2sometimes, when the sky was grey, he felt better.
when the ground was dry and cracking and pieces of rock got stuck in his feet, when the wind couldn't make up its mind to blow stale air in his face, when his hands were scraped raw by trying to pull himself up the tree, but he ended up falling to the ground with aching palms. he didn't feel angry. he didn't feel particularly great either.
he felt human.
(if human was an emotion.)
sometimes, when the sky was pouring down enough water to fill the ocean, he sat on the porch and watched.
the air would wind itself around him and chill him to the bone, and his bare feet would turn white from the harsh cold. he'd sit there and wrap his arms around himself, watching the ground turn to dull green and ugly brown, feeling the periodic drizzle that would eventually soak him to the bone.
he wasn't enticed by it. he hated the cold as much as he hated the heat. he didn't want to sit out in the rain, nor did he want to sit inside; but he felt it was the right thing to do.
(he'd always trust his gut.)
sometimes, when the sky was a burnt orange and his lungs were filled with smog and smoke, he would rub the inside of his wrist on the bench five kilometers away from his house.
he'd lean his head back and take a deep breath of the smog, listening for the sounds of car horns and humanity, and press his thumbnail so deep into his skin it left a misshapen purple scar that he would trace at the most inopportune of times.
his breath would come out hagged from the smoke, from the burnt smell and the burnt sky, and sometimes he would laugh, loud and desperate and a little bit too afraid, with his head over the back of the wooden bench and his eyes just as dull as the world around him, hands clenching his pants, and oh god he was so terrified wasn't he?
(it wasn't that much of a surprise.)
sometimes, when the sky was clear and his brother was home, he would dance.
it wasn't much of a dance. his brother, his twin, would join in, at first spinning his arms and gesturing for him to join him, and the two brothers would smack hands and feet as they twirled quickly in circles, in the little space they had on the porch between the swing and the rail.
it wasn't much of a dance, with lorcan (his brother, his twin) throwing his body this way and that, smashing into him and lorcan letting out a loud, happy laugh as he pulled him up from the ground.
"you should smile more," lorcan told him, his hands sweaty and his grin warm and wide. "i'm really glad you're happy. i missed you, lys."
(it was overcast that night, with thunderstorms.)
sometimes, when the sky was full of lightning and the house was empty, he would curl up on a window seat with a pillow on his lap, and watch.
he didn't like thunder or lightning. every time it rumbled and cracked he'd flinch and tense, waiting for the next one to strike, counting the seconds between them quietly in his head. sometimes he'd get to three, others he counted up till twenty six when it hit next, and there was a certain sense of unease as he sat under the window, watching the dark hills around him.
he wished he wasn't so alone.
(it didn't matter.)
sometimes, when the sky was blotchy with clouds and different colors, he felt normal.
he felt like he could (not that he ever, ever would) take on the world, travel and explore, look at things other than the inside of his home that he knew like the back of his hand, or the forests surrounding the building. he felt like he was lorcan- pure, strong, admirable lorcan- who smiled easily and laughed just as much.
he felt like he could be someone. someone who he wasn't.
(sometimes, when the feeling went away, he would wish it lasted longer.)
sometimes, when the sky was marred with airplane tracks and mist, he would sit inside and paint.
he'd paint what he imagined hogwarts would look like, from the descriptions he heard from an enthusiastic lorcan. he'd paint the tall trees surrounding his home, scarred with boot scuffs and knife marks, the knives stolen from the kitchen when they were younger. he'd paint his family, his life, he'd paint all that he could, and when he was done, he'd sit on the floor in front of the easel and stare at it for hours.
he could never get the proportions right; hogwarts never looked the same as he imagined it in his mind. the pictures of hogwarts from the textbooks he stole from lorcan's room looked entirely different, and sometimes- a few times- he would feel heat crawl up his neck and the room would become warm with his anger and tears.
i shouldn't have the opportunity to get better at painting. he'd think, and he'd take whatever was closest to him, whether spoon or paperweight, and throw it at the easel, breaking its delicate canvas and slamming the wood to the floor. red paint would drip onto the ground like drops from an open wound, bright blue would mix into it like the summer sky.
(he wanted it.)
sometimes, when the sky was beautiful, when it was stereotypical sky blue and perfectly clear and ugly to him, he would lay out on the grass.
he was fifteen and his hair was long and unkept. he should have been out with his friends, laughing and playing and being someone (someone, anyone) but he held up one hand to block the sun from his eyes in a perfectly, equally unkept grass landscape, all he could hear was the wind blowing through the weeds and the creaks of an empty house.
lysander let out a loud laugh, desperate, unfulfilled, choking him, as he covered his face with both hands and curled up on his side.
"i'm so useless, aren't i?" he wheezed, pressing his nails deep into his wrist. "i'm so useless."
(they all knew so.)
sometimes, when the rain was pouring and the thunder rumbled and the lightning flashed, when it threatened to snow or hail and make the world infinitely worse, lysander would step outside barefooted, in only a thin shirt and boxers, and hold out his arms.
the wind pushed his hair into his face, spraying rain into his eyes and into his mouth, and the grass at his feet was squashed into watery, muddy holes under his weight. he'd stand there for hours, not moving, staring up at the sky with eyes that held no passion, no longing, no hope, and he'd wait for something to bring him down to his knees.
"come and get me," he'd whisper, mouth blue and cheeks gaunt. "what else do i have to live for?"
(he could have been so much.)
sometimes, when the sky and the world had another perfect, flawless day, when the air was warm with a pleasant breeze and the trees offered the perfect amount of shade, he would be laid out in a bright white coffin, lips white and blood drained.
his family would be close to him, mother white cheeked and blue eyes dark. his brother, lorcan, his twin, would be sobbing into their father. the rest of the mourners were people lysander had only known vaguely- they were there for lorcan, for luna, for rolf. they were there for the rest of the family, for no one knew lysander. nobody had wanted or tried to know.
"lysander, why did you?" lorcan would curl his hands into fists, puncturing his soft hands- not callused by a paint brush or from climbing trees, like lysander's- with his uncut nails, and watched as his brother was lower into the ground. "why?"
(he knew why.)
end.
prompts: "cause we're living in a world of fools", spoon, delicate, two people dancing together.
i don't own hp.