Larry Ballet AU.
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Louis is a boy covered head to toe in Mickey-Mouse band-aids, Harry is a professional Ballet dancer, and they are partners for the Swan Lake performance at the end of the year. But something waits behind Louis' bedroom door. It w...
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Above: Toddler Louis. He wears a surgical mask instead of plasters when he goes out in public.
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With love, Lucy.
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Louis sat by his locker, his legs wrapped around his bag, and his nose and mouth pushed forward in concentration while he read his book. It was 'Peter Rabbit' by Beatrix Potter. He'd have liked to read something for older children, he certainly had the intelligence to read whole novels but he couldn't afford to buy himself presents. There was the school library, of course, but he had once been severely bullied in there during his first year by some older girls, and he'd not returned since, despite the fact that those girls had all grown up and were probably living their own separate lives now.
"What are you reading, Dipshit?" Shawn asked, casting a shadow over Louis' book until he couldn't read it any longer. He looked up, and Shawn crouched down. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Shawn took the book from Louis and peered at the cover. "Aren't you a little old for Peter Rabbit?" he asked, holding the book between his index and thumb as if it had been dropped down the toilet.
"No." Louis said, grabbing it back. "It's my favourite."
Shawn shrugged, "Alright then. My favourite is 'Jane Eyre' by Emily Brontë, in case you were wondering."
Louis hadn't been wondering, but now he was. He was wondering if Shawn was making fun of him for reading, and then, upon realising that it was an honest statement, Louis wondered why he was so surprised to learn that this boy knew how to read in the first place.
"That's a rude thing to think." Shawn said, "I can see it in your eyes, you're underestimating me. This is a school full of fucked up kids with fucked up lives, but I'm not illiterate, despite of everything. I read all of the time when I'm at mum's house. At dad's, too. I used to be given books as anger therapy, they really help."
Louis looked down at his book. He could hear Shawn's friends in the background, wolf-whistling and making weird animal noises as all teenage boys seemed to do as a form of entertainment. "When did your parents get divorced?" He asked, hoping that his question wouldn't come across as insensitive.
Shawn sat down properly then, "I was ten." He said, picking at a loose string on Louis' shorts. "But it's okay because they didn't get along very well. Dad was going on and on about rugby all of the time, and mum doesn't like rugby. He was the kind of person to invite her out to dinner and then, when she'd ask 'where?', he'd say 'you decide'. Relationships like that are hard to keep."
"Do you have a new mum or dad? At parents' evening last year, you were with two people."
Shawn nodded, "That must have my dad's missus. He married her last spring. She's incredible and lets me eat the stash of chocolate biscuits that dad hides from me and my little brother. I have a little brother, by the way. Step-brother actually. His name is Josh, but he calls himself Layla."
