"Too many scars in my head, I'm in shock again
Texting: "What are you doing?"
You ignored me, I'm lost
Downing the Morio, smoking a Marlboro Gold
Yeah, I'm still lost
Yeah, I'm still lost
I would never miss you, panic, too much caffeine
Are you sleeping with someone else? Have too many thoughts
I can't work, I think of you the most
Too much monster, too much weed
If I come, stay in love

I would like it if you'd think of me
But when I call you don't want to talk
And my heart already knows the message
But my head never wants to end it

You break up why are you crying?
You break up why are you crying?
You break up why are you crying?
You break up why are you crying?"

Eliott woke up the next morning with tears in his eyes.
He hadn't dreamed of anything scary or concerning, yet he'd been crying in his sleep.
Lucas had already gone to the bathroom, therefore Eliott decided to get up and get ready for the day.

While putting his clothes on, a black hoodie with a raccoon print on it and a pair of jeans, he felt as if his body consisted of lead.
He quietly cursed himself for changing his lecture schedule, because he had to get up every day for Uni now. It meant that he had fewer lectures in a day now, but getting up, especially when he was depressed, was quite a challenge.
He felt as if gravity was trying to staple him to the ground, forbidding him to ever get up again.
Something wet slid down his cheeks, he'd started crying now, too.
Frustrated, Eliott sank back down on the bed, sighing heavily.

Lucas walked out of the bathroom, not fully dressed. He fetched his favorite hoodie, the one with the Romance print on it, from the closet and put it on.
Raking a hand through his hair, he sat down in front of his boyfriend, putting his hands on Eliott's thighs.

"I'm exhausted, Lucas", Eliott muttered before Lucas could even ask him what was going on.
"I can't do this anymore, this getting up and getting shit done. It's so tiring and I want it to stop so badly", Eliott lamented, burying his face in his hands, letting the tears flow.
Lucas got up, sat down next to Eliott, and pulled him into a hug, gently rubbing his hands over his boyfriend's back.
"Shh, hey", he tried to soothe him, "Shh, everything's going to be okay. Look, for the next minute, it's just us two, just you and me. How about we lay down and we kiss, how's that sound? Kissing for a minute, we don't need to worry about the next one."

Eliott tried to ease up into Lucas' touch, but somehow, he was only beginning to cry harder.
His chest vibrated heavily, everything inside of him felt as if it was going to burst into flames any minute.
"Oh, baby, my love", Lucas whispered, holding Eliott's head to his chest with his hand, cradling him.

"I wish I could ease all your horrors, I wish I could make them go away", Lucas continued to whisper, massaging Eliott's scalp with his fingers, "But unfortunately, I can't and it's killing me. I love you, Eliott, baby. Je t'aime, okay? I'll never stop loving you, not even for a nanosecond, you hear me?"
And with that, he leaned down so that he was on eye level with Eliott, connecting their lips.

It was a collision of a thousand emotions.
Eliott's tears slightly overpowered the sweet taste of his lips, sticking to Lucas' lips like venom.
But maybe it was that venom that kept them going. The fear of being swallowed up by it, only keeping it away by the sheer force of their love.
Lucas knew deep down that he wanted nothing more than to die with Eliott, to grow old with him.
He was sure of it, afraid of what other versions of himself had to go through in a different universe.

"I feel like a burden, Lucas. I don't want to take all of your love away", Eliott cried, heart-wrenching sobs echoing through their ears.
"No, love, you're not a burden. And you're deserving of all the love in the universe, there's no one else I'd rather give my love to than you.
You're the one person I love the most, so here, take all my love because you deserve it", Lucas said, kissing Eliott again.
They kissed for more than two minutes, two turning into five and five turning into ten.

After almost fifteen minutes, Lucas got up and continued with getting ready.
He even helped Eliott with putting his socks and shoes on.
"I'm pathetic", Eliott cried, a fresh flood of tears rolling down his cheeks, "I can't even get dressed without you helping me."
Lucas put his pointer finger on Eliott's lips to keep him from going on.
"I'll help you whenever you need help, hell, I'll tie your shoelaces for the rest of my life if that's what's helps you", he got up and pressed a kiss to Eliott's nose, "I love you, remember? Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime. I'll never stop saying it, love."

Eliott let out a laugh that was mixed with a sob. "I love you so much, you know that? I love you", he cried, "I love that I get to give all my love to you."
With a small smile on his face, Lucas put his black coat on and handed Eliott his black coat and a Bordeaux red beanie as well.
It was freezing outside, so they'd switched their relatively light jackets with long coats.
Lucas wiped the salt tracks on Eliott's cheeks away, kissing him in the process.

"We're still going to Kathmandu when we're 50 and married, right?", Lucas asked, looking at Eliott through his thick lashes.
"Ouais", Eliott laughed, his teeth showing and all, "Ouais, of course, we're still doing that."
Then they headed out the door.

Today, finally something eventful happened at school.
While Lucas and his friends were sitting in their biology class, the teacher announced that they were doing a little workshop about safer sex and different types of contraceptives.
After the teacher was done with explaining what they'd be doing today, four people walked into the room.
"These four amazing people will be teaching you interesting things all around the topic of safer sex today", the teacher explained.

