━━━━ · 。ﾟ☆ .☽ .* ☆ﾟ. ━━━━

(n.) the restless race of the traveler's heart before
the journey begins, when anxiety and anticipation
are tangled together; a "travel fever" that can
manifest as an illness

IT WAS SAFE TO SAY THAT LOUIS MASON THEODORE NOX HAD AN EFFECT ON PEOPLE. Albeit there only being one person he had that certain effect on and without his knowledge more or less, as well, it still counted.

Especially when that person believed he stood high above all, with his chin jutted just so to make people think that he was worth being worshipped and looked at as though he were someone that only came around every one thousand years, a rarity for the general public to see and adore because he was just about as good as gone when his time came and would move on to the next life.

To have that effect on such a person could only mean that they weren't as godly as they thought, playing make-believe in an entity's clothing, or they had finally met their match, someone who was able to go toe to toe with them and take no prisoners. It couldn't have been the former because the teenaged god's name was forged from that blazing steel, the one that was practically impenetrable and set far too high for the mundane person to reach and touch. However, it couldn't have been the latter, either, for the reason that the boy he had laid his eyes on was only a mortal, made from the dirt he walked on, meek and lowly to some degree.

Draco argued with himself the night he had run into the boy once more, who had been looking rough and disheveled, claiming to have come from that afternoon's Quidditch tryouts. He hadn't been sure why his eyes had dashed over to the open section of Louis's shirt for a moment before flickering back up to his face where they should've been as Louis fumbled with his cobalt tie, his trying fingers attempting to make a knot but failing miserably.

In all his years of living, breathing, and gracing the Earth, Draco's never had his eyesight linger on anyone that's lasted more than three seconds, at least anyone he wouldn't dare to look twice at, anyway. But this boy, this phoenix-haired, ocean-eyed, ink-stained teenager of all people, whom Draco had never come into contact with until this year, all the while having the audacity to enter the most difficult and grueling phase of his life, only to make it more hectic and mentally gruesome. He didn't even have to worry about him so why was he making such a fuss over him? Why was he giving this mortal the time of day when he had more important tasks at hand to worry about? He didn't even know his name for Merlin's sake. So what gave him the right to overtake each and every one of Draco's passing thoughts as though it was something he did on a daily basis before going quietly into that good night as though he didn't know what he had done?

Draco lay awake that night, tossing and turning, begging for sleep in hopes that it would soon overtake him and pull him under. Once it did, that sleep spell drawing him into a blue-black abyss, he was immediately haunted by those cerulean irises and that crooked smile he saw from across the crowded dining hall, as though his subconscious was just waiting to spring them onto him the second he closed his eyes. Why his innermost self was ever thinking about them in the first place, he didn't have a reason, no northern star to point him in the right direction while he was lost at sea with no one but himself to assist in steering the boat.

It was a brisk, fall afternoon when Ravenclaw and Slytherin were the first opposing teams to be pitted against one another in a Quidditch match.

Louis was rightfully nervous as it was the first game of the season, his hands close to being clammy with trepidation and slick with sweat as he was sat on the bench, his knee bouncing up and down and letting out an anxious rhythm, humming a nervous song with the sole of his shoe. It was only a matter of time before he got up, grabbed his broom, and went to go stand with the rest of his teammates, a sea of sapphire and cerulean as they huddled at the entrance.

"Okay, huddle up, Ravenclaws," Charles, their Quidditch captain, announced, eyeing each and every one of them. "This is the year where we play like it's our last and we're gonna go all out, all right? Now let's go crush some Slytherin skulls, eh?"

The team members all let out a rebel yell, banging the ends of their broomsticks against the floor, buzzing with excitement. Louis's smile was up to his ears and before he knew it, he was soaring up into the sky and the match began, the crowd's cheers almost deafening him as he got himself into position. He scanned the crowd, looking for no one in particular until he spotted a tuft of white-blond hair in the ocean of emerald green robes, hats, and scarves. From where Louis was sitting, it didn't look like the juvenile deity was having too grand of a time, but what did he know?

In order to regain any semblance of normalcy of any kind, Draco made the reluctant decision to attend a Quidditch match.

It truly bewildered him to his core as to how anyone could do any of these things while there were bigger and much more detrimental events going on around them that could be muddling their thoughts and haunting their psyches, however, he supposed that they were all okay with themselves because they weren't riddled with the task from hell, handed to him by the god of the underworld himself. The pressure of his malicious trust was hammering into his spine that was already on the verge of snapping itself in two from everything else that was weighing him down. His name may have been forged from that blazing steel, yes, but the vessel that the juvenile deity possessed and carried was not.

That fine marble hull that did its best to protect Draco's pride and ego from all-too curious and prodding hands was slowly beginning to crack from the slowly increasing tension, pounding against his skull, ricocheting off the walls of his head as though they were missiles. Shaking his head, although still feeling the remnants of his headache, Draco returned his attention to the match in front of him. Slytherin was leading fifty points to thirty and that brought only a ghost of a smile to his lips, his head still thundering from the storm that raged on.

A Ravenclaw player with the number "11" and the last name "Nox" in all capital letters plastered on the back of their sapphire uniform then flew over, their back to the crowd as they searched and scanned the pitch but Draco knew who it was, that copper-curled mess of hair a staple to the boy, an identifier and a dead giveaway when he couldn't see the boy's eyes—not that he'd want to as he had seen them more times than he was willing to count, haunting him as he slept fitfully throughout the night, struggling to keep his eyes closed while the world caved in around him.

The phoenix of a boy then zoomed off, chasing after what he was looking for. Draco could only assume that he had his eye out for the golden Snitch as he blazed off in a blur of blue. And it was in that moment when the boy was practically nosediving, close to crashing into the ground for the Snitch when Draco's world started to shift as he felt his heart rate hitch and his heartbeat pick up as the boy was falling, falling, falling before, with the switch of his broom, rising again, triumphant in retrieving the Snitch before he had the chance to meet fate's end and ending the first game to kick off the season.

Draco's breath was stuck in his throat for a moment as he wasn't able to form any sort of dialect after experiencing that, words falling flat and dying on his tongue, flickering light being stomped out before they were even given the slightest opportunity to start a fire, worried that they'd engulf everything in flames with what they had spoken by mistake. Resfeber.

As Draco sat with himself on the bench, his head in his hands as that rager of a storm reentered his head, pounding itself against his skull once more, he realized that something was wrong. Something in the air around him had changed him and the ground that was once so steady beneath him, built on everything he was taught to believe, the very same path that others had walked before him, fortified concrete beneath the soles of his shoes, it was crumbling, being chipped away at every moment he even thought about the boy with the blazing blue ocean eyes and a cinnamon swirl sunset of a head.

And, with that realization, thus began the adolescent Icarus's descent.

He could feel the heat of the sun on his face, the waxiness of his wings beginning to drip and melt down his back as the ground beneath him fell through and released him to make the long way down to the sea below, noticing that every star in the sky was still intact as he looked up, wondering why they weren't falling with him.

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 .｡.:*

and now the gay breakdown™‬ commences !
also future tw: internalized homophobia
( as mentioned at the beginning of the book in the
warning section )