an implosion of galaxies

This is my last entry for 2012 Mew and Mor's Weird Pairings Competition. Thank you so much for the twenty-four extension, it was greatly helpful and I am very grateful.

Slash pairing: Louis/Lysander

I've never wrote slash before – far too scared of butchering it – so this is a welcome change.

Louis was in love. It was a realisation like no other. He was doing something entirely mundane - levitating the rubbish to the black bins - and his train of thought floated freely. His heart started pounding in his chest, his face filled with warmth not from the sun.

His palms began to clam, hidden feelings slamming into him like his aunt Ginny on her broom. He didn't know where it came from, this sudden rush of LOVE for his best friend.

He stalled suddenly. A stone seemed to weigh his stomach down, this new thought pushing him like a solid, physical thing.
Lysander. As in his best friend Lysander.

He fought the great urge beat his head against a wall. He couldn't love his best friend. Lysander wasn't into him.

He continued on with his task with careful deliberation, before turning around, walking out of the high rise grounds, and to his mother's.

Fleur smiled at him as he walked through the door, his hair a mess and his smile not exactly sincere.

"What eez wrong, Louis?" she asked him, pulling out a chair and almost immediately passing him a mug of hot sugary tea. Her accent, while not as strong or thick was still present when she talked.

"I – I don't know, Maman." And he didn't. It was all too sudden, too rushed in his mind for him to be able to make sense of it all. But, and he knew this unwaveringly, he was in love with his very best friend.

Fleur frowned at him, sitting next to her son and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You can tell me anything, you know that, don't you?" Her face was showing her age, but as she talked she was as young as he was.

He inhaled sharply, and then said, "I think – I know I love Lysander."

She smiled, widely, "Then, go tell him."

He paused, surprised in a dull sort of way at her reaction. "Right now?" he asked, awkwardly running his fingers through blond and red hair.

Fleur laughed softly. "Stay the afternoon then, but tell him." And she hugged him, tightly, and he had never felt more accepted. She whispered, "I was wondering when you'd realise."

…
The almost musty smell of books had always comforted Lysander. He found the familiarity helped when he was hit with huge waves of grief of his mum's death.

But now it wasn't really helping.

Now they just served as a painful reminder of how much Lou had helped him. Maybe too much. Lysander has always read too deeply into the actions of his loved, out of trust broken too severely, like cutting of a bit of thread. But this was ridiculous. Louis wasn't gay.

Granted, Ly hadn't exactly 'come out of the closest', but he was firmly inclined towards his own gender. Louis hadn't ever given out a clue towards feeling this way too. He'd even had girlfriends when they were in Hogwarts. (Besides, everyone somehow knew that Lysander was gay, so it wasn't like he needed to come out.)

Ly skimmed his palm against the cover of the book he had laid out on the table moments earlier. It was cool to the touch. He opened it up slowly, reading the words of fiction he had read many times before.

These words were his home. He read well into the day. He had gotten almost half-way through the book by the time he raised his head again. It was nearing the end of sunset, the sun dipping lowly behind the hills, last of its light bleeding out red onto the sky that had darkened in hue. There were even some stars already out, dim against the over-whelming brilliance of the oranges and reds that pleasantly plagued the sky.

He realised now that Louis hadn't been home since he went to take the rubbish out at about half ten this morning. Panic raised its ugly head.

He's fine. He's probably gone to the river again – you know he goes there a lot.

In what he could describe as bad timing, Lysander saw Louis trying to sneak in quietly - he even tipped-toed around the front door.

Ly laughed. Louis looked up. He looked . . . bedraggled at best.

"What are you doing here?"

"Um, I live here," Lysander said, biting his lip. The sight of Louis, all torn in different directions with his eyes frantic and his lovely reddish blond hair in complete disarray, sent Ly's heart pounding in his chest.

Louis said, out of the blue, looking a tad startled himself now, "I think I love you."

…

He could only describe Lysander as a pile of star dust, all moulded together lovingly with the delicate fingers of a god. His cheeks currently were pinched with a flush, surprised. His eyes were wide, icy blue with the ridges of the iris dancing with the colour of an ocean. A thin wire of amber laced close to his pupil. He was an anomaly to Louis. He was carefree with the way he tossed his wide smile about, never faked. Louis wished he could be more open like Ly was. But instead he was closed flower, never letting anyone in; even if his feelings were eating him up inside.

Ly's features currently shone with worry as he stared imploringly at Louis.

"Wh- what did you just say?"

Louis bit his lip. Regret whispered at the thoughts in the back of his mind, the ones not yet thought but still there. His main concern was all Lysander. "I love you," he repeated, hesitancy starting to take charge again. His hands shook at his sides; he closed them into tight fists. This probably wasn't the way maman meant when she said 'tell him', he thought, recalling the hopeful tone in her voice.

Lysander seemed to groan, backing away slowly. "No," he said, his nose crumpling up adorably. "You can't." The stars that littered the sky were the only light in the small flat, allowed in by the skylights.

Louis' heart beat was a fierce drum against his chest. "But I do." He paused, his insides sagging with regret; it was now almost drowning out his thoughts of Lysander. "I'm sorry." Louis moved, quicker than a walk, slower than a run, and he escaped through the front door.

His eyes burned with humiliating tears. He would not cry. But the rejection was red hot through his veins. He could still hear the desperate intonation in Ly's voice as he declined Louis' declaration of feeling, and it made a lump form in his throat. He could barely breathe as he broke out into a full out run.

Lysander felt a wave of severe hopelessness sear through him.

