i would name the stars for you [e.c]

prologue

1 year before

& &

It is the strangest of feelings when love falls apart.

Strange in the sense that you hurt until you feel numb, until you feel nothing at all.

Hollywood lusts after drama; loves a violent end with screaming and cursing and crying in the rain and that one final plea for forgiveness.

But the just-not-quite-right kind of love? The kind of love between two people who settle for one another, for comfort and familiarity over passion and risk? That love simply fades away, softly and slowly, like a shadow into the night.

At first, all you see is the sun, warm and comfortable and familiar. You let the false tendrils of hope wrap themselves around your heart, and ignore the impending darkness, the black spots that creep along the edges of your vision, the inevitable ending in which you both realize that your puzzle pieces were of a similar shape but never a perfect fit.  And so, eventually the sun sets and you‒ blinded by the false light of a complacent love‒ don't feel the chill of dusk until it's much too late. And then it is dark and you are, all at once, completely alone.

You become a husk of your former self‒ empty and withering, roots yanked out by Fate's cruel hand‒ clinging onto something that is already gone. You ask yourself who you could possibly be in a world without them, and find the answer in the torn pieces of a photograph featuring your brilliant smile, but hollow unhappy eyes. You are incomplete, one-third of a whole instead of the perfect half you were meant to be... But eventually, you find your soul too weak to even grasp at those waning memories of love and bliss, and it is then that you are forced to let go.

You allow the remnants of what you once were to be tossed and turned in the winds of time, a little lost soul drifting aimlessly amongst a sea of people, almost dead but unfortunately not quite. And then you tell all of your friends that you've moved on, tell your mum that she needn't worry any longer, and trick yourself into pretending that everything's okay. You make them believe you, politely refuse their offers of help until eventually they stop coming. If you're destined to be alone, you reason, you ought to well and truly detach yourself from everyone you love.

Because what is real love if yours didn't turn out to be?
(You promise yourself you'll never get hurt again.)

And then you flock to the clubs and get shamelessly drunk, picking up anonymous fucks and pretending that they don't all bear an uncanny resemblance to... to... and you lie to yourself, say you forgot the name when it's burning like flames on the tip of your tongue. But the curls aren't curly enough or the eyes are the wrong shade of blue or the feel of those calloused fingertips against your skin is either too rough or not there at all. And you try to forget but you can't, try to love again but you won't, try to live again when you haven't got the heart to.

They are quick to teach you- just as soon as you depart from the seemingly endless fantasy of childhood- that the world is an inherently cruel place. There are drug dealers and thieves prowling the streets at night, hoping to plant the seeds of rebellion in your naïve adolescent brain. There are rapists around every corner waiting to steal your innocence and murderers plotting to end your life. They speak of terrorists and tyrants and nuclear weapons, of genocide and war and forced prostitution. News headlines flash with horrific tales of kidnappings and sexual abuse. But they never say a word about the tragedy of lost love.

They wouldn't want to scare you after all...
So they tell you, instead, that every good and loving person gets their happy ending.
Even when you don't.

& l &

And so it is by the most tragic and unfortunate of circumstances that one Louis Tomlinson, aged twenty-two and recently freed from an onslaught of insufferable uni courses for a Masters in English he's not entirely sure he needed, finds himself standing in front of an abandoned two-level shop in London. It's in horrible shape, really– the display windows are shattered jagged pieces of glass jutting out like the teeth of some ghastly beast, and the hand-carved wooden sign above the door is covered in so many layers of graffiti as to bear an uncanny resemblance to Raindrops #4 by the prolific, but decidedly less criminal, Bruce Gray. There's a faded awning attached on only its right side, waving in the breeze like a tattered post-war banner, and an equally as devastated-looking black wrought iron fence lining the short, cobblestone walkway. He likes it, he decides, sizing up the ostensibly derelict exterior.

It has character.

He steps gingerly over the holes in the walkway as– quite predictably– more than a few cobblestones are missing, and hops up three cement steps to the front stoop. He digs in his pocket for a moment and eventually produces a rusty golden key, the likes of the flying keys in one of those Harry Potter movies‒ minus the wings of course. The lock on the shop's decrepit door is as equally old and rusty, layers of paint peeling all around it like strips of wallpaper or skin, he supposes, in a more morbid sense of the word (he is a writer after all, pay no mind to such artistic comparisons). It takes several attempts before he finally manages to jam the key in the lock, having to jiggle the knob quite violently to release the latch.

He supposes the neighboring shopkeepers ought to think he's some sort of traveling vagabond, breaking into an abandoned shop to smoke some pot and sleep for a week or two.

Better they think I'm mad and keep away, he muses, than have them flocking to my door like pigeons with their incessant chatter.
With one final groan of protest, the heavy door swings open, revealing an inner sanctum untouched by human hands for nearly twenty years. No one wanted this property, he was told, and that's exactly why he bought it. The foreboding two-story brownstone lies squeezed between a quirky thrift store painted a cheery yellow and kitschy self-proclaimed "sex emporium" called Kitty's– its sign an outline of a provocatively posed young woman highlighted in pink neon. Tucked away in a nearly-hidden side street in inner-London's artsy Camden Town, it's neither the most accessible nor ideal of business locations. The real estate agent had sold it to him for little more than £20,000‒ an absolute steal despite its dreadful condition. He hadn't even visited the residence, bought it solely from verbal description alone. The agent had thought he was joking at first, but once she'd established his genuine interest, there was little to do but sign a few papers and he was settled.

Apparently, she'd been just as eager to get rid of the property as he was to buy it...
A swirling cloud of dust erupts as he shuffles inside the front door. Rats scurry about in a panic, dodging the sun's rays under oddly-shaped lumps draped in‒ what were probably once starched white‒ linen sheets. The floor, the walls, everything really, is covered in a thick layer of fuzzy, grey dust. He absentmindedly runs a finger across one of the lumps as he walks by and is genuinely surprised when the object in question is not some sort of furry deceased animal but, in fact, just an old bureau. So, despite the dirt and the mess and the obvious need for repairs, Louis finds that he's already fallen in love.

It's perfect, he thinks, and for the first time since... well since it happened, he feels himself genuinely smile.

To any passive observer, his recent purchase would seem quite the foolish decision, judging by the property's absolutely deplorable condition. But one final glance at the precariously hung chandelier and the peeling wallpaper and the moldy floorboards does nothing but convince Louis that he's found himself a brilliant new opportunity.

Generally speaking, if he cannot fix himself‒ an undertaking which has thus far proven thoroughly impossible‒ he can at least fix something.

a/n: updated 07/07/2021