Just a baby chapter for you lovelies UwU

Emily Wells - Becomes The Colour

How many times had they met?
How many times had they crossed paths and thought nothing of it?
When Lars thought back on it...perhaps more than what could be considerable for coincidence.

23

He sat leaning against the window and blowing illegal smoke out of a tiny crack in the frame. He didn't know if his imagination had gotten the best of him but a man stood just outside the window, leaning against one of the supports to the balcony while staring off towards the dozens of beds of flowers that created the garden his sister was so proud of. Surreal didn't even cover it, the celestial being looking so graceful even motionless. Matches were lit only to be proved useless and dropped to the ground only to be followed after another and another. Lars found it endlessly fascinating to watch from his window, the man with his hair that appeared a white washed blonde in the dull luminance of the moon working at emptying a box of matches mindlessly. He looked away briefly to relight the end of the joint that had burnt out from disuse and by the time he'd looked back up the other male had slipped away and Lars would have thought he was a ghost if not for the pile of blackened sticks that lay in a pile as evidence of his being there.

Behind him he heard the faint fall of footsteps and he turned, expecting to see his sister's dozing form but rather came face to face with the blonde who had one arm wrapped loosely around himself and the slope from his neck to his shoulders broken by discolouration in the shape of teeth. He nodded once on his way to the sink, a glass of water being emptied in seconds flat.

"What's your name?" He said, he sounded a little defeated and if Lars wasn't too busy tonguing the end of his joint he would have thought more of it.

"Lars. Who're ya?" The Dutchman scanned his eyes over the other's tiny frame. Tall but skinny, ribs jutting out just a little too much and hipbones protruding from under his briefs a little too clearly. The tattoos that covered the other's arms were incredible to say the least, geometric shapes and constellations and words flowing together into a complex masterpiece. As if he'd noticed Lars' intense interest he began to cocoon himself in a coat that had been slung over a shoulder the duration of the six words that had been exchanged so far.

He smiled and brushed hair out of his eyes, fatigue heavy in his eyes. "Booty call."

"Nice to meet you booty call. So ya here for my sister?" Smoke coughed out with every word, a foul taste lingering on his tongue. When he looked back up to the other's face those tired eyes were glued to the herbal smoke, wordlessly he handed it to him and the other looked almost thankful for the offer.

"Was, she fell asleep so I'm on my way out. Just trying to find my shirt." The joint was back between Lars fingers and he stared on as the other's eyes flitted about.

"Borrow one of my mine, just give it back to her when you see her next."

It was worth it for the light that shined through the mild despair, he never got the shirt back and in retaliation he'd picked up each and every single one of the twenty six sticks of matches and hid them away in a box at the back of his cupboard and for weeks afterwards the only thing he could think about after that short time in the kitchen was the parting sentence that left the blonde's lips and came off like a riddle.

"It was lovely to see you again Lars."

22

He had found slaving around after people who's egos were paid by the amount of money in their bank just a little exhausting. Rich men in form fitting suits with cigars hanging off their lips while they bitched about the people not in their meetings worse than the average teenaged girl in between actually talking business. However one of them stuck out like a sore thumb, his eyes were cast down and hidden by the shelter of his lashes to where his fingers lazily tapped at the table top, he looked much to young and had the face of a pretty boy to be apart of the grouping of middle aged men however the only thing that seemed to make it look like he belonged there was the flawlessly tailored suit and the elegance he held even while stationary. The snobbish aura the other men had didn't seem to affect the blonde who remained entirely indifferent to their constant arguments about who had the biggest dick. Either way he was sucking at a marlboro opposed to the shit shaped cigars the other's were nursing and only when Lars was putting down the paper cups of coffee he had to run halfway across town to get next to their name tags did the youngest look up with the most startling coloured eyes he'd ever seen.

Pure blue looking up at him tiredly, a thin lipped smile mouthing a word of gratitude and Lars couldn't help but be regretfully aware of how dark the bruising was under his eyes, how heavy his lids were and how sleepy his smile was.

Lars tried not to appreciate the strength in his jawline nor the perfect mess of his hair.

He tried not to think about the man or perhaps man who he hadn't even thought to look at the name of, he tried not to think about the finer points he was able to rip out of him or the obvious exhaustion that haunted his face. Lars Peeters was almost twenty one years old and for the second or perhaps third time in his life he'd fallen for a complete stranger.

To his dismay he never saw the man again. Or so he let himself believe.

19

No it wasn't the grinding like he thought he remembered, perhaps his subconscious had tried to sugar coat the truth out of embarrassment.

