“Do you have a favorite constellation?”
Harry and Louis were lying on the warm hood of Louis’s car, a wool blanket wrapped around their bodies. For once, the sky was clear, without clouds or fog. A thin, crescent moon hung high above, the stars dispersed across the vast, inky sky.
“Hmm?” Harry murmured.
His head lay against the crook of Louis's shoulder. The blanket didn't do much to keep out the chill. Inside of it, Harry was snug and warm. But his forehead and the top of his scalp were cold, as were his legs sticking out, below the knees. Harry had taken off his scarf. His curls scattered over Louis's neck, fanned like silky water. They tickled Louis whenever Harry moved.
“Constellation? You know, Aquarius, Gemini, Capricorn…” Louis listed lazily. “Um, besides the calendar ones, I actually can't remember any.”
“You fake!”
Louis snuggled closer to Harry. Louis knew he smelled like chili, hot dogs, and peppers, but he also knew Harry had an entire extra-large milkshake slowly leaking into his bladder. He jiggled Harry’s side to gauge his level of urgency. Harry merely scooted over, thinking Louis wanted more space. Just wait a little bit longer, Louis thought. He flung his arm over Harry’s belly and gave it a sinister squeeze.
“Isn't that the Big Dipper? Up there,” Louis asked nonchalantly. “You know. Ursa Major, the Big Bear. D’you see it?”
“Where?” Harry craned his neck, rubbing against Louis, who immediately squirmed and giggled. A curl of hair drifted near Louis’ mouth. He blew it away.
“There,” Louis pointed his hand into the air, feeling cold. “You see it? Just to the left. Looks like a pot with a long handle.”
Harry followed Louis’ finger as he traced out the constellation, the tessellation of stars so far away, it took millions of years for the light to reach earth. Some of the stars in the sky were already gone. Only their light remained, zooming through the time.
“If there's a Big Bear,” Harry asked, “is there a Little Bear?”
“Yeah, ‘course,” Louis shrugged. “Ursa Minor, isn't it?” He scanned the sky, searching across the ladle of the Great Bear to find its smaller counterpart. “See? There it is.”
He pointed it out. Polaris, the North Star, beamed out intensely from the end of the Little Dipper’s handle. It shone directly overhead, a distant, concentrated ball of fire, the way it had for billions of years, before there were people on earth, before there were dinosaurs or even trilobites.
Harry and Louis stared at the two celestial bears, mirror images flipped upside down from each other, forever suspended in a frozen dance.
“Makes you feel light,” Harry said, after a silence. “Doesn't it? Kind of free.”
“What do you mean?”
“The universe is so enormous, Lou. Earth is tiny compared to the stars, and the stars are just specks in their galaxies. It makes us almost... invisible.”
“And…” Louis turned a few millimeters toward Harry, watching him out of the corner of his eyes. Harry was looking at the sky in a dreamy way, lost in his own thoughts. Louis gave him a little nudge with his chin. “What’s your point, Curly?”
YOU ARE READING
Galileo - l.s
Fanfiction"Dangerous? Not haute?" Harry mused. "Why not haute?" "'Course you're haute, babe," Louis smiled. He reached out to fix a stray curl that had dropped down onto Harry's forehead. Harry stared at him with a dimpled smile, and Louis reared his head bac...
