Swan Lake - Larry Stylinson Ballet AU

Act XIV - Bone Cancer

Hello! If you're still reading, please comment because it honestly makes it extremely boring for me when you don't and it also makes the updates slower because I don't see a point in updating if no one cares, soooo please show some kind of sign that you exist by commenting on parts that you like, thank you!

I hope that you enjoy the story.

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Reminder of previous chapters and relationships:
- Harry got sent to hospital after falling while training
- Louis has realised that abuse is different from love but he's still a little confused about it
- Louis' Mother was creeping up the stairs with two knives in her hands and watching Louis beneath the bedroom door, to which Louis made the decision to 'get rid of her eyes'
- Louis and Shawn had an argument and Louis said, "You're just like Mother"

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"Mother," Louis said thoughtfully, as he sat at the kitchen table, twirling a spoon around an empty bowl. Mother ignored him, standing with her back to her son as she put sugar lump after sugar lump into her over-flowing teacup. Louis noticed the tea dribble down the side of the counter, and he stood, rushing over to Mother so that he could hold her hands and make her stop. When he did, she smiled at him.

And those blue eyes-they were rid of love, of passion, of everything in which a mother should have. The only shards of feeling that remained within the blue were poignant and splintering thoughts of insanity, depression, fear, and obsession. Her eyes were that piercing blue of an ocean, just as Louis' were, but the depth of them was nothing beautiful, any longer.

And her hands-they were so bony, not like the ones that had held Louis' body or stroked his head when he was a baby. They were indeed still chapped and well-worked, just as they had been back then, but booze and drugs and crawling across the floor was the cause of their poor state now.

Then there was her body when she hugged him. She was a skeleton, and her son-deprived of a good meal-was rapidly joining her. Her lips, lined in bright pink lipstick, touched his forehead where a bruise faded. Louis wondered if she realised what she was doing. He wondered if she knew where she was, who she was, and who he was?

He wondered if the beautiful lady that had raised him would ever return, and he looked up at Mother, and realised that that beautiful lady with the bright blue eyes was dead. She'd died long ago.

"What day is it?" Mother asked, letting go of Louis to lean against the counter.

"It's Tuesday, Mother." Louis replied.

"Do you not have school?"

"Yes, Mother. I will leave in an hour, Mother."

He paused. Her eyes were on him, waiting. She may have been lost in some dark and twisted corner of her mind, but she could tell that her son was troubled. Perhaps that it was the way that he stood, or his expression, or the fact that he kept glancing to the cutlery drawer. He was acting strangely, stranger than usual.

"Louis, my dear, what is the matter?" Mother inquired, watching her son linger by the doorway. He swayed on his feet, to and fro, gripping onto the chair and sparing endless glances to the locked cutlery drawer as if he could see right through it. Mother wondered what he wanted from within.

Finally, after a moment of reflexion, Louis looked at her and smiled. She did not notice the lack of joy in his eyes, nor did she see the corners of his mouth tremble from fighting the will to cry, "I wrote a poem for you. Will you listen?" he said.

She nodded. "Have you, really? You always loved writing, didn't you? Let me listen. I'm sure that there is no poet better than you, my dear." She sat on the chair and waited for him to start. He fidgeted, glanced at the locked drawer, and gulped. Staring one last time at the terrible and sharp corruption in her eyes, Louis moved a hand towards them, and closed the lids.