#rhymeswith1d

(Also note that the fic contains a lot of pretty tired tropes. Basically I wanted to experiment with scene and atmosphere capturing set in upperclass suburban highschool life (so a lot of personal experience), it’s a rich/straight boy and pining best friend au which…has it’s time and place I guess. But I wrote it a long time ago and probably wouldn’t write something like it now)

(The first bit follows the comic)

The sun is low in the sky, long rays dragging the hours out long and golden. The air is heavy with summer, so full of it that it seems to vibrate. Birds trill and crickets hum from invisible perches. Sweat beads in the slant of his shoulders, his backpack thumping wetly against his back with every kick of his leg. The pavement is dry and split like desert dirt beneath the equally cracked sole of his dusty shoes. The wheels of his skateboard clatter over the cracks. He leans with the slight curve of the street, knees covered with peeling plasters guiding the board around parked cars.

The patchy yellow lawns that wizz past get greener with every push. The houses morph from crumbling dehydrated brick to pale stone neat and uniform. Chain link fences cut off abruptly, black iron curling to take it’s place, the asphalt smooths beneath him. The hiss of automated irrigation reaches his ears a split second before he’s hit with a fine mist of cold water. It’s bliss on his sunburnt shoulders.

He skids up a hedge-lined driveway around a gleaming black Jeep, stops short of the lush green garden. With the graffitied toe of his shoe he kicks his board up, catching the tip midair and tucking it into the sweaty crook of his arm. He raises a fist to the rich dark oak, underneath the lighter wood sign with hand painted letters spelling HOME. Three sharp knocks sting his knuckles and vibrate up his arm.

The door swings open and you spill forth. The sunset behind dims compared to your dimples, the blinding Colgate white of your smile brighter than any natural phenomena. You’re an enigma in a thin white Tee that looks like it’s worth ten pounds at most but undoubtably cost three times that. The fabric slouches low over the sharp angles of your naked collar bone, cling becomingly to your torso. The black shorts embracing your sheer hips are of lofty name-brand and full of holes. You step forward on coltish feet, crooked toes bare to tilt a greeting.

You take the boy up into yourself, long arms pulling and engulfing. Your hair is a riot of damp ringlets fighting to escape the tattered bandana carelessly employed to detain them. The colours are summer bleached, red stripes faded to pink, washed out blue against the white stars and stripes of a country you’ve never been to. Chlorine wafts around you like a shroud, more and yet less toxic than the lingering scent of perfume that it accompanies. It’s distinctly young and girlish, notes of floral and fruit - an alien bouquet. The boy turns his head into the moist curve of your neck to try and escape it, finding musty sweat and alcoholic tang instead.

Together you and he sway on the threshold, caught straddling some line, attempting to suspend time. Unfortunately the world stops for nobody and the hands of the clock manifest behind you, fingers tipped in Barbie pink paint. She lays her hands on your body, staking claim on your shoulders. The boy’s eyes open, meeting her over you. Her glossed lips are a false crescent over bared teeth.

You let go of the boy because her nails grip a little too tight, pierce your skin just a tiny bit. You shift your body away, the force of your gravity readjusting and returning to her. She glides into you, skinny legs carrying her body to tuck under your arm like she has a right to be there.

She’s a beauty, there’s no right-minded person who would disagree. She bares her skin with confidence, narrow hips hugged in pale denim, flat chest encased in thin scraps of nylon. A delicate silver chain swings against her ribs, a charm resting betwixt her breasts. A metal paper airplane against her heart.

The boy follows the pair of you into the house. His left hand travels unbidden to his right forearm. Lines of black, an ink paper airplane frozen forever in his very skin. He digs his nails in, mimicking hers in you.

//

Boring classroom days under flickering fluorescent lights. Stained carpets, desks bolted to the floor, the stench of burning plastic. Harry’s uniform is always crisp and clean, shirt white with bleach, shoes polished brand new.

Louis is in a desk on the opposite side of the room, forced there by the forever scowling teacher because if he’s allowed to sit with Harry he has attention for nothing else. Harry sees him in stolen glimpses when the teacher is turned to the blackboard, sees his crooked smirk and manic eyes, always seeking his to share a secret giggle. His collar is perpetually ruffled, trousers streaked with mud and grass. There’re slashes of pen on his chin, on his fingers, in the margins of his worksheets. Never in the lines, where they’re meant to be.

Harry is good at his lessons. He sits up front by the window, sunlight warm. He fixes his eyes on the page, neat numbers stacked in perfect formation, sums flowing from his fingers. Suddenly something hits him, musses his carefully combed hair. A paper airplane made of an unfinished worksheet. He bites his lip and look up, catch the flashing giggle before the teacher is grabbing Louis’ ear and hauling the boy up and out, down the well-trod path to the headmaster’s lair.