The room was nothing more than over intoxicated young adults grinding into each other's sweat and the thought of it would have made Lars sick if it weren't for the fact he had never been higher nor drunker in his entire life. But it was still doable between squinting to try and see where he was going through the alcohol induced blur and the too awkward movement of his limbs. However just as he bumped into somebody with what looked like light hair, he couldn't tell, he found himself doubled over and emptying his guts right onto their shoes. His hand twisted in the other male's shirt he gratefully accepted the help out of the room and if he were a little more sober maybe, just maybe he would have anticipated the fact it might have been to get his head kicked in.

Gradually he was brought more to his senses with the cool breeze and the hand that continuously patted his back at he continuing to power chunder onto something that wasn't the expensive pair of leather shoes on the other's feet. The boot to the nose never came and rather the stranger he had just thrown up on was trying to soothe the violent heaving that reached his throat.

"Oh fu...fu...ck...sorry." He managed to slur against the back of his hand, a pathetic attempt to wipe away the evidence of his weakness.

"Nah it's fine. Live on campus?"

"Mmmmm."

He held out his hand silently and against his better judgement Lars gave him the key. The stranger laughed and dragged him across familiar grounds until his boarding house looked at least a little familiar, just a bit. Only when his nose was right up against the plaque that stated where exactly he was.

Even then he couldn't read, in all reality he had no fucking clue where he was. But from the stench of B.O. and the familiar odour of his own cheap cologne he figured they'd ended up at the right place. Time was twisted in his drunken and high state of mind, he couldn't calculate if it had taken the stranger minutes, hours or seconds to dump him on his bed and tuck the sheet under his chin.

"You good?" He said, fiddling with end of his shirt.

"Ye..a.h.. why are you just ya know...Standing there?"

"I have morals and one of those is not taking advantage of somebody who's drunk."

"But wh.. if I want you to Mr...?"

The other's laughter was rich and set something deep in his groin, despite how hammered he was his body was responding to everything rapid speed even if what the other was doing wasn't supposed to fill the purpose of being sultry. He sat up, the sheet being clutched under his bottom lip which he obsessively rubbed against his face, the cool fabric felt amazing against his face.

"If you want to then I don't want you to kill me in the morning."

Lars grinned lopsidedly at that and whooped a little too loud at the other's resolve to which he produced another chuckle from the blonde...he thought.

"Perhaps only for a night."

He couldn't care less what was said as he dragged the man down from his point of standing to on top of him.

16

He turned his head over his shoulder continuously, curious as to how the fuck he was the only one who noticed the kid dressed in full black at the back of the class with his feet on the table and his hand scribbling over his arm.

This time he could see his face, the hood came back enough to give him a view of clear blue and a small smile that looked like it had been permanently carved in stone. At the nod from the other kid he rose quickly and sat beside him.

They know how it went. How he sat there entirely mesmerised by the short, cryptic words and half assed covered arms that he would later find out would be covered in permanent ink to mask his regrets.

They just didn't know how afterwards, weeks after that meeting he'd sat at a desk trying to recreate the angles of his jaw onto paper, or how he'd tried in a million different ways to describe the shade of his skin contrasting against the blue and red of pen ink. They didn't know how he'd sit beside anybody with the same almost pale blue tone that resided in the teens skin in the hopes that perhaps he'd find him again. He wanted to go back in time and change the events that left him with a nameless and faceless object of obsession, however his lack of social skills had well and truly deteriorated by that point and mildly pissed off at himself he continued on writing on the backs of flat surfaces about the one that hardly spoke yet was so captivating.

10

He sat in the tulip fields that surrounded his grandparents cottage and felt a sense of freedom being so far away but still so close from people. From such a young age childlike wonder had claimed his life and made everything so much more interesting but at the rapid speed he matured everything seemed duller and duller so he took what time he could knowing it wouldn't last. Like his parents. They didn't last.

What did they even look like, he couldn't remember.

They didn't last like the ancient oak trees that had once been on either side of their driveway, they didn't last like the atoms that were always being replaced to fill the gaps of ones lost. People didn't work that way unfortunately for him and now he was left at a young age to simmer in thoughts about what could have been done differently to ensure they at least out lived the budding trees that died away in the winter.

However what was to be remembered was the sight of a little boy, running through the fields followed closely by a woman Lars presumed to be his mother. His laughter rung throughout the endless stretch of red and yellow as she scooped him up in her arms and spun him around. The laughter quickly turned to blood-curdling screams that left the young boy, Lars found himself pressing his hands to his ears to block it out as the peace was disturbed. By that point Lars could see the child's dirty bare feet and his freckles cheeks and the light blue eyes that resembled the clear sky above their heads. He would be pretty when he was older, beautiful perhaps Lars thought as he dropped his hands from his face and continued playing with the stems of tulips leisurely.

The child locked eyes with him and his screaming stopped, mild confusion crossing his features before he was being carried away by the dark haired woman in the peach coloured dress and the entire way they never broke contact.

He felt like he'd meet that kid again sometime.

If only he'd concentrated more that day to remember clearly when he was older.