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Bugs are grim, and yet Louis has a grim fascination with them.
Objectively, they are disgusting. They crawl around in the dirt, they frequently have far too many eyes, far too many legs, and a propensity to try and bite things far, far larger than themselves.
Bugs are pathetic.
Louis has started to watch them more, and it is a truth that’s become even more apparent to him recently.
The flies that get stuck in the castle try desperately to escape the confines of the stone walls and make their way back outside. None of them ever do make it out- they usually buzz around, uselessly, trying to find an exit somehow, becoming more and more desperate, exhausting their energy. Perhaps in their last few moments of life they give up hope too.
Regardless of whether flies have tenacity or thought, feeling or sentiment, it doesn’t matter- they always end up dead on the floor, the desks, or even the windowsills, an inch away from freedom. Then they get swept up by the maids.
They always try, they always keep trying- an annoying buzzing in your ear. Grandfather certainly can’t stand them, and always shoos them away.
Louis wonders if any fly has ever successfully gotten away.
Bugs always struggle, gracelessly.
Louis is currently peering at a beetle.
It’s on its back, desperately trying to right itself. Perhaps not desperately- Louis is probably ascribing too much emotion to something too small and insignificant to have a brain with any thoughts or feelings.
Without anyone to help push it back over, it really doesn’t seem to be able to flip itself upright again.
Perhaps it will die like this, struggling in the dirt, alone.
It will probably exhaust its strength- give in to exhaustion, just like all the flies. Unless a bird of prey swoops in first. Maybe that would be a mercy.
Still, Louis watches, observes.
He’s probably too invested in this. It’s not as if something as stupid as a beetle could have any deeper meaning. Still, he watches.
“Oh! There you are Louis! What’s it that you’re looking at?”
Ah, he’s found me. Louis chuckles slightly.
“Hello Noé.” He says with a small smile.
Noé hops over, and then crouches down, spotting the little brown beetle.
It’s nothing spectacular, small, plain, camouflaged in the dirt- you probably wouldn’t be able to spot it if not for it writhing in vain. Great way to be noticed by predators.
“Oh dear.” Noé says softly, with a pitying look in his eyes. Gentle, too gentle.
“Poor little thing, you must have been stuck struggling like this for a while.” Noé says, coaxingly. As if it can even comprehend the words being spoken to it. Pointless.
“Here- let me help you.”
It’s a dirty little thing, a thing that could very easily bite Noé, nip his fingers. Still, Noé pays it no heed. If he was bitten, he’d probably even apologise.
A hand reaches out.
Noé first extends his index finger, and the beetle clings onto it.
“There you are.” He says gently. “It’s alright now.”
He rotates his hand, slowly, so the beetle doesn’t get flung off, and then places it flush on the forest floor, in the dirt, allowing the beetle to scuttle off, away into the undergrowth.
With a smile, Noé brushes off his hand on his trousers. Grandfather wouldn’t be pleased.
“I know you don’t particularly like bugs Louis, but tell me if you see one stuck again, I can help.” Noé says proudly, his hands on his hips.
Louis sighs.
“You probably shouldn’t help them. It’s nature, the strong survive, the weak perish.” He says, offhandedly.
Noé frowns.
“Grandmother says kindness is a strength.” Noé proclaims at last, determined, after visibly mulling over what to say.
“Of course she did.” Louis muttered, rolling his eyes.
“And if..” Noé fiddles with his shirt hem. “If nature is harsh, and survival is difficult- it’s all the more important that we help each other right?”
“Yes, yes.” Louis sighs.
“And.. you know, since nature helps us, shouldn’t we help it back?” Noé asks.
“Alright, I get it.”
Louis goes to stand up, and walks off, hands in his pockets. Noé follows.
The two are silent a bit, before Noé pipes up again.
“Nature does help us. We are fed by the apple trees in the orchard, and the milk from the cows.” He says, firm and trying to assert his point.
Jesus, is he still talking about this? Louis drags a hand down his face in despair.
“Okay, I get-“
“And Murr helps me too. Whenever I feel sad, he gives my hair a lick. I think he must think it’s like his fur.” Noé theorises.
Louis raises an eyebrow sceptically. “I don’t think Murr exactly counts as nature. He’s an extremely spoilt house cat.”
