "Louis, get the fuck out of my flat."
Louis winces when she calls it her flat. "Lucy, please, I'm sorry. It'll get better, we can get better."
(Perhaps next she'll insult him about what a dreamer he is, and he'll argue back and they'll argue and argue until he finally has enough.)
"The world isn't one big shiny, happy place, Louis." Lucy snarls.
Louis sighs, wishing he could help. "It could be, if you let it become that," he whispers.
Lucy snaps. "So, now it's my fault that the world is a shit hole where nobody gets what they want? Brilliant, thanks for that, Louis."
"You know that's not what I meant." Louis murmurs, and Lucy pretends that she doesn't, but she does know what he meant. It just hurts her, okay? It hurts that she can't see the world in that way, and that she takes it out on the only guy who has ever loved her.
"It's not my fault I can't be like you, okay? I don't get up in the morning thinking the world is one big, shiny, happy place! That's just not how I work." Lucy pauses, taking a deep breath before she continues, dropping her voice to a whisper. "I don't think I can be fixed."
"You can, Lucy, you can." Louis tells her. "But you've got to let me try."
(It's always at this point that she kicks him out. He tries to help and then he is gone. You do not offer to help Lucy Weasley—she does not want to be helped.)
She reverts to her usual tone. "Get out," she tells him. "Don't come back."
He sighs, knowing he is defeated for the night. He will not return tonight, perhaps he'll bunk with Albus, or James, if he's not busy with Jade or Jane or whatever her name is. The Potter boys were always the most supportive, for some reason.
Nobody else gives a shit about Lucy and Louis anymore. Well, maybe that's a lie. Molly cares, but both Lucy and Louis can see in her eyes that, deep down, she's disgusted by the two of them. Victoire is in Paris, pretending that she's not in love with her ex-Herbology teacher, and Dominique is off fucking some guy and pretending that it's Lysander. The parents are disapproving, and they try to be supportive, but they can't. What can you do when your kid falls in love with their cousin? How are you supposed to encourage them?
The others members of the family are either dead, or they do not care.
Louis thinks it's funny how quickly a family can fall apart.
.
She is a girl on fire, raging through the world, trying to pretend as though she's not fucking falling apart with every breath she takes, every jibe she sends Louis' way. Pretending will never change the fact that she's broken, almost beyond repair.
Louis tries to help her, he does, but she builds up walls to protect herself, and when the façade falls down he never knows just what to say, just what to do. That is why they end that way, with Lucy telling him in that cold voice to get out, and Louis too exhausted to argue anymore.
There is no smoke without a fire, and their arguments do not just mean nothing. There is always something there, something hidden. Those cracks in their foundations that they try to fix—but to no avail.
They are broken. Perhaps they will never mend.
Whispers spin round and round in Louis' head, and he tries to make head or tail of them. He can't, because all they say is Louis, over and over again, and he wants to know why, for Rowena's sake!
He can't figure it out. Maybe he never will.
.
Louis is woken by an owl tapping on Albus' window. He groans, rolling over to move the latch so the owl can get in, and he notes that it's Lucy's owl. The envelope bears the Slytherin crest on the back, and he manages a small smile. Old habits die hard—Lucy's never been able to get rid of the Slytherin seal. Louis often wonders if she clings on to her school days too much, clinging on to the Slytherin glory as she rose to the top, Chaser on the Slytherin team, slipping past Prefect and yet somehow landing Head Girl.
When she got Head Girl was when she began to fall apart. With Louis as Head Boy, maybe Seventh year was doomed to break her. Thinking back, Louis can't bring himself to regret it. The way he began to look at his once-best friend. The two of them bringing back their friendship, and then that fateful night; where it turned into something so much more.
He shudders to remember the day that they were found out. By Lysander Scamander—Lucy's boyfriend and no less. Perhaps Louis lost his Ravenclaw wisdom that year, or perhaps he was blinded wisdom it by the sight of someone he loved.
Because, no matter what he says, no matter how many times they fight, they throw around pitiful insults, he loves her, and she loves him. Often, it's just hard to remember that.
He opens the envelope, reading the note that seems to be hastily written in Lucy's scrawling handwriting. There is no apology, no sincere words, only two words that seem to pull at his heart. No fevered explaining, no proclamation of love could feel the same to Louis. It is always these two words that always bring him back to Lucy.
Come back?
He does.
.
Perhaps this is how they are meant to be. Maybe they shall always fight, cry, try to fix the other and then fall apart again. James and Albus will become accustomed to Louis sleeping on their sofa, and Lucy will get used to having a double bed to herself. Others say that it cannot be love, that something filled with so much hate and pain and loss could never be love, but Lucy and Louis disagree. It's the feelings filled with pain that bind them together, meaning that they can leave, they can break up, but there's always going to be the words that pull them back together.
Maybe, just maybe, one day they can be happy. Perhaps Louis will find that there is more to life than just an accident, and that there is a purpose. Lucy may find that she can be fixed, that she can believe in fairy tales, and marvel at the starlit nights.
Maybe one day, the whispers will not be filled with pain, and the nights filled with silent sobs.
(To Louis, it seems as though a lot is depending on just one 'maybe'.)
authors note ii: please don't favourite without reviewing, thanks.