I Came To Dance Dance Dance || Gustchele
Grant quickly tidied up his room now that he knew that Lea was on her way up. Lea did something to him, made him feel things that he never had before and frankly he had no idea what to do. He rummaged through his cupboards to find some snacks but he didn’t know what she like. In all honesty, he hardly knew her. But that was definitely something he wanted to change.
Sadness is a door that only opens once.
I listen to Beethoven before I go to sleep
so that you won’t be the last thing I think of
and I won’t dream of you,
but I always do anyway.
Nightly.
You kiss me like a fish,
like a hook in my mouth,
pulling me by the lips
wherever you want me to go.
I will do whatever you want,
maybe that’s what love is.
The longest poem I ever wrote
was the scratches down your back
the first night we made love.
You asked me once
what the opposite of fate is.
I didn’t have an answer for you then,
But I know now.
The opposite of fate
is me and you together.
The way your name sounds in my mouth,
it’s like a fistful of fruit,
seeds and juice dripping,
the delicate skin of the pulp
caught between my fingers,
sadness.
There is one word
that the universe has been whispering to me
through all of time,
written on the underside of doors
and beneath windows,
inside my shoes,
and it is this:
run.
“Nobody stays fucked forever, though.”
Elle can’t quite remember how this conversation started. If it actually started. His face is a little too wide for his skin, his bones pushing like they might try to tear through every time he moves his mouth a certain way. He can’t be much older than her, but he’s got the leathery, worldly look she sees only in junkies and war vets.
“I mean,” he says, licking his lips. “If you think about it, eventually everyone’s gotta move on. It’s all fine to be a fucking lunatic at home if that’s what you’re into but then eventually mummy and daddy get sick of you or die or what the fuck ever. And I mean generally that’s where the problems start, isn’t it. Family matters.” She doesn’t agree or disagree, just continues to watch him. He laughs, flashing his teeth.
“So you get your shitty apartment with your shitty friends. And you buy your chemicals from the kid down the hallway, but” he stops to cough, grins at her again. Rictus, she thinks. She shifts on the hard plastic seat.
“But,” he continues. “but the chemicals cost too much. They cost a lot without a real job to pay for ‘em, without dad’s wallet hidden under the mattress. And you’re starting to feel a little bit absurd, right, a little bit fucking ridiculous now that you’ve not got any right excuse.”
The subway train shudders to a stop. People get on and off, stuck in their own perpetual bubble of hustle and bustle. He remains where he is, wirey fingers clutching to the bar above her. His twitch is more like a flicker in the middle of the constant movement.
“So you either have to pick, you start spending your money on things like eating, like clothes for a real fucking job where you can meet a lovely woman and grow up and have the picket fence, the whole lot, or you realize you’re a waste of air with no fucking excuses and you die off. As you fucking well should.”
He shrugs, tips his head back against the glass window. She feels old all of a sudden. She’s only twenty-six but suddenly she feels very, very old. The subway car feels very small. She wonders if he knows.
“I’ve met a lot of people,” he says. “Half of them went one way, half went the other. Doesn’t matter, my phone isn’t ringing.”
Elle lets out a breath, flicks at the cracked nail polish on her thumb and thinks about the bottle of valium she’s got waiting at home for her.
“Which will you pick then,” she asks suddenly, when she knows her stop is coming up. “Or which’ve you picked. You’re almost out of time.”
He just grins knowingly. She isn’t asking him.
She scratches her number into his arm with an old pen from her bag just as the train screeches to a halt again, and when he calls her the same night, high on whatever it is he does, she lets him come over and fuck her up against the wall of her apartment.
It doesn’t feel like a decision. She doesn’t care.
Listen
shitty shitty
Louis and Bill || Self
“Louis… I need to talk to you.”
Bill’s face was grim, and Louis looked up from his position on the sofa with genuine fear. His Father’s expression was grim, the type of face that might announce the death of a close relative, or some other tragedy. Louis nodded fleetingly, worry flashing across his face, and then surprise as Bill smiled lightly, and sat down on the sofa beside him, looking up at the TV.
“What you watching?”
Louis didn’t know if he was supposed to reply. Even if he was meant to, then he wasn’t sure how. His notepad was back in his bedroom; he usually left it there when he was in the house, not really having much of a wish to converse with any of his family. Instead, he looked down at his hands and shrugged.