The paper is unfolded, smoothed out. Harry drinks in the scribbled nonsense and doodles, the stick-men armies and boats and animals. He traces the arches of birds in flight, the smiley faces with x-ed out eyes. His fingers come away smudged with ink.

//

The granite countertops are a sea of cans, bottles, and crimson plastic cups. The whole house smells like a brewery. Orange powder lays over the glossy stone like fairy dust, crumpled cheeto bags and chip crumbs stomped into the expensive rugs. It’s summer and nobody in the house is over the age of twenty.

The sliding glass doors leading to the backyard are gaping open, smeared with greasy handprints. Beyond lies the turquoise paradise of the pool, surface cluttered with bloated neon toys. The pebbled patio is a debris field of sopping towels and trash. Inside and out bodies lay strewn everywhere. A cluster of smokers hang draped over chaise lounges, limbs slender and beautiful flicking ash and cigarette butts carelessly.

The girl drags you through the open floor-plan, pushes you bodily into the black leather sofa and takes her throne astride your knees. Her loyal subjects are the children lounging around in various stages of inebriation, all turning gazes up at the golden couple, love and fear and envy.

There are no seats left at this point, so the boy sinks as gracefully as he can to the mahogany floor. He crosses his legs - refusing to kneel. Somehow a beer reaches his hands, cold and dewy in his palm. He cracks the cap with a practiced thumb, dives in to chug half the contents in one go. Mindless chatter and boozy laughter ebbs and swells, the boy smiles along and plays nice, throwing comments out and seeing what sticks. But between comments his eyes flick back always, up to you where you’re pinned in place.

Somebody has the wise idea //Spin the Bottle// and suddenly everyone is pushing furniture aside, clearing the floor. An empty jäger is sent spinning in wild circles while the crowd howls. The boy takes his turn and doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t look at you but his fists clench and he prays silently. The bottle lands on a skinny brunet with a heart-shaped face who blushes like the grapefruit vodka on her breath as they come together. You watch and your uninhibited laughter cuts like blades.

You take your turn and your bottle lands on a random nameless girl in green. And then a girl with a nose ring, a boy with silver hair. Never /the/ boy. After each turn She takes your face in her hands and kisses you, like she’s reaffirming ownership over a lent toy returned, marking her territory with bubble-gum lipgloss.

When the game has lost it’s novelty, tossed into corners behind sofas under tables with the cigarette butts, somebody suggests Truth or Dare. It is the bane of all secret broken hearts and pining saps so the boy staggers to his feet, leaving the too hot clench of the circle behind. He’s drunk more than intended and his ears ring. His skin is burning all over, the twilight air outside is a heavenly savior from the inferno. Kicking a half deflated beach-ball aside he perches on the edge of the pool and slips his legs in one after the other.

The cool wet feels like his legs are being sucked into another world; there’s no way this tranquil stillness can exist on the same plane as the smoke and drunkenness behind him. Transfixed the boy leans forward, sliding burned raw hands along his thighs over the ridge of his knees and cross the boarder into the water. His arms follow up to his elbows, his weight shifting forward, spine protesting as he forces his biceps through, his hair soaking rapidly, and finally his face. He keeps his eyes open, ignoring the chlorinated tingle. The netherworld is eery green-blue with artificial lights, blurry and rippling, nothing concrete. He exhales, perhaps it’s a scream perhaps it’s a sigh, bubbles rushing forth and scattering, tickling his lips and cheeks before they flee back along his hairline.

He pulls back when his lungs start to complain, uncurling with rivulets racing to wet his tank top. He blinks rapidly, eyelashes clumping wetly. He sobs once, ragged, chattering with the chill that’s replaced the heat. His cheeks are too wet to tell if he’s crying.

//

Sugar sweet lemonade days of summer pass by too quickly. The minutes, however, seem to last forever. The sky is golden, their skin is golden, the lemonade on their lips is golden. Louis’ laugh is golden, lapping at Harry’s mind like the water. They’ve been in the pool for so long he reckons they’d be considered aquatic by some definition. He grabs at Louis’ hands, strokes pruney fingers against pruney fingers, following the ripples and rivulets that the water has carved there.

Louis’ eyes are the same colour as the water, only clearer and deeper. He hiccups out giggles that are half bubbles, dives on top of Harry sending them both plunging under. A bit of water goes up Harry’s nose and sloshes around in his lungs and he comes up choking and half-drowned. Yet it feels good somehow, even as his throat burns and his lungs rip, eyes stinging, it’s exhilarating.

Their bodies slide slickly against each other, clinging like barnacles as they make for an air mattress bobbing in the corner by the stairs. It’s shallow enough that they can easily touch the bottom but they pretend they can’t, flailing and fighting to get their bodies on the toy.

