Swan Lake - Larry Stylinson Ballet AU

Act XVII - Echappé

Disclaimer: This book is horror as well as romance. Trigger warnings applies to this chapter.

*

Upon realising, a few months back, that the world was not as nice as he'd ever imagined, Louis had slowly become a part of its cruelty. He was ever so slowly changing from a boy who saw everything and everyone with those same loving eyes, to a young man who had his closest friends behind him, and everyone else was an enemy. Of course, you couldn't tell that his views had changed; even Harry or Niall couldn't, for Louis was a liar.

And he lied as easily as he lived.

*

"This is not my room, Mother." Louis said for the seventh time, standing at his bedroom door where the smell of mould leaked from to waft over him. He coughed, his lungs clearly struggling, and looked back up at Mother. She held a wine glass in one hand along with a lit cigarette. The other stroked Louis' cheek. She bent down and kissed him on the forehead. He was lead away from the bedroom to the landing, almost as if Mother understood that the mould was causing his health degrade.

"Wait here, my Darling." Mother said, and walked downstairs to the living room.

Louis didn't know why she'd left, nor if she'd return anytime soon, and he didn't really care either way. She'd probably forget he was waiting as she usually did. He put his hands in his shorts-just because he didn't have any pockets-in attempt to warm his hands. Winter was approaching fast, and the leaves had already fallen from the trees. People were wearing their warm coats and long trousers, now, and Louis wasn't. He was still in his shorts and tee-shirt, but it was alright..

In any case, Louis had done a lot of training for the Ballet in that time-so much, in fact, that his feet were swollen and covered in both bandages and plasters. Harry had bathed them in warm rose water and praised Louis for his hard work, but it didn't stop the pain, and Louis could barely walk, let alone run or skip or pirouette around as everyone expected him to.

Harry was beginning to dance again, and he had a prosthetic arm just as he had a prosthetic leg. He knew how to work both as if they were a part of his own body, but he never lifted Louis up anymore, but instead would watch the yellow ribbon flutter around.

Louis smiled at the thought of Harry, and then shook his head to realise that Mother still hadn't returned, and she was sniggering to herself downstairs. Louis decided to linger there a little longer, just because Mother would worry if he weren't there, should she return, and then she'd panic and beat him and Louis couldn't run this time; so he stayed put.

If he looked to his left, he could see into the bathroom. The small bath tucked into the wall was still grimy and had stained rings around it. A big brown cockroach crawled out from a cracked tiles walls to fall into the bath where it scuttled down the plughole. A group of mushrooms sprouted from the corner of the wall behind the toilet, brown and looking awfully poisonous. Louis almost wanted to point them out to Mother in the hope that she'd eat them but he refrained himself from doing so. A spider hung from the ceiling, big and black and furry, and it was wrapping a smaller spider in silk with the intention of devouring it. What if Louis did that to Mother? He could tempt her to the bedroom just as the spider had tempted the other, then he could roll her up in a sheet until she'd suffocate to death. Perhaps he could eat her afterwards, but he didn't really like the idea of eating another human, especially one this pallid and skinny.

"Mother?" He called down the stairs, "It's Louis. Where are you, Mother?"

Her sniggering stopped and she poked her head around the living room door. It was early morning, and she was sober for now, even if her eye sockets were hollow and her pupils retracted to tiny dots. "Who is Louis?" she asked.