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Was it possible to fall in love in a single instant, even when you knew you shouldn’t? Sure, Lucas was drunk and that made everyone a little bit prettier, but this boy was something else entirely. He seemed to be the name on everybody’s lips, but Lucas told himself he wouldn’t fall for it. He was done with pretty boys who wanted nothing more than to get him in bed and toss him aside, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t fall in love from afar, just a little bit. Wasn’t that what clubs were for?
“Hello.” Lucas clearly hadn’t been paying enough attention, because suddenly the pretty boy was standing right in front of him, bright, innocent smile one his face. There was a saying, ‘You had me at hello’ , and Lucas had never understood it until that moment. With one word, all of Lucas’ caution was thrown to the wind and he allowed himself to be led by the hand onto the dance floor. He didn’t even know the pretty boy’s name.
A hand wrapped around his, the other resting gently on his waist, and Lucas stopped breathing for a moment, trying desperately to clear his head. “What’s your name?” he asked when he finally found his voice.
The pretty boy cocked one eyebrow, smirk playing across his lips. “Eliott. And yours?”
“Lucas,” Lucas answered breathlessly, clearing his throat out of embarrassment. “I’m Lucas.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I’m dancing with you, Lucas, you looked so beautiful standing over there and I just couldn’t resist,” Eliott said, voice soft and alluring. Lucas knew it wasn’t true, knew it couldn’t be true, but what if it was? Had Eliott really seen him from across the room the same way he’d seen Eliott? It seemed impossible, but stranger things had happened.
The music shifted, and so did the mood. They started dancing slow, coming closer together even though Lucas’ mind was miles away. It was hard to stay distant, though, when Eliott’s hands felt like they belonged on his hips and he could hardly even hear the music anymore over the sound of his pounding heart.
It might have been all right, and he might have made it out alive, if Eliott hadn’t placed a finger under Lucas’ chin, drawing their eyes together. Lucas couldn’t hold back, he practically lunged forward to meet Eliott in a searing, passionate kiss. And woah , Eliott knew how to kiss. It had been longer than Lucas cared to admit since he’d been kissed with such hunger, and maybe that’s why he began to fall so hard.
There were some things you couldn’t fake, and nothing about this kiss was fake. Lucas didn’t even think about how many people were watching them, or the fact that they were practically devouring each other in the middle of a crowded space, he was so wrapped up in all that Eliott was, putty in his hands.
“You want to get out of here?” Eliott whispered into his ear, leaving Lucas’ lips exposed and vulnerable, missing the taste of Eliott already. Lucas nodded eyes still trained on Eliott’s lips, which ticked up into an amused grin as he pulled Lucas by the hand until they were outside the club.
“Your place?” Eliott suggested, and Lucas nodded again. Some part of him didn’t feel drunk anymore, but another part felt drunker than he had been before. They could have taken a car, but Lucas’ place was close, so when Lucas started walking away Eliott followed with raised eyebrows, practically undressing Lucas with his eyes.
They were still attached at the hand, and it was easy for Lucas to pretend, in his altered state, that Eliott was his boyfriend and they were coming back home after a night out together. It was dangerous to think that way, but he really couldn’t help himself.
In the morning he might forget that he’d recreated a scene from Singin’ in the Rain on their walk home, dancing around the first lamp post he saw, watching Eliott’s eyes light up in delight. He might forget that Eliott sang Disney songs off key, loud enough that Lucas giggled and shushed him as they walked side by side. He might forget everything, but did that diminish any of those moments at the time and place they occurred?
When they arrived at Lucas’ flat, the first flat that was his and his alone, they kissed all the way up the stairs, barely making it inside before all their clothes came off. Eliott knew just what he was doing, and Lucas was stuck in his melody.
He quite literally swept Lucas off his feet, carrying him to the bedroom, making a few wrong stops along the way, which made both of them laugh into their kisses, teeth clanging in a way that might have been awkward if their mouths hadn’t felt like they were made for one another.
