Starstruck

Part 1

Warnings: swearing, drinking (nothing heavy, just the usual British amount hahaha)

Historical Inaccuracies:

- Brian's eyesight was (as far as I know, feel free to correct me..?) perfectly fine in the 1970s; he did not need glasses, but hey, I needed a plot device. Rog, as we know was (and is) the one with terrible eyesight

- There is no wall outside of the Union Pub, however, there is a green area with grass and trees and the occasional flower :)

Word Count: 5.8k

‧⁺˚*･༓☾ ☽༓･*˚⁺‧

6 MONTHS EARLIER

The curly haired boy always held the door for everyone. Everyone. Bloody everyone.

You were studying at Imperial College in London, a prestigious place that you supposed was ideal for the material you were learning, though you felt intimidated by the place and nearly everyone there. You were a rural girl, and the city was big and bright and terrifying in comparison. But all the same, you loved the thrill that came with living in London, the energy that seemed to hum beneath every day in a way that you had never felt in the quiet country life. And now you were finally studying what you had always wanted to study: astrophysics.

The curly-haired boy always got to the lecture first and stood there holding open the door, tall and graceful and effortlessly pretty. You'd always found him pretty.

He barely spoke at all during classes, but when he held that door open tirelessly every morning, he was radiant. Amicable and eloquent, he traded stories of shooting stars he'd seen when too many cups of coffee had kept him up into the wee hours of the morning, Jimi Hendrix records he'd found at the record shop down the road, jokes about the volume of his hair.

Everyone liked the boy at the door, both girls and boys. Though, when affections were involved— and there were many instances of this— he seemed entirely oblivious. Instead, he ended up raving on about something niche within his drabbles of Einsteinian theories and black holes to the poor, infatuated soul who had simply wanted to discuss the fact that they saw the stars in his eyes, rather than in the heavens.

You'd never said more than two words to him, though. A 'thank you' every day, for which you earned a nod and, more often than not, a warm smile. Occasionally you bid him a 'good morning', which he returned brightly and easily. He was a nerd from his curls to clogs, and yet, his cool was impeccable, his awkwardness masked by the passion for the subjects of which he talked.

But one day, the curly-haired boy was not holding the door. Every student who passed through the door either frowned or murmured concernedly. The boy at the door was not there— the balance of the universe had tipped disturbingly far from equilibrium.

[[MORE]]

Instead, he rushed into the lecture hall nearly twenty minutes late.

Your eyes briefly met his when you looked up for the fiftieth time to search for him in a crowd of people where he previously could not have been found. His collar was crooked, his denim jacket had hiked the bottom of his shirt halfway up his stomach to display a thin band of pearly skin, the bottom of one trouser leg was cuffed, and he was wearing only one sock with his white clogs.

Your fingers itched to fix that collar; it bothered you immensely that it sat so jauntily.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologised his way to his seat.

Your professor, Dr. Carmichael, raised his eyebrows at the curly haired boy. "Mr. May," he said, a heavy undertone of disapproval in his voice.

"Oh, I'm so sorry I'm late," said the boy, now known to you as May, gravely. "Won't happen again."