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Someone’s playing the piano.
Correction; someone is playing the piano and it’s not him .
The door falls closed behind him and part of his mind wonders about the flowers everywhere, freshly plucked and one particular colorful one hanging in the doorway to the music room, but he’s more curious to the piano playing.
He goes into the room and the person he least expected is pressing down ivory white keys, frowning in concentration.
Aasim.
Brody is sitting on the piano and Violet is standing next to it, holding a very confused looking Clementine in her grip.
Suddenly, Louis remembers Violet in a late winter two years ago and he steps back. “Nu-huh,” he shakes his head. “Nope, not doing this, bye Violet!” Violet is grinning and so are Brody and Aasim and Marlon, and Tenn and AJ are smiling brightly but without the devilish spark that knowledge brings.
What do the other teens know that he doesn’t? The tune Aasim’s playing sounds familiar, but it isn’t until Brody starts to sing -and who knew Brody had a voice like that!- that he recognises the song.
He immediately feels his cheeks heat up because this isn’t funny, except that it is , except that it’s happening to him and not someone else!
“ Tale as old as time ,” Brody sings, and he can see the moment the realisation sinks in with Clementine because she starts struggling in Violet’s hold.
“Violet let me go!”
True as it can be
Louis is backing away further but Marlon grabs his arm and pulls him forward and he does not have an excuse except that Marlon is stronger than him because the guy is an absolute fucking wanker , in the most literal sense of the word this time. (Listen, puberty was a thing they went through in the apocalypse. Solo rooms or privacy were things that didn’t happen.)
Barely even friends
He gets shoved up to the middle of the room and Clementine gets dragged towards him until she bumps into his chest. His arms automatically wrap around her waist and she turns her head to glare at Violet.
Then somebody bends
Unexpectedly
Louis’s hands are on Clementine’s hips, and his fingers catch the slightest bit of bare skin as she turns around, her back against her chest, his hands again on her hips, and she leans back against him as she glares at Violet and Marlon who are staring at them with twin grins of Evil.
Just a little change
She probably expects him to glare with her but he’s a bit distracted by the back of her body being pressed to his front and, again, puberty, to really actively do anything but concentrating on not actually getting a boner because that would be awkward and not really fitting the situation. Marlon probably recognises the look on his face because his grin twists, becomes wider, and Violet doesn’t recognise shit because she’s too gay but she has lived with mostly boys while said boys went through puberty so she knows exactly what’s going through his head (or, y’know, not his head) and she grins wider, too.
Small to say the least
AJ and Tenn are by the window, smiling at the both of them, AJ bouncing on his toes from excitement.
Both a little scared
Neither one prepared
He represses a shudder at the words coming from Brody’s mouth. Yes, he’s scared, no, he’s not prepared for any of this shit. It’s the fucking apocalypse and the last talk he had with an adult who actually cared about him as an individual was, what, eight years ago? Nine? He hasn’t had “the talk” neither the sexual variant or the one that is about feelings and what to do with them, so he’s completely lost and imagines that Clem is exactly the same way.
Beauty and the Beast
And he wants to take Clem’s hand, wants to twirl her and hold her close and dance with her, but this wasn’t his idea. It was Violet’s.
He didn’t even think that the end of winter means February means Valentine’s Day, but he would’ve liked it better if Violet had included him in the plans. He loves the sappy romantic shit and he would’ve preferred to organise something for Clem himself.
Ever just the same
Ever a surprise
But the surprise would be gone then, wouldn’t it? Would she even like it? Would she even want it, as practical and survival-oriented as she always is?
Ever as before and ever just as sure as the sun will rise
He catches her hand and she twirls, her eyes wide in surprise as his arm comes around her waist, and he looks her in the eyes. He’s afraid of what she’ll see as she gazes into his soul, but he can be afraid later. Right now, he just wants .
“Dance with me,” he whispers over Brody’s next line.
Tale as old as time
Tune as old as song
And she breaks into a smile and nods, and he’s never learnt to do this, doesn’t know the steps, but he holds her close, hands on her hips and hers around his neck and he leans forward, his forehead touching hers. He closes his eyes but not before he can see her do the same, and they sway.
Bittersweet and strange
Finding you can change
Learning you were wrong
And he loves her, he really, truely does and he doesn’t think he’s told her yet, has he? He’s been too afraid, afraid she’d run, afraid he’d wake up one morning and wouldn’t mean it anymore, afraid to be the next person on an unimaginable long list to hurt her, to break her heart, but it doesn’t matter because he does, he loves her with a certainty only reserved for the most basic facts in life.
Certain as the sun
Rising in the east
He loves her and he loves AJ with all his heart and he would give up anything for either of them.
