A/N: That's Nijinsky in the left panel of the collage.
WARNING: sexual content (I tried to keep it classy. It was a struggle...)
The curtain fell and Harry was gone.
Like the sorcerer Von Rothbart he vanished into smoke.
I knew something was wrong the second he took his final bow. He went down on one knee, hand over heart, and refused to look up at the audience, refused to acknowledge that it was over.
I didn't see him backstage. I wandered the dressing rooms as dancers received bouquets of flowers and popped champagne, their sweat and melting stage makeup smearing against my cheek as we kissed and congratulated each other.
Harry's dressing room was empty but I found his costume neatly folded over the back of his chair.
I stuck my head into the studios. They were all empty.
I could hear everyone making plans to meet up at the Lowlander.
I got changed into my suit. Could he have gone to the pub ahead of us?
I signed some programmes in the atrium and shook the hands of a few noted patrons before tearing myself away.
Harry's name sailed in the air like an aria. A group of London critics stood in a circle by the bar discussing the ballet. No matter how good the show was, this clique of writers always managed to find one tiny detail to hungrily latch onto and rip to pieces. They were like a pack of velociraptors in suits and evening gowns. Tonight, however, they gushed about every detail and it was no secret that the mastermind behind the ballet was Harry himself.
On the way to the door I ran into Jeffrey. He was wearing a tux, his shock of blonde hair windswept.
"Sorry," I said. "I'm looking for Harry."
Jeffrey crossed his arms. "Is that supposed to bother me? Well, it doesn't. I'm over you, Louis Tomlinson. I have a new boyfriend." He pointed to a corps dancer wearing an identical tux.
"Jeffrey, I really have to go."
He tossed his head theatrically. "Good show tonight. Harry was decent, though Winston and I found the performance a bit overwrought, didn't we Winston?"
"I'm going."
"Wait!" His bright blue eyes flashed with mischief. "I have gossip."
Ugh. When did Jeffrey not have gossip?
"I told you, stop spreading rumors!"
He couldn't help himself. "Kenneth is being forced out. He's getting a handsome package, but the board wants him gone by next season."
I put my hands on my hips. "And who exactly told you this?"
"Only everybody. The board thinks Kenneth mismanaged Maurice, Liam, Beauchamp and the whole Harry situation. They're appointing someone else next month."
His intel didn't sounded totally off but I wasn't ready to believe him either. Would they fire Kenneth so soon after Beauchamp was extradited to France? It was bad optics, and who would run the company?
Harry wasn't at the Lowlander.
Niall, Gigi, Zayn and Eleanor got a table at the back of the darkened pub. They waved me over. They were chattering excitedly about Harry's grand vision and how revolutionary his final solo was, but none of them had seen him since curtain call. He was all anyone could talk about yet nobody was concerned about him. I guess that was what it meant to create great art: he had created something greater than himself.
I told them I had to go look for Harry and left.
I was surrounded by people all night and now I was completely alone walking the streets of London with my hands in my pockets. I rounded the corner to our building. It was a clear night for once, the Thames glassy and still. Our flat was empty. Where could he be? I'd moved about half of my stuff to his place, most of it still in boxes. I picked up a framed photo of us on the side table. We were fifteen, one of the few that I'd saved.
I knew where I could find him.
I took a taxi across town to the Royal Ballet School. The second I stepped on campus I felt a wave of nostalgia. The place was so different yet exactly the same. Everything looked smaller but that was impossible. No, I had gotten bigger. The noticeboards and lit pathways made the place feel institutional, when I remembered it being a palace, the students its knights and queens.
Harry was in the courtyard leaning against a stone wall, looking every bit the nobleman in a black high-collared button down with pleated slacks.
He tapped the glass window to our old studio. "It's locked," he said.
Harry wasn't wearing his jacket. I took off mine and tried to put it over his shoulders but he brushed me away.
"What are you doing here?" I said.
He looked away, wounded.
"Are you mad at me?"
"You took my wings."
I sighed.
Harry was not what I would call a rational person. He had his own emotional logic that ran like a clock in a foreign time zone. Once, when we were in school, he didn't speak to me for a whole week because I was mean to him in a dream.
"I'm sorry I took your wings."
He wriggled the latch on the locked window. He was desperate to get inside, like if he could just go back to the place where it all began he could change his destiny. But much like the past, the studio was inaccessible to us. I stood beside him and we both peered inside. It was dark. We could only make out vague shapes like the barre against the west wall.
Harry pointed. "That's where he picked me. Beauchamp. That's where he picked me to go to Paris." He slumped against the glass defeated by fate.
I put an arm around him. "No, that's where I picked you! Don't you remember? That's where you were standing the very first time I saw you. You were in my spot wearing those ridiculous footed tights and I thought to myself, 'I'm going to make that boy mine.'"
"You did not think that," he sniffed.
"Yes, I did! Why do you think I waited for you after class? Why do you think I invited you back to my dorm room?"
"You were just being nice."
"I'm not that nice."
Harry turned to hide his smile.