“Well- well then…” Noé mumbles.
The two of them continue to walk back to the castle in silence.
“Romulus and Remus!” Noé blurts out.
Oh god. Louis sighs a deep and long suffering sigh.
“Yes? What about them.” He says dryly.
“Without the shewolf that nurtured the two of them, they wouldn’t have been able to go on and found Rome.” Noé declares triumphantly. “She saved their lives, and looked after them when they couldn’t fend for themselves.”
Louis stops in his tracks, and chuckles humourlessly.
He turns around to face Noé, who has tilted his head, with that confused look on his face.
“You say that as if the two of them went on to found Rome together.” He mutters bitterly.
Noé’s face falls a little.
“You do remember what actually happened to Remus right?” He says, tone dark.
Noé looks away. “I do…”
“Someone should have told the shewolf ahead of time.” Louis said, turning around again, away from Noé, and dismissively waving his hand. “Told her not to bother. Told her that it was pointless to waste her precious milk on someone who was going to die anyway.”
Louis couldn’t see Noé behind him as he walked, though he could quite clearly imagine him now, hands balled up into fists at his side, frustration on his face.
“It! It wasn’t pointless!” Noé exclaims.
“Of course it was. What good came of it anyway? What happened to her precious twins? One bludgeoned the other to death, and went on to found an empire that brutalised the world for several hundred more years to come.”
That shut Noé up.
They continued to walk in a heavy silence, before he heard Noé stop behind him.
“It’s not pointless. It’s never pointless to care.” He whispered. He sounded like he was on the verge of crying.
Louis was feeling mean.
“I bet the beetle’s just going to flip itself over again, and starve to death on its back. You probably wasted your time.” He muttered darkly.
The words slip out, cutting and cruel. As intended of course- by design.
He doesn’t know what to expect- well vaguely he does. Noé will either cry, or shout at him, maybe both. Still, this is several degrees more harsh than he normally behaves. It’s somewhat new territory.
Instead, Noé whispers.
“I don’t understand.”
He doesn’t even sound like he’s crying.
It makes Louis feel a little shiver down his spine. He stops. Though he doesn’t turn to face Noé.
“Please can you tell me.. please tell me what’s going on.” Noé says. Though he doesn’t sound frightened, doesn’t sound hurt, doesn’t sound angry.
Horrified, Louis realises it’s like how he talked to the beetle.
“I know you’re cynical.. because you’re smart, you know so much more than me… but still. You never acted like this before. I can tell something’s really upset you.”
Louis feels black smoke wind its way round his neck, as if reminding him.
He can’t tell Noé a thing- that, now that would truly be too cruel.
He stands in silence.
“Louis. Louis please , talk to me”
Noé is far, far too perceptive for his own good, far too trusting, too faithful.
“…It’s not something I’ve done is it?”
Louis turns around.
“No! Noé, for God’s sake of course not.”
Noé is looking at him sadly. Louis’ eyes burn.
Louis is the stupid beetle- Louis is the fly, thrashing its wings in the knowledge that it is dying. Louis is the stupid fucking fly, running out of energy. He’s so, so tired.
“Louis...” Noé murmurs.
Louis sobs.
He hears crunching grass, Noé walking over, all grace and compassion, like a saint.
Noé is just a little shorter than Louis, though he’s growing fast, at a faster rate than sickly little Louis ever could. In a couple years it’s an inevitability that Noé will surpass his height, if Louis lives to see that day.
Louis is crying, his nose running, hunched up and shuddering and crying like a stupid child. He’s nearly thirteen, he knows he can’t be acting like this. He wonders if he’ll make it to fourteen, though he doesn’t believe he can. Doesn’t think he has the energy left.
Noé does not say ‘it’s okay’, because perhaps, deep down, he knows it isn’t. Perhaps the deep, permeating dread that Louis feels every day, every second, stronger and stronger, is contagious.
Noé just wraps his arms around Louis and pulls him to his chest.
Like this, Louis hunched over, and Noé stood up straight, Louis is the smaller one, tucked into a chest like something precious. Hands soothing over his back and through his hair with far, far more emotional intelligence than an eleven year old should ever have. Noé knows suffering more intimately than anyone his age should, he holds Louis in his arms like he knows, and Louis knows that he does in fact know.