Gemma hisses at them to be quiet from the patio. She’s been languishing on the lounge, massive electric blue sunglasses obscuring her eyes. She’s probably trying to look elegant and grown as she tans but her limbs are still too lanky, her knees and elbows sharp and helplessly adolescent.

Louis looks at Harry, demon fire behind his eyes. They nod, smirks hotter than the sun as they propel their raft stealthily across the water. Reaching the shore they leap forth, spitting jets of water from their bulging cheeks, soaking the enemy through. Gemma shrieks like a banshee, holding her precious new sarong out of harms way. The boys flee, cackling back into their blue lair where they stay submerged, hearts beating frantically against each other for the screams to die away.

//

The boy is seeking you (which is nothing new.) He staggers through the muggy house, peering through doors and around corners. He’s still damp, a trail of moist footprints marking his path.

The game of Truth or Dare seems to have been short-lived, the crowd who’d been playing vanished and replaced by new strangers. The air is hazy with fragrant smoke, and every other breath a cough rings around he room. The boy can’t see you, but he calls your name anyway. He wanders from room to room calling for you, rapping on the door of the toilet, and only getting cursed at in response.

Somebody has put on a strange playlist, one with a lot of throbbing bass and not many lyrics. It’s not the kind of music the boy likes at all, kind of actually hates it. He makes his zig-zagged way through the house, eyeing the stairs with determination. He has to cling to the rail and it takes longer than it should, but he eventually reaches the top. The carpet is cozy and familiar between his toes, and he pauses for a minute to enjoy it, reintroduce himself. Your loved ones inhabit the hall, a gallery of matching dimples and crinkled eyes. The boy finds himself in a few of the frames, taking drunken satisfaction in how many times he’s been allowed to grace these walls. He gets lost for a handful of time, lulled into something like a trance by the memories. He may have stayed there for hours if not for a noise, a dull thud that crawls to his ears under the shriller noises from downstairs.

It came from your room, and the boy jumps to attention like a dog to its master’s whistle. He grins sloppily, far too eager. You always do this, always succumb to the alcohol and get overwhelmed, escape to your room. The perfect fluttering social butterfly until you aren’t, and you turn into a dull grumbly recluse. It’s delightful.

The boy’s tumbles down the hall to the door that’s got your name hung from a crooked nail. The letters are messily painted in yellows and orange, because your favourite pallet is that of the sun. The boy pushes it open quietly, not willing to wake you if you’ve succumbed to sleep. But he need not have, because you haven’t.

Crimson red soaks the walls and floods the boy’s eyes. She’s laughing, head tipped back to giggle drunkenly at the plastic stars you stuck to the ceiling in year three. Her hair is all out of place, but even dishevelment sits well on her. There’s two other girls there, their faces and bodies and clothing blurred into anonymity.

You are on your bed. You obviously want to curl up and go to sleep but they won’t let you. You keep trying to pull away and shrivel into a ball, but they have hold of your wrists and ankles, and every time you get a limb free they snap it back out again. You kick out and set the headboard knocking against the wall. Thud.

You’re moaning low and miserable. You don’t want this, you don’t even know what’s going on. She’s brought these strangers onto your sanctuary and they won’t let you rest. You’re almost naked, shirt nowhere to be seen and shorts unzipped and barely keeping hold of your hips. They all want you it’s obvious, plucking at your skin and leaving welts. They think your distressed confusion in humorous. They stare like you’re an exotic exhibit at the zoo, and yet they’re the ones cackling like hyenas.

There’s a screen alight white amidst the crimson - an easy target. The boy aims and lands true, snatching the slender iPhone midair. They hadn’t realized he was in the room and they shriek their surprise. He spare a glance down to confirm his rage - they’ve been taking photos of you, bare milky skin and moist lips and glazed eyes all captured in pixels. He swoops to the two strangers and confiscates their phones too, just in case. They must be too shocked - or ashamed - to protest, fleeing the room like scavenger birds off a carcass when the wolf returns.

Once they’re gone the boy throws the phones carelessly onto the side table; he’ll deal with destroying the sacrilegious documents later. He slams the door shut and clicks the lock firmly into place, not to be opened again until the sun is up and the house is empty.

You catch sight of him when he’s close enough, your rolling eyes catching and holding. Your arms come up grabby and infantile. Unable to deny you anything, the boy sinks into the mattress at your side, allowing your grasp to snag him in and suction on. You babble something wordless pure emotion against his neck.

- END FIC - 

From there I was just going to wrap it up with kind of ambiguous ending. There might have been one more flashback of them younger doing something cliche like climbing through the open window and sitting on the roof together under the stars. There wasn’t going to be like a confession or kiss or clear ‘getting together’. The message being that that no matter what they’re each others’ safe spaces.