"You were so curly and cute! Oh my God, I adored you from the very first second I laid eyes on you!"
I was embarrassing him. Harry tried to run away but I grabbed his hands and led him to a bench in the courtyard.
"You want to know what else? You were a terrible dancer! The worst! And that made me love you even more!"
He laughed and folded his hands in his lap. "So, you're not disappointed that you won't be dating a famous dancer anymore?"
I waved my hand dismissively. "I didn't fall in love with a famous dancer. I fell in love with a curly-haired boy who couldn't do a grand plié."
Harry linked his arm through mine. "Thank you, Louis."
"Let's go home."
In the taxi, we debriefed about the performance. I told him how the critics gushed about his dancing, but above all his daring interpretation of Swan Lake.
Harry was content with this news though not surprised. He didn't press me for details. Instead he rested his head on my chest and said, "Tell me again the story of how you picked me."
I swept the curls off his forehead and told him the story again from the very beginning. I would tell him the story as many times as he needed to hear it.
Our flat was dim, with only trails of light on the wall from passing cars outside. I took his hand and we went straight upstairs.
I helped Harry out of his clothes. He was wearing an Italian-made men's blouse with a zillion buttons, and pleated pants that inexplicably zipped up on the side. I undid the tiny buttons down his chest and then the cuffs, exposing the pale flesh of his wrists. I slid the blouse off his shoulders and kissed his neck. Normally, a gesture like this was enough to make him throw me on the bed and fuck me to within an inch of my life. He was different tonight. He waited patiently for me to continue undressing him. I undid his pants and steadied him as he unhooked them from his ankles.
He was still waiting.
I glanced down at his body and slipped his boxerbriefs off his narrow hips.
Harry turned around slowly. He bowed his head like he did on stage earlier that night. I kissed the smooth white plane of his back where his wings were once fixed.
He climbed onto the bed naked, on his hands and knees.
He wanted to.
It was time.
I tried to act like I hadn't been thinking about this moment every second of every day for weeks but it was hopeless. I tore off my shirt, pants and boxers with none of the care I showed Harry's clothes and threw them aside. I followed him onto the bed like a man possessed.
I was too excited to touch him. I admired his body, spellbound. He was so perfectly exposed, offering himself to me like a gift.
He looked over his shoulder helplessly. "Take me."
This was how it was with Harry. One of us was the man and the other had to be the monster.
"I don't want to be your monster."
He lowered his head in submission. "Take me."
"It doesn't have to be this way."
"I don't know any other way to be!"
Gently, I guided him onto his back. "Let me teach you."
I straddled him, my heavy thighs framing his slimmer ones. My chest pressed against his and I kissed him. Lips lax and wet, he let my tongue fill his mouth.
He felt my excitement against his thigh and unfurled his legs beneath me. "I'm ready."
"I'm not."
Harry deserved someone who would go slow and care for him and care about his pleasure.
My gaze fell over his lithe body, broken but strong, the body that brought him so much pain, and so much joy to others.
The body he sacrificed for me.
Tearfully, I kissed his cheek. My lips skimmed down his sternum to the tender flesh of his belly.
He lifted his hands like he didn't know how they worked in this context. Then he ran his fingers through my hair.
I nosed his pointy hipbone, my mouth's proximity to another sensitive part of him made his chest rise and fall quickly.
I hooked my arms underneath his thighs and drew him toward me. He licked his lips in anticipation. I buried my face in his inner thigh relishing the pillowy softness of his body. I kissed his length and went back to nuzzling his thigh.
This both delighted and confused him. "Louis!"
I kissed his length again and he placed a hand playfully on my head. I loved teasing him but not tonight. I took all of him into my mouth at once and he threw his arms back in ecstasy.
"Oh God!"
I felt my own deep desire gnawing at me.
I released him from my mouth and slid my lips down to his entrance.
He gasped. "I'm ready."
I looked up and kissed his thigh. "No, you're not. You're still tense."
"I don't care if it hurts."
"I care."
I placed my lips on his entrance again. He loved it when I did this but he was embarrassed that he loved it, which was impossibly cute. I couldn't resist. I wanted to do all of the things he secretly loved best.
I licked and kissed him adoringly until he fell open for me like a flower.
Kneeling between his legs, I examined him, his cheeks pink, his dark hair splayed on the pillow.
I hesitated. I didn't want to be just another person in his life who took pleasure in him. If he didn't enjoy it I knew he wouldn't tell me. He would keep it locked inside himself, in his menagerie of painful memories.
Harry sat up. He placed his hands on my hips and guided me toward him. It was then I realized that it wasn't up to me. It was his decision and if I didn't respect that than I was no better than all those other men who ignored what he wanted.
I reached into the nightstand for the lube and began to coat his tiny entrance. As I was about to breach him with my finger to prep him, he stopped me.
"No, I don't want your hands. I want... you."
"I'll hurt you."
"You won't. I trust you."
He had more faith in me than I had in myself. Just the thought of entering him untouched made me tremble.
I laced my fingers through his and pressed his hands onto the mattress.
Harry eyed my body, his knee bent boyishly, as innocent as he was seductive.