When Eliott dropped him on the bed, hovering over him, taking in every inch of Lucas’ body, Lucas’ mind went blank with utter sublimation, letting every feeling, every desire, overtake every logical, practical part of his brain and leaving him free to melt into everything that Eliott was.
Hours later, so late it was early, Eliott and Lucas were both still awake, but they were in no rush to fall asleep. Eliott was combing Lucas’ hair idly with one hand while Lucas told him all about parallel universes, listening intently to every word. He told Eliott how these parallel universes made him feel less alone without even stating it explicitly. Somehow Eliott understood him better than anyone ever had, and they’d only known each other a single night.
Lucas listened when Eliott told him about a film he wanted to make, a film called Polaris . It was an idea he’d never told anyone before, he said. Every word he spoke had Lucas waiting eagerly for the next one, falling for a story that had only barely been written. Maybe in a year, or even in ten, Lucas would see the name Polaris on the title card at the cinema and he’d remember all the details Eliott was telling him now. Maybe they’d walk a red carpet side by side, Eliott telling reporters how Lucas had been the first to hear the story.
They laughed harder than Lucas had laughed in quite a long time, exchanging stories of their time in school, from when they were children to their respective time at university. Eliott had been an art student, which was unsurprising, though Eliott said he hadn’t pegged Lucas for a biology student.
“How would you draw me, if you had a chance?” Lucas asked, propped up on one elbow. Eliott had just been explaining his habit of drawing people as animals he thought matched their spirit, telling Lucas that his was a raccoon.
Eliott considered him, squinting his eyes. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “I have to think about it.”
Lucas didn’t want to get attached, he really didn’t, but Eliott made it so hard not to. He would think about it . Did that mean there was more time for their story than that day? Maybe there was a universe where they had met years before, and were still as in love in the present day as they had been initially. A universe where Eliott thought about it, and presented Lucas with drawings of their animals together, right where they were meant to be.
When it looked like Eliott might fall asleep if he blinked too long, Lucas pulled him in close, kissing him softly and brushing his eyelids with the tips of his fingers. “Goodnight, Eliott,” he whispered, kissing the tip of Eliott’s nose.
“Goodnight Lucas,” Eliott murmured back, so quietly Lucas barely heard it. They drifted away together, brains pulling them under a curtain of night and rendering them thoughtless. Neither of them knew it of the other, but each of their last thoughts before their subconscious overtook them was of the boy lying in bed beside them.
Morning was there already, but when true morning came, Lucas kept his eyes shut, trying to figure out what to expect when he opened them.
He remembered everything. Every touch, every breath, every kiss, every laugh, every word… but the bed was empty when Lucas opened his eyes, and he cursed himself for not knowing better. He wondered if he’d possibly imagined the whole thing, the night had been too perfect to be real. He should have known not to trust Eliott.
Eliott let him go, but he didn’t ask to be let go. He probably should have, and he definitely should have expected something like this from a one night stand he’d picked up from the club, especially one that looked like that , but the stupid hopeful part of him had expected to wake up with an arm curled around his side.
He didn’t know, when he met Eliott, that he was giving him control. It didn’t feel like it. It felt like they were both equally interested in each other, sometimes Eliott more than Lucas, actually. Lucas had been stuck in Eliott’s melody the night before, but now he wanted nothing of this cruel melody.
It rang in his head, highlighting all the ways he’d been stupid and naïve, a chorus telling him that it was what he deserved, that someone like him didn’t deserve someone like that, or maybe it was the other way around.
Pretty boys fucked with other boys’ hearts, paying no mind to the wreckage they left behind, and even though Lucas should have known better, it was easier for him to push the blame on the invisible body beside him than to acknowledge the fact that he’d played an integral role in the fissure of his heart as well.
He flopped his head back on his pillow, switching off everything he’d felt last night, everything he’d woken up still feeling. Eliott wouldn't get more out of him, he decided, and, with that thought, shut off the cruel melody in his head once and for all.