Collision // Larry Stylinson - itjustkindahappened

chapter 7

"Tell me about yourselves, dears. How did you get here?" she asks them, and Louis smiles nervously.

"My name is Louis, and this is Harry—I already told you that—and... Well. We're not exactly sure of how this happened, it's all a bit hard to comprehend still," he shrugs, fumbling to come up with a quick, believable lie. "I was just casually spinning by the well and keeping a small conversation with Harry, when I pricked my finger on the needle! And the pain was so sudden I fell backwards still clenching the spindle tightly, and Harry was sitting right next to me so I tried to hold onto him, but then we both fell instead."

Mother Hulda nods appreciatively, resting her chin on the back of her hand. "And what's your relation to each other? You're not from the Forest," she turns to Harry. "Are you from Grimm then?"

Louis holds back an eye roll and opens his mouth to tell her that, no, Harry is definitely not from anywhere near Grimm, but Harry gets there before him, and his answer takes Louis aback so much that his mind is sweeped entirely blank of any response.

"No, I'm not," Harry looks down on his hands, and Louis swears he looks... Bashful. It fits his face; he reminds Louis of a budding rose. This cannot possibly end well. "I don't belong to Grimm at all, really. I'm from the Greek. I'm—I'm just here for him, really."

Harry nods in Louis direction, a small, timid smile carefully starting to play on his lips. Louis feels his jaw drop momentarily, and though he immediately snaps it shut again before Mother Hulda notices, warning bells start ringing in his ears. What the—?

Mother Hulda's full attention is now on the spirit, too, and she leans almost unnoticeably forward in interest. "Really?"

"Yeah." Harry meets Louis' alarmed stare with a gaze so steady and calm not a single bat of an eyelash interferes with it. Louis has absolutely no idea what he's trying to do. "I don't know, we met at the University of the Three and it just—it felt right, you know? Right away."

Louis has to physically press his tongue to the roof of his mouth to suppress a quip about how Harry has a very funny definition of something 'feeling right'.

But then Harry decides that apparently what he's doing isn't already enough—so he reaches out over the table to intertwine his long finger with Louis' small ones. Louis may genuinely pass out. He doesn't dare saying anything, though, because the only thing that could possibly make this worse would be revealing that it's a sham. Mother Hulda's teeth scare him way too much to take a chance on such a revelation.

So Louis sits quietly on his chair and lets Harry hold his hand. Which is, you know. Completely fine. Louis' hands were kind of cold anyway. It's not like it's a big deal; just hand holding between two enemies. Staged hand holding. Louis holds hands with a lot of people. He quite enjoys hand holding, actually. Which is the only reason this is not uncomfortable for him. Even if it's with someone he hates. Because hand holding isn't a big deal.

He's unnecessarily overthinking this.

"He's," Harry bites his lip a little. "He's the love of my life, I reckon."

Louis whips his head away from the two other creatures to ensure only the floor will bear witness to the momentarily lost control over his facial expressions, then, because he's pretty sure his eyes are just barely holding on to their sockets at this point. He squeezes Harry's hand as hard as he can in an attempt to convey the exact feeling of 'what the hell are you doing?' without using words or obscene gestures. Harry doesn't bestow even the slightest glance upon him in return, but merely keeps smiling softly at Mother Hulda.

Hulda reciprocates it easily, admiring eyes moving between the two creatures before her. Louis presses a grin upon his features as well. The hands down weirdest thing about this is that Hulda genuinely believes this. She has no qualms with thinking that they're lovers.