He walked over to the window and he rested him head against the cold glass. The navy blue sky stared plainly down onto the earth. The stars' glow seemed muted somehow. When Ly closed his eyes memories of standing out at three am on the green lawn with Lou seemed to reside behind his heavy eyelids. He could almost still see the look of awe openly displayed on Lou's face. Louis so rarely showed what he was feeling, so hearing him just say that he loved him out of the blue was startling.

Regret now pulsated through his head, replacing his blood flow.

If he had just pushed through his surprise he could've said that he felt EXACTLY THE SAME and now Louis wouldn't be out on his own. The dark held its own world, Louis had once told him. It held armies of things even they, as wizards, didn't believe in. It held mysteries and dark tales come true.

Ly shook his head.

Why was he here? Why didn't he just run after Louis after he fled? Why did everything get complicated? What happened to being best friends and not wanting anything more?

This time he sighed and moved away from the living room, trying desperately to think where the fuck Louis would go. He knew plenty of places his best friend found comfort in, but they didn't seem very appropriate for almost eight pm.

Apart from one.

…

Louis had run faster than he'd ever run before. His feet pounding against the pavement, his lung burning with the fresh night air – he was completely out of his element.

He was so low that the build up of lactic acid in legs didn't even bother him. The fact that his heart was pounding, however, was his main thought. It wasn't even from the excursion of running this fast so promptly and without stretching: it was from the deep rejection.

He felt so stupid; so foolish for thinking Ly would feel the same way just because he was gay. It was silly and now Louis felt like shite.

Suddenly, it seemed as if the ground was racing to meet him. He went cross eyed for a second before instinct won out and he put his hands out in front of him to help the impact soften. Although it helped and his face was perfectly fine, it seemed his finger had gotten a cut from a piece of stray broken glass discarded on the ground.

The blood, from his left middle finger, trickled down and onto his wrist, leaving a dry, faintly red track behind. Louis didn't even flinch. He got up, wincing only when he caught sight of the cut. He stuck his finger in his mouth for a few seconds before taking off again, breathless. His feet seemed to propel him ever forward, driving him further and further away from his flat and Lysander.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

He looked up at the endless stream of stars twinkling incessantly and wished he hadn't. He was reminded of memories of standing with Ly, talking about everything, and opening up for the first time in his entire life. He talked for hours, words tumbling out unbidden, with only the moon and the stars and his best friend to hear him.

They both loved looking up at the stars and constellations. Teddy's Granny Andromeda had taught Lou all he knew about them. She used to tell him stories of the Black family, with all their eccentrics, and how they named their children after constellations and stars. She told him about the constellation she was named after – ever growing and ever moving.

When they first moved in together Louis told Lysander all the stories he knew and they sat on the field outside his parents' old house – this was just before Lysander's mum had died, when they were looking after her, being her ever-willing carers.

After that and certainly after Luna Scamander died they would sit out on their balony on the fourth of every month.

Louis didn't even know where he was heading. He was just heading away from Lysander and the kind-of life they had together. (Lou was selfish and just living with his best friend wasn't enough; he also had to fall in love with him.) But when ended up where he did, it just seemed right.

He opened the creaking blue door with its peeling paint after he climbed the dozen steps Rolf Scamander had put in front of the house. His lungs felt as if someone had plunged a knife into them. He would suck air in and it seemed to do nothing because he just needed more.

"I've been expecting you."

If he wasn't so wound up, Lou would have laughed.

"How - how did you know I'd come here?" Louis asked, stopping in his tracks as the blue door slowly closed behind him.

Ly smiled thinly. "I just did. I've known you for almost ten years. For three of them we lived here looking after my mum. I know how you come when you're upset. It seemed oddly appropriate to me."

Louis looked down at the floorboards. They were iced with a thin veil of dust. No one cleaned this house anymore.

Undiluted rage swelled within Lou's chest. "Why follow me?" He asked quietly, betraying none of the rage and hurt he felt.

Ly's face dropped as if he expected Louis to be HAPPY to be reminded of a stupid mistake. "Why wouldn't I?" he demanded. Lysander was different from Louis. Louis was quiet and Lysander and no problem showing his emotions. He wore them like he wore robes.

Louis glared viciously in Ly's general direction without actually looking at him.

"Please don't make this hard," Lysander started wearily. You wouldn't think he was three years younger than Louis - most people got it wrong, too. "You can't have honestly thought you wouldn't have surprised me by just saying that. I never even thought that you liked BOYS, let alone ME! You've had girlfriends and I've had to watch you with them. That wasn't exactly easy. At least I never brought any boys home. Loudly."

Louis didn't understand what this meant. "Pardon?"

"Are you really so stupid? Lou: I love you too. Why walk out like that? I felt like shit. You just fucking walked past me without so much as a backward glance."

Lou was left reeling. He... Loved... Him ... Back?

Swallowing the sudden lump in his throat, he started forward. He ducked under a beam, nearing Ly. He looked so incredibly perfect, standing there with that look of indignation on his face. His golden hair shone in the moonlight filtered through a crack in the ceiling, like a misplaced halo around his head.

He reached and touched Ly's cheek with his hand, gently caressing the skin. Leaning his face closer, eyes flickering shut, palms clamming, he kissed him.

It was a kiss unlike all of his other kisses. He had only ever kissed girls before, and it had never felt like this. This kiss was an explosion inside of him. The feel of Ly's lips upon his own made him stomach flip over and over and over. Ly's fingers in his hair, soft and ohso gentle.

This was everything Louis had wanted – and it was everything he had thought it would be.

This is really not the greatest thing I've wrote and if I didn't have to get it in before midnight EST I'd re-do it, but I'm afraid I don't have time.

Review?

- Erin