He cries harder.
The two of them, what are they? Bugs, huddling beneath a log? Birds sheltering together. Both bugs and birds have wings. Either way- Louis’ would be broken. Chitinous cells, fractured beyond repair- frayed feathers, broken bones.
One day Noé will fly off, and Louis will not ever be able to leave this place.
He clings on, harder to Noé.
He is so tired, so tired.
Noé does not say anything the whole time- perhaps he’s worried to say the wrong thing, or perhaps there’s nothing left to say. He holds Louis tighter.
Indulging- that is what Louis is doing, giving in, but he’s too tired not too. He relents in Noé’s arms.
They stand there like that for a while, silence aside from Louis’ pitiful sobs.
Noé does not deserve this, nor the recent way Louis has been behaving, not at all.
Guilt blooms in Louis’ chest.
“I’m sorry.” He says, voice wet and raw.
Noé hesitates before saying “It’s okay.” Even Louis can tell Noé doesn’t believe his own words. Louis is not okay, the way he’s been treating Noé is not okay- none of this is okay, but what else can they do?
“I really am sorry.” He whispers, just enough for Noé to hear.
Noé strokes his hair.
“… Could you.. tell me what’s going on?” He asks.
No, I cannot, not ever, Louis thinks, tired. Even as he loses himself, even as his mind unravels, he cannot tell him, can’t indulge in confidence. He cannot hurt Noé with the truth.
“I’m just tired.” He says at last. There are dark bags beneath his eyes, it’s probably convincing.
“Have you not been sleeping well?” Noé asks, concern written plainly on his face. He’s always been an open book. “You could always come and sleep with me- or I could come to sleep with you.”
“We’re too old for that.” Louis says. “And I don’t think that’s it anyway.”
No amount of sleeping will fix this- it’s not a lie.
“Are you feeling unwell then, Louis?” Noé says, with a nervous sound in his voice. Louis knows why.
“Something like that.”
“…Should I tell Teacher?”
“He already knows.” I’m ‘sick’, remember?
“Oh.” Noé says.
He sounds put out. Of course- he truly believes his ‘teacher’ could do anything, solve anything. Louis has to fight to stop a bitter smile from creeping onto his face.
Noé’s face softens. “If you’re not feeling well, then we probably shouldn’t stay outside for too long, especially while it’s cold. And you’re feeling tired too- let’s go inside.”
Again, his voice is coaxing.
“Okay.” Louis mumbles, tired.
—-
It’s warm back in the castle.
Noé lead him gently, like some kind of geriatric dog. Led him by the hand.
He hates this place, but he loves Noé, and one will always win in the end.
Noé pats on the end of the divan, motioning for Louis to sit.
He does.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” Noé says softly, as if Louis is something very fragile, as if he were a bug.
Louis nods.
Noé is very quick, even without using the world formula. He returns from upstairs with a blanket in hand. Presumably taken from his own bedroom.
He plops himself down next to Louis.
He reaches to hold Louis’ hands.
“Hmm. They’re still quite cold, you could do with warming up a bit more.” Noé says, with the self assuredness of a doctor assessing a patient.. or something. Louis hasn’t actually ever seen a doctor, he’s not sure.
When Noé gently tugs on his sleeve, Louis realises what he wishes. Noé deserves to at least have that much fulfilled, after everything Louis’ put him through.
He relents, letting himself be pulled down, lying next to Noé, lying partially on him.
Noé shifts, pulling the thick blanket up and over the two of them. It’s heavy, pleasant and warm.
There’s enough space for them both, and Louis is bracketed between the back of the divan and Noé’s body. It feels nice, surprisingly, concerningly.
They’re too old to be acting like this, probably old enough to cause whispers being this intimate with one another but Louis is too tired to care, too tired to push Noé away for both their sakes.
Noé’s face is close to his. When he chuckles contentedly, his breath tickles Louis’ face, he feels the laugh resound softly through both their bodies.
Louis is too tired to mull over how he doesn’t deserve this, too tired to protest the hands starting to gently card through his hair.
He relents, once again.
Warm and surrounded in warmth, he lets himself give in.