Mardi A Lundi (Larry Stylinson)

Chapter 8

Written By: ListenToTheInk on A03

Monday, Louis wakes up to an empty bed and a sore bum. Baxter is curled up on the pillow next to his shoulder, and it is raining outside. He has to work, and the last thing he wants to do is walk. But he knows he’s going to have to. He wonders if Harry has cooked breakfast yet, or if he was waiting for Louis to join him in the shower. But there is no smell of bacon coming from the kitchen, and the water isn’t running. And then he remembers that Harry is gone. So instead of rolling out of his bed like he should, he searches for his mobile and rings into work, feigning an illness before he curls back up in the jumper he’d fallen asleep in. Harry’s. Of course.

He falls back to sleep crying, with Baxter lying next to him faithfully while his body wracks with sobs.

When he wakes up again, it’s nearing noon, and his stomach is rumbling. Baxter has swatted him on the nose twice and Louis takes the hint before he gets up and walks to his kitchen to make himself his usual breakfast of toast. He wouldn’t be able to make a breakfast sandwich, or egg on toast, Not without setting his flat on fire. So he settles and stares at his teacup while the kettle boils, and he sighs before thinking about their week together, ending with the lock and the shared kisses and the cuddling.

He nearly drops his teacup when inspiration strikes. He takes the kettle off and smears butter and jam onto his toast before he jogs to his living room and finds a blank notebook and a pen. He scribbles mardi a lundi on the cover, and then he turns to the first page.

There’s something about the air in New York City. He writes. Something about the way the air smells like smog and soft pretzels, the way that every breath Daniel takes feels like it’s full of dreams waiting to come true, makes him feel like anything can happen.

He finishes the book in twelve months, and he sends it off to fifteen different publishers in both London and America. He gets letters back from fourteen of them, telling him that it was a good piece of writing, but not something they were looking for at that moment. But the fifteenth letter he gets, HarperCollins makes him an offer he can’t refuse, even if he wanted, and he’s a published author within another three months. Fifty thousand copies go on sale in England, and another one hundred thousand go on sale in America. It sparks a bit of controversy there because it’s a New York Times Bestseller and it’s about a gay couple, and there haven’t been many young adult novels about gay couples out there. But he’s getting amazing reviews from the likes of John Green, David Levithan, Maureen Johnson and Sarah Dessen, celebrities are tweeting about it and Louis is being swept up onto a book tour through America and his life is becoming a whirlwind.

He’s flown to America for two months  and he’s paid to be on Ellen and Jimmy Fallon and Tyra and Craig Ferguson and the first night he’s so nervous that his hands shake and he thinks “this is how Harry feels all the time”. And then he’s in the chair next to Jimmy Fallon’s desk and he’s answering questions about the book and if it’s got anything to do with Harry because pictures of the two of them in Paris had leaked all over the internet. And God, America has a thing for gossip. And his heart twists when he lies and says that it’s not. And he asks about the dedication which reads “this book is for you, about you. if you’re reading, you’ll know.” And he supposes that he shouldn’t have done that but he needed Harry to know without explicitly saying “to Harry” on the page. He’s skirting around his sexuality, using gender neutral pronouns and when they ask why he wrote about a gay character if he’s not gay, he just says “Just because a character is gay doesn’t mean the author is. Daniel was always meant to be gay. And so was Luke. That’s just how the idea formed in my mind.” And he’s eating dinner with John Green and they’re talking about their books and Louis has really only ever been able to dream about this day.