They all had different topics.
The woman, that introduced herself first, had long blonde hair and she was called Judie. She was quite short, she was wearing a skirt and a striped long sleeve shirt.
The woman that introduced herself after the first one was named Michelle and she was quite tall, at least 1,88 m, 6'1".
Her hair was brown, she was wearing glasses and she was her outfit consisted of a blue hoodie and jeans, that were high-waisted.
The man that stood right next to Michelle was called Max. He had short brown hair and he was wearing a white shirt, a jean jacket, and washed out jeans with a white pair of sneakers.

The last person in the line was a man called André and his outfit was almost the same as the one that Max was wearing.
Judie talked to the students about STIs, Michelle talked to them about diversity and the process of coming out, Max showed them the right way to put on a condom and introduced them to different kinds of contraceptives, and André educated them on sexuality in the media and how it's expressed.

At the end of the workshop, they all received red gym bags with the name of the program on them.
In these gym bags were informative flyers about the topics they'd talked about, neatly summed up with links to look up on Google.
On their way out, Basile and Arthur were making jokes about how much Basile had been drooling over Max when he'd demonstrated how a condom was used properly.

"I don't know about you guys", Basile said, "But that Max guy might have been my bisexual awakening. I mean, did you see that guy?"
Arthur chuckled. "We did see him, and I'm not going to lie he was indeed good-looking ", he said, playfully winking at Basile who then started blushing.
"I'm definitely going to have wet dreams because of him", Basile then said and the rest of the boys grinned.
"Should've asked him for his number", Yann said with a wide smile and Basile blushed even harder.

Lucas was more than happy when the day was over, the program had been quite informative but also quite exhausting.
Back at home, he immediately started working on his homework.
The math exam did not go well at all, therefore he needed to put even more effort into his homework to get his grade up.
He was participating more in class, raising his hand and he'd even volunteered to prepare a presentation for his history class.
But for now, he needed to do something about how he was going to work on his participation grade in math class, that was the first problem, aside from French class, where he also needed to work even harder for his grade to stay on the level it was at currently.

Eliott came back home at 7.
"Salut", he said upon entering, pressing a kiss to Lucas' cheek.
Lucas wrapped his arms around Eliott's waist, leaning into his touch.
"I love you, baby", Lucas mumbled, cheek pressed against Eliott's torso.

He lifted his head to make eye contact with his boyfriend. "Did you already eat at Uni or elsewhere?", he asked. Eliott shook his head.
"I'll have something later, don't worry", he answered, freeing himself from Lucas' touch to take his jacket off.

They fell onto the couch together, arms and legs all tangled up.
"We had a workshop about safer sex at school today", Lucas said after a while, "And the people who prepared and presented it to us gave us these red gym bags at the end. There's all kinds of great information about STIs and stuff inside, flyers and condoms."
He pointed to the bag that was on one of the chairs at the dinner table.
Eliott cocked an eyebrow up. "Interesting", he said, "Want to try them out?"
Lucas grinned. "Bah ouais, thought you'd never ask."

Eliott got up to take a closer look at the stuff inside of the bag, giggling at the things that were written on the packaging of the condoms.
"The packaging is neat and all", Eliott said, "But these phrases? 'I want you!', 'Me. You. Match.', 'I'm on board' or 'For us'? Very interesting."
Lucas smiled. "The important thing is that we get to test them, right?"
Eliott nodded, taking off his grey turtleneck sweater.

His chiseled chest looked especially pretty in the dim lighting of their living room and Lucas marveled at the beauty that was his boyfriend.
"Quoi? Are you just going to look at me or do you want a piece?", Eliott asked, winking at Lucas who blushed.
"Bah non, I was just admiring how beautiful you are", he replied before leaning forward to pull Eliott into a kiss.

Despite being self-conscious, Lucas enjoyed sleeping with the love of his life.
He also felt that things were getting better again, in their relationship at least.

Half-naked, Lucas and Eliott enjoyed each other's presence.
Eliott placed small kisses all over Lucas' neck and Lucas plastered Eliott's chest with hickeys in return.
The peaceful silence was disturbed by Eliott's phone.
"Wait, I'll get it", Eliott said, leaving the couch hastily
Lucas got up, his entire back hurt. While stretching, he listened to Eliott talking on the phone.

"Hey, ouais", Eliott said, "Of course you can, Lucas wouldn't mind."
Lucas cocked up an eyebrow, tilting his head to the side.
"Ouais, I'll let him know. Maybe you can invite the others as well, that'd be fun, non?", Eliott continued, "Okay, love you guys, bye."

After hanging up, he walked towards Lucas, connecting their lips in a kiss.
"Who was that?", Lucas asked curiously.
"Even", Eliott said briefly, "He asked if he and Isak can come visit us on Saturday. I said that you wouldn't mind and that they could invite Robbe and Sander as well."

"That sounds nice. I'd like that, you can text them my approval if you want", Lucas said and Eliott smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners.
"Excellent", he said, kissing Lucas' lips again before texting Even.

And Lucas couldn't wait for the week to end.
He almost forgot his worries about school and his looks for a moment.

The thought of having to prepare dinner for the guests didn't hit him until later.
Proving to Eliott that he was getting better again had been hard enough, how could he possibly be able to prove that to multiple people?

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[Word count: 2175 words]

Oh boy, this is another long chapter, this took me almost an entire week.
The lyrics at the top are from the song "DU MACHST SCHLUSS WARUM WEINST DU", "YOU BREAK UP WHY ARE YOU CRYING" by Laer Xirtam.