Tale as old as time
Song as old as rhyme
So he opens his eyes and leans back and she blinks her eyes open, the amber gold of warmth and love and fierce protection.
“Beauty and the beast,” he finishes together with Brody, his voice barely a whisper but she hears him anyway. The music continues, Aasim continuing to play, but everyone is silent, so Louis ducks down again and his lips find her forehead, her nose, and he stops, hovering a few millimeters above her lips. “I love you,” he whispers, a secret told by the beating of his heart, picked up only by her own. Her own, which responds in kind, because she smiles and gets those wrinkles next to her eyes she gets when she smiles, that twinkle in her eyes when she’s about to lovingly insult him.
“I love you too, doofus,” she says, and then she’s on her toes and her lips are on his, and he’ll never get used to that feeling of warmth, of coming home, the feeling of belonging, and now, somehow, it feels more consequential, of greater importance than ever.
He pulls back and she’s looking at him as if he has all the answers, maybe not to all the questions that exist but to the ones she would deem important to ask, anyway.
“Just to clarify, in this comparison I’m Belle, right?” he asks.
She snorts with laughter, something that someone else would maybe be unattractive but impulsive joy is rare from her and he savors every millisecond of it.
There’s a barked laugh from Violet, a huff from Marlon and giggles from the two kids, and Aasim has stopped playing.
Louis turns his head to look at AJ, who is staring at him with intense eyes. “Does that mean you’re a Disney Princess?” he asks, recalling all the conversations Louis has held with the kid about disney movies and their importance on society.
He points at AJ. “Watch it, Mowgli.” AJ giggles again, not really understanding the joke, but understanding enough that it was a joke and directed at him.
Clementine is still pressed close to him and her lips touch her ear as she stands on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “You’re still Baloo,” she whispers.
He shoots her a hurt look. “Still not upgraded to Simba?” he pouts, and relishes the amused sound from her lips. “Maybe Eugene,” she admits reluctantly, as if the prince from Tangled isn’t her favorite.
He smiles at her, just the corner of his mouth curling up and something changes in her gaze.
“I’ll settle for that, then,” he tells her. “But I’m not downgrading you from Nala to Rapunzel. The girl was stuck in a tower for 18 years and never realised her witch-mom was only using her for her magic hair.”
“Listen if this is your weird way of foreplay go do it somewhere else,” Violet interjects, but Brody slides off of the piano and makes her way towards the door. “We have other things to do,” she informs the group. “Important things. We won’t be back inside for like another hour or so. Maybe two,” she adds with a wink towards them.
Violet huffs. “Do you really think Louis’ll be able to last two hours? I mean-” she huffs as Marlon hits her on the back of the head, softly, affectionately.
“AJ, Tenn, c’mon,” he calls as he shepherds Violet out of the room.
Clem is looking up at him, her expression the portrayal of what he imagines a lazy sunday morning to be like in a normal life, where the dead don’t walk, where they might live together, where he might wake up next to her every day.
He grabs her hand and tugs her with him as he sits before the piano, his free hand sprawled on the keys, not knowing what to play.
“Teach me,” she says, so he scoots back, spreads his legs and situates her in between them. He places his hands on top of hers and wonders at how tiny they are compared to his, and marvels at the scars and rough patches that are spread over her fingers and hands, her lower arms. All signs of how much this fragile skin has been through, monuments to everything she’s had to do to survive, to protect her own.
Still, her fingers are gentle as she plays, cautious at first, but beautiful still for the love poured into the melody.
He teaches her, starting with the melody he learnt first ‘Fur Elise’ and then, at her request, moving on to other songs.
She doesn’t have to ask him to sing the words that accompany the music, he does so without prompting, softly, soulfully, ballads of love whispered in her ear as his hands take over the playing and hers run up his lower arms, bare contact, and the touch sets fire to his skin.
He croons Celine Dion in her ear and she leans back into his chest and he just knows she’s closed her eyes.
He sings to her, lets his love wash into soft piano tones and quiet words and is content in that it is enough.
He has found everything he was missing, everything he needs in her and AJ. Something he didn’t know he wished he had, but something he never could’ve lived without, no matter what life he would have lived.
He loves Marlon like a brother and Violet like a sister, and has once loved a woman as his mother, even if she wasn’t his, but Clementine and AJ are his family and he’s sure that, even if the apocalypse hadn’t happened, his soul would’ve found hers and his heart would’ve loved the way her eyes twinkle in the moonlight regardless.
Life might not be perfect, but it never is. Right now, with her? Life is an extraordinary adventure, and he would love nothing more than to take her and AJ and experience it together.