Bill looked uncomfortable, and he shifted over towards Louis, putting one hand on the boy’s shoulder and finding the TV remote with the other, pointing it at the TV and turning it off. Louis let out a disgruntled noise, but Bill ignored him, turning to him and grasping both of his hands.
Slowly, trying not to cause the boy any kind of alarm, Bill rolled up Louis’ left sleeve. Louis didn’t protest, tears spilling over as his Father gazed down at the mark on his arm, silently whispering every kind of apology and protest he could think of, not even caring how Bill had known.
“So this morning I went to the Ministry to talk to Harry and Ron. They’re going to take care of this. Tomorrow you’re going back to School, so you’ll be safe there, and McGonagall and some of the other teachers are going to keep an eye on you. You’re not no go anywhere by yourself, and the grounds after nightfall are a no-go. Just until we’re sorted everything out. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
Completely numb, and with no clue of what he could say even if he was able to speak, Louis nodded.
“Before that, I need you to tell either me now, or Harry and Ron at the ministry, everything that you know. Where they are, how many people are involved, what they’re planning, everything.”
Louis nodded again.
“You want to tell me now? I can swear to you, Louis, I wouldn’t have gone to the ministry if I thought that there was any way that you could end up getting hurt more through this. You’ll be safe at Hogwarts.”
Again nodding, Louis put his hand to his mouth and then away again, in one of the only pieces of sign language he had managed to learn.
Thank-you.
Smiling weakly, Bill wrapped his arms around his son, pulling away to look at him. “I’ll go and get you some paper.”
He left the room, and returned a few minutes later, handing the pencil and notepad to Louis, and sitting down beside him, gripping his shoulder tightly. “Just take your time.”
Louis bent down over the notepad, and began to scribble. First off, he wrote down an address, looking up at Bill to see if this was what he wanted. Bill nodded. “Just write anything that might help us. It doesn’t matter if it might not, just anything, however small. The more the better.”
Louis looked back down, beginning to write again, conscious of Bill watching his every move.
Underneath the address, he wrote:
Gorka Nolan. Male around fifty, has a son at Hogwarts, Barkley. As far as I know B doesn’t have anything to do with them, he may not even know. He doesn’t talk to his Dad and lives in a treehouse in the Garden.
There aren’t many - Fifteen? Sixteen? They meet every Thursday, and everyone is expected to be there, including me, even if I’m at school. Alecto Carrow is the second in command after Nolan, she’s the one that did my
He stopped writing, taking a minute to get his head together and glance up at his Dad. Bill’s face was set, and he gripped Louis’ arm in a painful, but reassuring.
I don’t know anything about long term plans. They don’t let me in on anything because they know how much I don’t want to be there. Mostly it’s just killing off Muggles and stuff like that. They’ll send me an address, and I have to go there and
Again he stopped. This wasn’t something that he had ever wanted anyone, especially either of his parents, to have to know. He kept expecting Bill to start to get angry, but he did nothing, just staring down at the paper with a grim acceptance of reality.
There’s one other kid as well as me. I don’t know her name; I don’t think she has one. She doesn’t speak, and she’s a bit like a slave to them. They use her to take out their anger on, and she makes them food and stuff whenever they want it. She’s kind to me, and I don’t want her to end up getting hurt.
Bill nodded, and as Louis lifted the pencil to write some more, he took hold of his son’s hand, holding it still to prevent any more from being written.
“Lou… I just need you to know how sorry I am. That any of this had to happen.” He stopped, touching the side of Louis’ face gently. “I should have realised something was wrong, and I should have done something. I’m not angry with you, and I don’t in any way blame you for anything you’ve done. You deserve a better Father that I’ve been, and you don’t know how sorry I am for that.” Bill shuffled sideways towards Louis, taking the pencil away from his son altogether. “You don’t have to write any more, that should be enough, but I need you to promise me that you’ll keep yourself safe. Don’t take any risks, and don’t do anything stupid.”
There was a lingering silence between the two of them, until finally Louis reached forwards and took the pencil, bending over to write in his shaky script.
Thank-you, and I will. But I don’t forgive you.
And with that, Louis stood and left the room.
