Til The Last Star Sputters

Chapter 1

     They sat there, elbow to elbow yet miles away, one scribbling with an intensity that almost scorched the table, the other suave but trembling inside.  

        I want to know everything about him, Nicholaus Schultz decided, if only to annoy him.  

        His voice looks like melted gold, Levi silently whimpered, but continued to hide his secret.

      They didn’t know, not yet.  They didn’t realize that one day they would tear each other apart in the most delicious way possible, that Nicholaus would rip his own heart out if Levi asked nicely, that Levi would begin to fucking shake when Nicholaus said his name.  They didn’t know, they didn’t know, they never even saw it coming.

        They would burn, and they would burn brightly.  They would live and they would laugh and they would be together, for a time, but all candles melt eventually, just as theirs would.

But for now, they were only children, innocent and afraid.  

***

        They settled into a routine after that first day.  Nicholaus would arrive first every single time, pull out the project he had been working on the previous day, and eventually, began grabbing Levi’s too.  Levi was always at least ten minutes late to class- Nicholaus tried asking why one day but Levi didn’t answer, just silently began painting.  They never discussed it again.  The teacher only wrote him up once, but after that first day, she stopped.

        It was intriguing, but almost everything about Levi was.  He was six-dimensional, glacial and mysterious in a way he certainly never intended to be- Nicholaus knows he wouldn’t put up with half of the things Levi spits at him if it wasn’t for his curiosity.  Levi is an anomaly, and Nicholaus can’t stand it.  Who knows what’s beneath the tip of the iceberg?  He has to find out.

        Then, Levi would sit next to him, completely silent, as always.  He had a rather clunky mp3 player that he would use whenever the teacher wasn’t looking, the cord of his headphones hidden by the hood of his dark hoodie.  He didn’t follow directions well- a week after the class began, the teacher assigned them to create ‘name art’- it was a simple, stupid assignment, but Nicholaus did it anyways, spelling out ‘Nicholaus’ in big block letters across the paper and using oil crayons to color it in with varying shades of blue.  He scribbled in doodles of baseballs and cars around the letters- things he was supposed to like, was expected to like, but really truly hated.  Levi, however, had created a beautiful mess on his paper.  He had raided the classroom despite the teacher’s directions to keep it simple, and was taking up most of the table space with a hot glue gun and a pile of crayon stubs.  Nicholaus had heard the rapid scribbling but hadn’t investigated.  Now, he could see that Levi had drawn a deceptively messy collage of only four colors- a dark turquoise blue melted into a slightly darker shade, which then blended into a dark chocolate brown.  The brown gave way to a pleasant shade of lemon-yellow.  It was an odd mix of colors but somehow aesthetically pleasing.  

“What’s that?” Nicholaus asked, nodding towards the mystifying paper.

Levi glanced up at him, his brow furrowed in frustration.  “Are you stupid?  It’s my name.”  

“O-oh.  Sorry.  I didn’t-”

“That’s yours?  Just blue?”  Levi looked at him curiously, and it’s odd- there’s something in his eyes, something close to sympathy.  “Each letter is the same?”

“Well… yes.  Why wouldn’t it be?”  Nicholaus tread carefully and stared hard at Levi- perhaps too hard.  The other boy looked back down at his paper, his face fracturing just a bit.

“What about my name?”

“What about it?” Nicholaus asked.

“Oh,” Levi whispered to himself, as if that had answered some unspoken question.  “Oh.”

“Levi?”  When he didn’t answer, he probed further.  “Levi, are you okay?”

“Just-just keep your gigantic nose out of it for once, damn it-” his voice cracked and Levi grabbed a corner of the paper, and crumpled it slightly with suddenly clumsy fingers.  “I… this is shit,” he murmured, and then repeated it, even louder.

Before Nicholaus could stop him, before he can tell him it’s really quite beautiful, he crushed it into a ball with his fist, then, slowly but with incredible determination, ripped it apart, piece by piece.  His face was flushed dark red and his eyes were wet, but Nicholaus doesn’t make fun of it, he just repeated Levi’s name- out loud, maybe, or perhaps it’s just inside his head.  Either way, Levi didn’t respond, and let the mess fall out of his fist, fluttering into a disorganized heap on the wooden table.

“Levi?” he said, and he’s positive he said it out loud this time.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he muttered, and pressed a fist against the hard line of his mouth.

The table crackled with Levi’s anger even after he was gone.  Nicholaus wasn’t sure what had just happened, but maybe he didn’t have to.  Quietly, but with purpose, he slid the remains of Levi’s work over to his side of the table and grabbed the glue.  The tip of his tongue peeked out of his mouth as he slowly but surely began to piece the mess back together, as best he could.  It was difficult, very much so- the work had barely made sense even when it was whole, and Nicholaus could only pray that he was piecing it together in a way that would do justice to Levi’s original craftsmanship.

Levi didn’t come back when the bell rang.

***

“What the fuck is this, Schultz?” Levi seethed quietly, a tiny ball of anger that was currently holding up the paper that Nicholaus had painstakingly pieced back together the night before.

“It was too good for your temper tantrum to ruin,” Nicholaus said easily, shrugging a bit as shut his locker.

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“I know.”

“Then why-”

“You would’ve been more upset if I hadn’t done it.  Do us both a favor and stop pretending to be angry.  I can tell your heart isn’t in it.”  Nicholaus grinned at Levi, trying to put him at ease, but if anything that made the intensity of his anger heat up a few more degrees.

“Urgh!” Levi shouted.  It wasn’t English but he didn’t care.  “You gigantic fucking piece of-”

“Language!” a passing teacher called.

“Oh my god.  Schultz, that’s not the point.  I owe you something now.  I don’t like-”

“Consider it a favor.  Free of charge.”

“Stop fucking interrupting me.  You and I both know that’s not how it works.  Just… take it back.  I don’t want it.  It’s garbage.”  Levi thrust the paper into Nicholaus’s chest- surprisingly solid, his subconscious noted- and backed away, his hands in the air like a criminal.  “Don’t give it back this time.  It’s…”  He made an unintelligible noise and turned on his heel, strode down the hallway and tried so hard to ignore Nicholaus’s smile that was boring into his back.        

Nicholaus stared down at the paper in his hands, an odd sort of fluttering making a home in his chest.  He didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t care to give the emotion a name.  He knew it was wrong, he knew it was bad, but try as he might, he couldn’t push away the satisfaction that doing a simple favor for the little grump produced.