I pushed myself inside of him and lost whatever was left of my sanity.
He felt too good. Too tight. Too soft. Too much of everything I'd always wanted.
His full lips parted.
"Oh, Harry."
He was so tight I couldn't move without hurting him. But I needed to move, I needed more of him. I released his hands and pressed his thighs apart.
His eyes widened.
"Can I go deeper?" I whispered desperately.
"Deeper," he breathed. "I want that."
Very, very carefully, I eased into him. I wanted to thrust inside of him so badly I was sweating. I knew he would let me do whatever I wanted, but what I wanted most of all was to make him feel good.
When our bodies were finally flush, my sweaty brow collapsed onto his chest.
I felt his fingers claw at my back. I looked up. I was afraid I might see panic or chilling blankness.
I saw desire.
"Kiss me!" he cried.
My lips caught his.
I thrust inside him.
His head rolled back and he sighed like an angel.
My dark angel.
I rolled my hips, moving inside him slow and deep. He was overwhelmed and clung to the back of my neck.
He had tears in his eyes. I couldn't tell if they were tears of sadness, joy or both. I knew I had to let him feel whatever it was he was feeling, but he needed to know what I was feeling too: love. Like a prayer, I murmured, "I love you, Harry. You mean everything to me. My beautiful Lysander. My precious boy..."
He was a quiet lover, but every soft moan, each tiny cry, shook like thunder inside me.
I was getting close. We were getting close.
I stopped and slid out of him.
"Why are you stopping!"
I turned him on his side. "I want to hold you when we come."
"Oh." He smiled shyly.
I curled up behind him. He took my hand and held it against his heart. I kissed the back of his head, his dark curls deliciously mussed with sweat.
I entered him again. He gasped at the change of sensation.
I could move deeper and more freely in this position and he wanted me to. He lifted his head, lips red as berries, lashes batting heavily against his flushed cheeks. He was everything I imagined he would be and more. I never told Harry my fantasy but it was this. It was Harry giving me that look while I was inside him.
I held him tightly against my chest. We rocked together on the bed, Harry's soft cries becoming more and more urgent. I slowed down to prolong his pleasure, but it felt too good for him in this position. He loved that I was so deep and he loved being held. He needed release.
I thrust into him as deeply as I could and he came with a throaty sigh. "Louis!"
His sweet little sigh was too much for me. I spilled inside of him with total and complete adoration. It was like all of my love for him had burst into a supernova. I was shattered in the most spectacular way.
It took me several minutes to regain my composure. Shakily, I looked over at Harry. His eyes were closed and he was breathing into the pillow.
I untangled my body from his and he reached back longingly. He still wouldn't look at me. He usually strutted around like a peacock after sex. He was different now, softer and unsure of himself.
Eventually he roused and peered at me over the pillow. "I belong to you now?"
I nodded. "How do you feel?"
"Tired," he said, through a dimpled smile. "It's exhausting belonging to you."
I took in his sore, naked body, his long pale legs crossed coquettishly at the ankle.
"Oh Harold, you don't know the meaning of tired. I've barely gotten started."
He laughed and wrestled me down beside him. I was worried he would return to that dark corner of his heart after we did this but he was glowing.
"I liked it," he whispered, even though we were completely alone. "I didn't think it could feel that way."
"It can, Harry. It should. You deserve all the pleasure in the world!"
He curled his long slender fingers around my wrist. "I only want you to pleasure me. I'm yours, remember."
My chest heaved. I wanted him again. Fuck.
His grip was weak. He blinked lazily at me. He was too tired. I moved to pull the sheet over us but I'd made a mess of him earlier and, sexy as it was, I couldn't leave him like that.
I went into the blue-tiled bathroom, washed myself quickly and fetched him a damp towel.
He set the alarm for me. I had a matinee the next day and had to be at the opera house in the morning. Harry didn't have anywhere to be. This was the first day of the rest of his life.
He thumbed the scar on his knee. "Nijinsky went mad when he stopped dancing. Do you think I'll go mad?"
"Good God, Harry, seven years as a dancer and you still don't know a thing about Nijinsky! He didn't go mad because he stopped dancing. He went mad because he split from his lover Sergei Diaghilev. I'll never let you leave me, so you have nothing to worry about."
He beamed.
Harry cleaned himself up with the towel and tossed it aside. I pulled the sheet over him so that it pooled around his waist. I stayed up. I always waited for him to fall asleep first because I knew he didn't like to be alone with his thoughts.
"Tell me again," he yawned. "Tell me the story of how you picked me."
I stroked his hair and spoke softly. "I was late to class, I walked through the studio door and there you were, standing in my spot in your silly footed tights with your dark curls and your green eyes, and I said to myself, 'I'm going to make that boy mine...'"
A/N: I'm getting very sentimental as I near the end of this fic, in case you couldn't tell from this chapter. It was supposed to be much darker but I turned into a puddle while writing it.
Only 1 more chapter to go!
I really wish someone would write a historical romance about Nijinsky and Diaghilev. I would read the hell out of that book.